Jerzy Pilch - My First Suicide

“Something lay dormant, after all, in that princess from mouse lands. Not only did her heart beat mousily. Her blood must have had a higher temperature than that of a mouse. Did he sense this? Did he sense what I did? Why had he chosen her? Had I sensed what he did? Is that where my love came from? Today a person is wiser. Seemingly wiser, because over time all speculations become irrefutable. In any case, what happens, happens: the curator’s daughter goes up on the stage, and the acting assignment that is set before her — by not so much a real director, as a film star ostentatiously playing the role of a director — is the following: she is supposed to go into the little room, where Raskolnikov is sleeping, wake him up, and exchange a few lines with him. Do you recall that scene? Yes, sir! Before the murder of the pawnbroker. The star emphasized this aspect, and with pathos he suggested to the young Morowy, who was convulsed with dopey laughter, that he was supposed to play a man who isn’t yet a murderer, but who the next day would be one. A brazen little shit. A bit of a brazen little shit. No matter. They were supposed to end the scene with the rather well known fragment: ‘What are you doing?’ she asks. ‘Working,’ he responds. ‘What sort of work is it?’ ‘I think.’ And then — as you recall — Nastasya bursts out laughing, ‘she reeled with laughter.’ Because Nastasya — the star explained — is a joker, and it is very important to make sure that it comes out credibly here. It is necessary not only to burst out laughing, but to burst out laughing in such a way that the spectator would know immediately that laughter is one of the modes of being of this character. But at the same time, remember, Wiktoria, that laughter is one of the actor’s most difficult assignments. Only the greatest can truly manage this. But please, my dear child, give it a try, give it a try.

“I won’t belittle her and say that she tried , and she managed so-so. No. She managed quite well. She completely eclipsed the buffoonery of her partner. She received thunderous applause. The star clapped the most fervently, then he kissed her hand obsequiously, then he pointed out the sign of her victory — the ovation of the audience. Then he raised her arm, like a victorious boxer. My beloved was experiencing the greatest triumph of her nineteen-year-old life, and at the same time her life had ended. You know, I clapped then like the rest of them. I was proud of her. I was surprised by her unexpected ability, but I also didn’t have a shadow of a doubt that this was a one-time ability, and that it stemmed from limitation. It might seem that I was badmouthing her on account of disappointed love, but unfortunately it’s true: my beloved was thoroughly limited. You know, one of those who sit when they sit, stand when they stand, walk when they walk. No quotation marks. And so, when she was supposed to enter Raskolnikov’s little room, she entered thoroughly; when she was supposed to awaken him, she awakened him with all zeal; when she was supposed to laugh, she laughed with all her heart and all her snout. In a certain sense she had the predispositions for acting. She had the predispositions, which is to say, a certain lack of shame and a certain intellectual limitation. Unfortunately, not a red cent’s worth of talent. But it was already too late. The wind had been sown.

“The news that Złotnica was dropping psychology and setting off for acting school had, at first — at least for me — a purely rhetorical form, but then it began, drowsily, to take on flesh. People are saying that the daughter of the curator made such a good impression at workshops conducted by the famous star that, instead of going to study psychology in Krakow, she ought to go to acting school in Warsaw . I was certain that such a purely theoretical compliment was circling in the air — nothing more. But I see that she is taking on some sort of, in her opinion, riveting artistic magic! She starts dressing with bohemian promiscuity! She puts the curator’s tweed sports jackets directly over lace bras! Hair let down like the muse of all the arts blows in the wind! She answers questions not with her own, but with an allegedly actor’s voice! She sits in the school bench like the worst whore! She makes ostentatious faces! She is an actress! Jesus Christ! She is already an actress! An actress! Actress!! Actress!!! Our actress , they call her. But no, my dear sir. I wasn’t mistaken. Not a hint of talent. A complete clod! I was infatuated with her, I was bewitched, but, in spite of the amorous prism, I saw what I saw. In every pose, a false note. In every word, a lie. You sense such things. You don’t have to be an expert. You could see with the naked eye that nothing would come of this. Not a chance. She wouldn’t get into acting school. Even if the minimal requirement there was a 0 mark on the entrance exam, she wouldn’t get in, because she was considerably below that level. She wouldn’t get in on the first, or the second, or the hundredth try. Life goes into complete disarray. Of course, not our life, not my life with her. I allowed myself such visions only during my evening deliriums, and, in reality, I didn’t take this into consideration at all. I took into consideration that she would choose — out of insecurity — to study psychology; finish, or not finish, a more or less accidental education; find a job in her field, or not in her field of study; get married, for love or out of necessity; return, or not return, to K. — but that she would truly live. Perhaps in poverty, perhaps without love, but in reality, not in an illusion. Not in a humiliating illusion, humiliating because it is marked by an aspiration to superiority. Who knows which is better? Is that what you say? That is not, my dear sir, an accurate doubt. Living an illusion is ghastly; and living an artistic illusion — which is also, by the nature of things, impossible to realize on account of a lack of talent — is a disaster.

“She was nineteen years old, she crossed the Market Square with the gait — as it seemed to her — of Julia Roberts. She smiled — in her own opinion — like Sharon Stone. There stretched before her the allegedly most renowned theatrical scenes in the world, the lights of the great film studios shined. But in fact, there stood before her the muddy path into the abyss. What is more, there was no way to stop this. Supposedly, the curator and his wife were inordinately proud that they had given the world a star. There wasn’t any question of any sort of conversation with her. I didn’t even take it into consideration. I wouldn’t have managed.

“Above all, I was afraid. With time, the dread that someone might notice my affection for her became my first dread and pathological obsession. But now, when, in connection with her future career, which would assuredly be marked by famous romances, and in connection with the jackets worn over lace underwear, her — I would call it — mousy magnetism grew; now, if it should turn out that Mr. Professor has also joined our star’s fan club, which has arisen spontaneously ; now, at the very thought of being unmasked, I sank below the earth. On the other hand, I was afraid that I would become known as an envier, ergo public enemy number one. I was not so afraid of being known as an envier as I was of being known as an enamored admirer, but the discomfort of becoming a public enemy hung in the air completely realistically. Almost the entire city supported her, however; almost all, even the greatest skeptics, basically hoped that, come fall, Złotnica would set off for the acting school in Warsaw, and already by spring we would get to watch her create ever more important roles on television. I couldn’t let on about my mean-spirited lack of faith in that success — not only to her, but also to essentially our entire community . It would look like the bitter old fart wishes her ill, selflessly envies her, doesn’t appreciate her talent, and God knows what else. And so, I suppressed it in myself. And I let all this out during my solitary evening drinking bouts. Witkacy used to say that without alcohol and narcotics he would never have achieved certain solutions in painting. Although, on the whole, I consider him a psychopath, I could accept this particular idea of his three-times over. First: without juniper berry vodka — as I mentioned at the beginning — I would not have attained fluency in the spinning of universal erotic deductions. Second: without juniper berry vodka, I would not have been able to present certain troublesome concreta and shameful details — first to myself, and now to you — with the proper realism. And third: without juniper berry vodka, I would not have crossed certain boundaries, which, supposedly, I crossed. Supposedly —because I don’t remember. For that reason, in the finale of my story I am condemned to a complete lack of details and to the speculative mood. Supposedly, I paid a nocturnal visit to the home of the curator, Mr. Złotnica, and, supposedly, I perpetrated disgraceful things there. Supposedly, an evening visit by Wiktoria at my home also took place. I imagined both events a thousand times. A thousand times I imagined my visit to Wiktoria’s parents. A thousand times, in a delirium of absolutely watchmaker’s precision, I conducted with them an inordinately important conversation. A thousand times I pronounced a thousand convincing and irrefutable arguments. A thousand times they yielded to my arguments. A thousand times I was there in my drunken dreams, and with one of my wakings it turned out that, indeed, I really was there! In a delirium, but also in reality. As always: it seemed to me that it just seemed to me, but I really had gotten dressed, set off, gotten there, and, supposedly, knocked on the door of the curator’s house at two in the morning! It seemed to me that I was dressed, but I was in incomplete dress. Supposedly, very incomplete. It seemed to me that they were receiving me in their sitting room at a copiously stocked table, that I was sharing my doubts about their daughter’s fate with eloquence and wit, whereas, supposedly, I lay down on a crate of winter apples in the hallway, and there — reeling as I lay — talked gibberish, saliva flowing from my lips; I fell asleep and woke up again, and finally, somehow, they dragged me to the car and got me back home.