Free Ambiguous Adventure by Cheikh Hamidou Kane Page B

destroying us. Teach him to check the external.”
    “We have checked it.”
    “The external is aggressive. If man does not conquer it, then it destroys man, and makes him a victim of tragedy. A sore which is neglected does not heal, but becomes infected to the point of gangrene. A child who is not educated goes backward. A society which is not governed destroys itself. The West sets up science against the invading chaos, sets it up like a barricade.”
    At this moment Lacroix had to fight against the strong temptation to push the electric light switch which waswithin reach of his hand. He would have liked to scrutinize the shadowed face of this motionless man who sat opposite him. In his voice he perceived a tonality which intrigued him, and which he would have liked to relate to the expression of his face. But, No, he thought, if I turn on the light this man may stop talking. It is not to me that he is talking, it is to himself. He listened.
    “Every hour that passes brings a supplement of ignition to the crucible in which the world is being fused. We have not had the same past, you and ourselves, but we shall have, strictly, the same future. The era of separate destinies has run its course. In that sense, the end of the world has indeed come for every one of us, because no one can any longer live by the simple carrying out of what he himself is. But from our long and varied ripenings a son will be born to the world: the first son of the earth; the only one, also.”
    In the darkness Lacroix felt that the knight was turning slightly toward him.
    “M. Lacroix, this future—I accept it,” he said. “My son is the pledge of that. He will contribute to its building. It is my wish that he contribute, not as a stranger come from distant regions, but as an artisan responsible for the destinies of the citadel.”
    “He will teach us the secrets of the shade. He will reveal to us the springs at which your youth quenches its thirst.”
    “Do not do violence to yourself, M. Lacroix! I know that you do not believe in the shade; nor in the end of the world. What you do not see does not exist. The moment, like a raft, carries you on the luminous surface of its round disc, and you deny the abyss that lies about you.The future citadel, thanks to my son, will open its wide windows on the abyss, from which will come great gusts of shadow upon our shrivelled bodies, our haggard brows. With all my soul I wish for this opening. In the city which is being born such should be our work—all of us, Hindus, Chinese, South Americans, Negroes, Arabs, all of us, awkward and pitiful, we the under-developed, who feel ourselves to be clumsy in a world of perfect mechanical adjustment.”
    It was becoming quite dark now. Lacroix, not moving, heard in the shadow this strange prayer:
    “God in Whom I believe, if we are not to succeed, let the Apocalypse come! Take away from us that liberty of which we shall not have known how to make use. May Thy hand fall heavily, then, upon the great unconsciousness. May the arbitrary power of Thy will throw out of order the stable course of our laws.…”

8
    “WHY SHOULD THEY WISH ME TO KNOW?” THE teacher was thinking. “They know better than I do what it is that they want. At bottom—”
    He interrupted himself to scratch energetically at his side. Raising the fold of his boubou he saw a fat brown bug running over his skin. He picked it up, delicately, and set it on the ground, then he went back to his bed.
    “At bottom, they have already chosen. They are like a woman who consents to intercourse: the child that is not yet conceived is calling to her; it must be that the child shall be born. This country awaits a child. But in order that the child may be born the country must give itself.… And that—that … But also, in the long run, would dire poverty not fill our hearts with bitterness? Dire poverty is the enemy of God.…”
    The teacher’s whole right side was hurting him. He turned over on