Free B005GEZ23A EBOK by Witold Gombrowicz

and disgust. Who was this, sitting next to me? Someone like myself? Not at all, it was a being essentially distinct and delightful, native to a blossoming land, he was full of a grace that was transforming itself into charm. A prince and a poem. Why then did the prince harass old hags? That was the question. Why did it amuse him? Was it his own desire that amused him? It amused him that, even as a prince, he was also in the throes of a hunger that made him desire even the ugliest of women—was it this that amused him? Was his beauty (connected to Henia) so devoid of self-respect that it was almost indifferent as to how it satisfied itself, and with whom it took up? Here darkness was being born. We went down a hill into the Grocholice ravine. I was discovering in him a kind of sacrilege carried out with satisfaction, and I knewthat this was something that affected his very soul, indeed, it was something, in its very nature, desperate.
    (It’s possible, however, that I was devoting myself to those speculations merely to maintain, during the drinking, the semblance of a researcher.)
    But perhaps he had pulled up the hag’s skirt to show that he was a soldier? Wasn’t this like a soldier?
    I asked (changing the subject for the sake of propriety—I had to watch myself). “What do you fight with your father about?” He wavered, surprised, but he realized instantly that I must have heard it from Hipolit. He replied:
    “Because he’s harassing my mother. Won’t let her be, the son of a bitch. If he weren’t my father I’d …”
    His response was beautifully balanced—he was able to confess to loving his mother because at the same time he was confessing to hating his father, this protected him from sentimentalism—but, since I wanted to press him to the wall, I asked directly: “You love you mother very much?”
    “Of course! If mother …”
    Which meant that there is nothing peculiar about it, because it’s acceptable for a son to love his mother. Yet this was strange. Looking at it more closely, it was strange, because a moment ago he was pure anarchy throwing itself onto an old hag, while now he became conventional and subject to the law of filial love. So what did he believe in, anarchy or law? Yet, if he so obediently gave in to custom, it was not to add to his worth but to devalue himself, to turn the loveof his mother into something commonplace and unimportant. Why did he always devalue himself? This thought was strangely alluring—why did he devalue himself? This thought was pure alcohol—why, with him, did each thought always have to be attractive or repulsive, always passionate and full of vitality? We were now climbing, beyond Grocholice, on the left there were banks of dirt, yellow, with cellar holes dug for potatoes. The horses went at a trot and—silence. Suddenly Karol became talkative: “Sir, could you find some work for me in Warsaw? How about in the black market? I could help out my mom a bit if I was earning money, because she needs it for medical treatment, as things are, my father just keeps carping that I don’t have a job. I’m fed up with it!” He became talkative because these were material and practical matters, he could talk, and plenty, it was also natural that he was turning to me with this—and yet, was this so natural? Was this not just a pretext to “reach an understanding” with me, the older man, to come closer to me? Truly, in these difficult times a boy must gain the goodwill of older people who are more powerful than he, and he can achieve this only through personal charm. … But a boy’s coquettishness is much more complicated than the coquettishness of a girl, whose sex comes to her aid … so this was surely a calculation, oh, an unconscious, an innocent one: he was simply turning to me for help, yet he was really concerned not about work in Warsaw, but rather to establish himself in the role of someone who needs to be taken care of, to breakthe ice … the rest