Confessions of Felix Krull, Confidence Man: The Early Years

  The organic world itself had no clear divisions within it. The animal kingdom verged on the vegetable when it acquired a stem and circular symmetry like a flower; the vegetable on the animal when it caught animals and ate them instead of deriving its nourishment from the mineral kingdom. Man had emerged from the animal kingdom by descent, as people said, but in truth through the addition of something that was as impossible to define as the essence of Life or the origin of Being. And the point at which he had become a man and was no longer an animal, or no longer simply an animal, was hard to determine. Man retained his animal nature just as Life retained that which was inorganic; for in its ultimate building-blocks, the atoms, it passed into what was no longer organic or not yet organic. Moreover, in its innermost sanctuary, in the invisible atom, matter took refuge in the immaterial, the no longer corporeal; for what was in motion there, the constituent part of the atom, were almost below Being, since they occupied no definite position in space and did not have a definable mass as any reasonable body should. Being was formed from Not-Yet-Being and passed into Hardly-Still-Being.

  Nature in all its forms, from the earliest, simplest, almost immaterial, to the most highly evolved and liveliest, had always remained collective and its forms continued to exist side by side — star cloud, stone, worm, and Man. The fact that many animal species had died out, that there were no more flying saurians and no more mammoths, did not interfere with the fact that contemporaneous with Man the original animal went on existing in unaltered form, the unicellular infusorian, the microbe, with one opening in its cell body for ingestion and another for egestion — no more was required to be an animal, and not much more to be a human being either, in most cases.

  This was Kuckuck's jest, a caustic one. He felt he owed a young man of the world a bit of caustic wit, and I laughed, too, as with trembling hand I raised to my lips my sixth — no, probably my eighth — demitasse of sugared mocha. I have said, and I say again, that I was extremely excited, thanks to a feeling of expansion that almost burst the limits of my nature and was the result of my companion's conversation about Being, Life, and Man. Strange as it may sound, this vast expansiveness was closely related to, or rather was identical with, what as a child or half a child I had described in the dream-like phrase 'The Great Joy', a secret formula of my innocence used at first to denote something special, not otherwise nameable, but soon endowed with an intoxicating breadth of significance.

  There was progress, Kuckuck said, passing on from his joke; without doubt there was progress, from Pithecanthropus erectus to Newton and Shakespeare had been a long and definitely upward path. But as with the rest of Nature, so too in the world of men everything was always present at the same time, every condition of culture and morality, everything from the earliest to the latest, from the silliest to the wisest, from the most primitive, sodden, barbaric to the highest and most delicately evolved — all this continued to exist side by side in the world, yes, often indeed the finest became tired of itself and infatuated with the primitive and sank drunkenly into barbarism. But no more of that. He would, however, give Man and me, the Marquis de Venosta, our due and not conceal what it was that distinguished Homo sapiens from the rest of Nature, the organic and simple Being both, and which very likely was identical with the thing that had been added when Man emerged from the animal kingdom. It was the knowledge of Beginning and End. I had pronounced what was most characteristically human when I had said that the fact of Life's being only an episode pre-disposed me in its favour. Transitoriness did not destroy value, far from it, it was exactly what lent all existence its worth, dignity, and charm. Only the episodic, only what possessed a beginning and an end, was interesting and worthy of sympathy because transitoriness had given it a soul. But what was true of everything — the whole of cosmic Being had been given a soul by transitoriness, and the only thing that was eternal, soulless, and therefore unworthy of sympathy, was that Nothingness out of which it had been called forth to labour and to rejoice.

  Being was not Well-Being; it was joy and labour, and all Being in space-time, all matter, partook if only in deepest sleep in this joy and this labour, this perception that disposed Man, possessor of the most awakened consciousness, to universal sympathy. 'To universal sympathy,' Kuckuck repeated, bracing his hands on the table as he got up and nodding to me as he looked at me with his starlike eyes.

  'Good night, Marquis de Venosta,' he said. 'We are, I observe, the last people in the dining-car. It is time to go to bed. Permit me to hope that I shall see you again in Lisbon. If you like I will be your guide through my museum. Sleep soundly. Dream of Being and of Life. Dream of the whirling galaxies which, since they are there, bear with joy the labour of their existence. Dream of the shapely arm with its ancient armature of bones, and of the flowers of the field that are able, aided by the sun, to break up lifeless matter and incorporate it into their living bodies. And don't forget to dream of stone, of a mossy stone in a mountain brook that has lain for thousands upon thousands of years cooled, bathed, and scoured by foam and flood. Look upon its existence with sympathy. Being at its most alert gazing upon Being in its profoundest sleep, and salute it in the name of Creation! All's well when Being and Well-Being are in some measure reconciled. A very good night!'

  CHAPTER 6

  No one will doubt me when I say that despite my innate love of sleep and the ease with which I usually returned to my sweet, refreshing homeland in the unconscious, on that night sleep eluded me almost completely until nearly morning. Not even my well-made berth in the first-class compartment was of any avail. What had possessed me to drink so much coffee before my first night on a train — a train, moreover, that raced, rocked, jolted, stopped, and then jarred into motion again? To have done so was deliberately to rob myself of sleep in a way that my new, unsteady bed could never have done alone. I shall not maintain, although I am as sure of it today as I was then, that six or eight demitasses of mocha could never have accomplished this by themselves if they had not been the purely automatic accompaniment to Professor Kuckuck's thrilling table conversation, which was what had stirred me up so profoundly — I shall not maintain it because a reader of sensibility (and it is for such readers alone that I am setting down my confessions) will have realized it by himself.

  Briefly, then, arrayed in silk pyjamas (which protect the person better than a nightshirt against bed linen that may not have been thoroughly washed) I lay awake that night until almost morning, sighing and twisting in an attempt to find a position that would lull me into Morpheus' arms; when slumber finally stole upon me unaware, I had a series of confused dreams such as often accompany shallow, restless sleep. Seated on the skeleton of a tapir, I was riding along the Milky Way, which was easily recognizable because it really consisted of milk or was covered with milk which splashed up around the hoofs of my bony mount. I sat awkwardly and uncomfortably on his backbone, holding on to his ribs with both hands and being badly shaken back and forth by his eccentric gait, which may have been a dream version of the hurrying and jolting of the train. I, however, interpreted it as a reminder that I had not yet learned to ride and must learn to without delay if I was to maintain my position as a young man of family. A brightly dressed crowd streamed toward me, passing to right and left of me, their feet splashing in the Milky Way, small men and women, graceful, of yellowish complexions, with merry brown eyes. They shouted at me in an incomprehensible tongue — representing Portuguese, no doubt. One of them, however, called to me in French: 'Violà le voyageur curieux!' Because she spoke French, I recognized that it must be Zouzou, whereas her shapely arms, bare to the shoulder, indicated to me that instead — or rather at the same time — it had to be Zaza. I tugged at my tapir's ribs with all my strength to make him stop and let me dismount, for I longed to join Zouzou or Zaza and begin a conversation about the antiquity of the bony structure in her charming arms. But my mount began to buck fiercely and threw me off into the milk of the Milky Way, at which the dark-haired people, including Zouzou or
Zaza, broke into derisive laughter. At this my dream dissolved, only to give place in my sleeping but restless brain to equally silly imaginings. I was, for example, crawling on all fours along a steep chalk cliff above the sea, dragging after me a long liana-like stem, in my heart an anxious doubt as to whether I was animal or plant — a doubt that was not unflattering since it was associated with the name 'sea lily'. And so forth.

  At long last, in the morning hours, my sleep deepened to dreamlessness, and it was only a little before our midday arrival in Lisbon that I awoke. Breakfast was not to be thought of, and I had but scant time to wash and avail myself of my beautifully fitted crocodile travelling-case. Professor Kuckuck was not to be seen in the confusion of the station platform or on the square in front of the Moorish-looking station whither I followed my porter. The latter found me an open carriage. The day was bright and sunny, not too warm. The young coachman, who took charge of my steamer trunk and stowed it in the boot, might well have been one of the crowd who had laughed at my fall from the tapir on the Milky Way. He was of delicate build and yellowish complexion, exactly like Kuckuck's description; he had pointed moustaches and slightly Negroid lips, and was smoking a thin cigar; a round cloth cap clung to the side of his head, and his unruly dark hair was long at the temples. The alert expression in his brown eyes was not deceptive, for before I could name the hotel to which I had telegraphed for a reservation, he announced it himself, intelligently assigning me my place: 'Savoy Palace'. That was the sort of establishment where he thought I belonged, and I could only confirm his judgement with the words 'C'est exact.' This he repeated, laughing, in murderous French as he swung himself into his seat and gave the horse a slap with the reins. 'C'est exact — c'est exact,' he went on trilling happily during the short ride to the hotel. We had only a few narrow streets to negotiate before a broad, long boulevard opened before us, the Avenida da Liberdade, one of the most magnificent streets I have ever seen, a triple street indeed, with a path for carriages and riding-horses in the centre and well-paved avenues on either side, splendidly adorned with flower beds, statues, and fountains. It was on this magnificent corso that my palatial quarters were situated.

  How different my advent there from my distressing arrival in the hotel on the rue Saint-Honoré in Paris! Instantly there were three or four liveried grooms and green-aproned porters busy with my baggage, unloading my steamer trunk and bearing hand-bags, coat, and plaid roll ahead of me into the lobby as expeditiously as though I had not a moment to lose. Thus I could stroll in, carrying over my arm only my cane of Spanish bamboo with its ivory handle and silver ferrule, and approach the reception desk, where no one flushed with anger or commanded me to step back, all the way back. Instead, at mention of my name, there were only kind, welcoming smiles, gratified bows, and a deferential request to fill in the required information if it was altogether agreeable to me. A gentleman in a morning coat, warmly interested in whether my trip had been entirely agreeable, escorted me to the second floor and into the apartment I had reserved, a salon and bedroom with a tiled bath. The appearance of these rooms, whose windows opened on the Avenida, enchanted me more than I allowed myself to show. I translated my satisfaction, or rather delight, at this lordly magnificence into a demeanour of casual acceptance and thus I dismissed my guide. Left alone, however, and awaiting the arrival of my luggage, I hurried about, examining my regal living-quarters with more childish joy than I should really have permitted myself.

  I took special pride in the walls of the salon, lofty expanses of stucco framed in gilded moulding, such as I have always greatly preferred to the more bourgeois wallpaper. Together with the white-and-gold doors, which were tall, too, and were set in niches, they gave the chamber a decidedly palatial, princely aspect. It was very spacious and divided by an open arch into two unequal parts, the smaller of which could serve, if desired, as a private dining-room. There, as well as in the larger section of the room, hung a crystal chandelier with glittering prisms such as I have always loved. Bright, soft rugs with wide borders lay on the floor, leaving exposed here and there stretches of the highly polished surface. Agreeable paintings hung above the magnificent doors, and on one wall hung a tapestry representing a legendary rape. Beneath it was a cabinet with a pendulum and two Chinese vases. Handsome French arm-chairs stood in comfortable elegance around an oval table with a lace cover and a glass top. On this, for the guest's refreshment, had been placed a basket of assorted fruits together with fruit knives and grape scissors, a plate of biscuits, and a polished finger-bowl — a courtesy on the part of the hotel management, as the card stuck between two oranges indicated. A cabinet with glass doors containing delightful porcelain figurines of cavaliers contorted into gallant postures, and ladies in crinolines, one of whom had suffered a tear in her dress so that the roundest part of her person was gleamingly revealed, to her great embarrassment as she looked back at it; standing lamps with silk shades, ornamental bronze candelabra on slender standards, a stylish ottoman with cushions and a silk cover completed the furnishings of the room. Its appearance delighted my starved eyes, as did the luxurious blue-and-grey décor of the bedroom, with its four-poster bed and upholstered easy chair, arms spread to invite reflective relaxation before sleep, the soft carpet from wall to wall absorbing all sound, the restful wallpaper, dull blue with long stripes, the tall pier glass, the gas-light in its milky sphere, the toilet table, the wide white closet doors with their glittering brass handles. ...

  My luggage arrived. I did not as yet have a valet at my disposal, as was occasionally the case later on. I put some necessaries in the drawers of the closet, hung up a few suits, took a bath, and made my toilet in the fashion that has always been peculiar to me. It somewhat resembles an actor's preparations, although the actual use of cosmetics has never tempted me because of the enduring youthfulness of my appearance. Arrayed in fresh linen and wearing a light flannel suit appropriate to the climate, I descended to the dining-room and there hungrily and enthusiastically made up for a dinner missed through listening and a breakfast missed through sleep. My lunch consisted of a ragout fin, a charred steak, and an excellent chocolate soufflé. Despite my pleasure in the meal, however, my thoughts still lingered on the conversation of the night before whose cosmic charm had made so deep an impression on my mind. Remembering it gave rise to a superior sort of joy not unrelated to my satisfaction in the distinction of my new existence. What occupied my thoughts more than the meal was wondering whether to get in touch with Kuckuck that very day — perhaps I should simply look him up at his home to make arrangements about visiting the museum and, more particularly, to make Zouzou's acquaintance.

  That, however, might appear over-eager and precipitate. I succeeded in forcing myself to postpone my call until the following morning. Still far from rested, I determined to limit my activities for the day to a look around the city, and I set about this after my coffee. In front of the hotel I took a carriage to the Plaça do Commércio, where my bank, likewise called Banco do Commércio, was situated; for I intended to make use of the letter of credit in my wallet to withdraw funds for my hotel bill and the various other expenses I would incur. The Praça do Commércio, a dignified and rather quiet square, is open on one side to the harbour, where the River Tagus makes a deep bend; the other three sides are lined with arcades, covered walks from which one enters the Customs House, the main Post Office, various ministries, and the bank for which I was bound. I was received by a black-bearded man of excellent manners and confidence-inspiring aspect, who respectfully examined my documents and set about carrying out my request with alacrity. He made the necessary entries with dexterity and then handed me his pen and a receipt, politely requesting me to sign it. I did not need so much as a glance at Loulou's signature in the document beside me to inscribe, with pleasure and affection, its exact copy, my lovely name, in sharp back-hand letters encircled by the oval loop. 'An original signature,' the clerk could not refrain from saying. I shrugged, smiling. 'A kind of heirloom,' I said apologetica
lly. 'For generations we have signed ourselves that way.' He bowed courteously, and I left the bank, my lizard-skin wallet bulging with milreis.

  From there I betook myself to the near-by Post Office, where I dispatched to my home, Castle Monrefuge, the following telegram: 'Arrived safe Savoy Palace and send warmest greetings. Brimming with new impressions of which I hope to write soon. Already observe some alteration in direction of my thoughts which have not always been what they should be. Your grateful Loulou.' This accomplished, I went through a kind of arch of triumph or monumental gate on the side of the square opposite the harbour and into one of the smartest streets in the city, the Rua Augusta, where I had a social duty to discharge. I thought it would certainly be proper and in accordance with my parents' wishes if I were to pay a formal call at the Luxemburg Embassy, which was situated in the bel étage of a stately house. Without inquiring if the diplomatic representative of my native land and his wife were at home, I simply handed the servant who opened the door two of my cards, on one of which I had scribbled my address, with the request that he take them to Monsieur and Mme de Hueon. He was a man already well advanced in years, with stubbly grey hair, rings in his ears, rather broad lips and a kind of melancholy animal expression, which led me to reflect upon the composition of his blood and evoked my sympathetic interest. I nodded to him with special friendliness as I left, for, in a certain sense, he belonged to the period of colonial splendour and the golden world monopoly in spices.