The Burrow: Posthumously Published Short Fiction Page 3

  And even so, it was here that he found his point of entry against me, nor do I deny that there was an apparent sense of justification in what he said, or rather hinted, as indeed it was to strike me a few times that he showed greater acuity in his dealings with me than in his work. He claimed my Foreword was duplicitous. If my sole intention was truly to help circulate his writing, then why did I not busy myself with him and his writing to the exclusion of everything else, why did I not show its advantages, its cogency, why did I not limit myself to stressing the importance of the discovery, why on the contrary did I insist on inserting myself into the discovery, all the while completely ignoring his work? Hadn’t it been written and published, after all? What was there left to do? If I really thought I had to repeat the discovery, why then did I so solemnly forswear any claims to doing so in my Foreword? It might have been mere false modesty, but in actual fact it was something worse. I was devaluing his discovery; I was drawing attention to it purely in order to devalue it. I had looked into it and then set it aside; things might indeed have grown rather quiet around the discovery, then I came along and started making some noise, but that had the effect of making the teacher’s position more difficult than ever. What did the teacher care about the defence of his honour? It was the matter, the matter itself that exercised him. And I was betraying the cause, because I didn’t understand it, because I didn’t see it straight, because I had no feeling for it. It towered over my tiny comprehension.

  He sat in front of me, staring at me with his old rumpled face, and yet this was just his opinion. It wasn’t quite right, by the way, that he was only interested in the facts of the case. He was actually quite ambitious and hoped to make some money, which in view of his large family was easy to understand, and yet my interest in the thing seemed comparatively so slight that he thought he could put himself across as perfectly selfless without deviating too far from the truth. And it wasn’t even enough for my own inner satisfaction if I told myself that the man’s reproaches were basically due to the fact that he was, so to speak, holding onto his mole with two hands, and anyone who approached him with so much as a single upraised finger was bound to strike him as a traitor. That wasn’t the case, his behaviour was not caused by greed, or at least not greed alone; it was more the irritation that his great efforts and their total lack of success had caused in him. But then his irritability alone didn’t explain everything either. Perhaps my interest in the affair really was too slight. A lack of interest on the part of strangers had long since ceased to surprise the teacher: he suffered from it in general, but no longer in particular, whereas here someone had turned up at last who was willing to go into the whole thing in an unusual way – and then even he didn’t understand it. Once the argument was couched in those terms, I couldn’t find it in myself to deny it. It’s true, I am no zoologist, perhaps if I had discovered the creature then I might have been stirred to the bottom of my heart, but the fact was I hadn’t discovered it either. Such an enormous mole is surely a singular creature, but it’s wrong to claim the ongoing attention of the whole world for it, especially when the existence of the mole cannot be incontrovertibly established, and it’s not possible to produce the creature as evidence. I had to admit, too, that even if I had been the discoverer of the mole, I would probably not have devoted myself to it to the degree the teacher so freely and willingly did.

  Now the rift between the teacher and myself would have quickly been smoothed over if my publication had enjoyed success. Alas, it didn’t. Perhaps it wasn’t well written or persuasive; commerce is my field and the composition of such a paper probably exceeded my gifts more than was the case with the teacher, even though in point of knowledge I was streets ahead of him. The failure of my paper can be explained in another way too: the timing of its appearance was perhaps unfavourable. The discovery of the mole, incompletely established at the time, was on the one hand not so remote as to have been forgotten, so that my paper might have had surprise on its side; on the other, sufficient time had passed to exhaust such slight interest as there had once been. People who took cognizance of my paper told one another with a kind of dismalness that had characterized the discussion for some years that these futile efforts in this arid matter were getting going again, and some even went so far as to confuse my work with the teacher’s.

  A leading agricultural journal published the following note, luckily towards the end of the issue in question, and in small print: ‘The paper on the giant mole has been re-submitted to us. We remember how we laughed heartily at its first appearance years ago. The intervening time has not made it cleverer or ourselves more foolish. Only, we are unable to laugh at it a second time. So let us put the question to our teachers’ associations: has a village schoolteacher no more pressing task than to go chasing after giant moles?’ An unpardonable confusion! They had read neither the first nor the second paper, and the two terms they did manage to glean, ‘giant mole’ and ‘village schoolteacher’ were enough for the gentlemen to take sides in the predictable way. Various types of recourse suggested themselves, but want of communication with the teacher kept me from pursuing any of them. Rather, I tried to keep the publication secret for as long as possible. But he very quickly got wind of it, as I understood from a remark in a letter from him announcing a visit to me during the Christmas holidays. He wrote: ‘It’s a wicked world, and you’re making it easier for it,’ which was his way of saying that I formed part of it, and wasn’t content with my own inborn wickedness either, but was set on making things easier for the world, i.e. I was engaged in supporting a more general badness and helping it to triumph.

  Now I had already taken the necessary decisions, I could calmly await his visit and calmly watch him draw up, greet me a little less politely than he liked to be, sit down mutely opposite me, carefully draw out the periodical from the breast pocket of his strangely wadded looking jacket, and push it across to me, open at the place. ‘I know, I’ve seen it,’ I said, pushing the periodical back to him unread. ‘You’ve seen it,’ he said with a sigh – he had the old teacher’s habit of repeating answers to questions. ‘Of course I won’t take this lying down,’ he carried on, rapping on the periodical with a finger and looking at me sharply, as though I disagreed with him; he probably had some clue as to what I might have wanted to say; also I was aware, not so much from his words as from other signs he gave, that he often had a very accurate sense of my intentions, but didn’t yield to it and allowed himself to be distracted.

  I can repeat what I said to him then almost verbatim, since I made a note of it immediately after our conversation. ‘You can do as you like,’ I said, ‘as of today we will go our separate ways. I think this will neither surprise nor upset you. The note in the paper has not precipitated my decision, merely cemented it. The actual cause lies in the fact that I originally believed my appearance on the scene would assist you, whereas I am now forced to see that I have harmed you in every possible way. I can’t say why this has happened, factors governing success and failure are always complex, but you should avoid looking merely for those that seem to implicate me. Remember, you, too, set out with the best of intentions and when you look at the thing as a whole, you failed. Nor am I speaking in jest; it’s against myself after all, when I say that the connection with me is just another one of your failures. If I decide to withdraw from the affair now, it’s neither cowardice nor betrayal. It even takes a certain amount of resolve; my respect for your person is evident in what I have written, in a sense you have become my teacher too, and the mole is almost dear to me. And yet I will step aside. You are the discoverer and, try as I might, I still seem to get in the way of your possible fame, while I draw failure and pass it onto you. At least that’s your view. Enough. The only contrition I can take upon myself is to ask your forgiveness and if you so desire, the admission I’ve made to you here, repeated in public, for instance in this very magazine.’

  That was what I said, my words were not wholly ingenuous, but there was ingenuousness ve
ry obviously in them. The effect on him was more or less what I had imagined. Most older people have something deceptive or mendacious in their dealings with younger people; that is, you can live among them easily enough, think you get along, know their views on things, receive regular assurances of good feeling, think everything is as it appears to be and then suddenly, when something dramatic happens and the long-established peace is supposed to swing into effect, these old people get up like strangers and it turns out they hold deeper and stronger views than you thought, they unfurl their banner, so to speak, and only now do you read with alarm what is written on it. The alarm stems particularly from the fact that what the old people are now saying is much more justified, and sensible, as if there were some heightening of the natural modus that was even more natural. The claim they make, unsurpassable in its mendaciousness, is that they were basically always saying what they are saying now, and that it was somehow never possible to sense it amid the generalities.

  I must have tunnelled a long way into the village schoolteacher because what he did now did not completely surprise me. ‘My boy,’ he said, laying his hand over mine, and patting it gently, ‘I wonder how you ever thought of getting involved in this matter in the first place. The very first time I came across your name I mentioned you to my wife.’ He moved away from the table, spread his arms and looked at the floor, as though the tiny figure of his wife were standing there for him to talk to. ‘ “For so many years,” I said to her, “we’ve been fighting on our own, but now in the city a powerful supporter seems to be entering the lists on our side, a city businessman by the name of such and such. Is that not cause for rejoicing? A businessman in the city, that means something. If it was some old farmer who believed in us and got up to say so, that wouldn’t do much for us, because what a farmer does is always improper, whether he says that old village schoolmaster is right, you know, or if he spits rudely when he hears of us – both have the same effect. And if it wasn’t one farmer, but 10,000 farmers, then the effect would be, if anything, worse. But a businessman in the city, that’s something else, a man like that will have connections, even casual remarks of his will make the rounds, new supporters will join him; one person says you can learn from village schoolteachers, and the following day a lot of people that from the look of them you would never expect will be saying it to each other in whispers. Then money starts to flow; one man starts a collection and others contribute, they are saying the village schoolteacher needs to be got out of his village. People turn up, they’re not bothered about what he looks like, they take him into their midst, and since there’s a wife and children as well, they get taken along too. Have you ever seen city people in action? They’re like little birds. If there’s a line of them, they will twitter from right to left and back again and on and on. And so they lift us twittering into their coach; there’s barely time to nod to all of them individually. The gentleman on the box adjusts his pince-nez, swings his whip, and we’re off. Everyone waves to the village as if we were still in it, and not sitting in their midst. From the city some coaches with especially impatient individuals have set out to meet us. At our approach, they get up off their seats and crane their necks to see us. The one who has collected money is in charge, and he tells everyone to remain calm. By the time we enter the city there’s a great line of coaches waiting. We had thought the welcome was over, but at the inn it’s only just beginning. In the city, a call is enough to bring a great many people together. The thing that interests the one will interest his neighbour as well. They breathe the same air and inhale the same opinions. Not all the people were able to ride out in carriages, and they’re waiting outside the inn. Others might have done so, but for reasons of prestige chose not to. They, too, are waiting now. It’s amazing how the man who collected the money is able to keep an eye on everyone.” ’

  I had been listening to him quietly. The longer he went on, the quieter I became. On the table I had my pamphlet; I had bought up all the available copies. There were only a very few missing, because I had sent out a circular letter asking for all the copies I’d sent out to be returned to me, and most of them had indeed come back. From many people I received very polite letters, to the effect that they didn’t recall having been sent such a thing ever, and that if they had, then most regrettably it had been lost. That was fine too, I had nothing against that. Only one person asked me to be allowed to keep my pamphlet as a curio and in the spirit of my circular promised not to show it to anyone for the next twenty years. The village schoolmaster hadn’t seen this circular letter of mine, and I was happy that his words made it so easy for me to show it to him. Moreover, I could do so without the least anxiety because I had taken particular care with its composition, and kept my eye on the interest of the village schoolteacher and his cause at all times. The principal sentences ran as follows: ‘I am not asking for the return of my work because the opinions represented therein are no longer mine, or that I see them as erroneous or even unsusceptible of proof. No, the sole reasons for my request are personal, though very compelling. My view of the substance may not be inferred to any degree, I would like to stress this, and if appropriate, pass it on.’

  For the moment I kept this letter out of sight, and said: ‘Are you complaining that these things have failed to come to pass? Why would you do that? Let’s not part in any spirit of bitterness. And please try and see that, while you have made a discovery, this discovery does not tower over everything else, and therefore the injustice done to you is not an injustice that towers over all others either. I am not familiar with the regulations of learned societies, but I don’t believe that even in an ideal case you would have been afforded a welcome that would have come close to what you outlined to your poor wife. If I hoped for anything from my pamphlet, then it was perhaps that some professor might have been alerted to the case, and that he would have got one of his young students to pursue the matter, that this student might have gone out to see you and would have checked through your and my investigations again in his own way, and that finally, if the result struck him as even worth mentioning – I should say at this point that students are renowned sceptics – then he might have put out a paper of his own in which what you described might have been given a scientific foundation. But even if such a hope had been realized, it still wouldn’t have meant much. A paper by a student on such a striking theme might itself have become an object of ridicule. You can see by the example of the agricultural journal how easy it is, and in that regard scientific publications are much more ruthless. Which is understandable, seeing as professors have such vast responsibilities – to science, to posterity – that they can hardly hurl themselves at every new sighting. In that regard, the rest of us have the advantage over them. But I will go on and just assume for now that the student’s paper had made its way. What would have happened then? Your name might have appeared a few times, it might have done something for your profession, people would have said: “Our village schoolmasters are renowned for their keen-sightedness”, and the magazine here, if magazines have such a thing as a memory or a conscience, would have had to issue a public apology, and then a helpful professor would have come forward to secure a scholarship for you. It’s a real possibility that efforts might have been made to draw you into the city, perhaps find you a job in a city elementary school and thus given you a chance to avail yourself of the supports that a city offers to your scientific training. If I am to be brutally honest, though, I must say they might not have got beyond the attempt. You would have been summoned here, and you would have come, too, as a supplicant among a hundred others, with no sort of festive welcome. They would have spoken to you, recognized your earnest endeavour, but would have seen that you are an old man, that to embark on a scientific study is a nonsense at such an age, and that you came to your discovery accidentally rather than deliberately, and have no particular plans to pursue it beyond that single case. So they would have ended up leaving you back in your village. Your discovery admittedly would have been
taken forward because it’s not so small that once brought to attention it could ever be wholly lost from sight. But you wouldn’t have heard much more about it, and what you would have heard you would barely have been capable of understanding. Every discovery is straightaway incorporated into the body of science and then in a sense stops being a discovery, it is dissolved in the totality and disappears; it takes a scientifically trained eye to even recognize it. It is immediately attached to principles we haven’t even heard of, and in the course of scientific disputes, launched into the ether on these same principles. How could we understand? When we listen to such a debate, we may think it’s a matter of the discovery, but in fact it’s about something completely different.’

  ‘Very well,’ said the village schoolmaster, took out his pipe and started to fill it with the tobacco he carried loose in all his pockets, ‘so you freely undertook an ungrateful task, and are now just as freely resigning from it. Everything is in order.’ ‘I’m not pig-headed,’ I said. ‘Do you object to anything in my suggestion?’ ‘No, not at all,’ said the village schoolmaster, and his pipe was already billowing smoke. Not being able to stomach the smell of his tobacco, I got up and started to pace about the room. From our earlier meetings I was used to the fact that the village schoolmaster tended to be rather taciturn with me, and yet, once he had come, wouldn’t leave my room. Sometimes it had antagonized me – he wants something from me, I would always think, and offered him money, which he regularly accepted. But he still never left until he was good and ready. Usually his pipe was smoked by then; he stepped around the back of his chair, which he pushed tidily and respectfully up to the table, reached for his ashplant in the corner, eagerly took my hand, and left. Today, though, his silence simply irritated me. If you have offered someone goodbye in an ultimate form as I had, and this meets with the other’s agreement, then you get through the rest of what needs to be got through between you as quickly as possible, and don’t burden the other with your mute presence to no good end. Whereas if you looked at the tough old man from behind, the way he was sitting at my table, you might have thought it would be quite impossible to get him out of the room at all.