|
"There's no getting away from it,"said old Mr. Karas. "If a man
were to rummage through his past, hed find material in it for
a whole different set of lives. One day, either by mistake or
because he felt like it, he chose just one of them and went on
with it to the end; but the worst of it is that those other lives,
the ones he might have lived, are not entirely dead. And sometimes
it happens that you feel a pain in them, like a leg thats been
cut off.
"When I was a boy of about ten, I began to collect stamps. My
father didnt altogether approve of it; he thought itd make me
neglect my lessons, but I had a pal, Lojzik Cepelka, and we used
to share our passion for foreign stamps. Lojziks father used to
play a barrel-organ, Lojzik was a messy kid with freckles, as
unkempt as a sparrow, a regular ragamuffin, but I was fond of
him, in the way that schoolboys are fond of a friend. You know,
Im an old man; Ive had a wife and children; yet I have to say
that none of our feelings are finer than friendship. But youre
only capable of it when youre young; later on, you get sort of
crusty and selfish. A friendship of the sort Im telling about
springs simply and solely from enthusiasm and admiration, from
excess of vitality, from abundance and overflow of emotion; youve
got so much of it that you simply have to give it away to somebody.
My father was a lawyer, the chief man among the local bigwigs,
a most dignified and severe person, and I palled around with Lojzik,
whose father was a drunken organ-grinder and whose mother was
a downtrodden laundress, and yet 1 venerated and idolized Lojzik,
because he was smarter than me, because he could shift for himself
and was as plucky as they make them, because he had freckles on
his nose and could throw stones left-handed------in fact, I cant
remember all the things that made me so attached to him; but it
was certainly the closest attachment I've ever had.
"And so Lojzik was my trusty comrade when I began to collect
stamps. Somebody once said that only men have the collecting instinct,.
and its true. I suppose that the craze for collecting things must
be the survival of an instinct dating back to the times when every
male collected the heads of his enemies, the spoils of war, bearskins,
stags antlers and~, in fact, anything he could capture as booty.
But a stamp collection possesses one quality that makes it a perpetual
adventure; it somehow excites you to touch a bit of some distant
country, such as Bhutan, Bolivia or the Cape of Good Hope; it
brings you into a sort of personal and intimate touch with these
foreign countries. So there is something about stamp-collecting
that suggests travel by land and sea, and deeds of derring-do
in general. Its very much the same as the Crusades.
"As I was saying, my father didnt exactly approve of it; as a
rule, fathers dont approve if their sons do something different
from what they themselves have done; as a matter of fact, im just
the same with my own sons. This business of being a father is
a sort of mixed feeling: theres a great deal of affection in it,
but theres also a certain prejudice, mistrust, hostility or whatever
you may choose to call it. The more affection you have for your
children, the more there is of this other feeling. Anyway, I had
to hide my stamp collection in the attic, so that my father couldnt
catch me with it. In the attic there was an old chest, a sort
of flour bin, and we used to crawl into it like a couple of mice
to have a look at each others stamps. Look here, this is a Netherlands,
this is an Egyptian, this is Sverige, or Sweden. And because we
had to hide our treasures like that, there was something deliciously
sinful about it. The way I got hold of those stamps was also an
adventurous business; I used to go round to families I knew, and
those I didnt, and beg and pray to let me soak the stamps off
their old letters. Now and then I came across people who had drawers.
crammed full of old papers stored away, in an attic or desk;
those were my most delightful hours when, sitting on the floor,
I sorted out those dusty piles of litter to try and find stamps
I hadnt already got--you see, 1 was silly enough not to collect
duplicates, and when I happened to come across an old Lombardy
or one of those tiny German states or free cities, why, the thrill
I had was perfectly agonizing--every vast happiness has a sweet
pang about it. And in the meantime, Lojzik was waiting for me
outside, and when at last I crept out, I whispered right in the
doorway, 'Lojzik, Lojzik, I found a Hanover in there!--Have you
got it?--Yes. And away we ran with our booty, home to our treasure
chest.
"In our town there were factories that turned out all sorts of
trash: jute, calico, cotton, and shoddy wool--the rubbish that
we produce specially for the colored races all over the world.
They used to let me ransack their wastepaper baskets, and that
was my happiest hunting ground; there I came across stamps from
Siam and South Africa, China, Liberia, Afghanistan, Borneo, Brazil,
New Zealand, India, the Congo--I wonder whether the mere sound
of the names gives you the same sense of mystery and glamor as
it does me. Good heavens, what joy, what frantic joy I felt when
I found a stamp from, say, the Straits Settlements, or Korea or
Nepal or New Guinea or Sierra Leone or Madagascar! I tell you,
that particular rapture can be realized only by a hunter or a
treasure-seeker or an archaeologist whos doing excavations. To
seek and to find--thats the greatest thrill and satisfaction a
man can get out of life. Everybody ought to seek something; if
not stamps, then truth or golden ferns or at least stone arrowheads
and ashtrays.
!Well, those were the happiest years of my life, my friendship
with Lojzik and stamp-collecting. Then I had scarlet fever and
tfiey wouldnt let Lojzik come to see me, but he used to stand
in the hall and whistle so that I could hear him. One day they
must have taken their eyes off me or something; anyway, I got
out of bed and slipped upstairs to the attic to have a look at
my stamps. 1 was so feeble that I could hardly lift the lid of
the trunk. But the trunk was empty; the box containing the stamps
was gone.
"I cant describe to you how distressed and horror-stricken I
was. I think I must have stood there as if Id been turned to stone,
and I couldnt even cry, there was such a lump in my throat. First
of all, it was appalling to me that my stamps, my greatest joy,
were gone--but what was more appalling was that Lojzik, the only
friend I had, must have stolen them while I was ill. I felt overwhelmed,
dismayed, dumbfounded, despondent--you know, its amazing how much
a child can suffer. How I got out of that attic, I dont know;
but after that I had a high fever again and during my clearer
moments I pondered in despair. I never said a word about this
to my father or my aunt--I had no mother--I knew that they simply
wouldnt understand me and thus I became rather estranged from
them. From that time onwards my feelings for them ceased to be
close and childlike. Lojziks treachery affected me terribly; it
was the first time anyone had played me false. 'A beggar, I said
to myself, 'Lojziks a beggar and thats why he steals; it serves,
me right for fooling around with a beggar. And this hardened my
heart; it was then I began to draw a distinction between one person
and another--I forfeited my state of social innocence; but at
the time I didnt realize what a shock it had been to me and how
much damage it had caused.
"When I had got over my fever, I had also got over my distress
at the loss of my stamp collection, though my heart still ached
when I saw that Lojzik had now found new friends; but when he
came running up to me, rather sheepishly because it was so long
since wed seen each other, I said to him in a curt, grownup tone:
'Shove off, Im finished with you. Lojzik turned red and replied:
'All right, then. And from that time onward he hated me with
a stubborn, proletarian hatred."
"Well, that was the incident which affected my whole life. The
world I lived in was, so to speak, desecrated; I lost my faith
in people; I learned how to hate and despise. After that I never
had a friend; and when I grew up, I began to assume that because
I was by myself, I needed nobody and would show no favor to anyone.
Then I discovered that nobody liked me; I used to put this down
to the fact that I despised affection and was proof against all
sentimentality. And so I became an aloof and purposeful man, very
fussy about myself, very punctilious, the kind of person who always
wants to do the right thing. I was cantankerous and harsh towards
my subordinates; I did not love the woman I married; I brought
up my children to fear and obey me, and by my industry and sense
of duty I gained quite a reputation. Such was my life, my whole
life; I attended to nothing except my duty. When my time comes,
the newspapers will say what valuable work I did and what an exemplary
character I had. But if people only knew how much solitude, mistrust
and self-will there is about it all.
"Three years ago my wife died. I never admitted it to myself
or to anybody else, but I was terribly upset; and in my distress
I rummaged about among all sorts of family keepsakes which had
been left by my father and mother: photographs, letters, my old
school exercise books. I felt like choking when I saw how carefully
my stern father had arranged and kept them: I think that, after
all, he must have been fond of me. The cupboard in the attic was
filled with these things, and at the bottom of a drawer was a
box sealed with my fathers seals; when I opened it, I discovered
the stamp collection I had put together fifty years earlier.
Im not going to keep anything back from you: 1 burst into tears
and I took the box into my room like a man who has found a treasure.
So thats what happened, suddenly flashed across my mind;
while I was ill, somebody must have found my stamp collection
and my father confiscated it, so that I would not neglect my homework.
He shouldnt have done it, but it was all because of his concern
and affection for me; I dont know exactly why, but I began to
feel sorry for him and for myself.
"And then I remembered: so Lojzik never stole my stamps. Good
heavens, how I had wronged him! Again I saw before me the freckled
and messy urchin, and I wondered what had become of him and whether
he was still alive. I tell you, I felt so wretched and ashamed
when I looked back on it all. Because of a single false suspicion
I had lost my only friend; because of that I had wasted my childhood.
Because of that I had begun to despise the lower orders; because
of that I had become so opinionated; because of that I never became
attached to anyone. Because of that the very sight of a postage-stamp
always made me feel annoyed and disgusted. Because of that I never
wrote to my wife, either before or after our marriage, and I explained
this away by pretending to be above what I chose to call 'gush;
and my wife felt this keenly. Because of that I was harsh and
aloof. Because of that, only because of that, I had so fine a
career and performed my duties in such an exemplary manner."
"I saw my whole life afresh; suddenly it seemed a different life,
was the thought that struck me. If that hadnt happened, I should
have been so full of enthusiasm and dash, affection, chivalry,
wit and resourcefulness, strange and unruly things of that sort--
why, good heavens, I might have been almost anything else, an
explorer or an actor or a soldier! Why, I might have felt some
affection for my fellow men, I might have drunk with them, under-stood
them, oh, theres no knowing what I mightnt have done. I felt as
if ice were thawing inside me. I went through the collection,
stamp by stamp; they were all there: Lombardy, Cuba, Siam, Hanover,
Nicaragua, the Philippines, all the places I had wanted to go
to and which now I shall never see. On each of these stamps was
a scrap of something that might have been and never was. I sat
brooding over them all night, taking stock of my life. I realized
that it had been an artificial and impersonal life, which did
not belong to me, and that my proper life had never come into
being." Mr. Karas shook his head sadly. "When I consider all I
might have been, and how I wronged Lojzik--"
Father Voves, on hearing these words, looked very downcast and
forlorn; most likely he had remembered something in his own life.
"Mr. Karas," he said pityingly, "dont think about it; its no use,
you cant put it right now, you can1t make a fresh start--"
"No," sighed Mr. Karas with a slight flush. "But you know, anyhow--
anyhow, I've started collecting stamps again."
Translated
by Paul Selver; revised by Peter Kuddi. Originally published in
Tales from Two Pockets, 1932. From the Czech "SbIrka
známek."
Back To Stamp Stories
|
