with their descendants.'
Bertlef called Dr. Skreta's viewpoint aesthetic racism: 'Don't forget that not only was Socrates ugly but also that many famous women lovers did not distinguish themselves at all by their physical perfection. Aesthetic racism is almost always a sign of inexperience. Those who have not made their way far enough into the world of amorous delights judge women only by what can be seen. But those who really know women understand that the eye reveals only a minute fraction of what a woman can offer us. When God bade mankind be fruitful and multiply, Doctor, He was thinking of the ugly as well as of the beautiful. I am
convinced, I might add, that the aesthetic criterion does not come from God but from the devil. In paradise no distinction was made between ugliness and beauty.'
Jakub reentered the conversation, asserting that aesthetic considerations played no part in the loathing he felt for procreation. 'But I can cite ten other reasons for not being a father.'
'What are they? I am curious.'
'First of all, I don't like motherhood,' said Jakub, and he broke off pensively. 'Our century has already unmasked all myths. Childhood has long ceased to be an age of innocence. Freud discovered infant sexuality and told us all about Oedipus. Only Jocasta remains untouchable; no one dares tear off her veil. Motherhood is the last and greatest taboo, the one that harbors the most grievous curse. There is no stronger bond than the one that shackles mother to child. This bond cripples the child's soul forever and prepares for the mother, when her son has grown up, the most cruel of all the griefs of love. I say that motherhood is a curse, and I refuse to contribute to it.'
'Next!' said Bertlef.
'Another reason I don't want to add to the number of mothers,' said Jakub with some embarrassment, 'is that I love the female body, and I am disgusted by the thought of my beloved's breast becoming a milk-bag.'
'Next! 'said Bertlef.
'The doctor here will certainly confirm that physicians and nurses treat women hospitalized after an aborted pregnancy more harshly than those who have
given birth, and show some contempt toward them even though they themselves will, at least once in their lives, need a similar operation. But for them it's a reflex stronger than any kind of thought, because the cult of procreation is an imperative of nature. That's why it's useless to look for the slightest rational argument in natalist propaganda. Do you perhaps think it's the voice of Jesus you're hearing in the natalist morality of the church? Do you think it's the voice of Marx you're hearing in the natalist propaganda of the Communist state? Impelled merely by the desire to perpetuate the species, mankind will end up smothering itself on its small planet. But the natalist propaganda mill grinds on, and the public is moved to tears by pictures of nursing mothers and infants making faces. It disgusts me. It chills me to think that, along with millions of other enthusiasts, I could be bending over a cradle with a silly smile.'
'Next!' said Bertlef.
'And of course I also have to ask myself what sort of world I'd be sending my child into. School soon takes him away to stuff his head with the falsehoods I've fought in vain against all my life. Should I see my son become a conformist fool? Or should I instill my own ideas into him and see him suffer because he'll be dragged into the same conflicts I was?'
'Next!' said Bertlef.
'And of course I also have to think of myself. In this country children pay for their parents' disobedience, and parents for their children's disobedience. How
many young people have been denied education because their parents fell into disgrace? And how many parents have chosen permanent cowardice for the sole purpose of preventing harm to their children? Anyone who wants to preserve at least some freedom here shouldn't have children,' Jakub said, and fell into silence.
'You still need five more reasons to complete your decalogue,' said Bertlef.
'The last reason carries so much weight that it counts for five,' said Jakub. 'Having a child is to show an absolute accord with mankind. If I have a child, it's as though I'm saying: I was born and have tasted life and declare it so good that it merits being duplicated.'
'And you have not found life to be good?' asked Bertlef.
Jakub tried to be precise, and said cautiously: 'All I know is that I could never say with complete conviction: Man is a wonderful being and I want to reproduce him.'
'That's because you've only known life in its worst aspect,' said Dr. Skreta. 'You've never known how to live. You've always thought that it was your duty to be, as they say, in the thick of things. In the core of reality. But what was that reality for you? Politics. And politics is what is least essential and least precious in life. Politics is the dirty foam on the surface of the river, while the life of the river is lived much deeper. The study of female fertility has been going on for thousands of years. It's had a solid, steady history. And it's
quite indifferent to which government it is that happens to be in power. When I put on a rubber glove and examine a female organ, I'm much nearer the core of life than you, who nearly lost your life because you were concerned about the good of humanity.'
Instead of protesting Jakub agreed with his friends reproaches, and Dr. Skreta, feeling encouraged, went on: 'Archimedes with his circles, Michelangelo with his block of stone, Pasteur with his test tubes-they and they alone have transformed human life and made real history, while the politicians…' Skreta paused and waved his hand scornfully.
'While the politicians?' asked Jakub, and went on: 'I'll tell you. If science and art are in fact the proper, real arenas of history, politics on the contrary is the closed scientific laboratory where unprecedented experiments are conducted on mankind. There human guinea pigs are hurled through trap doors and then brought back onto the stage, tempted by applause and terrified by the gallows, denounced and forced to denounce. I worked in that lab as an assistant, but I also served there several times as a victim of vivisection. I know that I created nothing of value there (no more than those who worked with me did), but I probably came to understand better than others what man is.'
'I understand you,' said Bertlef, 'and I too know that laboratory, even though I never worked as an assistant but always as a guinea pig. I was in Germany when the war broke out. The woman I was in love with at the time denounced me to the Gestapo. They had
come to her and shown her a photo of me in bed with another woman. She was hurt by it, and, as you know, love often takes on the features of hate. I went to prison with the strange sensation of having been led there by love. Is it not wonderful to find oneself in the hands of the Gestapo and to realize that this, in fact, is the privilege of a man who is loved too much?'
Jakub replied: 'Something that always utterly disgusts me about mankind is seeing how its cruelty, its baseness, and its stupidity manage to wear the lyrical mask. She sends you to your death, and she experiences it as a romantic feat of wounded love. And you mount the scaffold because of an ordinary narrow-minded woman, feeling that you are playing a role in a tragedy Shakespeare wrote for you.'
'After the war she came to me in tears,' Bertlef went on, as though he had not heard Jakub's objection. 'I told her: 'Don't worry, Bertlef is never vindictive.''
'You know,' said Jakub, 'I often think about King Herod. You know the story. It's said that when he learned about the birth of the future king of the Jews, he was afraid he'd lose his throne, and he had all the newborns murdered. Personally I have a different view of Herod, even though I know it's only an imaginary game. To my mind Herod was an educated, wise, and very generous king, who had worked for a long time in the laboratory of politics and had learned much about life and mankind. He came to think that perhaps man should not have been created. His doubt, I might add, was not so uncalled-for and reprehensible. If I'm not
mistaken, even the Lord had doubts about mankind and thought of destroying this part of His work.'
'Yes,' Bertlef agreed, 'it is in the sixth chapter of Genesis: 'I will destroy man whom I have created… for it repenteth me that I have made him.''
'And perhaps it was only a moment of weakness on the Lord's part finally to have permitted Noah to take refuge in his ark in order to start afresh the history of man. Can we be sure that God never regretted this weakness? But whether He regretted it or not, there was nothing more to do. God can't make Himself ridiculous by constantly changing His decisions. But what if it was He who put the idea into Herod's head? Can that be ruled out?'
Bertlef shrugged his shoulders and said nothing.
