Done, damn it! Levadski feebly tapped his scrawny thigh. So, the suspicion that he had carcinoma of the lung was confirmed! The patient and pseudo-respectful whispering of his doctor at the other end of the line had said as much. The news hit Levadski harder than it would have if the diagnosis had been roared down the receiver.
He would have liked to say a prayer, something sublime, but everything venerable seemed either unspeakable or defiled by mortal fear and self-pity. Impure, simply impure. Ultimately everything in this world referred to man, to man alone. Even in the purportedly altruistic stirring of the soul yapped a little I! I! I! and a tiny actor stood whistling in the wings of the most deceptively genuine feelings. Disgusting, thought Levadski, you can’t even face a stroke of fate candidly. He thought this and knew that another Levadski, as if to confirm his thought, hovered the height of a hat above him, amusing himself at this sight: an old man with lung cancer sitting in a rocking chair, with a pretentious strip of sunlight on his pigeon chest and how strange, all the particles of dust, how they danced in the ray of light making it visible in the first place.
Levadski pursed his lips and, in his mind, spit on the carpet. What was he still supposed to think, when what he knew of human beings filled him with disgust? This scrap of knowledge ruined his pleasure in the unknown, in the mysteries of nature that were yet to be revealed. That he would no longer come to discover them made him livid. May youth divine the secrets of creation; the thought triggered a dull pain. It was not that he begrudged the others, those left behind, the revelation, no. Levadski just thought that mankind, if anything, had a simulated reverence for the simple and the great. It was the simple and the great that he felt sorry for, because it was pure curiosity that led man to pursue the wonders of nature; every solemn gesture was pure hypocrisy; every action, even if it was a self-experiment with a deadly outcome or involved years of sacrifice in the name of science, was nothing but egotistical defiance, nothing but pure self-assertion.
Levadski rose trembling from the rocking chair. Even now he had lied: regardless of mankind, it was not the simple or the great he felt sorry for, but that he would be denied coming one step closer to this mystery. He was envious and jealous and he begrudged the others, knowing at heart that all effort was in vain — the mystery of life would just grow further out of reach, for as long as this world still existed.
I have tramped around on this globe for long enough, Levadski thought. He opened the balcony door and sat back down in the rocking chair. The dusty curtain enveloped the figure of its guest for a moment, the street air. The street itself entered Levadski’s library, filled it with the bothersome yet welcome signs of life, the honking of car horns, the shouting of children and the perpetual hurry of women’s heels. He could also hear snatches of a conversation between ravens: “I love you,” “I love you too,” “Feed me!” “Antonida! Put your trousers on! Now!” a mother’s voice ordered. Levadski raised an eyebrow; when he was Antonida’s age, names like hers didn’t exist, and girls still wore skirts.
“Oh dear,” Levadski sighed. Why the intimation of his imminent demise hadn’t allowed him to die on the spot, but had instead stirred up a lot of dust was an enigma. His chin dropped to his chest like an empty drawer onto a table; there is nothing to be had here, thieves, leave me alone. He opened his mouth. The ray of sunlight now rummaged in his mouth. Levadski stuck out his tongue and rolled it back in. Birds are better than we are, he thought, not least because they are able to open their beaks properly, unlike human beings, whose mouths only open by dropping their bottom jaw; birds simultaneously raise their upper beak slightly!
Slowly Levadski shut his mouth again. He remembered that many decades ago he had observed a common redstart through a pair of binoculars with a fat tick close to its eye. The bird didn’t seem bothered by the tick. On a sun-drenched wall, it gently quivered with its orange-colored tail in front of its bride. At the time, Levadski could have sworn that the female was smiling at the male while it trembled in courtship. He had always suspected that birds smiled. Now, sitting in his rocking chair, he suddenly realized how this worked: The female bird smiled at her sweetheart just by looking at him. In spite of the ugly tick close to its eye. By being near him, she was smiling at him.
The thought that his body was at the mercy of a parasite, that his lung had been thrown to a sea creature as food, made Levadski peevishly swing back and forth a couple of times in his rocking chair. I am at the mercy not only of that bloodsucker but also of a cocktail of chemicals if I let myself in for chemotherapy, thought Levadski, and clenched his fists.
He noticed that following the telephone conversation he far too frequently used inappropriate language, words that he had always avoided in his life, “bloodsucker” or “damn it.” That he had even been sick was outrageous and a certain sign of his decay. Who cares, Levadski thought, if I kick the bucket soon. His eyes widened. There you have it, kick the bucket, that’s the kind of language I hear myself using! I should just die! Die and rot! Levadski gestured dismissively, rose from the rocking chair with a groan and shuffled to the shelf with the medical books.
Cyclophosphamide, sounds like a criminal offense … checks the multiplication of rapidly dividing cells. Side effects: nausea, vomiting, hair loss. May damage the nerves and kidneys and lead to loss of hearing, as well as an irreparable loss of motor function; suppresses bone marrow, can cause anemia and blindness. Well, Bon appétit. Levadski would have liked to call the doctor and chirp down the line.
Tjue-tjue
Ku-Kue-Kue — Ke-tschik-Ke-tschik!
Iju-Iju-Iju-Iju!
Tjue-i-i!
If the doctor had asked him what this was supposed to be, Levadski would have stuck with the truth: A female pygmy owl attracting its mate, you idiot! And hung up. He felt like a real rascal. At the age of ninety-six Levadski was game for playing a prank. The dusty lace curtain stretched towards him, slowly as if submerged in water, behind it the spruce that lay in front of his house, with a little gold in its green beard and birds, birds, birds that hopped, as voices, as light and shadow plays, from branch to branch, from tree to tree, from cloud to cloud, from day to day, angels, always among people.
Levadski suddenly had the feeling he needed a walking stick. He leaned against his bookshelf, amazed he had been able to live without a walking stick up until now, shook his head and put this oversight down to being a scatterbrain.
“Adieu,” said Levadski to the medical dictionary in his hand before he shut it. He looked around his apartment, undecided as to what he should do. Instead of watering the flowers, making himself some porridge, or dusting, he took a walk around the four corners of his library to calm his nerves.
The only thing that really seems to belong to man is the genuine. And the only genuine thing about man, Levadski thought, breathing on his magnifying glass, is his pride! He was proud of the bookshelves that filled the walls. Though this trait belonged to the department of deadly sins, how could it be bad and depraved if it was purer, more sincere and unselfish, than the love that man imagined himself capable of? It was only pride that had no foundation and needed no admirers to sustain itself. Maybe it did poison the soul. But it also elevated the humble species of man a little, albeit to dubious spheres, from whence it became aware of the flicker of an immeasurably greater providence. The most beautiful thing was: A single surge of pride banished any breeding ground for loneliness. So why shouldn’t man commit this sin?