Primeval and Other Times

THE TIME OF FLORENTYNKA

People think madness is caused by a great, dramatic event, some sort of suffering that is unbearable. They imagine you go mad for some reason – because of being abandoned by a lover, because of the death of someone you love, or the loss of a fortune, a glance at the face of God. People also think madness strikes suddenly, all at once, in unusual circumstances, and that insanity falls on a person like a net, fettering the mind and muddling the emotions.

But Florentynka had gone mad in the normal course of things, you could say for no reason at all. Long ago she might have had reasons for madness – when her husband drowned in the White River while drunk, when seven of her nine children died, when she had miscarriage after miscarriage, when she got rid of the ones she didn’t miscarry, and the two times when she almost died as a result, when her barn burned down, when the two children left alive deserted her and disappeared into the world.

Now Florentynka was old, and had all her experiences behind her. Skinny as a rake and toothless, she lived in a wooden cottage by the Hill. Some of her cottage windows looked onto the forest, and others onto the village. Florentynka had two cows left which fed her, and also fed her dogs. She had a small orchard full of maggoty plums, and in summer some large hydrangea bushes bloomed in front of her house.

Florentynka went mad without anyone noticing. First her head ached and she couldn’t sleep at night. The moon was disturbing her. She told the neighbours it was watching her, that its vigilant gaze came through the walls and windowpanes, and its glowing light left traps for her in the mirrors, windowpanes, and reflections in water.

Then, in the evenings, Florentynka started going outside and waiting for the moon. It rose above the common, always the same, though in a different form. Florentynka shook her fist at it. People saw this fist raised at the sky and said: she’s gone mad.

Florentynka’s body was small and thin. After her period of non-stop child-bearing she was left with a round belly which now looked comical, like a loaf of bread stuffed under her skirt. After this time of child-bearing womanhood she did not have a single tooth left, true to the saying: “One child – one tooth.” Everything costs something. Florentynka’s breasts – or rather what time does with a woman’s breasts – were long and flat. They nestled against her body. Their skin was like tissue paper for wrapping the decorations after Christmas, and the fine blue veins were visible through it – a sign that Florentynka was still alive.

And those were days when women died sooner than men, mothers sooner than fathers, wives sooner than husbands, because they had always been the vessels that secreted mankind. Children hatched out of them like chicks from eggs. Then the egg had to find a way to glue itself back together. The stronger the woman, the more children she bore, and so the weaker she became. In the forty-fifth year of life, freed from the endless round of child-bearing, Florentynka’s body reached its own particular nirvana of sterility.

Ever since Florentynka had gone mad, cats and dogs had started frequenting her yard. Soon people began to treat her as a refuge for their consciences, and instead of drowning the kittens or puppies, they tossed them under the hydrangea bushes. At Florentynka’s hands, the two feeder-cows nourished a whole pack of animal foundlings. Florentynka always treated animals with respect, as she did people. In the morning she said “good day” to them, and whenever she put down a bowl of milk for them, she never forgot to say “bon appetit.” What’s more, she never called them just “dog” or “cat,” because it sounded as if she were talking about objects. She said “Mr Dog” and “Mr Cat,” like Mr Malak or Mr Chlipala.

Florentynka didn’t regard herself as a lunatic at all. The moon was persecuting her, like any normal persecutor. But one night something strange happened.

As usual when there was a full moon, Florentynka took her dogs and went out onto the hillside to curse the moon. The dogs lay down around her in the grass, and she shouted into the sky:

“Where is my son? How did you seduce him, you fat, silver toad? You beguiled my old man and dragged him into the water! I saw you in the well today, I caught you red-handed – you poisoned our water…”

A light went on in the Serafins’ house and a man’s voice shouted into the darkness.

“Shut up, you mad woman! We’re trying to sleep.”

“So go to sleep, sleep yourselves to death. Why on earth were you born if you’re only going to sleep?”

The voice fell silent, and Florentynka sat on the ground and stared at the silvery face of her persecutor. It was furrowed with wrinkles, rheumy-eyed, with marks left by some sort of cosmic cowpox. The dogs lay on the grass, and the moon was reflected in their dark eyes too. They sat quietly, and then the old woman laid a hand on the head of the big shaggy bitch. Just then she saw in her mind a thought that wasn’t hers, not even a thought, but the outline of a thought, an image, an impression. This something was alien to her thinking, not just because – as she sensed – it came from outside, but because it was completely different: monotone, distinct, deep, sensual, scented.

In it were the sky and two moons, one beside the other. There was a river – cold and joyful. There were houses – alluring and awful all at once. The line of the forest – a sight full of strange excitement. On the grass lay sticks, stones, and leaves filled with images and memories. Beside them, like paths, ran scent trails full of meanings. Under the ground ran warm, live corridors. Everything was different. Only the outlines of the world remained the same. Then with her human reason Florentynka realised that people were right – she had gone mad.

“Am I talking to myself?” she asked the bitch, who was resting her head on her knees.

She knew she was.

They went home. Florentynka poured the remains of the evening’s milk into bowls. She, too, sat down to eat. She wetted a piece of bread in the milk and chewed it with her toothless gums. As she ate she stared at one of the dogs, trying to say something to him through pure images. She emitted a thought, “imagining” something like: “I am, and I am eating.” The dog raised its head.

So that night, whether because of the persecutor-moon or her madness, Florentynka learned how to talk to her dogs and cats. The conversations relied on emitting images. What the animals imagined was not as concise and specific as human speech. It did not include thoughts, but it did have things seen from the inside, without the human distance that brings a sense of alienation. It made the world seem more friendly.

Most important for Florentynka were the two moons from the animals’ images. It was astonishing to find that animals saw two moons, and people only one. Florentynka could not understand it, so finally she stopped trying to. The moons were different; in a way they were even opposed to each other, but also identical at the same time. One was soft, rather damp, and tender. The other was hard as silver, shining and jingling merrily. So Florentynka’s persecutor had a dual nature, and this very feature made it even more of a threat to her.