Selected Cronicas

THE EGG AND THE CHICKEN (I)

In the morning the egg is lying on the kitchen table.

I see the egg at a single glance. I immediately perceive that I cannot be simply seeing an egg. Seeing an egg is always in the present: No sooner do I see the egg than I have seen an egg, the same egg which has existed for three thousand years. The very instant an egg is seen, it becomes the memory of an egg. The only person to see an egg is someone who has seen it before. Like a man who, in order to understand the present, must have had a past. Upon seeing the egg, it is already too late: an egg seen is an egg lost. A vision that passes like a sudden flash of lightning. To see the egg is the promise of being able to see the egg again one day. A brief glance which cannot be divided. Does thought intervene? No, there is no thought: there is only the egg. Vision is the essential faculty and, once used, I shall cast it aside. I shall remain without the egg. The egg has no itself. Individually, it does not exist.

It is impossible actually to see the egg. The egg is supravisible just as there are supersonic sounds the ear can no longer hear. No one is capable of seeing the egg. Can the dog see the egg? Only machines can see the egg. The windlass sees the egg. In ancient times an egg settled on my shoulder. Nor can anyone feel love for the egg. My love for the egg is suprasensitive and I have no way of knowing that I feel this love. One is unaware of loving the egg. In ancient times I was the depository of the egg and I walked on tiptoe in order not to disturb the egg’s silence. When I died, they carefully removed the egg inside me: it was still alive. Just as we ignore the world because it is obvious, so we fail to see the egg because it, too, is so obvious. Does the egg no longer exist? It exists at this moment. Egg, you are perfect. You are white. To you I dedicate this beginning. To you I dedicate this first moment.

To the egg, I dedicate the Chinese nation.

The egg is something in suspense. It has never settled. When it comes to rest, it is not the egg that has come to rest. A surface has formed beneath the egg. I vaguely glance at the egg in the kitchen in order not to break it. I take the greatest care not to understand it. It cannot be understood and I know that if I were to understand the egg, it could only be in error. To understand is proof of error. Never to think about the egg is one way of having seen it. Could it be that I know about the egg? Of course I know about it. Like this: I exist, therefore I know. What I do not know about the egg is what really matters. What I do not know about the egg gives me the egg itself. The Moon is inhabited by eggs…

The egg is an exteriorization: to have a shell is an act of giving. The egg exposes the kitchen. It transforms the table into a slanting plane. The egg exposes everything. Anyone who fathoms the egg, who can penetrate the egg’s surface, is seeking something else: that person is suffering from hunger.

The egg is the chicken’s soul. The awkward chicken. The stable egg. The startled chicken. The placid egg. Like a missile suspended in mid-air. For the egg is an egg in space. An egg against a blue background. Egg, I love you. I love you like something that does not even know it loves another thing. I do not touch it. It is the aura of my fingers that sees the egg. I do not touch it. But to devote myself to the vision of the egg would be to renounce my earthly existence which I continue to need, both yolk and white. Can the egg see me? Is it trying to fathom me? No, the egg only sees me. And it is immune to that painful understanding. The egg has never struggled to be an egg. The egg is a gift. It is invisible to the naked eye. From egg to egg, one reaches God Who is invisible to the naked eye. Perhaps the egg was once a triangle which turned so much in space that it ended up being oval. Is the egg basically a sealed jar? Perhaps the first jar to be modelled by the Etruscans? No. The egg originated from Macedonia. There it was designed, the fruit of the most deliberate spontaneity. On the sands of Macedonia a mathematician traced it out with a rod in one hand. And then erased it with his bare foot.

An egg needs careful handling. That is why the chicken is the egg’s disguise. The chicken exists so that the egg may traverse the ages. This is what a mother is for. The egg lives like a fugitive because it is always ahead of its time: it is more than contemporary: it belongs to the future. Meanwhile the egg will always be revolutionary. It lives inside the chicken so that no one may call it white. The egg is really white but must not be called white. Not because this would harm the egg which is immune from danger, but those people who state the obvious by describing the egg as white renege on life. To call something white which is white can destroy humanity. Truth is always in danger of destroying humanity. A man was once accused of being what he was and referred to as That Man. They were not lying: he was man. But we have not recovered since. This is the universal law so that we may go on living. One may say ‘a pretty face’ but anyone who says ‘face’ will die for having exhausted the subject.

In time the egg became the egg of a chicken. It is not. But once adopted, the surname is used. One should say ‘the egg of the chicken’. If people simply say ‘egg’, the topic is exhausted and the world goes back to being naked. An egg is the most naked thing in existence. Regarding the egg, there is always the danger that we may discover what could be termed beauty, in other words, its utter veracity. The egg’s veracity has no semblance of truth. If its beauty were to be discovered, people might try to make it rectangular. The egg is in no danger, it would not become rectangular. (Our guarantee is that it cannot: and that is the egg’s great strength: its supremacy stems from the greatness of being incapable, which spreads like reluctance.) But as I was saying, the egg would not become rectangular and anyone struggling to make it rectangular would be in danger of losing his own life. And so the egg puts us at risk. Our advantage is that the egg is invisible to the vast majority of people. And as for the initiated, the initiated conceal the egg as in a freemasonry.

As for the chicken’s body, the chicken’s body is the clearest attempt to prove that the egg does not exist. Because one look at the chicken is enough to see that the egg could not possibly exist.

And what about the chicken?

The egg is the chicken’s great sacrifice. The egg is the cross the chicken bears in life. The egg is the chicken’s unattainable dream. The chicken loves the egg. She does not know that the egg truly exists. Were she to know she has an egg inside her, would she be saved? Were she to know she has an egg inside her, would she lose her function as a chicken? To be a chicken is the chicken’s only chance of surviving mentally. Survival means salvation. For it would appear that the act of living does not exist. Living ends in death. While the chicken goes on surviving. And to survive is to keep up the struggle against mortal existence. This is what it means to be a chicken. The chicken always looks ill at ease.

The chicken must not know she is carrying an egg. Otherwise she might be saved as a chicken — although there is no guarantee — but at the same time she would lose her egg in a premature birth to rid herself of that exalted ideal. Therefore she does not know. The chicken only exists on behalf of the egg. She had a mission to fulfil which she enjoyed. And this was the chicken’s undoing. Enjoyment has nothing to do with birth. To enjoy being alive is painful.

As for what came first, it was the egg that discovered the chicken would make the perfect disguise. The chicken was not even summoned. The chicken is directly chosen. She exists as in dreams. She has no sense of reality. She gets nervous because people are always interrupting her daydreams. The chicken is one great slumber. She suffers from some strange malaise. Her strange malaise is the egg. She cannot explain: ‘I know the fault lies with me’. She calls her life a mistake. ‘I no longer know what I feel’, etc.

What clucks all day long inside the chicken is etc. etc. etc. The chicken has considerable resources of inner life. If truth be told, inner life is all she possesses. Our vision of her inner life is what we refer to as chicken. The chicken’s inner life consists of behaving as if she understood. The slightest threat of danger and she screeches her head off. All this simply to ensure that the egg does not break inside her. The egg which breaks inside the chicken has the appearance of blood.

The chicken watches the horizon.