Selected Cronicas

THE EGG AND THE CHICKEN (II)

The chicken watches the horizon. As if she were watching an egg slowly advance from the distant horizon. Apart from being a means of transport for the egg, the chicken is stupid, idle and short-sighted. How can the chicken understand herself when she is everything the egg is not? The egg is still that same egg which originated in Macedonia. But the chicken is always a recent tragedy. She is continuously being designed anew. Yet no more apt form has been found for the chicken. As my neighbour answers the telephone, he absentmindedly sketches a chicken with his pencil. But nothing can be done for the chicken: it is in her nature to be of no use to herself. And since her destiny is more important than the chicken herself and her destiny is the egg, her private life is of no interest to us.

The chicken neither recognizes the egg when it is still inside her nor when it has been laid. When the chicken sees the egg, she thinks she is confronting the impossible. And suddenly I see the egg in the kitchen and all I see there is food. I do not recognize it. My heart is beating fast. Something is changing inside me. I can no longer see the egg clearly. Apart from each individual egg, apart from the egg one eats, the egg no longer exists for me. I can no longer bring myself to believe in an egg. I find it more and more difficult to believe, I am weak and dying. Farewell. I have been looking at an egg for so long that it has hypnotized me and sent me to sleep.

The chicken had no desire to sacrifice her life. She who had chosen to be ‘happy’. She who had failed to perceive that if she were to spend her life designing the egg inside herself like an illuminated manuscript, she would be doing all that could be expected of her. She remained true to herself. She who thought her feathers were to cover her precious skin, unaware that those feathers were only intended to lighten her burden while she carried the egg, because the chicken’s deep suffering might put the egg at risk. She who thought satisfaction was a gift rather than a ploy to keep her totally distracted until the egg had been formed. She who did not know that ‘I’ is only one of the words people jot down on paper when answering the telephone, a mere attempt to find some more convenient form. She who thought that I means to possess a selfness. The chickens in greatest danger of harming the egg are those who pursue a relentless I. Their I is so persistent that they cannot pronounce the word egg. But who knows, perhaps this is precisely what the egg needs. Because if they were not so distracted and were to pay closer attention to the great life forming inside them, they might disturb the egg.

I began discussing the chicken, yet for some time now I have said nothing about the chicken. I am still talking about the egg. Only to realize that I do not understand the egg. All I understand is a broken egg: broken in the frying pan. And this is how I indirectly pledge myself to the egg’s existence. My sacrifice is to reduce myself to my inner self. I have concealed my destiny with my joys and sorrows. Like those in the convent who sweep floors and wash linen, serving without the glory of any higher office, my task is to live my joys and sorrows. It is essential that I should possess the modesty of living. In the kitchen I take one more egg and break its shell and form. And from this very moment the egg no longer exists. It is most important that I should be kept occupied and distracted. I am essentially one of those who renege. I belong to the freemasonry of those who, once having seen the egg, reject it as a form of protection. Anxious to avoid destruction, we destroy ourselves. Agents in disguise and assigned to discreet enquiries, we occasionally recognize each other. A certain manner of looking, a certain way of shaking hands, help us to recognize each other, and we call this love. Then there is no further need for disguise. Though one does not speak, one does not hear either; though one may be telling the truth, there is no further need for pretence. Love prospers, especially between a man and woman, when one is allowed to share a little more. Few people desire true love because love shakes our confidence in everything else. And few can bear to lose all their other illusions. There are some who opt for love in the belief that love will enrich their personal lives. On the contrary: love is poverty, in the end. Love is to possess nothing. Love is also the deception of what one believed to be love. And it is not a prize likely to make one conceited. Love is not a prize. It is a state conceded only to those who would otherwise contaminate the egg with their private sorrow. This does not make an honourable exception of love. It is conceded precisely to those unworthy agents who would spoil everything unless they were allowed some vague intuition.

All the agents enjoy many advantages in order to ensure the egg is formed. There is no cause for envy, because even the worst of the conditions imposed on some agents happen to be the ideal conditions for the egg. As for the satisfaction of the agents, they receive that, too, without conceit. They quietly savour any satisfaction. This is the sacrifice we make so that the egg may be formed. We have been endowed with a nature which has a considerable capacity for satisfaction, which helps to make satisfaction less painful. There are instances of agents who commit suicide: they discover that the handful of instructions at their disposal are insufficient and sense a lack of support. There was the case of the agent who publicly revealed his identity because he could not bear not to be understood, just as he found it intolerable not to be respected by others. He died after being run over as he was leaving a restaurant. There was another agent who did not even need to be eliminated: he slowly burned himself up in disgust, a disgust which overwhelmed him when he discovered that the few instructions he had been given explained nothing. Another agent was also eliminated because he thought ‘the truth should be spoken courageously’, and he set about searching for that truth. People say he died in the name of truth, but in fact he simply obscured truth, he was so ingenuous. His seeming courage was mere folly and his desire for loyalty was naïve. He had failed to understand that loyalty is not something pure, that to be loyal is to be disloyal to all the rest. These extreme cases of death are not provoked by cruelty. There is a job to be done which one might term cosmic, and unfortunately individual cases cannot be taken into consideration. For those who succumb and become individuals, there are instructions, there is charity, there is an understanding which does not discriminate between motives — our human life, in short.