Ferdydurke Read Online Free PDF Page A

belonged to those who valued me, or to those who did not.
    But, worse still—hating the semi-educated rabble, hating it with a vengeance, perhaps as no one has ever hated it before—I played into their hands; I shunned the elite and the aristocracy, and flew from their friendly and open arms into the boorish paws of those who considered me a juvenile. How one organizes oneself and toward what one directs oneself is actually of primary importance and crucial to one's development—in actions, for example, in speech and twaddle, in one's writing—whether one directs oneself solely toward those who are mature and fully evolved, toward a world of crystal-clear ideas, or whether one lets oneself be constantly plagued by the specter of the rabble, of immaturity, of schoolboys and schoolgirls, of gentry and peasantry, of cultural aunts, of journalists and columnists, by the specter of the shady, murky demimonde that lies in wait to slowly entwine you in the green of its creepers, lianas, and other African plants. Not for one moment could I forget the little not-quite world of the not-quite-human, and yet, terrified and disgusted as I was and shuddering at the very thought of that swampy green, I could not tear myself away from it, mesmerized by it like a little birdie by a snake. As if some demon were tempting me with immaturity! As if I were favoring, against my very nature, the lower class and loving it—because it held me captive as a juvenile. Even if I strained all my faculties I would not have been able to speak with intelligence, not even for a moment, because I knew that somewhere in the provinces a doctor would think that I was silly anyway, and would expect nothing of me but silliness; and I could not be on my best behavior, nor comport myself decendy in social situations, because I knew that schoolgirls, someplace, expected nothing of me but indecencies. Truly, in the world of the spirit, rape is the order of the day, we are forced to be as others see us, and to manifest ourselves through them, we are not autonomous, and what's more—my personal calamity came from an unhealthy delight in actually making myself dependent on green youths, juveniles, teenage girls, and cultural aunts. To have that cultural aunt forever on your back—to be naive because someone who is naive thinks you are naive—to be silly because some silly person thinks you are silly—to be green because someone who is immature dunks and bathes you in greenness of his own—indeed, that could drive you crazy, were it not for the little word "indeed," which somehow lets you go on living! To brush against a higher and more mature realm and yet be unable to penetrate it, to be but a step from refinement, elegance, wisdom, dignity, from mature judgments and mutual respect, from hierarchy and acknowledged values, and yet to merely lick those sweetmeats through the shop window, and have no access to these matters, to be superfluous? To associate with adults and still imagine, as at sixteen, that you are merely pretending to be an adult? To pretend you're a writer, a man of letters, to parody literary style and mature, fanciful phrases? To join publicly, as an artist, the merciless fray for the survival of your true "self," while at the same time covertly siding with your enemies?
    Ah yes, at the outset of my public life I did receive a less-than-glorious consecration, and I was duly anointed by the lower class. Yet what complicated matters even more was the fact that my social demeanor left much to be desired, I was fumbling along, inadequate and helpless in relation to those semi-brilliant men of the world. My awkwardness, stemming from contrariness, or perhaps from anxiety, would not let me identify myself with any aspect of maturity, and, out of sheer panic, I would quite often pinch the very person whose spirit reached out to my spirit with approval. I envied those literary men, exalted and predestined to higher things from the cradle, whose