Silence. God’s island floats solitary and abandoned. Now all there is is the pit and the tracks across the street.
“There are so many things I did wrong,” he says. “Who hasn’t?” I ask.
He props his elbows on his knees, props his head on his hands again, and looks at me like that. Then he shakes his head: “No, not just some things. I did everything wrong. And treated people badly. And why? For nothing, for a figment of the imagination.”
“A figment of the imagination?” I say. “Is there anything else in life?”
But he looks at the floor. The black chasm holds him fast.
He seems old now, ravaged and bedraggled. God’s incomprehensibility is too much for him. I think about myself. Will it really all turn out to have been a mistake?
He stares at the floor and I stand next to him and look down at the shiny, threadbare back of his jacket. “In a month the crocuses will be in bloom,” I say. He looks up at me. Then, suddenly, he’s standing up and sticking his head out into the hall. “Mie, you’re burning the milk again.”
When I’m back outside I see, across the street, next to the fence, here in this slum, in the grimy slush, two German naval officers.
February 7–12, 1942
(CONTINUED)
There is yet another section of “Insula Dei” that tells how Dikschei made love with Helena den Oever, Flip’s niece and the spitting image of her grandmother.
But that section is absolutely not appropriate for publication. In any case, you can imagine it perfectly well for yourself without much difficulty if you care to remember how you yourself have made love. And if you’re a couple who still get along well, you will look at each other and she’ll lower her eyes and you won’t find your thoughts unpleasant or dishonorable in the least.
You might well have also found it pleasant to read that section. But even so, I’d rather leave it out. I know these cultured, fine, up-standing men and women who would never let themselves go as far as bestial behavior, the ones who like to call themselves and each other Society. I know them. I can already hear what they’d say, already read the little articles they’d publish, if this lovemaking — the wild and tender human passion that drives us all, more than we even realize — went on sale one day in the bookstore, just like that.
I thank you. So as not to think about the impervious entity called the State. Or a group of friends among themselves. Or the way my friend Bonnema would sputter and make faces if he read it.
I will just have to wait until our civilization finally develops a noble frankness and candor once again.
Which I say so that you’ll think I imagine I’ll live forever.
February 13, 1942
NOTES
NESCIO published three books in his lifetime, barely. The stories generally recognized as his major works—“The Freeloader,” “Young Titans,” and “Little Poet”—were first published in book form, after a relatively long hunt for a publisher, in 1918 (“The Freeloader” and “Young Titans” had previously appeared in magazines). The book was not a commercial success, with a first printing of five hundred copies and a second edition coming only in 1933, from a different publisher, and a third in 1947. In 1942, Nescio assembled a manuscript of unpublished pieces dating back as far as 1913; five of those stories, plus a very short sixth piece from 1943, were published as his second book, Mene Tekel, in 1946 (later combined with the fourth edition of “The Freeloader,” “Young Titans,” and “Little Poet” in 1956). Finally, the book Boven het dal [Above the Valley] appeared in May 1961: an unusual compilation consisting of the 1942 manuscript, including the stories previously published in Mene Tekel, plus seven additional unpublished stories selected by an editorial committee. Nescio had little direct involvement in putting together the volume and died very soon after its publication, on July 25, 1961. Nescio’s Collected Works appeared in two substantial volumes in 1996, with the second volume containing the Nature Diary he kept of his frequent excursions in Holland from 1946 to 1955. The Nature Diary was a revelation to Dutch readers and the edition was a great success.
The present volume contains all of Nescio’s major work and a representative selection of his other fiction, both published and unpublished during his lifetime. The stories appear in chronological order of their writing, not their publication. “The Writing on the Wall” and “Out Along the IJ” are from Mene Tekel; “The Valley of Obligations” and “Insula Dei” are from Above the Valley. For “From an Unfinished Novel” and “The End,” see the notes below.
THE FREELOADER
Dutch title: “De uitvreter,” sometimes translated as “The Mooch” or “The Sponger,” literally someone who eats up everything you’ve got. The narrator’s name, “Koekebakker,” literally “cookie baker,” means an inept or silly bungler; Grönloh wanted to use Koekebakker as his pseudonym, but De Gids (the magazine where “The Freeloader” was first published) may have objected — in any case he decided on Nescio. “Koekebakker” is pronounced roughly “Coo-cuh-bocker”; “Japi” is pronounced “Yoppy.”
YOUNG TITANS
Dutch title: “Titaantjes,” literally “Little Titans,” sometimes translated as “Little Giants” or “Young Turks.” The diminutive “-tje” is very widely used in Dutch (including in the title “Little Poet”) and thus has a wide range of connotations besides size: affection, condescension, camaraderie, nostalgia, sarcasm, and so on.
“J’ai attendu le Seigneur avec une grande patience, enfin il s’est abaissé jusqu’ à moi”: “I waited patiently for the Lord, and he inclined unto me [and heard my cry],” the beginning of Psalm 40, quoted in French from Frederik van Eeden’s 1900 novel Van de koele meeren des doods (I thank Sam de Groot for the reference).
“Per me si va nella città dolente” and “Per me si va tra la perduta gente”: “Through me you enter the city of woe … Through me you enter to join the lost.” Lines inscribed on the Gates of Hell in Dante’s Inferno, Canto III, lines 1 and 3.
THE WRITING ON THE WALL
Dutch title: “Mene Tekel.” “Mene, Mene, Tekel, Uparshin” are the words that appear on Belshazzar’s palace wall in the Book of Daniel (5:1–30): Daniel interprets “Mene” to mean “God has numbered the days of your kingdom and brought it to an end,” and “Tekel” to mean “You have been weighed on the scales and found wanting.” This episode is the origin of the phrase “the writing on the wall” in English.
OUT ALONG THE IJ
Dutch title: “Buiten-IJ,” the geographical feature (literally “Outer IJ”) at the center of the story. The IJ, the river which widens into the harbor in Amsterdam — like “ij” any time it appears in Dutch — is pronounced roughly like “eye.”
LITTLE POET
Dutch title: “Dichtertje.” The story was written remarkably quickly for Nescio — in this case, the date he gave at the end, “June — July 1917,” was his entire period of composition.
“Bellum transit, amor manet”: Latin: “War passes, love remains” (cf. “Tempus fugit, amor manet”).