Because Professor Lyubanarov was spouting languages she did not understand, in the unmistakable, pathetically high-flown speech of the chronically inebriated. The diatribe of habitual drunkenness flowed from his trembling mouth, punctuated by facial twitches and wild fits of laughter, which he slurped back in with rattling sobs; by visionary gestures; by grand, overarching gesticulations and sudden moments of glaze-eyed stupefaction. Full of torment and desire, he delivered his confession, replete with self-accusation and self-humiliation, with the embedded rage, scorn, megalomania, and orphic tones — the nonsense and profundity of a blind seer, who gropes through the purplish surge of dissolved connections and suddenly uncovers a brilliant insight for which he first finds wondrous words that then dissipate in confused speech. He had taken hold of Tildy’s arm and gripped it tightly as he spoke with manic, desperate urgency:
“… Are you the man I think you are? Can you understand me? If you are, then you’re bound to understand … Omnes, unde amor iste, rogant, tibi? Venit Apollo: Galle, quid insanis? inquit: tua cura Lycoris, perque nives alium perque horrida castra secuta est … Ecquis erit modus? inquit … And listen to this: Amor non talia curat. Nec lacrimis crudelis Amor—Are you listening? — nec lacrimis crudelis Amor saturantur. So, despise me! All of you! Look down on me! Who can claim to understand me? Virgil — the great Virgil! Did you even comprehend the words? All ask: ‘Whence this love of yours?’ Apollo came. ‘Gallus,’ he said, ‘what madness this? Your sweetheart Lycoris has followed another amid snows and amid rugged camps. Will there be no end?’ … To which he replied: ‘Love recks naught of this.’ You hear that? Love recks naught of this: neither is cruel Love sated with tears.” He was shaken by more sobbing. “I know, I know, I am despicable, the most despicable of the despicable. I am the town cuckold. I am not Gallus, you hear, and she is not Lycoris — she is a whore.” He laughed. “As soon as his wife perceived that her husband was asleep, this august harlot, ha-ha! — august harlot! — was shameless enough to prefer a common mat to the imperial couch. Assuming a night-cowl, and attended by a single maid, she issued forth; then, having concealed her raven locks under a light-colored peruque, she took her place in a brothel reeking with long-used coverlets. Entering an empty cell reserved for herself, she there took her stand, under the feigned name of Lycisca, her nipples bare and gilded, and exposed to view the womb. Here she graciously received all comers, asking from each his fee; and when at length the keeper dismissed the rest, she remained to the very last before closing her cell, and with passion still raging hot within her went sorrowfully away. Then, exhausted but unsatisfied, with soiled cheeks, and begrimed with the smoke of lamps, she took back to the imperial pillow all the odors of the stews … O help me, help me in my shame! But who will show compassion? Perhaps yourself? Didn’t you have her as well? Tell me, haven’t you had her as well — ha-ha! You don’t let yourself be taken aback, sir, my compliments! You don’t let yourself be baffled. Allow me to introduce myself: Dr. Lyubanarov, formerly professor at the University of Sofia. It is my habit to baffle the students, in order to catch their ignorance off guard — except for the one who answers immediately: Book Two, Second Satire of Decimus Junius Juvenalis, the Martial of the Eloquent, facundus, verses two hundred sixteen to two hundred thirty-two … It is a satire, sir. Life plays out in satires … But you, sir, let us speak of you—let us speak of pride. A pride such as yours, does it not come from the fact that you despise yourself every moment you are not proving yourself? But what do you know about that, sir! This dog with his tail cut off: people point at him, ridicule him, and he is ashamed to show himself, and not ashamed that he is ashamed … The core of his character remains undestroyed — you know what I mean — the core of the character of this dog … Base creatures bow to higher ones and exact their revenge as best they can … But you, my brother? Come closer, I want to tell this to you, because you are my brother-in-law … I don’t have the honor of knowing you, sir, except from seeing you and hearing about you and I know that you are my brother-in-law — I want to tell this to you: that, too, is a satire, an indirect and droll satire, a satire meant for laughing. The world is made of laughter: the angels laugh at humans; the archangels laugh at the angels; and God laughs at everything … He even laughs at the anguish that stems from your pride just as he laughs at the anguish that stems from my love. Omnia vincit amor; et nos cedamus amori … And God laughs at that. She fornicates with the whole city — they’re all whores—trahit sua quemque voluptas—and He laughs. But you do not! You refuse to change your expression. You lack those two common lines that laughter cuts on either side of the mouth — no, not laughter, nature cuts them there, because she is ashamed, because she wants to place parentheses around the meanness of the human face … But not you. You could be beautiful, you know that? But you are not beautiful, Mr. Brother-in-law, you do not have a face; you have pasted a decal above your collar and in back of that, where everyone else, all the base ones, have a soul that bleeds, you have one that we see sweating … Is that why you came here? Did you want to see if the mongrels still step out of your way, Herr Major? Permit me to introduce myself, I am your brother-in-law. You were so generous as to risk your life for the sake of my honor, we are brothers — but it is the brotherhood of Cain and Abel. Did you ever think how much your generosity would drag me through the mud? Now everyone knows, now the mongrels on the street step out of my way. But see: I laugh. I am humiliated, and therefore I can laugh. I laugh, you see — I am a god! I am a god … I am a god …”
The girl at his side had turned to Tildy, her mouth hinting at an ironic, patient female smile. He was completely unknown to her; she knew nothing about him, and particularly nothing of his relationship to Lyubanarov, and she hadn’t understood a single word of what the professor had been saying, although she was well acquainted with his monologues. Nor did she notice any dismay in Tildy’s face, only that he seemed extremely exhausted, and she felt a mocking pity for the unruffled patience with which he withstood the pathetic surge of words, the terrible boredom, that — as she knew from experience — drunken diatribes unleash. But when her shortsighted eyes brought his image into sharper focus, she observed that beneath the very properly trimmed black mustache his mouth was completely helpless — the mouth of someone who has delivered himself up to the mercy of others. Nonetheless, his bearing remained that of a polite listener; his face showed no sign of suffering. She saw that his short sideburns had turned gray, and her half smile gave way to a soft, thoughtful expression. She found herself facing a man of better background and breeding than she had ever encountered. This was an elegance she did not know but immediately sensed and understood. And like everyone endowed with a greater sensitivity and a quicker mind — no matter what they might call, or to what they might attribute, such dubious advantages — she felt a kinship with the elegance. The fable of her better birth and future riches had given her a keen sense of human qualities; it made no difference where it came from, whether her mother had fed her the lie in desperation, spinning the promise of a bright future for her own consolation, thinking that the hope it would awaken would become her own; or whether people had made it up out of scorn, to ridicule her for being different, for being so maladroit and unskilled when it came to everyday life, the profane accomplishments at which those of more robust constitution so excel. She was still close enough to being a child that the first impression she gave was of a highly sensitive, quickly unsettled creature, happily dreaming away — an easy target for the hate of petty people. The aura of this childhood had made her oblivious to the absolute scorn with which people called her “the American girl,” poking fun at her background; she accepted the moniker as a distinction. She was entirely spared from reflection on her current existence. She lived in the future, the future that had been promised to her. She was not fallen. The indescribably shabby elegance of the Établissement Mon Repos still represented the big wide world to her, even though she realized there was another, larger and more luxurious, one. But that’s exactly what was headed her way, exactly what she was expecting here. It was natural for her to give herself to the men; it suited her playful, feline coquetry and her great tenderness, and the fact that she received money for doing so caused her even less concern. Now and then she referred to it as her “profession”—with the earnest sincerity of a child absorbed in play — and she kept an account of all her income and obligations. Despite all these traits that might be called infantile or backward, however, she possessed a deep femininity, which found its most visible expression in her brilliant sense of fashion, and which ran through her entire being. When Tildy looked up and their gazes met, it was this sense that allowed her to recognize who he was, and that recognition was written clearly in her eyes.