Could it be that the dictator too is an artist, obsessed with the impossible? Could we consider the diseased, fanatical boy who called himself Caligula a poet just because he appointed his favorite horse to a ministerial post? Does the gigantically morbid ever achieve the ineffable distant horizon all poetry strives toward? Is the despot a knight of utopia?
Duality inheres in every human being, certainly in poets and also in leaders, even though the latter like to forget it. “The stationmaster in my movie was a White Clown, and thus all of us become Augustuses. When you stand in front of a White Clown, you can’t help but assume the role of Augustus,” confesses Fellini, who then adds: “But only the appearance of an even more sinister clown, the Fascist, transformed us into White Clowns when he forced us to return the Roman salute in a disciplined fashion.”
Finally, the author attempts to define his own location in the fabulous circus of the world. “If I try to imagine myself as a clown, I end up seeing myself as Augustus the Fool.” In the real world it seems risky to venture between the uncertain and diffuse boundaries that define human experience. “Yes, I consider myself an Augustus the Fool, but I am also a White Clown,” Fellini continues. Then he concludes with a meditative sentence: “But perhaps I am the director of the circus, the physician of the mad who has himself become mad.” An outsider, a pariah, a melancholy dreamer and an unwavering researcher, an undecided mime, a man obsessed by irresolvable questions.
Does the chimera of reality become more real than reality itself? Among the characters whose passions and follies the artist lives through, whose disasters he “appropriates” and whose abysses he illuminates, he must not forget that of the tyrant. We encounter the tyrant among children, as well as among despotic kindergarten teachers, among married couples and lovers, parents, grandparents, co-workers, and recruits. Only too often, he sits on the highest throne and terrorizes a whole nation, a whole world. He lives his part without being aware of it; he is simply an aberration of nature. Paradoxically or not, only art can render this horrifying, real, cyclical natural catastrophe credible and mysterious. (Alfred Jarry’s words on his deathbed reveal the identification that can exist between an author and his creation: “Daddy Ubu will now try to sleep.”)
The minor comedian, the paranoid hero, who has fulfilled his ambition to take over the world’s great stage for a while with his attacks of arrogance, devastating masquerades, absurd rituals — it is possible that even he, the tyrant, is granted moments of fanatical insight, but he will never be blessed with the clarity and talent of the artist who interprets him for a while. Chaplin plays Hitler with the same degree of genius that he applied to so many other, different, even diametrically opposed, roles, whereas Hitler only “played” himself.
Does unwavering observation of the grotesqueness and vanity of Power finally lead one to a kind of compassion tinged with fear, or to an arrogant feeling of purity and superiority?
During my final year over there I saw him at close range. Not on television, greeted with somersaults and magic tricks by some presidential colleague at some foreign circus, or on a trip within the country on the occasion of one of those “working visits” that begin with the howling and twitching of the masses, continue with his advice bestowed on trained slaves in factories, stables, colleges, crematoria, schools for parrots, and end with an endless speech on hairraising visions of the future, the same speech delivered a thousand times before, always in front of the same horrified captive audience.
No, this time I experienced him in tangible proximity. I had just returned from the police precinct where I had submitted my typewriter to its obligatory annual examination: in the national clown’s opinion, only those worthy of a special permit were entitled to the possession of such an instrument. To obtain this special permit, one had to fill out a form and pass an annual test that involved a personal appearance, dangerous machine in hand, at the police precinct of one’s residence, to have the form checked and also to type a control text just in case a letter had changed, an exclamation point or a comma had worn out, or — even worse — in case the owner and hence the machine had been stricken with some contagious disease that could be transmitted through typed pages, causing a collective epidemic. As everyone knows, the viruses of our time are such sly and stubborn creatures, well camouflaged, almost invisible, but aggressive, terribly aggressive, and simply unstoppable once they get going.
I had to wait my turn for over an hour, but everything went without a hitch. There were a lot of people waiting in front of room 23, the number indicated on my form. Particularly impressive were the old folk struggling in with their heavy old models. The three young officials in civilian garb, probably members of the Securitate, were polite and bored, possibly even mildly skeptical about the value of this new circus routine; in any case, the procedure was performed with dispatch.
First came the routine questions. Do you own an automobile? If so, what make? Do you own your apartment or do you live in a stateowned apartment? Who shares it with you? Employment of spouse? Relatives abroad? Trips abroad? Relatives in this country? Any members of the Party Central Committee or employees of the Ministry of the Interior? I knew that the questions had to be answered in writing in one’s own hand. They no longer shocked me as they had the first time, when their absurdity and utter irrelevance to the subject of this test still had an intimidating effect. I filled out the form in a quick scrawl, then typed two copies of the assigned text, as well as two sets of the impressions made by every key, and, once again, received my permit. Feeling quite good about it all, I headed back home with my magical toy.
While still in the elevator, I heard the piercing, paralyzing howl of a police siren. The militia! I hurried to unlock the door to my small apartment and ran to the balcony. The siren didn’t stop, it was announcing an event: a small motorcade consisting of his limousine, then the limousine of his favorite dog, the ever-present huge black Labrador, the emergency physician’s car, three police cars, and finally three less conspicuous vehicles carrying “technical” personnel. A modest convoy indeed, compared with his entourage on other working visits. This was obviously one of those unannounced blitz visits that the nation’s clown decided upon as if struck by lightning, to the dismay of his unprepared subjects. Undoubtedly a surprise visit, because otherwise the sidewalks would have been packed with a dense crowd of applauding citizens, women, children, soldiers, employees, transported here for that express purpose.
The national clown wished to inspect the progress of construction of the White Palace. He had ordered the razing of some of the prettiest quarters of the city to make room for the palace and the Circus Boulevard that cut the city in two — or nine, or however many — segments, so that the Great Presidential Circus would finally dominate the skyline.
The convoy came to a halt next to the small bridge across the stinking waters of the city canal. He wanted to view the Perspectives of the Future. Around him swirled a gaggle of subordinates waving and carrying plans, maps, and portfolios, anxiously eager to anticipate the direction of his next step and to decipher the meaning of his every gesture with due alacrity. These were elegantly attired gentlemen, construction engineers, sculptors, decorators with crazed purple faces, jerking about in a frenetic St Vitus’ dance, stumbling and stammering.
The surrounding balconies filled with gawkers: office workers, housewives, children. This was not the command audience that would obey police instructions to congregate at predestined points along the clown’s route. For a moment one couldn’t know what to expect from this mass of people; then some began to … applaud.