impressions of mr pyridine

Impressions of MrPyridine

ANDREI VYSHINSKY’S MASTERPIECE OF RUSSIAN SURREALISM,

TRANSLATED BY M. SINGH

IMPRESSIONS of MR PYRIDINE 10/25/05 2:28 PM Page CVRA

Long after the tumultuous heyday of European Surreal-

ism faded into memory, Andrei Vyshinsky, the quin-

tessential proto-proto-Surrealist, made his belated en-

trance. An embarrassment while he lived, a minor

scandal when he died, he had long been relegated to the unenvi-

able office of serving as a mere footnote in the pages of the most

arcane scholarly journals. His critically acknowledged master-

piece, IMPRESSIONS OF MR PYRIDINE, had survived only as

an appendix to an equally obscure 19th-century treatise on com-

parative anatomy and vivisectionism, THE CLINICAL MOR-PHOLOGY OF THE PARIMUTUEL. For over a century the IM-PRESSIONS languished in the back pages of that mouldering

tome, interspersed with the medical illustrations (reproduced for

the first time in this edition) that the publisher could not find

room for in the main body of the text. To crown this injustice, Dr

Roland Freisler, the self-serving author of the CLINICAL MOR-PHOLOGY, dedicated the entire work to the unfortunate Vyshin-

sky, whom he eulogized as “a vivisectionist’s dream, a veritable

Adonis upon the fortunate dissectionist’s tray.”

And yet … perhaps it would have been better to allow

Vyshinsky and his obscure legacy to remain unknown, to

allow him to slumber undisturbed in that peculiarly literary

(and oh-so-revanchiste!) limbo which the poet Henri

Michaux once dubbed “the idiot manchild of literature, the

smudged footnote, the leering professorial allusion, the gin-

soaked crumbs of cocktail party banter!” Vyshinky’s mod-

ern-day resurrection as an icon of the so-called “popular

youth culture” has occasioned various incidents which might

certainly smack of the occult to the more simple-minded. One

cannot help but shudder at the plight of the mysterious

Chilean pedant, Ramon O’Bean, who claimed to have discov-

ered the single remaining copy of the IMPRESSIONS in a dis-

used Turkish toilet. Those tattered pages proved as inauspi-

cious to him as they had to their creator; O’Bean was dead

within a month, the victim of a rare form of blood poisoning

contracted from soiled newsprint. His obscure associate, the

unctuous Mr Blandser, who eventually brought the

IMPRESSIONS to North America, suffered an equally

1

Translator’s Note

© 2005, MAHENDRA SINGHPLEASE DIRECT ALL INQUIRIES CONCERNING ANDREI VYSHINSKY TO:

[email protected]

IMPRESSIONS of MR PYRIDINE 10/25/05 2:28 PM Page CVRB

When Mr Pyridine first opened his eyes hewas rising effortlessly through the air.1

His rapid motion through the night skychurned the storm clouds into a black

froth from which lightning bolts darted out periodical-ly to incinerate every man or beast in their path. Ourhero plunged down to these carbonized hulks andcompleted the fragmentation of their flesh with hisown hands and then clasping them to his chitinousbreast, bore them away to his stormcloud lair. Thestroboscopic effects of the lightning, that terrible windwhich contorted his angry face, they remind one ofthose colossal winged creatures which are said by cer-

tain savants to have haunted the skies in antediluviantimes. They also pursued their hapless prey in themidst of vast aerial maelstroms and seized them insteel talons. Mementos of their ancient domain are em-bedded in the peaks of great mountains, their fossilspetrified in the final contortions of unimagineable, ter-rible death throes. Their raucous and noisesome ar-madas once blackened the prehistoric heavens andparalyzed the hearts of those first men, our misshapenancestors, with an unimaginable fear, a terror whichendures in the frantic nightmares which awake us allin the deepest hour of the night. This ancient fear too,is immortalized by our hero.

1. The author once remarked to Freisler (in an ill-advised

moment of so-called bonhomie) that he was growing fond of

rising every morning. Muffled groans and thumps were quite

often heard from behind his locked bedroom door; these dis-

turbing noises invariably reached a crescendo at sunrise, the

precise hour at which one might reasonably expect the reclu-

sive genius to arise from his sleep! Conversely, the hammer-

ing and sawing noises which one heard in his room at all

hours of the day and night always diminished or even ceased

entirely at that same hour!

3

Chapter One

FIG. 1 — “PARALYZED THE PAN-TALOONS OF THE FIRST MEN”.

bizarre fate; he was killed in a compressed-air explosion

while nursing his invalid mother.

We must admit that in this case life is imitating art (with

a terrible vengeance) for the essential nature of the

IMPRESSIONS is fundamentally malevolent, not only towards

its creator and those who had retrieved it from oblivion but more

to the point, towards its readers. This hostility is transcenden-

tal in its metaphysical implications for it is not just the ordi-

nary quotidian scorn of an author for his swinish readers, it is

a systematic and deliberate attempt on the author’s part to

overcome his artistic ennui (self-inflicted, perhaps?) and finish

off — or as Vyshinsky once joked — “rape the schweinhunde

once and for all!”

Naturally, such an unusual artistic motive makes this

translator’s labors even more arduous, since to translate one

must read the text and thus become both victim and accomplice

in Vyshinsky’s sadomasochistic scheme! The translator’s task,

difficult at the best of times, is now transformed into an act of

self-abasement which further strengthens the already hyperac-

tive textual undercurrents that threaten to drown him. Perhaps

now we can better appreciate Dr Freisler’s cryptic remark that

Vyshinsky “was a hard nut to crack … very difficult to pin

down for too long.” This translator sympathizes with the long-

dead German vivisectionist; he too has spent many a sleepless

night wrestling with “that mad, dead Russian and his inter-

minable, utterly pointless catalog of all the ways that living

flesh may be fragmented in the German language.”

Finally, a heartfelt word of thanks to Monsignor

Fitzcarraldo Freisler, who so generously allowed me access to

his grandfather’s personal papers. Despite the most appalling

physical infirmities, that courtly gentleman insisted on assist-

ing me personally with my researches and was especially

invaluable in procuring for me the considerable number of idiot

savants that proved indispensable in the proofing of the final

galleys of this work. Any errors or omissions which occur in this

work cannot be laid at their earnest, though palsied feet. They

are entirely mine.

— M. SINGH, MONTRÉAL, QUÉBEC

2

FIG. 1 — “PARALYZED THE PAN-TALOONS OF THE FIRST MEN”.FIG. 1 — “PARALYZED THE PAN-TALOONS OF THE FIRST MEN”.

IMPRESSIONS of MR PYRIDINE 10/25/05 2:28 PM Page 2

ered between the heavens and the earth like Mahometsuspended in the void, leering at the abyss beneath hisiron coffin.

He leaped from his web suspended above the throb-bing heart of a great jungle; he cast himself into its depths,falling through the strata of dense growths, rotting vege-

tation, these trackless labyrinths of the tropics. He cameto rest finally upon the foundation of mouldering plantflesh that underlay the jungle. Nourished by this rich hu-mus, a process of vegetilization germinated within him.3

Delicate blood-red tendrils sprouted from his somnolentbody and inched towards the surface. Monsoons

3. In his unusually detailed post mortem (running

well over 2,000 pages!) Dr Freisler noted the presence

of certain minute and ciliate growths upon all of

the deceased’s (Vyshinsky’s) limbs, which were

themselves oddly gnarled and misshapen and

also possessed of a peculiar green tint, not unlike

that of a garden salad . . . such as they serve

in the Hotel Metropole.”

5

A menacing shape hovered over the shattered debrisof a typhoon. It allowed itself to drift over the ocean’swaves while its raucous cries echoed over the turbulentwaters. When the wind shifted Mr Pyridine struck, div-ing headlong into the foam then emerging with his preytightly clasped in his claws. Muffled groans and sobs

filled the night air and only when they ceased did he de-scend again to his unfinished feast. Megalomania suchas this is unique, perhaps invincible! In the sacred tem-ples of the world holy icons wept tears of pure vitriol;the votary candles sputtered gouts of burning humanflesh; priests sensed unseen hands clutching at theirgenitals.2 It was then that Mr Pyridine knew that hisprayers had been granted; yes, he rejoiced as he hov-

2. Vyshinsky claimed repeatedly that his wife was in the

habit of making unannounced visits to his bedroom while he

was unconscious. During these surreptitious visits she would

fondle, or as he would put it in his awkwardly broken

English, “address” his genitals and then swim away before he

could summon help.

4

FIG. 3 — “SPINAL ANABASIS,THE MEDICO MURMURED, NEVER SEEN NOTHIN’ LIKE IT, GOV!”

FIG. 2 — “HIS UNFINISHED FEAST, INDEED!”

IMPRESSIONS of MR PYRIDINE 10/25/05 2:28 PM

6 7

FIG. 4 — “AND YET THE PAR-LORMAID KNEW HIM NOT!”


9

drenched him and the mummified amniotic tissues thatcurled around him were washed away. As the seasonpassed, the vegetative Pyridine erected lurid clusters ofleaves that unfolded to reveal the odd tattoos prickedupon their surfaces, curious pictographs which may puz-zle botanists but are instantly decipherable by us, the ini-

tiated. These leaves were laced with a delicate web ofveins which bore the flow of his thick, turgid blood. Anycreature foolish enough to break or crush them wasthreatened with an instant death as these ruptured veinsspilled forth their torrent of spirochetes and bacteria, theprecious legacies of Mr Pyridine’s life of dissipation.

A new race of insects evolved to pollinate the mis-shapen sexual organs4 that erected themselves upon the

4. A passage of unusual importance and painful honesty,

especially in light of Vyshinsky’s claim that his own genitalia

were congenitally deformed to resemble an outstretched and

leather-gloved hand grasping a small mouse. He also claimed

that during the Great War he was forced to pawn the glove to

purchase food for his rapidly growing family, an event which

he always referred to as “Black October”. The mouse, weak-

ened by cold and lack of proper nourishment, died shortly

thereafter of influenza. Freisler has theorized at some length

(and with an uncustomary vigor) that this particular episode

of the IMPRESSIONS is a final, desperate attempt on the part

of the author to make a space for his forbiddingly alien geni-

talia within the charmed circle of familial and social dis-

course. Vyshinsky’s habit of refusing to breathe in public and

his final, tragic attempt to live underwater probably stem

from this primal act of self-abasement.

8

FIG. 5 — “THE ODD TATTOOS, SO ODD INDEED!”


uppermost growths of the vegetative Pyridine. Strick-en by some strange, mimetic fervor, they soon degener-ated into bloated, stinging creatures armored with flu-orescent carapaces and whiplike stingers with whichthey lashed themselves while mating with one another.They huddled on tree limbs, laughing and quarrelingnoisily while they grew drunk on the miasma of thesickly-sweet nectar they extracted from Mr Pyridine.When a luckless human wandering the jungle pathsblundered too close to them, they seized their delectableprey before he could even cry out and then bundledhim, still alive, into the communal hive where their pu-pae could sip leisurely at his nutritious fluids.

When the rains ceased flocks of migratory birdsalighted upon the jungle growths. Their mellifluoussongs and trills gave way to guttural cries and blas-phemies as they also slipped under the Pyridinicspell. Even their innate love for all bright and shinyobjects was transformed into the most vicious urgesas they pecked at each other’s eyes for sport. Thejeers of these birds became deafening when theirblinded brethren5 flew away in terror, dashing outtheir brains against the vast tree trunks surroundingthem. The noise of these maddened creatures, thedroning of monstrous insects and the howls of en-raged predators now overwhelmed the jungle; anewborn malevolence turned each beast against itsown kind.

Deep in the heart of the wilderness a solitary flowerbegan to swell and throb. It arched itself above thecanopy of trees around it; it panted in its haste to erectits convoluted folds and part its fleshy lips, betweenwhich was revealed Mr Pyridine nestled in his glisten-ing, vegetative womb.

He leaped to his feet; an involuntary cry of admira-tion escaped the jungle, for he was the most beautifuland the most dangerous of all the beasts now. Duringhis long gestation every muscle and organ of his bodyhad been reborn but for one — his skin — which wasmissing entirely. The minute drops of blood exudingfrom his flesh gave his body a glossy sheen; his teethgrinned in a lipless rictus of joy; his eyes glittered mad-ly without their lids.

Now the most infamous predators6 crept submis-sively to the feet of Mr Pyridine. Each bore its ownpeculiar tribute: the hyena with its severed humanleg, the vulture clutching a single child’s hand in itssanguine talons, a jaguar daintily gripping two eye-lids between its fangs. From each piece of humancarrion Mr Pyridine took whatever was necessaryto his grim purpose. How elegant the sight, thespectacle of our hero adjusting the jet-black skin ofa slaughtered tribesman over his shoulders. Andhow the beasts howled when he donned, so primly!the plump, milky-white breasts of an European ma-tron atop his broad chest; they applauded wildly thereborn Pyridine who now preened himself beforethem, clad in his gaudy patchwork skin of every sexand race and age.

That night, dear reader, was filled with bestialhowls and groans as the jungle slaked the awaken-ing lusts of our hero. To this day only pale wraithsinhabit this zone of the tropics and the legacy ofPyridine miscegenates itself perpetually into theman-headed panthers and pale-skinned apes thathaunt these melancholy forests. They wander aim-lessly by day and night through the jungle; whetherasleep or awake their thoughts are obsessed withthe collective dreams of another, even more inhu-man jungle that only you and I have known. Thehorror, the horror!

5. The motif of eyes and blinding preoccupied Vyshinsky

after his wife’s tragic, final accident. The stricken husband

eschewed affixing the usual black armband around his

coatsleeve in favor of a pair of thick, nearly-opaque sun-

glasses which he wore at all hours of the day and night.

Reading any of his manuscripts from this particular period

of his life is impossible, not only because of the erratic

orthography (which Freisler insinuated to be rather too

closely patterned after the proto-Runic system of the

Cimmerians) but also because of the author’s novel method

of working, a system of his own device in which thin sheets

of cigarette paper were pasted together in their thousands

and then scrawled upon with a soft carpenter’s pencil. When

asked by Freisler why he persisted in wearing such dark

glasses, he replied that “the light is quite dark enough for

her now, my good Doctor.” (vide Freisler, THE CLINICAL

MORPHOLOGY OF THE PARIMUTUEL, pp. 307-421)

6. Although Freisler denied it all his life, the phrase

“infamous predators” almost certainly refers to him. By the

time of the composition of the IMPRESSIONS, Vyshinsky

must have realized to his horror that the mysterious Mr

Blandser, who had attempted to remove all the oxygen in his

bedroom with a vacuum pump, was none other than Freisler

in blackface!

11

FIG. 6 —”FORWARD, MEN, FORWARD, HE CRIED AND THENPLUNGED, LIFELESS AND INCARNADINED, INTO HER.”

10


FIG. 7 — “ECCE HOMINID!”

12 13

FIG. 7 — “ECCE HOMINID!”FIG. 7 — “ECCE HOMINID!”


15

Mr Pyridine reentered the city under a pa-rade of clouds emblazoned with all the in-signia of his hypnomythic jungle ancestry:basilisks, hippogriffs and cameleopards.

Bewildered children, puzzled by the absence of theirfamiliar aerial portents and omens, could only cursethese nebulous chimeras tumbling and cavorting in thesky overhead.7

He stepped down from a train in the station andthe steel rails slithered into pythons and cobras. Mo-ments later, a man overwrought by a failed affair ofthe heart tried to throw himself under the onrushingwheels of a locomotive — only to be bitten and thendie, to his great astonishment, in a dreadful, ven-omous convulsion.

That night our hero passed through the city’s un-derworld of saloons and brothels disguised as a rumor.A drunken pimp claimed to have seen him couplingwith a mare as she thundered down a street pulling ahansom cab, a cab whose sole occupant was an ele-gant, black pantheress.

Mr Pyridine bought a house on the outskirts of thecity. The window drapes were drawn shut permanent-ly and soiled rags sealed the cracks under the doors. Ina wave of nostalgia he allowed the garden to growunchecked into a rank and fetid jungle that soon sur-rounded and concealed his house from prying eyes. Analmost idyllic period followed. Our impression ofPyridine will now take on a dreamlike and crepuscu-lar quality, delineated by hasty sketches of a reclusewho whiled away the long winter nights by cultivatingrashes upon his skin. Stippled with minute, itchingblisters which exuded strange ichors, he collectedthese noxious fluids upon cigarette papers which hesmoked endlessly.

The illustrated magazines of the day were repletewith engraved reproductions of the artistic master-pieces which the mysterious philanthropist, Mr Pyri-

dine had bequeathed to a local museum. An inter-minable series of daguerrotypes depicting notablepublic executions, they featured men dancing fromgallows, bowing to guillotines or glaring at firingsquads. Their common denominator was the discreeterection8, endowed by some ingenious artist with ahalo, that every felon exhibited in his final moments.But is it art, asked the critics?

He attached himself to the city and like a leech,sipped judiciously at the pale froth that passed forblood amongst its anemic citizens. The blood ofyoung lovers is the sweetest and thickest; its headybouquet attracts even the most jaded palate and itsrare flavor spurs the connoisseur into the most in-genious subterfuges. The Pyridinic leech ensnaredthese passionate creatures in the guise of a nipple en-gorged and reddened with lust. They approachedtrembling with their eyes closed blissfully. Their ea-ger lips fastened upon the proffered tumescence andwithin a moment the concealed parasite had wrig-gled down their throats and lodged itself within theirbowels. Engorged with the vital fluids of his host,Mr Pyridine lay entombled in the moist,labyrinthine body cavities which were his new lair.His swelling mass escaped notice by adapting quick-ly to the contours of his host’s body. Only whenevents had run their natural course did he slough offhis victim’s withered husk and resume his wander-ings. This is the mystery of a leech’s metamorphosis;it reemerges from its host into the world as nakedand frail as when it first concealed itself yet it is notafraid! This world continuously evolves itself tomeet the demanding specifications of all parasites,that particular genus of predators which is its mostdiscerning clientele.

7. Meteorology was one of the many natural phenomena

that the author viewed with suspicion. He often complained

that the concept of barometric pressure was “medieval in its

oppression” and described clouds, mists and even dew as

“frauds perpetrated by certain nameless sadists who, wishing

to create mass hysteria in the great urban centers of the

world, seek to persuade the unwary that they are in danger of

drowning on dry land.”

8. Vyshinsky believed that a penile erection was the

penultimate manifestation of excess water within the body-

corpus, distending the groin and its appurtenances. Fearing

the insidious principle of osmosis, he took care to have him-

self thoroughly waterproofed with a layer of thick rubber

sheeting. It was probably during his attempt to conceive a

fifth child (to replace Josef) that Mrs Vyshinsky finally

drowned.

14

Chapter Two

FIG. 8 — “HIS HYPNOMYTHIC JUNGLE ANCESTRY: BASILISKS, HIPPOGRIFFS AND CAMELEOPARDS.”


17

A dangerously warm spring morning . . . a remotehouse engulfed by a bracken-choked garden. Mr Pyri-dine anxiously bathed a woman in ice water.9 The recentthaw in the weather had awakened certain impulses inthe breast of his companion, impulses which had lain

dormant too long. Now our hero also felt these obscurestirrings, those passions which required lengthy icebaths and the wrapping of cool, awkward limbs in plainlinen shrouds. Candles were lit. She waited for him on abed in a shuttered room; her peculiar perfume filled theair and made his head swim.10 He cupped a rubberybreast with trembling hands, then embraced her. She

9. According to Freisler (and we must take his testimony

with the proverbial grain of salt) Mrs Vyshinsky approached

him for medical advice several days before her death. She

feared that Vyshinsky was concealing some species of large

rodent in their bedroom and indicated the numerous small bite

marks upon her body as evidence of a nocturnal intruder. She

conjectured that it might be a water rat since only an

amphibious creature could safely navigate the considerable

volume of water which now filled the entire room. When

pressed by the Doctor for more details, she admitted that the

sensation of the bites was not unpleasant as such but rather

startling, especially as they seemed to be always accompanied

by a considerable torrent of ice-cold water which invariably

struck her in the face. It was then that Dr Freisler first

broached the subject of vivisection with the author’s wife.

10. Probably meant to be understood literally. Freisler’s

post mortem revealed that Vyshinsky’s upper and lower

maxillae were unusually elongated and fluted, similar in

shape to the fins of a fish. Freisler also theorized that the

constant hammering and sawing noises which emanated

from the author’s bedroom may have been evidence of his

growing doubts about the feasibility of living underwater. In

the CLINICAL MORPHOLOGY Freisler paints a harrow-

ing scene of the lonely artist frantically constructing a raft

from the bedroom furnishings as the water level rises rapid-

ly overhead.

16

FIG. 9 — “”THE CHEERY HUM AND BUSTLE OF BREAKING CROCKERY!”

FIG. 10 — “SHE MOVED UPON HIM BELIKETHE SWAN UPON THE WATERLINGS.”


19

gasped involuntarily. We must be discreet. Let us drawa veil over this bed and its occupants, tiptoe backwardswith fingers crossed over pursed lips, close the doorsilently and wait for nature to take her ugly course.

It is at your feet,11 noble Pyridine, that I lay my hum-ble tribute, these tatters of flesh torn from living scrap-books, these poisonous blossoms pressed betweenclammy thighs. Like a spurned whore I bring every-thing to you, for it is the role of the outraged pimp thatyou most prefer to play. You point to your account bookof atrocities to calculate certain lost opportunities, thenempty my pockets to make the difference. Later you re-lent and lick away my tears to make me presentable; youpromise me undying love and unceasing sympathy if Ionly resume my proper station upon the darkenedstreet. A few more lines, perhaps an entire book — oh,dear reader, if all artists had a muse such as mine! If youdared to finger the web of scars burnt into my flesh bymy muse’s cigarettes, then you too could devise the most

novel alphabets from their pictograms, those arcane hi-eroglyphs necessary for a language that has no objects,only subjects, that is entirely passive in its conjugations,a tongue that cannot decline — only obey.

It was in the spring, that hated season when all sting-ing and creeping things depart their hives, when MrPyridine emerged from his seclusion. The moist andsticky membranes of his cocoon still clung to him andthe sunlight made him gleam with a glossy, chitinoussheen. He navigated the streets with the mincing, side-ways steps of an immense black wasp and when hesmiled at passersby he shamelessly revealed his teethraked back within his mouth in their jagged, endlessranks. He affected the role of a dandy12, a dilettante withblood perpetually caked under well-manicured finger-nails and living vermin writhing in the carnation pinnedto his lapel. He doffed his hat to every woman he metand they favored him with polite smiles — while inside

11. Vyshinsky’s eldest child, Josef, mentioned that his sole

visual memory of his father was of his feet. He remembered

particularly the enormous size and mass of his boots, the

result of Vyshinsky Senior’s habit of wearing only lead-plat-

ed footwear in the hopes of reducing what he termed “my hate-

ful, childish state of natural buoyancy.” Josef never once saw

his father’s face (nor any other part of his body) for the sim-

ple reason that the room in which he spent most of his child-

hood was only two feet high, thus forcing him to spend his

formative years in a supine position with his eyes lowered to

the floor at all times.

12. Another jab at Dr Freisler? Relations between Vyshinsky

and the Doctor worsened as Vyshinsky increased the tempo and

duration of his investigations. Judging by certain entries in

Freisler’s diary, the falling out between them began the night he

was summoned to the Vyshinsky

household to revive his friend after yet

another of his “experiments”. After

pumping out a large volume of river

water from Vyshinsky’s stomach he

tried to persuade the author to resume

breathing, if not in public then at least

in the privacy of his own home.

Vyshinsky mulled over this proposi-

tion for several minutes and then

calmly informed his friend that “in

future would you be so kind as to

address me underwater, as my position

and rank deserve.” It was at this time

that Freisler first broached the subject

of euthanasia with the author’s wife.

18

FIG. 12 — “HE WHISTLED HER UPLOUDLY, AND THEN AGAIN SOFTLY!”

FIG. 11 — “A RISIBLE ATTEMPT AT VERISIMILITUDE, MY DEAR!”


his trousers his penis describedunseen gyrations, diagrammingthe complex system of ropes andmanacles that aroused its ma-chine-like strength.

Our hero was escorted todayby the beautiful and mysteriousMiss K. It pleased him that shechose to accompany him by

crawling on her hands and knees, her skirt pulled aboveher thighs to reveal the expanse of flesh to which he lib-erally applied his riding crop. She cried out at theseblows, then humbly nuzzled her master’s trousers forforgiveness. There were those spectators who disap-proved of this spectacle. Like you, dear reader, theypursed their thin lips and averted their eyes. Miss K.sprang at these ones; she menaced them at the end ofher taut leash until her master brought her to heel with

20

FIG. 13 (ABOVE) — “MAMA COME QUICKLY, OH! PAPA IS WOUNDEDBY A NIGHTINGALE, HE HISSED!”

FIG. 14 (LEFT) — “ENTER, SHE SAID, AND THERE WAS LIGHT ANDTHERE WAS NO ONE IN THE ROOM . . . ”

21


a sharp tug. She tolerated the presence of children only,the innocent ones who flocked to her despite their par-ents’ frowns.13 They were allowed to climb atop herback and wave their caps gaily; they were permitted toapply their imaginary spurs to her flanks while she dis-creetly lapped at their crotches.

The cool waters of a reflecting pool beckoned to thegirl. She fluttered her arms and strained at her leashuntil her master relented and allowed her to plungeinto the water. Today she was menstruating; the thickblood flowed into tendrils clinging around her. At thesight of Miss K. surrounded by a penumbra of clottedmenses, Mr Pyridine shut his eyes and was struck by avision of Babylon in rut, the Mother of Whores lappingat a pool of tainted water, a halo of blood overwhelm-ing her red hair. A flock of pigeons14 wheeled overheadand Miss K. splashed after them in the pink froth. Oneof them blundered into her soft, white hands; in an in-stant her perfect teeth sank into the quivering bird. Hermaster shuddered, overcome by envy of this youngbeast who snatched winged creatures from the sky todevour whole.

Ah, Babylon, Babylon, he sighed. He dipped hisfingertips into the water to taste the human and avianblood intermingled upon them. The melancholy mem-

13. The author’s rare appearances in public were always

enlivened by the large number of children who flocked to his

side from every direction, drawn by the spectacle of Vyshinsky

attempting to walk outdoors while encumbered in a massive

fish tank filled with distilled water. He had to abandon this

simple pleasure after an over-zealous urchin shattered the

plate glass with a well-aimed stone and forced him to flee

homewards lest he “suffocate in the dry and rarified atmos-

phere of this provincial backwater.” Vyshinsky’s sole brush

with the authorities occurred shortly afterwards when he

arranged for a water main to be diverted into the sleeping

quarters of a nearby orphanage.

14. Vyshinsky suffered from a fear of birds that verged on

the irrational. Emile Durkheim, the businessman who

arranged Vyshinsky’s purchases of municipal water at

wholesale rates, recounted how he once met the author at a

nearby market. While trying to make conversation with the

reclusive genius, Durkheim mentioned that the price of chick-

en was sure to rise soon. To his astonishment the author

began to blush profusely while stammering that he too was

fond of rising every morning! Vyshinsky then abruptly fled

the market for his home with Durkheim close upon his heels,

fearing that the renowned savant was suffering a fit of

apoplexy and might collapse at any moment.

FIG. 15 — “AH, MIO CARO, IT SOBBED, ‘TISEUROPE AFTER THE RAIN, FOR WE TWAIN.”

2322


That night a shark skimmed across the crests ofthe ocean’s streams.18 Bereft of compass orsextant, he navigated the maelstroms spanningthe voids between the continents by his own

private lodestar. Beneath the water’s surface where thebodies of drowned seafarers collect to seek solace in thecompany of their own kind, to this legendary necropo-lis our hero now traveled to pay homage.

18. Vyshinsky’s attitude towards large bodies of water such

as lakes and oceans was ambivalent. He was attracted by their

humidity yet repelled by their constant movement. During a

rare family excursion to the seaside Josef Vyshinsky managed

to pry off a slat from the coffin-like box that he was required

to travel in. Despite the unaccustomed brilliance of the noon-

time sun he caught a rare glimpse of his father clad in his rub-

ber bladder, frantically emptying hundreds of gelatin packets

into the waves in an attempt to solidify them into quiesence. He

dared not mention this incident to his mother (who had

remained at home that day) for fear she insist that the dimen-

sions of his traveling box be reduced once again.

25

ories of your ancient debauches, the bloodstained al-tars turned black from neglect and age, the abandonedtemple whores wracked by disease and howling fortheir promised gold.

Miss K. fell asleep on a hot flagstone.15 A wasp, ex-cited by the scent of blood, clung to her lips and stungher over and over. Only when she awoke in a panic didMr Pyridine brush the insect aside and suck the venomfrom the wound, smacking his lips loudly in a crudepantomime of gluttony. When her tears had dried heturned his attentions to the wasp. Its wings were pulledoff delicately and it was placed back upon the groundamidst a swarming mass of ants. The spectacle of thecrippled predator overwhelmed by its inferiors arousedour hero’s torpid blood; in a wave of nostalgia he pulledoff the girl’s skirt and coupled with her. When it wasover he clasped her head in his powerful hands andforced her jaws open roughly, allowing a thin string ofspit to fall from his open mouth into hers. The venomthat was still mingled with his sputum burned her throatas it descended, an act that simultaneously completedthe parable and humbled the girl.16

Who was this girl? Was she Mr Pyridine’s daughter,as some have suggested? If so, was the leash necessaryor did she allow herself to be humiliated willingly? Thefact remains that she let herself be led to a dockside cafewhere she was offered to another man, a human wreckravaged by the ultimate symptoms of syphilis. Therake’s febrile brain struggled to comprehend thescheme that our hero proposed to him — to employ hisdiseased and unclean seed and the suspect womb of thegirl to propagate a race of imbeciles and subhumanswhich would populate the long-planned yet still nas-cent Pyridinic dystopia. Together they might engendera virulent, new species of men that would smother anyhope of our civilization replicating itself for the survivaland benefit of all future, unborn generations.

That night two men and a woman assembled on a

beach near the outskirts of the sleeping city. The girl’sleash was fastened to a piling exposed by the ebbingtide; her skirt was torn off to expose her hindquartersto the clumsy attentions of her chosen mate. But hewas fatigued easily by his labors. He paused to coughup a bloody phlegm that delineated a pattern of deli-cate arabesques upon the girl’s naked back; he grewtoo exhausted to notice our hero surreptitiously bind-ing his ankles to the piling. His limbs, numbed by thecold, did not sense the rising tide that began to lap atMiss K. and him.17

Ah, Miss K., did you whimper as your smooth faceand ravaged body slipped beneath the remorselesswaves? Did you remember the wasp flailing his bro-ken limbs? — how you had laughed then! Did the seasalt sting as it cauterized your useless womb; did yourwretched mate claw at you in terror when the wavesfinally closed over your heads? Perhaps your masterknows. It was he who waited for the moment whenrescue was impossible and then dived into the sea. Wecould only gasp in dismay; we held our breath when anintervening wave engulfed him and swept him fromview. Down he plunged and reemerged, magnificentand terrible at once, a glorious black shark who archedhis torso over the girl like an overeager lover and thencrushed her between his jaws.

My dear tiger, my holy shark, Mr Pyridine! I wouldkiss your man-eating lips for a chance to taste the gorepainted upon them. You willingly clothed yourself inthe shape of a solitary killer to become the perfectomen of a future when all men will stalk the earth likethe arrogant predators they most admire. Some willemulate haughty insects who prefer their own venomto an ignominous death, who eat their young and theirmates with equal relish. Others will flock to the stan-dards of certain unnameable creatures who flay theirprey alive and leave only smouldering husks to marktheir passage upon this earth.

15. Vyshinsky defined sleep as “a cliche, an evasion of the

simple truth that it is always dark when we close our eyes.”

He avoided sleep whenever possible and occupied his nocturnal

hours with the more innocuous pursuit of surreptitiously low-

ering the ceiling in his son’s bedroom.

16. In the CLINICAL MORPHOLOGY, Freisler decided

(perhaps even arbitrarily) that this entire passage was spu-

rious! He theorized that Vyshinsky was completely unaware

of the existence of spittle and would have been horrified to

learn that it was possible to expectorate human bodily fluids

in such a wanton manner. This biological innocence on

Vyshinsky’s part was not confined to the digestive processes;

it also encompassed the reproductive, nervous, sensory and

muscular functions. The entire human body appeared to be a

mystery to the author, a mystery which he dared not probe too

deeply into lest he “awaken into a vivisectionist’s dream,

spoiling his mood and my own humidity.”

17. A textbook example of precognition, with the one pro-

viso that in Vyshinsky’s case the tide did not lap at him, it

obliterated him (and his entire house along with significant

portions of the adjoining buildings on the street) with such

thoroughness that it was several weeks before he was missed.

24

Chapter Three

FIG. 16 — “BOTH WORDS ANDWAVES HAD FAILED HIM UTTERLY.”

FIG. 16 — “BOTH WORDS ANDWAVES HAD FAILED HIM UTTERLY.”FIG. 16 — “BOTH WORDS ANDWAVES HAD FAILED HIM UTTERLY.”


ones. The eternal kingdompromised to them will befar superior to the one thatawaits all their brethrenwho rot in their shallow,terrestrial graves.20 At thetrumpet blast of Judge-ment Day the drownedwill arise bedecked in allthe garish finery of the sev-en seas, bewigged withfronds and encrusted withcoral growths that willmake a mockery of theworms and maggots thatencumber the buried dead.Or perhaps, compressedby millions of tons of wa-ter, their drowned bodieswill sublimate into translu-cent pearls, vast clottedjewels which will adorn thethroats and breasts of thechosen ones in the teemingharems of paradise.

But Mr Pyridine, as for him — he returned from thedepths in the shape of the legendary, incarnadined oc-topus; he skimmed upon the crests of waves whichshrank from his touch. His brow was wreathed withthe human limbs and viscera his rapid ascent hadstirred up from the ocean floor; his parrot-like beakemitted harsh cries of lust. His mate awaited him onthe surface; she trembled and writhed in anticipationof his boundless hunger for her. If love is a feast thenMr Pyridine was both butcher and gourmet; the menumust be devoured whole, not a crumb should be left onthe table! This was the true message of Pyridinic love:

20. Vyshinsky’s ideas concerning the afterlife were typi-

cally unorthodox. He had an opportunity to put them into

practice after the death of his wife when he had her “floated”.

This was easy to arrange for by that time his entire house

was comfortably submerged. Freisler, in one of the livelier

(and rather poignant) passages of the CLINICAL

MORPHOLOGY, describes attending Mrs Vyshinsky’s

wake. The other two mourners, Vyshinsky and Josef (who

had been transferred into a steamer trunk for the occasion),

seemed unperturbed by Mrs Vyshinsky’s aimless circumnav-

igation of the parlor room’s sofa. Josef was more absorbed in

trying to keep his breathing hole above the steadily rising

water level and his father seemed equally engrossed in his

son’s failure to do so. Freisler left when the unfortunate

woman became entangled in the drinks’ trolley.

27

These drowned ones drifted in their bloated ranksthrough broad avenues carved by ancient marine cat-aclysms. They collected in dimly lit grottoes to starewearily at their fellows seated around coral tables.The more restless amongst them waved languidly ateach other and embraced in haphazard jostlings; theyproffered handshakes that pulled away sodden fleshand tore loose enervated limbs. Heavy gold earringsgleamed in vain as they drifted apart from dissolvingearlobes; lurid growths of algae and seaweed ob-scured their extravagant tattoos. All their colorfultales of exotic ports and distant climes paled againstthe fantastic seagrowths that now held them to the

ocean’s bottom.A black shark, his eyes shut as if dreaming, glided

through the necropolis unimpeded by its citizens whoroamed those same streets with their eyes open. Themore brazen ones approached him, bobbing and curt-sying in his wake. Those who still remembered thejoys of the flesh undulated their hips lasciviously tobetter display the meager charms left to him, the ribbones gleaming behind filmy breasts, a brilliant seasnake nestled in a hollow groin.19 Our hero left themas they waved in vain at him, supplicating him withtheir stalk-like limbs until he vanished into the subma-rine gloom.

Although their hearts contain nothing but sand andtheir boneless fists clutch only seaweed, the drownedhave always considered themselves to be the chosen

19. Vyshinsky condemned the joys of the flesh as “vile tor-

tures devised by women to explain away their suspicious

physiognomy”. This might explain his animosity for Josef,

his eldest child, whose conception so frightened Vyshinsky

that he bolted his marriage bed in a state of abject terror. The

conception of his other twelve children turned his hair prema-

turely white and probably hastened the appearance of the

unwholesome Mr Blandser.

26

FIG. 18 — “TRIBADISM, GERALD,AT OUR AGE, AT LONG LAST?”

FIG. 17 — “ONTOLOGY HAD FAILED THEM UTTERLY, UTTERLY, SHEBREATHLESSLY EXPLAINED TO HIM AT A GREAT HARMS LENGTH.”


29

death and transfiguration, to obliterate entirely the ob-ject of affection and leave her torn into a thousandshreds. In the crushed and battered flesh of his matelurked the unseen agents of putrefaction, the effluviaof decay which lent such haste to our hero. That briefinterval between death and dissolution was the onlyaphrodisiac fit for the bestial. They sought in encoun-ters such as this; they prolonged the moment endless-ly and discussed it afterwards with knowing smilesand prim winks.

You too, dear reader, are now initiated into theranks of these cognoscenti.21 You were thrilled, as wasI, at the sight of the hero coupling endlessly with theskinless torso of his mate. At that moment we howledin unison with him, a cry that could be heard to theends of the earth and all the maneaters of the deep, thelethargic cannibals of the tropical forest, the night-stalkers of the vast northern cities were awakened bythis sound; they also cried out. Sensing their rival’s tri-umph they moaned and gnashed their teeth at such

lost opportunities. Their roars and shrieks encircledthe planet and everywhere mothers clutched theirchildren tightly without quite knowing the reasonwhy.

Oh, Muses, fluttering outside my window likemoths; if I raise the sill would you rush in and race tothe single candle I keep burning just for you? Onlywhen your wings have been reduced to ashes would Ipluck your torsos from the flame and then allow youto approach me. Then it would be I who dictates termsto you! Manacles would be produced; ropes boundtightly; one by one you would be humiliated; perhapsthen you would learn your proper places. When I callyou again you will appear and your eyelids will be

21. These rhetorical asides to the reader were more than

then usual commonplace artistic devices. They were rooted in

the author’s belief that he was “not alone” and that he could

“appeal to others” through his literary works. Although this

philosophy seems unremarkable at first, it gains considerable

importance when one finds that Vyshinsky also wrote that

“the fact that it is dark at night proves that I am not paying

attention.”

28

FIG. 19 — “SCORNED, ABUSED AND DISCUSSED IT AFTERWARDS,AS ONLY A MEXICAN COULD, SHE GLIMPSED FURTIVELY!”

FIG. 20 — “SUCH A SURFEIT, EH, WATSON, OF THAT MUCHBONDAGE NO ROPES CAN BE CERTAIN, WHAT?”


sewn shut with needle and thread, your swollen feetshod with razorblade cages that measure out everystep in a bloody dance22 and only then will every artistin every garret breath easily at last. Free! Free, aftermillenia of your insipid, mediocre tyranny!

As beautiful as the chance meeting of the sewingmachine and the umbrella upon the dissecting table orso the poets have claimed. Such superlatives fall shortof my hero’s perfection. Let me state that Mr Pyridinewas as exquisite as a plushly lined box, tastefullywrapped in red and gold foil, a box containing aplethora of crepe paper wrappers which enclosed avaried assortment of women’s nipples. Yes, an assort-ment of chilled, rubbery bon-bons, each plucked froma virgin of good breeding and packaged tastefully formen of strong character. Pausing to nibble on one ofthese dainty sweets, smacking our lips like greedy chil-dren, we shall leave Mr Pyridine drifting aimlessly onthe surface of the ocean.

He allowed a gelatinous sense of lethargy to enve-lope him, a diffused, grey stain of boredom whichspread by capillary action into the atmosphere and dis-colored the entire sky. Its tainted, sticky fingersgrasped at the clouds scudding over the horizon andfrightened those vaporous creatures into a panic astheir bone-white purity dissolved into a thick, oilyfilm. In this sluggish atmosphere the slightest event la-bored to reach fruition. Rapacious birds hovered aim-lessly over the ocean’s swells until their hunger hadpetrified into an unbearable weight, then they slippedsoundlessly beneath the waves, congealing into coralas they descended to the bottom.

When Mr Pyridine shut his eyes the sun had set. Itsafter-image still burned in the sky, a brass and steelmechanical insect that bore a madman’s apparitionupon its thorax. With a deep sighing noise the deadsouls of the world drifted past it in their endlesscolumns. They did not deviate from their course; theyignored the strange, bitter ashes that fell to earth likerain, veiling their features, choking their dry mouthsand finally obscuring their weeping eyes forever.

END

FIG. 21 — “AND IS THIS YOUR FAMOUS HERR HEIDEGGER, WHOCOMES SKULKING SO OF WOMEN’S NIPPLES IN AUTUMNAL RAGS?”

22. Freisler — who was oddly reserved on this matter —

only noted that the author feared “the damned girl (Josef)

seems to be following in her mother’s footsteps.”

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impressions of mr pyridine

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