{"id":10350,"date":"2025-12-01T16:09:42","date_gmt":"2025-12-01T16:09:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vidgop.co.il\/?page_id=10350"},"modified":"2025-12-25T10:37:50","modified_gmt":"2025-12-25T10:37:50","slug":"the-professors-speech","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/vidgop.co.il\/en\/books-2\/the-professors-speech\/","title":{"rendered":"The Professor\u2019s Speech"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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The Professor\u2019s Speech<\/h3>\n

An excerpt from the novel \u201cTestimon<\/strong>y\u201d. Translated by Leo Shtutin;\nPublished in The CHILLFILTR Review<\/strong>, Lit Up<\/strong> and Chewers by Masticadores<\/strong><\/p>\nA handful of lectures at the University were delivered by a renowned professor. He was a man advanced in years. His heavyset body seemed to get in his way. Each time he clambered onto the rostrum, he would misplace his trademark folder and, with it, the theses of his gusty speech. Or he might upset the decanter of soda water put out for him by a solicitous steward, or, his trouser cuff catching the corner of the wooden platform, curse and rail against the world.\n\nThe professor had the bad habit of forgetting about his audiences, which tended to hang on his every word. He would argue aloud with himself, discoursing on his life, on his detractors as well as his devotees, and upbraiding the school he himself had pioneered. But it was precisely these shocking revelations which afforded his lectures their popularity. The entire University gathered to listen to them. Ultimately, we concluded, the professor was indifferent to the opinions of the scholarly community\u2014and to those of humanity at large: he had grown so weary of his own fame that he could at long last permit himself to express the things he held up as singularly important.\n\nAnd so, having packed the auditorium, as per usual\u2014packed it so tightly that not a single person more could have squeezed in\u2014we awaited yet another sensation. The professor, we were sure, would not disappoint our hopes. The antics he pulled, the surprises he sprang on us during his performances\u2014none of it could ever be second-guessed. He was unpredictable. Which was precisely why students adored him, whilst colleagues found him insupportable. The University looked on, expectant.\n\nWheezing, the professor mounted the rostrum. On this occasion the decanter with the soda water was not to fall. By force of habit, the professor opened his folder only to slam it shut again. He produced his round spectacles, flung them onto the lectern. One of the lenses cracked. It begins! we thought, and held our breath. But he failed to notice the cracked lens. In fact he forgot his glasses altogether. He looked us over with long-sighted, bloodshot eyes and pressed his bulk against the lectern.\n\n\u201cLike all true anarchists, we strive to obliterate longstanding traditions, strictures, constraints. The Russians even have a march which says as much: \u2018There are no obstacles for us\u2019. We all dream of chaos, free fall and anarchy. But! We only dream<\/em>. Because chaos, we sense, will bring us to destruction. And death, as everyone knows, is what we fear more than anything else. Indeed it is. Yes!\u201d He froze, staring into space.\n\n\u201cWhen we are born, we emerge from non-being, and the brief span of time allotted to us before we return into nothingness is one we hope to prolong. To extend. And the fear of sudden and soon-to-come death hovers over us. Which is exactly the reason we make terrible anarchists. For what is anarchy\u2014but death. Yet anarchy is also the sole form of authentic life. No sooner are we born than we fall into this nauseating paradox. Dying is frightening, living no less so. Because only life itself, this damned life of ours, throws up reasons to die in the first place.\n\n\u201cNow then\u201d\u2014here he jerked up his head and surveyed the auditorium\u2014\u201call is not as dismal, my high-browed listeners, as you might think. Humanity has long since come up with a ruse, a little trick to escape this paradox, sickening in its familiarity. We humans kill the anarchist in us. We run scared and die of horror\u2014you and I included. And our instinct for self-preservation, or our fear of the unknown, call it what you will, ostensibly comes to our rescue by furnishing us with illusions. This self-deception is simple in nature. We believe that performing the same actions year in, year out, day after day\u2014rising at a certain hour, praying, discharging our professional duties, reading the newspaper, adhering hard and fast to some time-honoured routine\u2014will enable us to keep at bay the dread unknown which looms perpetually over our heads.\n\n\u201cWe are akin to shamans who exorcise and ward off evil spirits. The spirits do not vanish, but our fear, our inmost fear, momentarily recedes. The trick, the ruse concocted by humanity goes by the name of regimentation. <\/em>The regimentor, that fabricated saviour, kills the devil-may-care anarchist. This is how we foster traditions. Tradition is the basis of any regimen. The English royal court bears only a faint resemblance to the ritual life of Japanese society. The life of the devout Jew entails keeping the six hundred and thirteen commandments. We see the limitations we impose upon ourselves as our salvation. We use them to shield ourselves from the truth which bores unceasingly into our skulls. It\u2019s just a little ruse, do you hear me?\u201d The professor had raised his voice now. \u201cJust a tiny little trick!\u201d And now he was shouting. \u201cBut how sweet and steadfast it remains, this illusion of ours, whilst we continue to believe in it. And how vulnerable we all become when our own brains destroy it, laying it bare and tearing it asunder stone by stone.\u201d\n\nThe professor brandished his hand: the soda decanter crashed to the floor, shattered, deafened us. The professor froze. He swivelled clumsily, as if about to step down from the rostrum. And then, with an abrupt half-turn towards us, he intoned, slowly and distinctly, \u201cFear reigns over our lives. Ponder this at your leisure. Fear alone induces us to live. To make discoveries, to perform deeds and exploits, to bustle and stir. In reality, all our endeavours unfold in the service of a single, profound, intrinsic goal: to drown out, to forget\u2014forget forever the horror that bursts from our being. But we are not destined, alas, to partake of the joy of oblivion, to know the bliss of insensibility.\u201d\n\nHe shuffled from the rostrum, took a few steps towards the door, returned abruptly.\n\n\u201cBy the way,\u201d he said in a low voice, \u201cwhen one of you blurts out that night terrors torment me<\/em>, don\u2019t believe them: this rings ludicrous. Does the night really hold greater terrors than the day? are the monsters of nightmare really more frightful than we ourselves, blinded and shuddering with dread?.. We alone pay ourselves nocturnal visitations. It is not you, my listeners and dear colleagues, who are my nightmare. My nightmare is me.\u201d\n\nHe fell abruptly silent. Then he began fidgeting, as if looking for something in his pockets. But now his gaze alighted on the folder lying on the lectern. He slowly produced from it several leaves of paper\u2014inscribed, we assumed, with the theses of his speech\u2014and crumpled them into a ball which he tossed, unsuccessfully, in the direction of the wicker bin. The leaves uncrumpled on the floor and we saw, for the first time, that they were blank. He fished out a comb, coiffed his thinning hair, thrust the comb back into his pocket. With a bow to his disconcerted audience he quit the lecture hall, leaving the door agape.\n\nSome of us, eyeing one another in bewilderment, snaked out after him. Emerging into the corridor, the professor strode towards a broad staircase finished in marble. He leant with both hands upon its antique bannisters, the pride of the University with their fine silver inlay. He glanced back at the throng which had spilled out of the auditorium in his wake. Something flickered in his eyes: effortlessly hoisting his bulk over the famous bannisters, he took wing, soared unhindered for an moment\u2014and vanished the next, whilst spiralling swiftly through the wide stairwell.\n\nShaking off the shock that had beset us all, the fastest among us rushed headlong down the stairs several steps at a time. The ground floor was quiet. No one had heard the sound of the impact. The University windows framed a slow snowfall. Soundlessly moving his lips, a porter was reading Gone with the Wind<\/em>.\n\nThe professor\u2019s body was nowhere to be found.\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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\u00a9 Jonathan Vidgop\u00a0 | Artist A. Gorenstein<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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