my own memory gradually begins—in a
cage between decks on the Hagenbeck
steamship. It was no four-sided cage
with bars, but only three walls fixed to a crate, so
that the crate constituted the
fourth wall. The whole thing was too low to stand
upright and too narrow for
sitting down. So I crouched with bent knees,
which shook all the time, and since
at first I probably did not wish to see anyone and
to remain constantly in the
darkness, I turned towards the crate, while the
bars of the cage cut into the
flesh on my back. People consider such confinement of
wild animals beneficial
in the very first period of time, and today I
cannot deny, on the basis of my own
experience, that in a human sense that is, in fact,
the case.
But
at that time I didnÕt think about it. For the first time in my life I was
without
a way out—at least there was no direct way
out. Right in front of me was the
crate, its boards fitted closely together. Well,
there was a hole running right
through the boards. When I first discovered it, I
welcomed it with a blissfully
Muffled
sobbing, painfully searching out fleas,
wearily licking a coconut, banging my skull
against the wall of the crate, sticking
out my tongue when anyone came near—these
were the first occupations in my
new life. In all of them, however, there was only
one feeling: no way out.
Nowadays,
of course, I can portray those ape-like feelings only with human
words and, as a result, I misrepresent them. But even
if I can no longer attain
the old truth of the ape, at least it lies in the
direction I have described—of that
there is no doubt.
Up
until then I had had so many ways out, and now I no longer had one. I was
tied down. If they had nailed me down, my freedom to
move would not have
been any less. And why? If you scratch raw the flesh
between your toes, you
wonÕt find the reason. If you press your back against
the bars of the cage until it
almost slices you in two, you wonÕt find the answer. I
had no way out, but I had
to come up with one for myself. For without that I
could not live. Always in front
of that crate wall—I would inevitably have
died a miserable death. But according
to Hagenbeck, apes
belong at the crate wall—well, that meant I had to cease
being an ape. A clear and beautiful train of thought,
which I must have planned
somehow with my belly, since apes think with
their bellies.
IÕm
worried that people do not understand precisely what I mean by a way out. I
use the word in its most common and fullest sense.
I am deliberately not saying
freedom. I do not mean this great feeling of
freedom on all sides. As an ape, I
perhaps recognized it, and I have met human
beings who yearn for it. But as far
as I am concerned, I did not demand freedom either
then or today. Incidentally,
among human beings people all too often are deceived
by freedom. And since
freedom is reckoned among the most sublime
feelings, the corresponding
disappointment is also among the most
sublime. In the variety shows, before my
entrance, I have often watched a pair of artists
busy on trapezes high up in the
roof. They swung themselves, they rocked back and
forth, they jumped, they
hung in each otherÕs arms, one held the other by
clenching the hair with his
teeth. ŌThat, too, is human freedom,Ķ I thought, Ōself-controlled
movement.Ķ
What
a mockery of sacred nature! At such a sight, no structure would stand up
to the laughter of the apes.
No,
I didnÕt want freedom. Only a way out—to the right or left or anywhere at
all. I made no other demands, even if the way out
should be only an illusion.
The
demand was small; the disappointment would not be any greater—to move
on further, to move on further! Only not to stand
still with arms raised, pressed
again a crate wall.
pp. 674-674