A Perfect Vacuum Read Free

found beneath this flat stone, here, which I begin gingerly to pry at with the big toe of my bare foot, so, too, I do not know what is hidden in the minds of the persons who come to me in my sleep. Thus in relation to my
I
these persons are as external as the grubs. The idea is not at all to erase the distinction between dream and reality—that is the way to madness!—but to create a new, a better order. What in a dream succeeds only now and then, with mixed results, in muddled fashion, waveringly and by chance, must be straightened, tightened, fitted together, and made secure; a dream, when moored in reality, when brought out into the light of reality
as a method,
and serving reality, and peopling reality, packing it with the very finest goods, ceases to be a dream, and reality, under the influence of such curative treatment, becomes both as clear as before and shaped as never before. Since I am alone, I need take no one into account; however, since at the same time the knowledge that I am alone is poison to me, I will therefore not be alone. The Lord God I cannot manage, it is true, but that does not mean I cannot manage Anyone!”
    And our logical Robinson says further: “A man without Others is a fish without water, but just as most water is murky and turbid, so, too, my medium was a rubbish heap. My relatives, parents, superiors, teachers I did not choose myself; this applies even to my mistresses, for they came my way at random: throughout, I took (if it can be said I took at all) what chance provided. If, like any other mortal, I was condemned to the accidents of birth and family and friends, then there is nothing for which I need mourn. And therefore—let there resound the first words of Genesis: Away with this clutter!”
    He speaks these words, we see, with a solemnity to match that of the Maker: “Let there be...” For in fact Robinson prepares to create himself a world from zero. It is not now merely through his liberation from people due to a fortuitous calamity that he embarks upon creation whole hog, but by design. And thus the logically perfect hero of Marcel Coscat outlines a plan that later will destroy and mock him—can it be, as the human world has done to
its
Creator?
    Robinson does not know where to begin. Ought he to surround himself with ideal beings? Angels? Winged horses? (For a moment he has a yen for a centaur.) But, stripped of illusions, he understands that the presence of beings in any respect perfect will be difficult to stomach. Therefore, for a start, he supplies himself with one about whom before, till now, he could only dream: a loyal servant, a butler, valet, and footman in one person—the fat (no lean and hungry look!) Snibbins. In the course of this first Robinsonad our apprentice Demiurge reflects upon democracy, which, like any man (of this he is certain), he had put up with only out of necessity. When yet a boy, before dropping off to sleep, he imagined how lovely it would be to be born a mighty lord in some medieval time. Now at last that fantasy can be realized. Snibbins is properly stupid, for thereby he automatically elevates his master; nothing original ever enters his head, hence he will never give notice; he performs everything in a twinkling, even that which his master has not yet had time to ask.
    The author does not at all explain whether—and how—Robinson does the work
for
Snibbins, because the story is told in the first (Robinson’s) person; but even if Robinson (and how can it be otherwise?) does do everything himself on the sly and afterward attributes it to the servant’s offices, he acts at that time totally without awareness, and thus only the results of those exertions are visible. Hardly has Robinson rubbed the sleep from his eyes in the morning when there at his bedside lie the carefully prepared little oysters of which he is so fond—salted lightly with sea water, seasoned to taste with the sour tang of