Flypaper by Robert Musil
Flypaper by Robert Musil
From Posthumous Papers of a Living Author
I’ve had a busy last few weeks, and will be busy for the next week or so, taking care of family business and finishing up another translation draft: On Intonation, a poetry collection by the late great East-German writer Wolfgang Hilbig. Meanwhile, for lack of spare time, I’ve dusted off another, quite old translation of mine, an essay or prose poetry piece by Robert Musil, the great Austrian modernist, from his wonderful (and wonderfully titled) collection, Posthumous Papers of a Living Writer.
Tanglefoot flypaper is approximately 36 centimeters long by 21 centimeters wide; it is coated with a yellow poisoned paste and comes from Canada. If a fly lands on the paper—not eagerly, but more out of convention, because so many others are already there—it gets stuck at first only by the outermost joints of its arms. An entirely light and disconcerting sensation, as though while walking in the dark we were to tread on something with our naked soles—nothing more than an unavoidable obstruction, soft and warm, yet something into which a gruesome human essence flows, recognized as a hand that happens to just lie there and, with five ever more perceptible fingers, grab hold of us.
Then they stand forcibly erect, like consumptives hiding their symptoms, or like old decrepit soldiers (a little bit bowlegged, the way you walk a fine line). They hold themselves upright, gathering thoughts and strength. A few seconds later they come to a decision and begin, as best they can, to buzz and try to lift themselves. They perform this frantic action until exhaustion brings them to a halt. A pause for breath follows, then a new attempt. But the intervals become longer. They stand there and I feel how helpless they are. Bewildering vapors rise from below. Their tongue gropes about like a tiny little hammer. Their head is brown and hairy, as though it were made from a coconut; manlike as an African idol. They twist forwards and backwards on their firmly fastened little legs, bend at the knees and strain upward, like laborers doing their utmost to move a much too heavy load: more tragic than the working man, a truer athleticism than the most extreme efforts of Laocoön. Then comes that extraordinary moment, when the imminent need for a second’s relief overcomes the almighty instinct for self-preservation. It is the moment when the climber, for the pain in his fingers, willfully loosens his grip, or when the lost man lies down like a child in the snow, or when the hunted man stops dead in his tracks with aching lungs. They no longer hold themselves up with all their might, but sink a little lower, and in that moment they become completely human. Then they are instantly caught somewhere else, higher up on the leg, or from behind, or on the tip of the wing.
When they have overcome their spiritual exhaustion and resume the fight for survival, they are fixed in an awkward position, and all their movements become unnatural. They lay down with outstretched hindlegs, propped up on their elbows, and try to lift themselves. Or else seated on the ground, they rear up with outstretched arms, like women who attempt in vain to wrest their hands free from a man’s fist. Or they lay on their bellies, head and arms in front of them, as though fallen while running, with only their head held aloft. But the enemy remains impassive and wins at just such these desperate, muddled moments. A nothing, an it, draws them in: so slowly that one can hardly follow, but often with an abrupt acceleration at the end, when a last inner breakdown overcomes them. Then all of a sudden, they let themselves fall forward, facedown, head over heels; or sideways, with their legs distended; often rolled to one side, with legs paddling in the rear. Like fallen airplanes, one wing reaching into the air. Or like horses pushing up the daisies. Or with endless gesticulations of despair. Or like sleepers. The next day one might wake up, grope for a while with an arm or flutter a wing. Sometimes the motion spreads itself through the entire scene, then all of them sink a little deeper into death. And only on one side, near the shoulder socket, is there some small pulsating organ that still goes on living. It opens and closes, you cannot describe it, not without a magnifying glass, it looks like a miniscule human eye that ceaselessly opens and shuts.
