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In the last decades interest in hunger artists has declined considerably. Whereas in earlier days there was good money to be earned putting on major productions of this sort under one’s own management, nowadays that is totally impossible. Those were different times. Back then the hunger artist captured the attention of the entire city. From day to day while the fasting lasted, participation increased. Everyone wanted to see the hunger artist at least daily. During the final days there were people with subscription tickets who sat all day in front of the small barred cage. And there were even viewing hours at night, their impact heightened by torchlight. On fine days the cage was dragged out into the open air, and then the hunger artist was put on display particularly for the children. While for grown-ups the hunger artist was often merely a joke, something they participated in because it was fashionable, the children looked on amazed, their mouths open, holding each other’s hands for safety, as he sat there on scattered straw—spurning a chair—in a black tights, looking pale, with his ribs sticking out prominently, sometimes nodding politely, answering questions with a forced smile, even sticking his arm out through the bars to let people feel how emaciated he was, but then completely sinking back into himself, so that he paid no attention to anything, not even to what was so important to him, the striking of the clock, which was the single furnishing in the cage, merely looking out in front of him with his eyes almost shut and now and then sipping from a tiny glass of water to moisten his lips.
Apart from the changing groups of spectators there were also constant
observers chosen by the public—strangely enough they were usually
butchers—who, always three at a time, were given the task of observing the
hunger artist day and night, so that he didn’t get something to eat in some
secret manner. It was, however, merely a formality, introduced to reassure
the masses, for those who understood knew well enough that during the period
of fasting the hunger artist would never, under any circumstances, have eaten
the slightest thing, not even if compelled by force. The honour of his art
forbade it. Naturally, none of the watchers understood that. Sometimes there
were nightly groups of watchers who carried out their vigil very laxly,
deliberately sitting together in a distant corner and putting all their
attention into playing cards there, clearly intending to allow the hunger
artist a small refreshment, which, according to their way of thinking, he
could get from some secret supplies. Nothing was more excruciating to the
hunger artist than such watchers. They depressed him. They made his fasting
terribly difficult. Sometimes he overcame his weakness and sang during the
time they were observing, for as long as he could keep it up, to show people
how unjust their suspicions about him were. But that was little help. For
then they just wondered among themselves about his skill at being able to eat
even while singing. He much preferred the observers who sat down right
against the bars and, not satisfied with the dim backlighting of the room,
illuminated him with electric flashlights. The glaring light didn’t bother
him in the slightest. Generally he couldn’t sleep at all, and he could always
doze under any lighting and at any hour, even in an overcrowded, noisy
auditorium. With such observers, he was very happily prepared to spend the
entire night without sleeping. He was very pleased to joke with them, to
recount stories from his nomadic life and then, in turn, to listen their
stories—doing everything just to keep them awake, so that he could keep
showing them once again that he had nothing to eat in his cage and that he
was fasting as none of them could.
He was happiest, however, when morning came and a lavish breakfast was
brought for them at his own expense, on which they hurled themselves with the
appetite of healthy men after a hard night’s work without sleep. True, there
were still people who wanted to see in this breakfast an unfair means of
influencing the observers, but that was going too far, and if they were asked
whether they wanted to undertake the observers’ night shift for its own sake,
without the breakfast, they excused themselves. But nonetheless they stood by
their suspicions.
However, it was, in general, part of fasting that these doubts were
inextricably associated with it. For, in fact, no one was in a position to
spend time watching the hunger artist every day and night, so no one could
know, on the basis of his own observation, whether this was a case of truly
uninterrupted, flawless fasting. The hunger artist himself was the only one
who could know that and, at the same time, the only spectator capable of
being completely satisfied with his own fasting. But the reason he was never
satisfied was something different. Perhaps it was not fasting at all which
made him so very emaciated that many people, to their own regret, had to stay
away from his performance, because they couldn’t bear to look at him. For he
was also so skeletal out of dissatisfaction with himself, because he alone
knew something that even initiates didn’t know—how easy it was to fast. It
was the easiest thing in the world. About this he did not remain silent, but
people did not believe him. At best they thought he was being modest. Most of
them, however, believed he was a publicity seeker or a total swindler, for
whom, at all events, fasting was easy, because he understood how to make it
easy, and then had the nerve to half admit it. He had to accept all that.
Over the years he had become accustomed to it. But this dissatisfaction kept
gnawing at his insides all the time and never yet—and this one had to say to
his credit—had he left the cage of his own free will after any period of
fasting.
The impresario had set the maximum length of time for the fast at forty
days—he would never allow the fasting go on beyond that point, not even in
the cosmopolitan cities. And, in fact, he had a good reason. Experience had
shown that for about forty days one could increasingly whip up a city’s
interest by gradually increasing advertising, but that then the people turned
away—one could demonstrate a significant decline in popularity. In this
respect, there were, of course, small differences among different towns and
among different countries, but as a rule it was true that forty days was the
maximum length of time.
So then on the fortieth day the door of the cage—which was covered with
flowers—was opened, an enthusiastic audience filled the amphitheatre, a
military band played, two doctors entered the cage, in order to take the
necessary measurements of the hunger artist, the results were announced to
the auditorium through a megaphone, and finally two young ladies arrived,
happy about the fact that they were the ones who had just been selected by
lot, seeking to lead the hunger artist down a couple of steps out of the
cage, where on a small table a carefully chosen hospital meal was laid out.
And at this moment the hunger artist always fought back. Of course, he still
freely laid his bony arms in the helpful outstretched hands of the ladies
bending over him, but he did not want to stand up. Why stop right now after
forty days? He could have kept going for even longer, for an unlimited length
of time. Why stop right now, when he was in his best form, indeed, not yet
even in his best fasting form? Why did people want to rob him of the fame of
fasting longer, not just so that he could become the greatest hunger artist
of all time, which he probably was already, but also so that he could surpass
himself in some unimaginable way, for he felt there were no limits to his
capacity for fasting. Why did this crowd, which pretended to admire him so
much, have so little patience with him? If he kept going and kept fasting
longer, why would they not tolerate it? Then, too, he was tired and felt good
sitting in the straw. Now he was supposed to stand up straight and tall and
go to eat, something which, when he just imagined it, made him feel nauseous
right away. With great difficulty he repressed mentioning this only out of
consideration for the women. And he looked up into the eyes of these women,
apparently so friendly but in reality so cruel, and shook his excessively
heavy head on his feeble neck.
But then happened what always happened. The impresario came and in
silence—the music made talking impossible—raised his arms over the hunger
artist, as if inviting heaven to look upon its work here on the straw, this
unfortunate martyr, something the hunger artist certainly was, only in a
completely different sense, then grabbed the hunger artist around his thin
waist, in the process wanting with his exaggerated caution to make people
believe that here he had to deal with something fragile, and handed him
over—not without secretly shaking him a little, so that the hunger artist’s
legs and upper body swung back and forth uncontrollably—to the women, who had
in the meantime turned as pale as death. At this point, the hunger artist
endured everything. His head lay on his chest—it was as if it had
inexplicably rolled around and just stopped there—his body was arched back,
his legs, in an impulse of self-preservation, pressed themselves together at
the knees, but scraped the ground, as if they were not really on the floor
but were looking for the real ground, and the entire weight of his body,
admittedly very small, lay against one of the women, who appealed for help
with flustered breath, for she had not imagined her post of honour would be
like this, and then stretched her neck as far as possible, to keep her face
from the least contact with the hunger artist, but then, when she couldn’t
manage this and her more fortunate companion didn’t come to her assistance
but trembled and remained content to hold in front of her the hunger artist’s
hand, that small bundle of knuckles, she broke into tears, to the delighted
laughter of the auditorium, and had to be relieved by an attendant who had
been standing ready for some time. Then came the meal. The impresario put a
little food into mouth of the hunger artist, now half unconscious, as if
fainting, and kept up a cheerful patter designed to divert attention away
from the hunger artist’s condition. Then a toast was proposed to the public,
which was supposedly whispered to the impresario by the hunger artist, the
orchestra confirmed everything with a great fanfare, people dispersed, and no
one had the right to be dissatisfied with the event, no one except the hunger
artist—he was always the only one.
He lived this way, taking small regular breaks, for many years, apparently in
the spotlight, honoured by the world, but for all that his mood was usually
gloomy, and it kept growing gloomier all the time, because no one understood
how to take him seriously. But how was he to find consolation? What was there
left for him to wish for? And if a good-natured man who felt sorry for him
ever wanted to explain to him that his sadness probably came from his
fasting, then it could happen that the hunger artist responded with an
outburst of rage and began to shake the bars like an animal, frightening
everyone. But the impresario had a way of punishing moments like this,
something he was happy to use. He would make an apology for the hunger artist
to the assembled public, conceding that the irritability had been provoked
only by his fasting, something quite intelligible to well-fed people and
capable of excusing the behaviour of the hunger artist without further
explanation. From there he would move on to speak about the equally hard to
understand claim of the hunger artist that he could go on fasting for much
longer than he was doing. He would praise the lofty striving, the good will,
and the great self-denial no doubt contained in this claim, but then would
try to contradict it simply by producing photographs, which were also on
sale, for in the pictures one could see the hunger artist on the fortieth day
of his fast, in bed, almost dead from exhaustion. Although the hunger artist
was very familiar with this perversion of the truth, it always strained his
nerves again and was too much for him. What was a result of the premature
ending of the fast people were now proposing as its cause! It was impossible
to fight against this lack of understanding, against this world of
misunderstanding. In good faith he always listened eagerly to the impresario
at the bars of his cage, but each time, once the photographs came out, he
would let go of the bars and, with a sigh, sink back into the straw, and a
reassured public could come up again and view him.
When those who had witnessed such scenes thought back on them a few years
later, often they were unable to understand themselves. For in the meantime
that change mentioned above had set it. It happened almost immediately. There
may have been more profound reasons for it, but who bothered to discover what
they were? At any rate, one day the pampered hunger artist saw himself
abandoned by the crowd of pleasure seekers, who preferred to stream to other
attractions. The impresario chased around half of Europe one more time with
him, to see whether he could still re-discover the old interest here and
there. It was all futile. It was as if a secret agreement against the fasting
performances had developed everywhere. Naturally, it couldn’t really have
happened all at once, and people later remembered some things which in the
days of intoxicating success they hadn’t paid sufficient attention to, some
inadequately suppressed indications, but now it was too late to do anything
to counter them. Of course, it was certain that the popularity of fasting
would return once more someday, but for those now alive that was no
consolation. What was the hunger artist to do now? A man whom thousands of
people had cheered on could not display himself in show booths at small fun
fairs. The hunger artist was not only too old to take up a different
profession, but was fanatically devoted to fasting more than anything else.
So he said farewell to the impresario, an incomparable companion on his
life’s road, and let himself be hired by a large circus. In order to spare
his own feelings, he didn’t even look at the terms of his contract at all.
A large circus with its huge number of men, animals, and gimmicks, which are
constantly being let go and replenished, can use anyone at any time, even a
hunger artist, provided, of course, his demands are modest. Moreover, in this
particular case it was not only the hunger artist himself who was engaged,
but also his old and famous name. In fact, given the characteristic nature of
his art, which was not diminished by his advancing age, one could never claim
that a worn out artist, who no longer stood at the pinnacle of his ability,
wanted to escape to a quiet position in the circus. On the contrary, the
hunger artist declared that he could fast just as well as in earlier
times—something that was entirely credible. Indeed, he even affirmed that if
people would let him do what he wanted—and he was promised this without
further ado—he would really now legitimately amaze the world for the first
time, an assertion which, however, given the mood of the time, which the
hunger artist in his enthusiasm easily overlooked, only brought smiles from
the experts.
However, basically the hunger artist had not forgotten his sense of the way
things really were, and he took it as self-evident that people would not set
him and his cage up as the star attraction somewhere in the middle of the
arena, but would move him outside in some other readily accessible spot near
the animal stalls. Huge brightly painted signs surrounded the cage and
announced what there was to look at there. During the intervals in the main
performance, when the general public pushed out towards the menagerie in
order to see the animals, they could hardly avoid moving past the hunger
artist and stopping there a moment. They would perhaps have remained with him
longer, if those pushing up behind them in the narrow passage way, who did
not understand this pause on the way to the animal stalls they wanted to see,
had not made a longer peaceful observation impossible. This was also the
reason why the hunger artist began to tremble at these visiting hours, which
he naturally used to long for as the main purpose of his life. In the early
days he could hardly wait for the pauses in the performances. He had looked
forward with delight to the crowd pouring around him, until he became
convinced only too quickly—and even the most stubborn, almost deliberate
self-deception could not hold out against the experience—that, judging by
their intentions, most of these people were, again and again without
exception, only visiting the menagerie. And this view from a distance still
remained his most beautiful moment. For when they had come right up to him,
he immediately got an earful from the shouting of the two steadily increasing
groups, the ones who wanted to take their time looking at the hunger artist,
not with any understanding but on a whim or from mere defiance—for him these
ones were soon the more painful—and a second group of people whose only
demand was to go straight to the animal stalls.
Once the large crowds had passed, the late comers would arrive, and although
there was nothing preventing these people any more from sticking around for
as long as they wanted, they rushed past with long strides, almost without a
sideways glance, to get to the animals in time. And it was an all-too-rare
stroke of luck when the father of a family came by with his children, pointed
his finger at the hunger artist, gave a detailed explanation about what was
going on here, and talked of earlier years, when he had been present at
similar but incomparably more magnificent performances, and then the
children, because they had been inadequately prepared at school and in life,
always stood around still uncomprehendingly. What was fasting to them? But
nonetheless the brightness of the look in their searching eyes revealed
something of new and more gracious times coming. Perhaps, the hunger artist
said to himself sometimes, everything would be a little better if his
location were not quite so near the animal stalls. That way it would be easy
for people to make their choice, to say nothing of the fact that he was very
upset and constantly depressed by the stink from the stalls, the animals’
commotion at night, the pieces of raw meat dragged past him for the
carnivorous beasts, and the roars at feeding time. But he did not dare to
approach the administration about it. In any case, he had the animals to
thank for the crowds of visitors among whom, here and there, there could be
one destined for him. And who knew where they would hide him if he wished to
remind them of his existence and, along with that, of the fact that, strictly
speaking, he was only an obstacle on the way to the menagerie.
A small obstacle, at any rate, a constantly diminishing obstacle. People got
used to the strange notion that in these times they would want to pay
attention to a hunger artist, and with this habitual awareness the judgment
on him was pronounced. He might fast as well as he could—and he did—but
nothing could save him any more. People went straight past him. Try to
explain the art of fasting to anyone! If someone doesn’t feel it, then he
cannot be made to understand it. The beautiful signs became dirty and
illegible. People tore them down, and no one thought of replacing them. The
small table with the number of days the fasting had lasted, which early on
had been carefully renewed every day, remained unchanged for a long time, for
after the first weeks the staff grew tired of even this small task. And so
the hunger artist kept fasting on and on, as he once had dreamed about in
earlier times, and he had no difficulty succeeding in achieving what he had
predicted back then, but no one was counting the days—no one, not even the
hunger artist himself, knew how great his achievement was by this point, and
his heart grew heavy. And when once in a while a person strolling past stood
there making fun of the old number and talking of a swindle, that was in a
sense the stupidest lie which indifference and innate maliciousness could
invent, for the hunger artist was not being deceptive—he was working
honestly—but the world was cheating him of his reward.
Many days went by once more, and this, too, came to an end. Finally the cage
caught the attention of a supervisor, and he asked the attendant why they had
left this perfectly useful cage standing here unused with rotting straw
inside. Nobody knew, until one man, with the help of the table with the
number on it, remembered the hunger artist. They pushed the straw around with
a pole and found the hunger artist in there. “Are you still fasting?” the
supervisor asked. “When are you finally going to stop?” “Forgive me
everything,” whispered the hunger artist. Only the supervisor, who was
pressing his ear up against the cage, understood him. “Certainly,” said the
supervisor, tapping his forehead with his finger in order to indicate to the
spectators the state the hunger artist was in, “we forgive you.” “I always
wanted you to admire my fasting,” said the hunger artist. “But we do admire
it,” said the supervisor obligingly. “But you shouldn’t admire it,” said the
hunger artist. “Well then, we don’t admire it,” said the supervisor, “but why
shouldn’t we admire it?” “Because I had to fast. I can’t do anything else,”
said the hunger artist. “Just look at you,” said the supervisor, “why can’t
you do anything else?” “Because,” said the hunger artist, lifting his head a
little and, with his lips pursed as if for a kiss, speaking right into the
supervisor’s ear so that he wouldn’t miss anything, “because I couldn’t find
a food which I enjoyed. If had found that, believe me, I would not have made
a spectacle of myself and would have eaten to my heart’s content, like you
and everyone else.” Those were his last words, but in his failing eyes there
was the firm, if no longer proud, conviction that he was continuing to fast.
“All right, tidy this up now,” said the supervisor. And they buried the
hunger artist along with the straw. But in his cage they put a young panther.
Even for a person with the dullest mind it was clearly refreshing to see this
wild animal throwing itself around in this cage, which had been dreary for
such a long time. It lacked nothing. Without thinking about it for any length
of time, the guards brought the animal food. It enjoyed the taste and never
seemed to miss its freedom. This noble body, equipped with everything
necessary, almost to the point of bursting, also appeared to carry freedom
around with it. That seem to be located somewhere or other in its teeth, and
its joy in living came with such strong passion from its throat that it was
not easy for spectators to keep watching. But they controlled themselves,
kept pressing around the cage, and had no desire to move on.
This
translation by Ian Johnston of Malaspina University-College, Nanaimo, BC, has
certain copyright restrictions.
Me and Literature holds special permission from Ian Johnson to bring these stories to you.
