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Eksplozja słowa (“Word Explosion”)

2010, Gombrowicz--Nasz współczesny. Ed. Jerzy Jarzebski. Cracow: Universitas. 706-13.

Abstract

Ano, jak Gombrowicz, to maszże to 80 pezów i więcej nie przychodź, bo Wojna i Pan Minister zajęty. Ja powiadam: --Wojna. On mówi: --Wojna. Ja mówię: --Wojna. On mnie na to: --Wojna. To ja jemu: --Wojna, wojna. Trans-Atlantyk (18-19) In Makar Devushkin's final pathetic letter to Varvara Alekseevna at the end of Dostoevsky's first novel, Biednye liudi (Poor Folk), Makar becomes so desperate at the loss of his love to Bykov, a wealthy and somewhat unseemly older man, that he will do anything for her, even if it means purchasing parts of her wedding trousseau. His madness is rendered in language by his repeated and obsessive use of a ridiculous word: fal'bala (Pol. falbanka). The constative meaning of the word, describing a frill attached to a dress, becomes secondary to its performative function as gesture. It is impossible for a low ranking chinovnik from Petersburg to say this foreign word from the Italian dressmaking vocabulary, one which appears not infrequently in sentimental novels of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, without appearing ridiculous. We can only imagine Makar repeatedly biting his lower lip on the fal'-and drooling onto his shirt as he spits out the -bala several times in rapid succession. Да что он вам-то, маточка, Быков-то? Чем он для вас вдруг мил сделался? Вы, может выть, оттого, что он вам фальбалу-то всё закупает, вы, может быть, от этого! Да ведь что же фальбала? зачем фальбала? Ведь она, маточка, вздор! Тут речь идет о жизни человеческой, а ведь она, маточка, тряпка--фальбала; она, маточка,