Rhubarb, Ahmed.
Rhubarb enters sobbing. Ahmed enters behind him without Rhubarb’s noticing and overhears everything that follows.
RHUBARB. They said it to me. At the meeting, they said it to me. They were all in agreement, the bastards. They said to me: “Rhubarb, allow us to speak plainly, since we’re just chewing the fat together, having a friendly meal, among friends, chowing down all informally and everything. So we can tell you: You’re putting on airs.” Well, actually, what they said was: “You’re farting higher than your ass.” Even the secretary repeated it, laughing: “Rhubarb, you’re farting higher than your ass.”
11 Just like that.
AHMED. Not that your ass is so high …
RHUBARB (startled). Who goes there? … Oh, it’s you, Ahmed, you were spying on me!
AHMED. I was thinking about your sorrow. I was searching for the means to bring you a brighter tomorrow. To do justice to your rage, even if I have to beg, steal, or borrow. So that, before the entire meeting of slanderers, before the stupid secretaro, you might soon return as the star-o.
RHUBARB. When the secretory and the whole Arab communitory and even the head of the union laboratory—I mean, the labor union—all tell you you’re farting higher than your ass, well, that’s a story that doesn’t exactly make you feel hunky-dory.
AHMED. Measurement.
RHUBARB. What are you talking about, measurement?
AHMED. You explained your plans to them, right? You told them it was time for a large vision, time to plant in Sarges-les-Corneilles the seeds of a whole multiracial culture of communities that can find their roots there? You told them about the need for a vision that would be at once ethical, aesthetical, and elastical? You told them that human rights needed to discover, in associative, municipal, familial, and colonial activism, a fresh new wind, one that can sweep away the fetid clouds of the sargeoise-corneilloise bureaucracy in all of its forms?
RHUBARB. It sounds like you were at the meeting! That’s exactly what I said, in a style at once ripe and pungent.
AHMED. Your famous camembert style! And they said that your vision was too grand, they called you Ethical Ethel, they said you and ethics were as thick as a couple of ticks. And, finally, that you were farting higher than your ass. And then you left in tears.
RHUBARB. It’s hard, it’s very hard. To be accused of grandiosity, of excess, it’s hard. Me, I’m for modesty. Democracy should be down-to-earth, very close to the people, with extremely concrete ideas, tiny ideas, nothing out of the ordinary. That’s what ethics is: never going beyond the masses, not even by a hair. Thinking like the modest neighborhood imbecile, thinking small, really small, teeny-weeny. Because if you think outside the box, or too far, or too big, bam! You’re a totalitarian. When they said to me, “Rhubarb, you’re farting higher than your ass,” I said to myself, kiddo, they’re telling you you’re a totalitarian.
12 That’s what brought tears to my eyes on the spot.
AHMED. I’m telling you. Measurement. Exact measurement. Have you seen this ass they were talking about?
RHUBARB (twisting himself around). It isn’t so easy to see your own behind.
AHMED (taking his stick). We’re going to measure.
A whole improvised game in which Ahmed measures with his stick the exact height of Rhubarb’s ass.
Just as I thought. It’s not much above sea level.
RHUBARB. They said: “higher. You’re farting higher than your ass.”
AHMED. OK. But what’s bigger than what’s little can still be little. Right?
RHUBARB (tempted by this solution). A little higher than my ass, that’s still not much above sea level? That’s still modest, that’s still ethical and democratic? Don’t you think?
AHMED. No doubt about it! Even if you take a tiny corpuscle, an electron, or even an atom, and multiply it by ten thousand, it’ll still be little! It’s like if you took a gigantic pile, a galaxy or even the sun, and divided it by ten thousand, it’ll still be very big. The big divided into little pieces will still be big. And, if it’s very big, even divided by a big number, it’ll still be big. And, similarly, the little divided by a little number will still be little. But if it’s really little, even multiplied by a big number, it’ll still be little.
RHUBARB (still worried). But do you think my ass is low enough, compared with sea level, so that even if I fart quite a bit higher it will still be low?
AHMED. I’m going to measure again.
Variations on the preceding improvisation.
No doubt about it. No matter how high you fart, even way above your ass, it’ll never be very high compared with sea level. The risk of high achievement, my dear Rhubarb, is nil.
RHUBARB. Wonderful! I’ve got them now, those bastards! Totalitarian, Rhubarb? Never! As pedestrian as they come! Right next to the masses! The itty-bitty, nitty-gritty practical idea!
AHMED. You fart almost at level zero. Altitude inconsequential. Mont Blanc is big, but everything you say is little. They proved it to you themselves, with their vulgar comparison.
RHUBARB. You’re right. You’ve got to measure everything, everything, everything, everything!
AHMED. Even every ding-a-ling. Measurement, moderation, that’s what ethics and aesthetics and elastics are all about.
RHUBARB. I’m going back to the meeting. I’m going to fart them up but good, you’ll see!
AHMED. Go for it.
Rhubarb exits … Ahmed contemplates his stick.
Oh thou! Standard measure! Are you big? Are you little? Neither one nor the other, if it’s thou who measurest the big and the little. Neither one nor the other, or both. Huge is the stick, if it’s an atom that measures it. Minuscule is the stick, if it’s compared to the sun. Anyway! Dear Rhubarb! The true little Rhubarb has dried the tears of the false big one.
With his stick, Ahmed measures the height of his own ass.
It’s even littler. But, actually, the stick is big! The stick is very big! The stick is immense! Ahmed, you fart higher than the stars.