Dr Schwarzkopf interjected, ‘It’s certainly true from what you’ve told us, Otto, that the world’s great philosophers have spent a lot of time repeating one another’s ideas, dressing them up in new definitions. Personally, I say to hell with philosophy. Give me a loaded shotgun and a fine clear morning for the shoot!’ Schwarzkopf laughed, and as the waiter and waitress cleared their table, he returned to the more interesting matter of the mountain walks that could safely be pursued in the vicinity of the Villa Herzen.
‘There’s too much snow for it now,’ he said, after listing a few beneficial ambles which Schrödinger already knew from previous visits, ‘but a summer favourite of mine is the long hike over the pass to Davos. Helga and I have done it on several occasions. Do you remember the last time, dear, when we went there and stayed with my friend Behrens? How long ago must it be?’
Frau Schwarzkopf began a calculation based on temporal markers that presumably did not exist in her husband’s own mental landscape. By means of a winding footpath that took her past the children’s various illnesses or changes of school, and through several phases of building work on the villa, she arrived at a figure of thirteen years.
‘My word! So long already?’ Dr Schwarzkopf spoke like someone surprised by his own reflection; as if the simple facts of his existence were somehow inaccessible to him except during moments of sudden and disturbing insight. ‘How time flies, living up here. Well, we went and stayed with Behrens, who has a sanatorium of his own in Davos, very well equipped. You remember, dear, that Jewess you befriended? What was her name?’
Frau Schwarzkopf was still gripped by Hinze’s philosophy of repetition. Perhaps she would be walking over that mountain pass again, millions of years from now, seeing the same endless peaks, the same gentians nodding in the breeze.
‘And her husband,’ said Schwarzkopf. ‘Called himself a writer. Wonder whatever happened to him, eh?’
Now a roast had been brought and was being carved for them by the agile waiter who stood beside their table; a youth who bore, Schrödinger felt, an untrustworthy look, of the kind that certain women find irresistible. Frau Schwarzkopf, who hadn’t been listening to anything her husband was saying, suddenly asked Dr Hinze, ‘How does eternal recurrence explain the story of the kingfisher, or the dying man?’
Schwarzkopf was irritated but gave way, concerning himself with the waiter’s performance in serving the guests, while Hinze told Frau Schwarzkopf, ‘If the future, as Nietzsche asserts, has already happened in the distant past, then we might, under exceptional circumstances, be able to remember the future. Jung drew a spirit with kingfisher wings, because he remembered the dead bird he was destined to find. Neither event – the painting or the bird’s discovery – precedes the other, since both occur infinitely many times. The past is just as much dependent on the future, as the future is caused by the past.’
Dr Schwarzkopf, who was gesturing to the waiter about where to place the vegetables, exclaimed, ‘Otto, really, what nonsense! Where is the evidence for any of this theory of yours? Where are the data? Science must have facts, my dear fellow, not mystical speculation.’
Schrödinger – who had, during much of the preceding conversation, been absorbed by scientific thoughts of his own – said, ‘Actually, there is some basis in physics for what Dr Hinze says. Quite recently I attended a lecture by Professor Sommerfeld in which he pointed out something very interesting. When an atom emits light, it does so because an orbiting electron has fallen from one energy level to a lower one. But the energy levels are quantized – that is to say, their values form a discrete series which allows for no intermediate steps. So when an electron tumbles from one level to the next, it must reach its destination instantaneously, having somehow “known in advance” where it will end up. It’s not like falling out of a window; more like taking an infinitely fast lift between floors. Clearly, the radiation process involves a different kind of causality from the one we’re used to – one in which the present is dictated by the future. Sommerfeld calls this “teleological causality”, and your story of the kingfisher, Dr Hinze, may – for all I know – provide evidence of it on a macroscopic scale.’
Hinze appeared simultaneously delighted and pained by what was both confirmation and precedent for a theory he hoped to claim as his own. Dr Schwarzkopf, dissecting the meat on his plate and finding it to his satisfaction, was sceptical. ‘Do you mean that our physicists are going to become mystics too? Is this to be the upshot of the great intellectual tradition of the German-speaking people? It sounds like madness to me.’
Hinze, having had time to decide how to respond, said, ‘I find it encouraging that the behaviour of atoms might in some way mimic the evolution of universal mind; but I can tell you, Professor Schrödinger, that my theory already has far firmer evidence. For I have been able to demonstrate, quite incontrovertibly, that certain individuals perceive both the past and the future, in ways that no orthodox notion of time and space can explain.’
‘Ah, we’re talking about the Invisible Girl, aren’t we?’ Schwarzkopf interjected.
‘The Invisible Girl?’ said Schrödinger. ‘I should very much like to hear about her.’
‘Oh, it’s a fine tale,’ Schwarzkopf said with an ironic rolling of his eyes. ‘A mystery and a headache. Some months ago, her case was brought to our notice by a schoolmaster in another village not far from here. She had shown up on his doorstep, looking as though she had walked a very considerable distance, and she had absolutely no idea where she came from, where she was going, or who she was.
‘You mean she’s amnesic?’ Schrödinger asked.
‘The case is far more subtle,’ said Hinze. ‘This young woman – Clara, I call her, though Dr Schwarzkopf and others in this establishment prefer the tasteless nickname you have heard – would appear to be engaged in some profound psychic flight from her own identity.’
‘And in the meantime,’ Schwarzkopf interrupted, for Schrödinger’s benefit, ‘she is being cared for here, at our own expense.’
Hinze quickly resumed, ‘There is so much to learn from her! Clara’s case, if we can properly fathom it, might make the Villa Herzen famous!’
Dr Schwarzkopf was shaking his head. ‘Ah, yes, fame. You know, Otto, it strikes me that some men talk of fame in the way that many women speak of love. What they mean in both cases is an impossible dream. You think with your Invisible Girl that you can make a name for yourself, don’t you, Otto? Good luck to you, then. But don’t forget how much this experiment of yours is costing me.’ Schwarzkopf stuck a piece of meat into his mouth and washed it down with wine. Frau Schwarzkopf was looking sourly at him, clearly stung by his remark about love, and eventually Dr Schwarzkopf noticed the disapproving silence that had settled over his companions.
‘You surely cannot disagree with me!’ he said heartily. ‘Oh, I grant you, when I was much younger I had grand notions of winning renown. But look now at the happy life we enjoy here! Why should I yearn for anything else? Why should I crave the admiration of strangers? That, after all, is the dream of fame, and of love: it is the childish wish to be admired from afar, and to be “appreciated”. Professor Schrödinger, I’m sure you must see this phenomenon in your own younger colleagues, new to the profession, who fancy they might be the next Einstein. And I’ve no doubt you tell them that a little maturity will teach them the folly of their ambitions.’
Schrödinger nodded quietly, which only made Schwarzkopf expand even further on a topic the physicist found distasteful.
‘It was just the same with that writer fellow at Davos. I remember now, his wife the Jewess was called Katia: she was taking the rest cure and her husband was visiting. Whatever was his name?’
‘Thomas,’ Frau Schwarzkopf reminded him.
‘That’s right, Thomas. Well, talk about lofty ambitions! This fellow reckoned he had the makings of a best-selling author – and what were his credentials? None. No education or qualifications whatsoever. Nor had his books made any impact at all.
Said he’d written some big long novel about a family in northern Germany – I think he came from Lübeck or some such provincial town. Oh, and of course this novel of his was a masterpiece. He didn’t say it directly, but he obviously thought it was; but have any of us ever heard of his novel? No. I can’t even remember the title he told me – it wasn’t at all memorable, which I suppose was half the problem.’
None of Schwarzkopf’s companions particularly wished to hear this tale of failure, so typical, so familiar, and therefore so depressing. Frau Schwarzkopf would have preferred to recall poor Katia, whom she had rather liked, sensing the wealthy, gifted woman’s marriage to have been as loveless as her own. Schrödinger wanted to hear about the Invisible Girl; and the reader might like-wise feel teased by the postponing of her tale, which fortunately was soon to be picked up by Dr Hinze, thanks to a natural logical progression that shall be made clear in due course. First, however, we must allow Dr Schwarzkopf to complete his anecdote; we must also let the brilliantined waiter lean across Professor Schrödinger’s shoulder in order to replenish his glass; and we must permit the plump, plain-featured waitress to scrutinize Frau Schwarzkopf’s pale and beautiful face in search of further instruction, finding there instead only further confirmation of the apathy that forms the hub of Schwarzkopf philosophy: an apathy that can at times overwhelm whole nations.
‘He said to me, this writer fellow,’ Dr Schwarzkopf continued, ‘that if only the publisher had adequately advertised his first novel, then it would surely have been an enormous success.’ Schwarzkopf laughed. ‘You see, it had to be the publisher at fault, or the public. Never the author or the book!’ He slapped the table jovially. ‘How often have I heard some young guest, out on the shoot with us, who hardly knows one end of a gun from the other, loudly complaining that his line of sight has been blocked, or the weapon was inadequate, or the devil knows what else? You never hear them admit that they’re simply a lousy shot! And so it was with this writer. If only the publisher had sent it to the right reviewers, and if only they’d then brought out a cheaper one-volume edition, then the book would have become a bestseller, and the author’s name would have been established. History would have been so very different – and all because of other people’s mistakes!’ Again Schwarzkopf laughed heartily, clearly amused by the writer’s failure.
‘Who knows, perhaps recognition is yet to come,’ Hinze suggested. ‘Some artists find their true audience only long after their death.’
‘Romantic nonsense!’ Schwarzkopf retorted. ‘Professor Schrödinger, was there ever a physicist who achieved renown posthumously?’
Schrödinger could think only of far-sighted Greeks like Democritus or Aristarchus, who were in any case far from obscure when they proposed their theories of atoms and geocentrism. ‘Sometimes a scientist chances upon a correct idea of nature which is validated only later. Regarding glory, though, I think I must side with Dr Schwarzkopf. If a man does not win fame in his life-time, then he must settle for oblivion.’
Frau Schwarzkopf gave a yawn, hiding it behind a delicate hand. After meeting the writer in Davos, she’d tried to get hold of his novel, and had searched for it in a bookshop. It was not on any shelf, and the bookseller had never heard of it. He said he could order it for her if she really wanted it so much; but she declined, left the shop, and forgot all about Thomas and Katia, until now. Clearly, the intervening thirteen years had done nothing to advance his literary career.
‘Oh, the pompous fellow told me all about this damned novel of his,’ said Schwarzkopf. ‘And I said to him, if you want a good story, why not do one about a sanatorium? You get all sorts in places like these, I can tell you. He said he was more concerned with ideas than plots; in which case I’m not surprised nobody has heard of him. Said he was thinking of doing something based on Goethe – you see how high he set his aim! Still, for all I know he possibly took me up on my suggestion about a sanatorium, so that Helga and I are in some book of his right now, which no publisher can sell. And as far as he’s concerned, it’s all because of not enough advertising, not enough reviews, and no one-volume edition. Just think, my friends, supposing he was right? Suppose that his first novel had been the bestseller he reckoned it ought to be? Where would he be now? Giving lectures all over the place, I expect. Writing articles for newspapers. Being asked for his opinion about society, politics, culture. Winning prizes, handing them out, stuffing his face at banquets. Being treated as though he actually knew something, when he was nothing but a damned storyteller!’ Then Schwarzkopf threw his head back and guffawed so vigorously that he almost began to choke on a fragment of meat lingering unnoticed in his wine-washed gullet.
‘Which only goes to show,’ Schrödinger remarked, ‘that everything comes down to chance. When I think of Boltzmann or Maxwell or Newton – or indeed Einstein – I admit I find it inconceivable that contingencies such as good advertising or portable editions had anything to do with the success of their theories. Yet there were, I’m sure, other accidents that played their part. Newton’s apple is doubtless as apocryphal as the stories Einstein now tells the press concerning insights I know were the fruit of many years’ profound meditation. Still, the secret history of a man’s thoughts – a tale of fortuitous remarks, idle speculations and countless dead-ends – would, I am sure, be a more accurate account of discovery than the neatly heroic legends we are invariably taught.’
‘And that’s just what I tried to explain in my talk to the Psychological Club,’ Hinze said with renewed animation, while the waiter and waitress removed some empty dishes from the table. ‘History itself is hinged on chance and coincidence. The question is whether such things really are as random as they seem. Or else do they reveal the necessity of eternal recurrence? This is what I’m trying to fathom, with the help of Clara.’
‘Yes,’ said Schwarzkopf to Schrödinger. ‘And in order to achieve this philosophical insight he must make the poor girl survive on raw eggs and milk!’
Schrödinger had already guessed that the woman he saw earlier must have been Clara. Her abstract demeanour could belong only to someone who had lost contact with her own identity; a woman who had forgotten how to be herself. ‘Why the raw eggs?’ Schrödinger asked.
Hinze, mopping his greasy lips, said, ‘For all of us, diet has both a nutritive and a symbolic dimension. We could easily feed on worms and houseflies; yet we do not. We choose a diet that affirms our position in the natural hierarchy. With Clara, as I rebuild her psyche, I must seek to recapitulate phylogeny through ontogeny. In other words, she must progress once more through the entire race memory of the species. She is currently at a pre-cooked oral-pastoral phase, requiring mainly eggs, goat’s milk and a small amount of lettuce.’
‘Does she speak?’ Schrödinger asked.
‘Oh yes,’ said Hinze. ‘Just like an adult. This, of course, is a complicating factor in her development; hence, as part of her therapy, she is allowed to speak only during her sessions with me. At other times she mustn’t even use sign language. We have to break her in gently, you see. Soon she’ll be allowed a degree of pre-linguistic humming at meal times.’
Schrödinger was appalled by what he heard. Clara was Hinze’s toy, in a game that only added to the Villa Herzen’s sense of unreality; a sense that in other respects was the villa’s prime attraction. The thought of the disturbed woman and her raw eggs unsettled Schrödinger’s stomach, making him suddenly queasy. He stood up. ‘Please excuse me for a moment,’ he said with a polite bow to his host, then walked towards the door leading to the kitchen, since he knew there to be a toilet beyond. In truth, he needed a break from Hinze’s theories, from Schwarzkopf’s coarse jollity and from Frau Schwarzkopf’s dreamy indolence, all of which were more troubling to him than his digestion. He could feel the wine in his veins as he walked, and it occurred to him that he could look in at the kitchen in order to ask the waitress for directions that he did not really require. He might catch her there alone. Then, by entering into conversation with the
girl whose leg he had tickled, he could decide whether it was worth chasing matters further. Her plainness only added to his sense of confidence as he exited the dining area, turned to the right and followed the bend of the corridor to a swing-door that hung ajar.
Looking through the open crack, he saw a white-tiled wall, a large stone sink and a wooden drying rack filled with plates. And from another, hidden part of the room, he heard the sound of a girl’s suppressed laughter. The partly open door offered only a small angle of visibility; but at its hinge, where it met the door frame, there was a gap wide enough for Schrödinger, applying his eye to it, to survey some of the room’s secret inner region. This was how he now saw waiter and waitress, standing against a far wall and surrounded by hanging copper pans and culinary utensils, locked in a passionate embrace.
The shifty, brilliantined lad was pummelling the girl’s left breast like dough. With his other hand he had unbuttoned her enough to be able to pull down the upper part of her dress, helped by the girl who willingly slid her limbs through the armholes, wriggled herself free, then let him tug at her camisole until a large white breast plopped into his grasp like a landed salmon, stroked and teased by him so that its chestnut nipple stood firm before Schrödinger’s fascinated gaze. Other fingers then entered her crotch, while the lovers’ tongues lashed each other with the steady, single-minded hunger of grazing cattle.
This, Schrödinger reminded himself, is the world that lies beneath the illusory surface. It was those love-tainted fingers that prepared and served the food being eaten next door. The shared saliva, vaginal secretions, carelessly wiped nasal mucus and spilled semen of these two young people were what graced the plates of all Dr Schwarzkopf’s slowly dying guests, who would look out across ice-covered peaks, think of the families and the hopes they had left behind, and console themselves, like Frau Schwarzkopf, with the vain belief that they were enjoying purer lives now, of lofty visions and mental abstraction.
Mobius Dick Page 17