Auto-Da-Fé

by Elias Canetti

  The first of the four rooms served for his study. A huge old writing desk, an armchair in front of it, a second armchair in the opposite corner were its only furniture. There crouched besides an unobtrusive divan, willingly overlooked by its master: he only slept on it. A movable pair of steps was propped against the wall. It was more important than the divan, and travelled in the course of a day from room to room. The emptiness of the three remaining rooms was not disturbed by so much as a chair. Nowhere did a table, a cupboard, a fireplace interrupt the multi-coloured monotony of the bookshelves. Handsome deep-pile carpets, the uniform covering of the floor, softened the harsh twilight which, mingling through wide-open communicating doors, made of the four separate rooms one single lofty hall.

  Kien walked with a stiff and deliberate step. He set his feet down with particular firmness on the carpets; it pleased him that even a footfall such as his waked not the faintest echo. In his library it would have been beyond the power even of an elephant to pound the slightest noise out ofthat floor. For this reason he set great store by his carpets. He satisfied himself that the books were still in the order in which he had been forced to leave them an hour before. Then he began to relieve his brief-case of its contents. When he came in, it was his habit to lay it down on the chair in front of the writing desk. Otherwise he might perhaps have forgotten it and have sat down to his work before he had tidied away its contents; for at eight o'clock he felt a very strong compulsion to begin his work. With the help of the ladder he distributed the volumes to their appointed places. In spite of all his care — since it was already late, he was hurrying rather more than usual — the last of the books fell from the third bookshelf, a shelf for which he did not even have to use the ladder. It was no other than Mencius beloved above all the rest. 'Idiot!' he shrieked at himself. 'Barbarian! Illiterate!' tenderly lifted the book and went quickly to the door. Before he had reached it an important thought struck him. He turned back and pushed the ladder as softly as he could to the site of the accident. Mencius he laid gently down with both hands on the carpet at the foot of the ladder. Now he could go to the door. He opened it and called into the hall:

  'Your best duster, please!'

  Almost at once the housekeeper knocked at the door which he had lightly pushed to. He made no answer. She inserted her head modestly through the crack and asked:

  'Has something happened?'

  'No, give it to me.

  She thought she could detect a complaint in this answer. He had not intended her to. She was too curious to leave the matter where it was. 'Excuse me, Professor!' she said reproachfully, stepped into the room and saw at once what had happened. She glided over to the book. Below her blue starched skirt, which reached to the floor, her feet were invisible. Her head was askew. Her ears were large, flabby and prominent. Since her right ear touched her shoulder and was partly concealed by it, the left looked all the bigger. When she talked or walked her head waggled to and fro. Her shoulders waggled too, in accompaniment. She stooped, lifted up the book and passed the duster over it carefully at least a dozen times. Kien did not attempt to forestall her. Courtesy was abhorrent to him. He stood by and observed whether she performed her work seriously.

  'Excuse me, a thing like that can happen, standing up on a ladder.'

  Then she handed the book to him, like a plate newly polished. She would very gladly have begun a conversation with him. But she did not succeed. He said briefly, 'Thank you' and turned his back on her. She understood and went. She had already, placed her hand on the door knob when he turned round suddenly and asked with simulated friendliness:

  'Then this has often happened to you?'

  She saw through him and was genuinely indignant: 'Excuse me, Professor.' Her 'Excuse me' struck through her unctuous tones, sharp as a thorn. She will give notice, he thought; and to appease her explained himself:

  'I only meant to impress on you what these books represent in terms of money.'

  She had not been prepared for so affable a speech. She did not know how to reply and left the room pacified. As soon as she had gone, he reproached himself. He had spoken about books like the vilest tradesman. Yet in what other way could he enforce the respectful handling of books on a person of her kind? Their real value would have no meaning for her. She must believe that the library was a speculation of his. What people! What people!

  He bowed involuntarily in the direction of the Japanese manuscripts, and, at last, sat down at his writing desk.

  CHAPTER II

  THE SECRET

  Eight years earlier Kien had put the following advertisement in the paper:

  A man of learning who owns an exceptionally large library wants a responsibly-minded housekeeper. Only applicants of the highest character need apply. Unsuitable persons will be shown the door. Money no object.

  Thérèse Krumbholz was at that time in a good position in which she had hitherto been satisfied. She read exhaustively every morning, before getting breakfast for her employers, the advertisement columns of the daily paper, to know what went on in the world. She had no intention of ending her life in the service of a vulgar family. She was still a young person, the right side of fifty, and hoped for a place with a single gentleman. Then she could have things just so; with women in the house it's not the same. But you couldn't expect her to give up her good place for nothing. She'd know who she had to do with before she gave in her notice. You didn't catch her with putting things in the papers, promising the earth to respectable women. You hardly get inside the door and they start taking liberties. Alone in the world now for thirty-three years and such a thing had never happened to her yet. She'd take care it never did, what's more.

  This time the advertisement hit her right in the eye. The phrase 'Money no object' made her pause; then she read the sentences, all of which stood out in heavy type, several times backwards and forwards. The tone impressed her: here was a man. It flattered her to think of herself as an applicant of the highest character. She saw the unsuitable persons being shown the door and took a righteous pleasure in their fate. Not for one second did it occur to her that she herself might be treated as an unsuitable person.

  On the following morning she presented herself before Kien at the earliest possible moment, seven o'clock. He let her into the hall and immediately declared: 'I must emphatically forbid any stranger whatsoever to enter my house. Are you in a position to take over the custody of the books?'

  He observed her narrowly and with suspicion. Before she gave her answer to his question, he would not make up his mind about her. 'Excuse me please,' she said, 'what do you take me for?'

  Her stupefaction at his rudeness made her give an answer in which he could und no fault.

  'You have a right to know,' he said, 'the reason why I gave notice to my last housekeeper. A book out of my library was missing. I had the whole house searched. It did not come to light. I was thus compelled to give her notice on the spot.' Choked with indignation, he was silent. 'You will understand the necessity,' he added as an afterthought, as though he had made too heavy a demand on her intelligence.

  'Everything in its right place,' she answered promptly. He was disarmed. With an ample gesture he invited her into the library. She stepped delicately into the first of the rooms and stood waiting.

  This is the sphere of your duties,' he said in a dry, serious tone of voice. 'Every day one of these rooms must be dusted from floor to ceiling. On the fourth day your work is completed. On the fifth you start again with the first room. Can you undertake this:

  'I make so bold.'

  He went out again, opened the door of the flat and said: 'Good morning. You will take up your duties to-day.'

  She was already on the stairs and still hesitating. Of her wages, he had said nothing. Before she gave up her present place she must ask him. No, better not. One false step. If she said nothing, perhaps he would give more of his own accord. Over the two conflicting forces, caution and greed, a third prevailed: curiosity.

 
'Yes, and about my wages ?' Embarrassed by the mistake which she was perhaps making, she forgot to add her 'excuse me'.

  'Whatever you like,' he said indifferently and closed the door.

  She informed her horrified employers — they relied entirely on her, an old piece of furniture in the house for twelve years — that she wouldn t put up with such goings on any more, she'd rather beg her bread in the street. No arguments could move her from her purpose. She was going at once; when you have been in the same position for twelve years, you can make an exception of the usual month's notice. The worthy family seized the opportunity of saving her wages up to the 20th. They refused to pay them since the creature would not stay her month out. Thérèse thought to herself: I shall get it out of him, and went.

  She fulfilled her duty towards the books to Kien's satisfaction. He expressed his recognition of the fact by silence. To praise her openly in her presence seemed to him unnecessary. His meals were always punctual. Whether she cooked well or badly he did not know; it was a matter of total indifference to him. During his meals, which he ate at his writing desk, he was busy with important considerations. As a rule he would not have been able to say what precisely he had in his mouth. He reserved consciousness for real thoughts; they depend upon it; without consciousness, thoughts are unthinkable. Chewing and digesting happen of themselves.

  Thérèse had a certain respect for his work, for he paid her a high salary regularly and was friendly to no one; he never even spoke to her. Sociable people, from a child up, she had always despised; her mother had been one ofthat kind. She performed her own tasks meticulously. She earned her money. Besides, from the very beginning she had a riddle to solve. She enjoyed that.

  Punctually at six the Professor got out of his divan bed. Washing and dressing were soon done. In the evening, before going to bed, she turned down his divan and pushed the wash-stand, which was on wheels, into the middle of the study. It was allowed to stand there for the night. A screen of four sections in Spanish leather painted with letters in a foreign language was so arranged as to spare him the disturbing sight. He could not abide articles of furniture. The wash-trolley, as he called it, was an invention of his own, so constructed that the loathsome object could be disposed of as soon as it had performed its office. At a quarter past six he would open his door and violently expel it; it would trundle all the way down the long passage. Close to the kitchen door it would crash into the wall. Thérèse would wait in the kitchen; her own little room was immediately adjoining. She would open the door and call: 'Up already?' He made no answer and bolted himself in again. Then he stayed at home until seven o'clock. Not a soul knew what he did in the long interval until seven o'clock. At other times he always sat at his writing desk and wrote.

  The sombre, weighty colossus of a desk was filled to bursting with manuscripts and heavy laden with books. The most cautious stirring of any drawer elicited a shrill squeak. Although the noise was repulsive to him, Kien left the heirloom desk in this state so that the housekeeper, in the event of his absence from home, would know at once if a burglar had got in. Strange species, they usually look for money before they start on the books. He had explained the mechanism of his invaluable desk to Thérèse, briefly yet exhaustively, in three sentences. He had added, in a meaning tone, that there was no possibility of silencing the squeak; even he was unable to do so. During the day she could hear every time Kien looked out a manuscript. She wondered how he could put up with the noise. At night he shut all his papers away. Until eight in the morning the writing desk remained mute. When she was tidying up she never found anything on it but books and a few yellow papers. She looked in vain for clean paper covered with his own handwriting. It was clear that from a quarter past six until seven in the morning, three whole quarters of an hour, he did no work whatever.

  Was he saying his prayers? No, she couldn't believe that. Nobody says their prayers. She had no use for praying. You didn't catch her going to church. Look at the sort of people who go to church. A fine crowd they are, cluttered up together. She didn't hold with all that begging either. You have to give them something because everyone is watching you. What they do with it, heaven knows. Say one's prayers at home — why? A waste of beautiful time. A respectable person doesn't need that sort of thing. She'd always kept herself respectable. Other people could pray for all she cared. But she'd like to know what went on in that room between a quarter past six and seven o'clock. She was not curious, no one could call her that. She didn't poke her nose into other people's business. Women were all alike nowadays. Poking their noses into everything. She got on with her own work. Prices going up something shocking. Potatoes cost double already. How to make the money go round. He locked all four doors. Or else you could have seen something from the next room. So particular as he was too, never wasting a minute!

  During his morning walk Thérèse examined the rooms entrusted to her care. She suspected a secret vice; its nature remained vague. First of all she decided for a woman's body in a trunk. But there wasn't room for that under the carpets and she renounced a horribly mutilated corpse. There was no cupboard to help her speculations; how gladly she would have welcomed one; one against each wall preferably. Then the hideous crime must be concealed somehow behind one of the books. Where else? She might have satisfied her sense of duty by dusting over their spines only; the immoral secret she was tracking down compelled her to look behind each one. She took each out separately, knocked at it — it might be hollow — inserted her coarse, calloused fingers as far back as the wooden panelling, probed about, and at length withdrew them, dissatisfied, shaking her head. Her interest never misled her into overstepping the exact time laid down for her work. Five minutes before Kien unlocked the door, she was already in the kitchen. Calmly and without haste she searched one section of the shelves after another, never missing anything and never quite giving up hope.

  During these months of indefatigable research, she couldn't think of taking her money to the post-office. She wouldn't lay a finger on it; who knew what sort of money it might be? She placed the notes, in the order in which he gave them to her, in a large clean envelope, which contained, still in its entirety, the stock of notepaper she had bought twenty years before. Overcoming serious scruples she put the whole into her trunk, with the trousseau, specially selected and beautifully worked, which had taken her many years and hard-earned money to accumulate.

  Little by little she realized that she would not get to the bottom of the mystery as easily as all that. She knew how to wait. She was very well as she was. If something were to come to light one day — no one could blame her. She had been over every corner ofthat library with a fine-tooth comb. Of course if you had a friend in the police, solid and respectable, who wouldn't forget you were in a good job, you might say something to him. Excuse me, she could put up with a lot, but she'd no one to rely on. The things people do these days. Dancing, bathing, fooling around, nothing sensible, not a stroke of work. Her own gentleman, though he was sensible enough, had his goings on like anyone else. Never went to bed before midnight. The best sleep is the sleep before midnight. Respectable people go to bed at nine. Very likely it wasn't anything to write home about.

  Gradually the horrible crime dwindled into a mere secret. Thick, tough layers of contempt covered it up. But her curiosity remained; between a quarter past six and seven o'clock she was always on the alert. She counted on rare, but not impossible contingencies. A sudden pain in the stomach might bring him out of his room. Then she would hurry in and ask if he wanted anything. Pains do not go away all in a minute. A few seconds, and she would know all she wanted to know. But the temperate and reasonable life which Kien led suited him too well. For the whole eight long years during which he had employed Thérèse he had never yet had a pain in the stomach.

  The very morning on which he had met the blind man and his dog, it happened that Kien urgently wanted to consult certain old treatises. He pulled out all the drawers of the writing desk violently one after t
he other. A vast accumulation of papers had piled up in them over the years. Rough drafts, corrected scripts, fair copies, anything and everything which had to do with his work, he carefully preserved them all. He found wretched scraps whose contents he had himself long since surpassed and contradicted. The archives went right back to his student days. Merely in order to find a minute detail, which he knew by heart anyway, merely to check a reference, he wasted hours of time. He read over thirty pages and more; one line was all he wanted. Worthless stuff, which had long since served its purpose, came into his hands. He cursed it, why was it there? But once his eye fell upon anything written or printed he could not pass it over. Any other man would have refused to be held up by these digressions. He read every word, from first to last. The ink had faded. He had difficulty in making out the pale outlines. The blind man in the street came into his mind. There was he, playing tricks with his eyes, as if they would last for all eternity. Instead of restricting their hours of service, he increased them wantonly from month to month. Each single paper which he replaced in the drawer cost his eyes a part of their strength. Dogs have short lives and dogs do not read; thus they are able to help out blind men with their eyes. The man who has frittered away the strength of his eyes is a worthy companion of the beast that leads him.