Auto-Da-Fé

by Elias Canetti

  'Once again, you drive me to suicide!' George was listening to the novel with half an ear, the reading voice sounded pleasant, he understood its inflexions; but at this absurd statement of the hero in person, he could not help laughing out loud. 'You would not laugh, sir, if you were blind!' an angry voice came at him. The blind man had spoken; his first words were rude. 'I'm sorry,' said George, 'but I don't believe in that kind of love.' 'Then don't interrupt a serious person's pleasures ! I understand love better than you. I'm blind. That's no business of yours!' 'You misunderstand me,' George began. Then he noticed the woman; she was gesticulating vehemently, alternately she put her finger to her lips and folded her hands, he must for God's sake say no more; he said no more. Her lips thanked him. The blind man had already raised his arm. To defend himself? To attack? He let it fall and ordered: 'Go on!' The woman read on, her voice trembled. With fear? With joy at having met a man of such delicate feeling?

  Blind, blind, a dark and very distant memory clutched at his mind. Dim and insistent; it gnawed far into his consciousness. There was a room and another next door. In one there stood a small white bed. A little boy lay in it, red all over. He was afraid. A voice he didn't know was sobbing: 'I'm blind! I'm blind!' and whimpering over and over again: 'I want to read!' His mother went to and fro. She went through the door into the next room, where the voice was crying. It was dark in there, but it was light in here. The child wanted to ask: 'Who's that crying?' He was afraid. He thought, that voice'll get in here and cut out my tongue with a penknife. So he began to sing, all the songs he knew, over and over again. He sang loud, he yelled, his head nearly burst with the sound. 'I'm red all over,' he sang. The door flew open. 'Be quiet!' said his mother. 'You've got a temperature. What are you thinking of?' Then in a great gasp came that awful voice and screamed: 'I'm blind! I'm blind!' Little George came trembling out of bed and scrambled wailing to his mother. He clutched at her knees. 'What is it then, what is it?' 'That man! That man!' 'What man?' 'In that dark room there's a man screaming! A man!' 'But that's Peter, your brother Peter.' 'No, no!' little George raved, 'leave that man, you must stay with me!' 'But George, my clever little boy, that's Peter. He's got measles like you. He can t see any thing just now. So he's crying a little. He'll be well again in the morning. Come along, let's go and see him.' 'No ! No!' he resisted her. 'It is Peter,' he thought, 'but another Peter', and he whimpered softly as long as his mother was in the room. As soon as she went back to the 'man' he hid his head under the clothes. When he heard the voice he howled loud again. It went on a long time, longer than he had ever cried before. The picture was blurred by his tears.

  George suddenly saw the danger with which Peter imagined himself threatened: he was afraid of going blind! Perhaps his eyes were bad. Perhaps he had to give up reading now and again. What could have worried him more? A single hour which did not fit in with his daily plan, was enough to fill him with strange thoughts. Everything was strange to Peter which had to do with nimself. As long as his head was busied with selected facts, information, theories, weaving them together, tabulating them and relating them to each other, he was certain of the usefulness of his solitude. Really solitary, alone with himself, he had never been. After all, this was what made the learned man: being alone so as to be with as many things as possible simultaneously. As if in these conditions a man could himself truly be even with one thing alone. Probably Peter's eyes had been overstrained. Who could say whether he was careful to read in a good light? Perhaps, contrary to his custom, and his contemptuous attitude, he had been to a doctor who had recommended unconditional rest and quiet. This very quiet, extended over several days, might have brought on his final quietus. Instead of indemnifying the illness of his eyes by the soundness of his ears, instead of listening to music and people (what is richer than the intonations of men?) he must surely have paced up and down before his books, doubted the goodwill of his own eyes, implored them, cursed them, recollected with terror that one day's blindness of his childhood, been struck with horror lest he should again become blind, and for a long time, he must have raged, despaired and — because he was the proudest and harshest of men —called his brother to him before he approached a neighbour or an acquaintance for the least helpful word. I'll get rid ofthat blindness, George decided. I never saw an easier cure in prospect. Three things for me to do: a thorough examination of his eyes, a careful test of the lighting arrangements in his flat, and a cautious and loving talk which will convince him of the meaninglessness of his fears, always supposing that they had no real foundation.

  He glanced with friendship at the rude blind man opposite and thanked him in silence for his presence. He had shown him the right interpretation of the telegram. A sensitive mind derives either advantage or injury from every contact, because each will awaken thoughts and recollections. The indolent are wandering institutions, nothing flows into them, nothing makes them overflow, frozen and isolated, they drift through the world. Why should they move? What moves them? Accidentally they belong to the animal kingdom, but in fact they are vegetables. You could nip their heads off and they'd go on living, they have their roots. The stoic philosophy is suited to vegetables, it is high treason to animals. Let us be animals! He who has roots, let him uproot himself. George was glad to know why the train was carrying him so fast on his way. He had got into it blindly. Blindly he had had that dream of his childhood. A blind man had got in. Then suddenly the train found its direction: to the healing of a blind brother. For whether Peter really was blind, or only feared it, was for a psychiatrist one and the same thing. Now he could sleep. Animals >ursue their desires to their climax and then break off. Most of all they ove the frequent changes of their tempo. They eat to completion and ove to satiation. Their rest they deepen into sleep. Soon he too slept.

  The reading woman, between the Unes, caressed the beautiful hand on which he had supported his head. She thought he was listening to her voice. Now and again she emphasized a word; he was to understand how unhappy she was. She would never forget this journey; soon she must get out. She would leave the book behind, as a souvenir, and — she implored — might she not have one look? She got out at the next station. Her husband she propelled in front of her, usually she drew him along behind her. In the door she held her breath. Without looking round —she was afraid of her husband, her movements aroused his anger — she said, daring much: 'Good-bye!' For how many years had she waited to speak in such a tone. He could make no answer. She was happy. Weeping softly, a little intoxicated with her own beauty, she helped the blind man out of the train. She mastered herself and cast no glance back towards the window of his compartment, where in her mind's eye she saw him. He must have seen her tears, and she was ashamed. She had left the novel with him. He was asleep.

  In the morning he washed. In the evening he reached his destination. He put up at a modest hotel. At a better known one his arrival would have been a sensation, since he was one of those half dozen scientists whom the newspapers faithfully expose to public adulation at the expense of all their colleagues. He put off his visit to his brother to the following day so as not to disturb his night's rest. Because his impatience tormented him, he went to the opera. Listening to Mozart he felt pleasantly secure.

  That night he dreamt of two cocks. The larger was red and scraggy, the smaller well-clipped and cunning. Their fighting lasted long, it was so exciting that one forgot to think. You see, said a spectator, what men are coming to! Men? crowed the little cock. What men? We're cocks. Fighting cocks. None of your iokes! The spectator withdrew. He grew smaller and smaller. Suddenly it was clear that he too was only a cock. But a cowardly one, said the red cock, it's time to get up. The small cock agreed. He had won and flew away. The red cock stayed. He grew larger and larger. His colour grew with his body. It hurt the eyes to look at him. They opened themselves. À huge sun bulged over the window-sill.

  George hurried and barely an hour later was standing in front of the house, No. 24 Ehrlich Strasse. It was more or less
respectable and quite without character. He climbed up the four floors and rang. An old woman opened the door. She was wearing a starched blue skirt and grinned. He felt like glancing down at himself to see if all was not as it should be, but controlled himself and asked: 'Is my brother at home?'

  Immediately the woman stopped grinning, stared at him and said: 'Excuse me, there's no brother here!

  'My name is Professor George Kien. I want Dr. Peter Kien, the well-known scholar. He certainly lived here eight yean ago. Perhaps you know if there is anyone in the building who would know his address in case he's moved.'

  'Better say nothing about that.'

  'One moment, please. I've come specially from Paris. You must surely be able to tell me whether he fives here or not.'

  'I ask you, you ought to be thankful.'

  'Why thankful?'

  'Some people aren't fools.'

  'Of course not.'

  'The stories there are!'

  'Perhaps my brother's ill?'

  'A fine brother! You ought to be ashamed!'

  'Kindly tell me what you know!'

  'And what do I get out of it?'

  George took a piece of money out of his pocket, gripped her arm and placed the coin with friendly pressure on her hand, which had opened of itself. The woman grinned again.

  'You'll tell me what you know about my brother, now, won't you?'

  'Anyone can talk.'

  'Well?'

  'All of a sudden you're dead. More, please!' she tossed her shoulders.

  George pulled out another coin, she held out her other hand. Instead of touching it, he tossed the coin down from above.

  'I may as well go again!' she said and gave him an ugly look.

  'What do you know about my brother?'

  'More than eight years ago. It all came out the day before yesterday.'

  It was eight years since Peter had written to him. The telegram had come the day before yesterday. The woman must have got hold of something of the truth. 'So what did you do?' George asked in order to spur her into a fuller account.

  'We went to the police. A respectable woman goes to the police right away.'

  'Of course, of course. Thank you for the assistance you must have rendered to my brother.'

  'If you please . . . Knocked flat, the police were.'

  'But what had he done?' George imagined his brother, slightly unbalanced, complaining to oafish policemen of his eye trouble.

  'Stolen, he did! He's no heart....'

  'Stolen?'

  'Murdered her, that's what he did! It's not my fault, is it? She was the first wife, I'm the second. He hid the pieces. There was room behind the books. Thief, that's what I always said. Day before yesterday the murderer was found out. I've got the shame of it. Why was I such a fool? I always say, one shouldn't. That's what people are like. I thought, all those books. What's he up to between six and seven? Cutting up corpses. Took the pieces out for his walk. Not a soul noticed. Stole the bank book, he did. I've nothing to hold on to. I might starve. He wanted me to. I'm the second. Then I'll have a divorce. Excuse me, he'll have to pay me first! Eight years ago he ought to have been locked up! Now he's put away downstairs. I've locked him in. I won't be murdered in my bed!' She burst into tears and slammed the door.

  Peter a murderer. Quiet, lanky Peter, whom all the other boys at school bullied. The stairs swayed. The roof fell in. And George, a person of the utmost fastidiousness, dropped his hat and did not pick it up. Peter married. Who would have believed it? The second wife, more than fifty years old, ugly, freakish, common, not able to utter a single human sentence, escaped an assault the day before yesterday. He cut the first one into pieces. He loves his books, and uses them as a hiding place. Peter and truth! If only he had lied, all his childhood lied, black and blue! So this was why George had been sent for. The telegram was a forgery, either of his wife or of the police. That legend of Peter's sexlessness. A pretty legend like all legends, made out ofthin air, idiotic. George the brother of a blue-beard. Headlines in all the papers. The greatest living sinologist ! The highest authority on eastern Asia! A double life! His retirement from the direction of the institute. Aberration. Divorce. His assistants to succeed him. The patients, the patients, they will be tormented, they will be ill-used! Eight hundred! They love him, they need him, he cannot leave them. Resignation is impossible. They cling to him on all sides, you mustn't leave us, we'll come too, stay with us, we've no one else, they don't talk our language, you listen to us, you understand us, you laugh with us; his beautiful, rare birds; they are all of them strangers there, each one from a different land, not one understands his neighbour, they accuse each other and do not even know it; he lives for them, he can't forsake them, he will stay. Peter's affairs must be seen to. His catastrophe is bearable. He was all for Chinese characters, George for human beings. Peter must be put in a home. He lived alone too long. His senses broke loose with his first wife. How could he control this sudden change? The police will give him up. Possibly he will be allowed to take mm to Paris. It is evident that he is not responsible for his actions. In no circumstances will George retire from the direction of the institute.

  On the contrary, he stepped forward, picked up his hat, dusted it, and knocked politely but firmly at the door. Scarcely was his hat back in his hand than he was again the assured man of the world, the doctor. 'My dear lady,' he lied, 'my dear lady!' A youthful admirer, he re-repeated the two words, imploringly and with a fire which seemed ridiculous even to him, as though he were himself the spectator to the play he was acting. He heard her preparations. Maybe she has a pocket mirror, he thought, maybe she's powdering herself and will listen to me. She opened the door and grinned. 'I would like to ask you for some particulars!' He sensed her disappointment. She had expected a further passage of affection, or at the very least a repetition of that 'my dear idy'. Her mouth stayed open, her expression grew sour.

  'I ask you. Murderer, that's all I know.'

  'Shut up!' bellowed the voice of a mad bull. Two fists appeared, followed by a thick, red head. 'Don't you believe the bitch! She's a cow! No murders in my house! As long as I've anything to do with it, not on your life! Owed me for four canaries, though; if you're his brother, highly bred little birds, bred them myself. He paid. Paid well. Yesterday night it was. Maybe I'll open my patent peep-hole for him again to-day. He's gone off his head. Do you want to see him? Gets his food all right. Whatever he asks for. I've locked him up. He's frightened of the old woman. Can't stand her. Nobody can stand her. Have a look now! What she's done with him! Knocked him all to bits, she has. She doesn't exist any more for him, he says. He'd sooner be blind. Quite right, he is. She's a sh—of a woman! If he hadn't married her he'd have been right enough, right in the head too, I say!' The woman tried to speak; with a sideways thrust of his arm he knocked her back into the flat.

  'Who are you?' asked George.

  'You see in me your brother's best friend. Benedikt Pfaff, signature, police constable, retired, once called Ginger the Cat! I look after the house. Though I say it myself! I keep a sharp eye on the law. Who are you? Profession, I mean?'

  George asked to see his brother. All the murders, all the anxieties, all the malevolence in the world had vanished: The caretaker pleased him. His head reminded him of the rising sun of early that morning. He was crude, but refreshing, an untamed, stout fellow such as one rarely sees now in the cities and homes of civilization. The stairs groaned. Instead of carrying it, this Atlas smote the wretched earth. His powerful legs oppressed the ground. Feet and shoes seemed made of stone. The walls echoed to his words. How could the tenants endure it, George wondered. He was a little ashamed because he had not immediately seen that the woman was a cretin. The simple structure of her sentences had convinced him that her imbecilities were true. He put the blame on the journey, on the Mozart opera of yesterday, which had for the first time in years dragged him out of the daily course of his thoughts, and on his expectation of finding an invalid brother, but not
necessarily a cretinous housekeeper. That the austere Peter should have happened on this absurd old thing was a light in his darkness. He laughed at the blindness and inexperience of his brother, who had certainly telegraphed on her account, and was glad that the damage could be so easily repaired. A question to the caretaker confirmed his assumption: she had kept house for Peter for many years and had made use of this, her original function, to insert herself into a more respectable one. He was filled with tender feelings for his brother, who had spared him the inconvenience of murder. The simple telegram had a simple meaning. Who could tell but to-morrow morning already he might be back in the train, and the day after pacing through his wards;