Gärtner says no more, leads me down the porphyry steps and accompanies me to the little gate in the wall. He points to the garden, then disappears ...
In the midday glare my eye rests on a sundial fixed to the white wall and a fountain tirelessly splashing in restful melody. The sunlight strikes the rusty pointer, a dead lump of iron fixed to the wall, to create the shadow; and the shadow makes: – time.
A shadow can make time! And the time-shadow is accompanied by the fountain’s self-important pitter-patter. The splash of water is activity in the time of the shadow – links all around, links in all things; even time and space are links within which images move.
Deep in thought and immersed in landscapes of the creative spirit, I turn away and wander through the flowerbeds towards the yew-tree arbour that shades the deserted grave. Again the sun’s magic wand seems to give the surrounding garden a strange depth. Again I see in the distance a shimmer as of some shining garment. Fear and lust are far removed as I watch the radiance take shape, float forward, pause, then slowly move towards me, like a mirror image following me – and yet this is no mirror image! Gliding towards me is a creature of light that is beyond the shadows of reflected images.
I stride forward; approaching me with firm tread, no longer imprisoned in the golden cage of myth, is the Queen. Her eye is clear, joyful, steadfast, calmly fixed on mine. I draw near to Elizabeth, two comets about to converge after thousands – millions – of years in different orbits. How weak are such thoughts, for they speak the language of images, of time-shadows and splashing fountains!
I feel the heat of the first contact with the other orbit and, finally, Elizabeth stands before me. Close. So close that eye seems to touch eye; so close now, that Elizabeth has become invisible to my physical eye and invisible to the head of the Baphomet hovering above. Every nerve and fibre and feeling and thought tells me that the two orbits have crossed and the two comets united. No more shall I seek, no more shall I find – the Queen is within me, I am within the Queen: child, husband and father from the very beginning. A chorus of blessed thoughts rejoices inside me: Woman no more! Man no more!
And yet: there is one tiny, distant spot in the sunlit landscape of my soul darkened by a small cloud of sorrow – Jane! Should I call for her? May I call for her?! I can call her, that I do know, for I feel an awful strength growing within me since Elizabeth united with me. And already I see a sweet, pale face appear from the shadow of my grief – Jane!
Immediately Gärtner is by me with a cool reproach:
“Have you not had enough of torment from the Angel of the West Window? – No “angel” can harm you any more, but do not disturb the balance of nature.”
“Does Jane ... know where I am? ... Can she see me?”
“You, my brother, have crossed the threshold of initiation with your gaze still turned back towards the world, for you have been chosen to succour mankind, as have all of us in the chain. You will be able to see the earth until the end of time, for through you flows the energy from the realm of eternal life. But what this eternal life is, we of ‘the brotherhood of the chain’ can never learn, for we stand with our backs to the radiant, unfathomable abyss of procreation. But Jane crossed the threshold of eternal light looking forward. Can she see us? Who knows?”
“Is she happy ... there?”
“There?! – We have no words adequate for the non-place that we refer to by the misnomer ‘realm of eternal life’. – And ‘happy’?” – Gärtner smiled at me. “Did you seriously expect an answer?”
I blushed for shame.
“The poor children of Adam, wandering through the ring of endless life out there, cannot see even us, and we are but a pale reflection of eternal life. How then should we see, or even sense, the eternal realm of the unknown, unknowable godhead? We are close to it and yet immeasurably far away, as a solid body is to the dimension, or a line to an insubstantial mathematical point. Jane has taken the woman’s road of sacrifice. It leads to where we cannot follow, nor want to follow, for we are all alchymists in the sense that we remain here in order to perform transmutation. But on the woman’s road she has escaped both being and non-being; for your sake she cast off everything that she was. Had it not been for her, you would not be here!”
“Men will not ... be able ... to see me any more?” I ask in astonishment.
Gärtner laughs: “Do you want to know what they think of you?”
Not even the tiniest wavelet of curiosity disturbs the blessed sands of Elsbethstein. But when my friend smiles and nods at me with almost childlike exuberance, a little spurt of interest in the errors of the world flickers in the back of my mind.
“Well?”
Theodor Gärtner bends down and picks up a lump of rotting clay from the edge of the path: “There! Read it!”
“Read it?” In a second the damp yellow clay in his hand has become – a scrap of newspaper. A meaningless phantom of an object from an immeasurably distant sphere. This materialisation from the ghost world of men strikes me as sad, poignant, ridiculous beyond words.
Gärtner has already returned to his rose beds and is pruning and binding the shoots.
I read:
The Metropolitan News.
Haunted House in 19th District
Our readers will doubtless recall the great conflagration last spring when a substantial house at number 12 Elisabethstrasse burnt down to the ground. It was noticed at the time that for some unexplained reason the fire proved impossible to extinguish. A local expert in geology put forward the theory that the flames were of volcanic origin; at the same time a similar subterranean eruption was observed at Elsbethstein. A Scottish labourer working with the gang that cleared away the rubble said that such phenomena were not uncommon in his country; in Ireland and Scotland they were called St. Patrick’s Purgatory. The fire resisted the noble efforts of the City Fire Brigade and continued for several days; brick and stone burnt like tinder and were reduced to lumps of something resembling pumice stone. Even today it has not been established whether the owner perished with the house; a representative of the Tax Department claims to have knocked at the door countless times in the weeks preceding the accident in an attempt to collect long overdue taxes. Children playing in the street, on the other hand, say they once saw his face looking out of the window. The tragic conclusion is that the owner, engrossed in his – it must be said, rather dilettante – literary work was surprised by the outbreak of fire and burnt to death. This theory is supported by the fact that, as our investigations have revealed, the house was insured for an enormous sum and up to the present time no-one has appeared to claim it. It must be added, though, that in recent months the owner had shown increasing signs of mental instability.
These strange events have once more given rise to absurd superstitions amongst the more credulous sections of the population. Ghostly figures are claimed to have been observed hovering over the site of the fire; these supposedly only appear when the moon is on the wane. But it is not only schoolboys – who should be in bed at that time – who make these claims, they are also supported by many local citizens who ought to know better. The obvious explanations of a prankster returning slightly the worse for wear from a carnival celebration, or of some natural phenomenon connected with volcanic activity, are rejected out of hand. We receive frequent reports of a slender female ghost (perhaps the vice squad should investigate?!), wandering round the site as if searching for something. A local resident – a lay-preacher and Conservative councillor who has several times pursued the lady to remonstrate with her for disturbing a respectable neighbourhood by appearing at night in such provocative attire – maintains that every time she vanishes a naked woman appears on the same spot a few seconds later and tries to seduce him. Other ghost-hunters tell of a fearsome apparition, a man with a shaggy red beard in an old-fashioned leather jerkin who digs up the blackened ground, cursing and swearing. Then – people will see what they want to see – he kneels before the naked female shaking his head
miserably, as if he feared some punishment. Did it not all take place in the dark, we would be tempted to ascribe it to the activities of some pornographic film-maker. Finally, an old lady was recently accosted by an elderly gentleman with a red scarf who said, with a leer, that he was very interested in antiques. Another feature that popular rumour associates with the supernatural phenomena is the countless black cats that appear on the site of the burnt-down house when the moon is shining. A more likely explanation is the new cat licence the city has introduced; the economic difficulties we are going through mean that many hard-up citizens have been forced to turn their pets out onto the streets.
It was recently announced that two eminent scientists in the field of mass hysteria, Professor Rosenburg and Doctor Goliath Wellenbusch, are planning to visit the district to conduct a research project into the widespread hallucinations. It is to be hoped they will finally lay the ghost of the victim of the conflagration. Baron Müller was a well-known local eccentric; many remember how he used to call himself Lord of the Manor of Gladhill – may his ashes rest in peace.
Stop Press: An announcement has just been made by Police Headquarters of a find which miraculously survived the fire at the house in the Elisabethstrasse: inside a silver casket, which had melted to a shapeless lump, was a perfectly preserved miniature portrait on ivory. It is of Dr. John Dee, who played an important role in the political life of England at the time of Queen Elizabeth. The late Baron Müller claimed to have been a descendent of Dr. Dee. Those who knew the Baron will not be able to deny a distinct family resemblance in the portrait which gives some support to his claim.
Books by Gustav Meyrink published by Dedalus
The Golem
Walpurgisnacht
The Green Face
The White Dominican
The Angel of the West Window
The Opal (and other stories)
The Dedalus Meyrink Reader
Dedalus has also published the first English language biography of Gustav Meyrink:
Vivo: The Life of Gustav Meyrink by Mike Mitchell
COPYRIGHT
Published in the UK by Dedalus Limited,
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ISBN printed book 978 1 903517 81 9
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Publishing History
First published in Germany in 1927
First published by Dedalus in 1991, reprinted in 1999
New edition with minor corrections in 2010
First ebook edition in 2012
Translation & Introduction copyright © Dedalus Limited and Mike Mitchell in 1991/2010
The right of Mike Mitchell to be identified as the translator of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
Printed in Finland by Bookwell
Typeset by Refine Catch
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
A C.I.P. Listing for this book is available on request.
The Angel of the West Window Page 41