Unding lifted up first his leaden eyelids, then himself. He searched for words of farewell and found none. But having heard the baron out, he could not walk away as if he hadn’t heard. He ran his eyes around the room: serried ranks of book spines, the clockface disk in its bronze rim, the clicked-shut lid of the escritoire, in the corner a previously unnoticed rack for Turkish tobacco pipes with one old, smokeless exhibit, and next to it, hanging on the back of a chair, sleeves grazing the floor, the aged waistcoat that had fled Westminster. Gazing at its puckered shoulder blades, Unding exclaimed, “What! Do you mean to say you didn’t send that waistcoat, as the papers claimed, to some young scientist in Moscow?”
“I may still find some use for it myself,” came the equivocal reply. “And as for that poor scholar from the country about which one cannot lie, do not worry. I have sent him, by way of compensation, my rough drafts; if he possesses so much as a pair of scissors and a pot of glue, the resulting manuscript should help him on his literary way.”
Host and guest said goodbye. On reaching the door, Unding turned around and saw, peeking out from under the baron’s cap, which had slipped down onto his forehead, the long gray strands of a neatly braided pigtail.
The creaky spiral again set Unding’s slow steps spinning.
1. Munchausenian (or Mythical) Soviet Socialist Republic.
2. Truth disease. (Latin)
3. I frame no hypotheses. (Latin)
4. Comrade. (German)
8. THE TRUTH THAT DODGED THE MAN
MICHAEL Heinz pulled on the reins, and the wheels stopped. The footboard, then the worn steps of the little station house. Unding raised his eyes to the clockface set in the wall and thought: “A metaphor should be set in a clockface wheel—no matter how you spin the spokes, the rim remains motionless.” With that there threaded through his brain a long sequence of images. Meetings with Munchausen always quickened and brightened the pulse of his ideas (Unding was not alone in experiencing this) and set his imagination madly ticking. To the rhythmic clacket and sway of the carriage, Unding’s pencil reeled across blue ruled lines, refusing to release his fingers as it traced the shape of a new poem. The train was approaching Berlin by the time he had found a title: “A Speech to the Backs of Chairs.” Such catastrophic moments occur even on a ship of words, when the soul whistles “All hands on deck!” and from every quarter, from the plunging bunks, from behind closed doors and even the dark pier glass, the summoned words rush to the surface of the paper pages, now rising, now falling like a sloop in a storm: immersed in his work, Unding missed the Friedrichstrasse stop, alighted at Moabit, and walked through the city hearing neither the clatter of wheels nor the hubbub of people for the resonance of his verses.
It was only when he reached the door of his room with the name Ernst Unding on the outside panel that the poet remembered who he was and where.
Then a deep sleep moved the hour hand nine hours ahead. Unding swung his feet down from the bed and shoved them into shoes, but he hadn’t tied the laces before yesterday flooded back into his mind and took hold of his now rested consciousness. The peripeteias of his journey to Bodenwerder appeared to him in all their irreparableness. “If I went to help,” the thought began to rankle, “then why was I silent? What sort of help is silence?” By his bed lay yesterday’s jottings. Unding eyed the penciled scrawls and laughed bitterly. “There I was talking to the backs of chairs, why not to a person?” The written words, however, had hooked his pupils, and the poet did not notice that his verses, which had not done talking, were again pressing his fingers to the page while the poem’s will had become his will: again he saw the imagined hall with its endless rows of wooden creatures receding into the perspective, and by each one—in front and behind—a motionless back on four bent legs; surveying the close ranks, the poet pelted the dead backs with words, giving himself up to the bombast of hopelessness; he spoke of the soundlessness of all thoughts that want to become words, and of the deaf Beethoven playing on clavichords whose strings had been un-screwed from the tangents; he rejoiced in the noble candor of his non-listeners and made them models for people afraid to admit that they too, no matter how you approached them, were only backs on legs bolted to the ground; from stanza to stanza, growing flushed with bitterness and rage, he wrote. . . . However, you shouldn’t look over the shoulder of a lyric poet when he is addressing not you, but the back of his chair.
At any rate, it was not until dusk, when the air turned the color of graphite lines, that the poem was finished in rough and the pencil released his fingers. Unding had had nothing to eat all day; throwing on his coat, he went out into the evening street and pushed open the door of the first beerhouse. With the help of a knife, a fork, and a pair of jaws the famished poet quickly dispatched a serving of knackwurst; of the cabbage there remained only a faint cabbagy smell, while the fried eggs stared up with yellow eyes, begging in vain for mercy. Having assuaged his initial hunger, Unding reached for his mug of beer, pulled it toward him, then suddenly his fingers jerked back: on the surface of the ale, sticking to the thick glass rim, tiny bubbles of foam were swelling and bursting, exactly like the ones that, a few years ago, had introduced him to Munchausen. Now that his attack of egoism—what literary historians call “inspiration”—had passed, the image of his forsaken friend strode into the very center of his consciousness and refused to go away. That night Unding tossed about on hot pillows before finally falling asleep. But into that sleep came a dream: a low ceiling supported by stacks of books; behind him he hears quiet bird steps; Unding turns around to see, stealing cautiously across the writing table, a bubble on duck feet; he wants to flee, but his legs are of wood and bolted to the floor; he mustn’t let the omega come up from behind—of this he is certain—but behind him is a back, in front of him is a back, and on all sides; the bubble, its shimmering glints distending, begins to balloon, bigger and bigger, until desk, books, ceiling, the entire room, and Unding himself are inside the bubble, still now expanding, until . . . it explodes—into death. Unding closes his eyes more tightly and sees . . . himself with eyes wide open in bed. And through the window sash, the dawn.
All through the day Unding’s uneasiness increased. Whether picking up a newspaper, or making a note of his latest instructions from Veritas, through any distraction there appeared a man with his face hidden in palms of parchment, while his limp pigtail, slowly lengthening, seemed to threaten something irreparable. Once again, the passengers on the evening train from Berlin to Hanover included Ernst Unding.
Michael Heinz, woken by a knock and a voice, again, as a few days before, rumbled out of the yard in his country conveyance; Unding jumped onto the footboard, and the wheels trundled off toward Bodenwerder. This time it was a little colder and, as he gazed at the slow-blazing dawn, Unding kept hearing the panes of ice on pools burst and crackle under the hooves. Then, as the windmills with arms upraised loomed out of the morning fog to meet the clatter of wheels, his brain was struck by an unexpected thought: “What if everything that the baron had related the last time was mystification, the nimblest and most whimsical of all his Munchauseniads?” Unding pictured the laughing countenance of the Bodenwerder hermit, pleased at having pulled the wool over his eyes, at having made him believe the unbelievable. Unding no longer felt the cold, his heart was beating faster, but the wheels turned just as slowly. In his impatience, he leaned toward the driver:
“Would it be possible, Herr Heinz, to wake the horses?”
Michael flicked his whip, and the carriage swung down the side road. A frightened flock of ducks scrambled away with despairing quacks from the quickening hooves; under the wheels something snapped. Unding looked back—one duck, evidently, had gone too late: wings flattened to the ground, its immobilized neck still craned across the track. Picking up speed, Heinz’s conveyance swept jauntily over the rise and was already rattling over the wooden bridge when Unding shouted, “Stop!”
The morning fog had lifted to reveal a group of people on the shore ob
serving the slow progress of a boat: in the boat sat four men, all holding gaffs; now diving down, now rising up, the gaffs were probing the lake bottom. Among the onlookers Unding discerned the bent figure of the old steward who, turning around at the noise of the wheels, had also recognized the guest. He now hastened as quickly as his years would allow toward the bridge. Unable to wait, Unding leapt out of the carriage and ran to meet him.
“Has something bad happened? Tell me.”
The old man hung his head. “My Lord Baron disappeared two days ago. I roused all the servants. We searched the house, the park, the forest, now we are searching the lake. Nowhere.”
For a minute Ernst Unding was silent. Then: “Call off your search. It’s pointless. Get in.”
Unding’s voice had the ring of certainty. The old man did as he was told. Having been masterless for two days, he felt the need for at least someone’s orders. The boat returned to its mooring, the gaffs were left on the shore, while the carriage proceeded to the house. Along the way Unding learned the details.
“After you left,” the steward began, “everything went as usual. Although no: the baron refused his lunch and asked not to be disturbed unnecessarily. At six, as always, I went up to his study. At that hour the baron generally takes a glass of kümmel. I set the tray down on the table; the baron was, as always, seated in an armchair with a book. I wanted to ask if I shouldn’t warm up his lunch, but he motioned me to withdraw—”
“I must interrupt you: Do you happen to remember what book was in the baron’s hands?”
“The binding was red; morocco, I believe; gilt-edged. It is lying on the baron’s table still, just as he left it. The thing is—”
“Thank you. Now go on.”
“I went back downstairs, but did not go off anywhere. It seemed to me the baron had taken ill and might call me at any minute. The house was so quiet that I distinctly heard his footsteps in the library. Then they ceased. I called Fritz (my grandson) and told him to stay put at the bottom of the stairs and listen in case the baron should call. I then went about my duties, one thing and another; by the time I returned it was night. ‘Has the baron come out of his study?’ I asked Fritz. ‘No.’ ‘Has he called?’ ‘No.’ What could the matter be? Fritz could barely keep his eyes open. I sent him off to bed then drew up a stool, sat down, and began to listen. There were no footsteps. Not a sound from above. An hour passed like that, and another. Then shortly before midnight I suddenly heard overhead what sounded like the tinkling of a little bell, then silence. Perhaps I imagined it, I thought, and perhaps not. I climbed the stairs to the library, knocked at the door, and waited. Not a sound. I opened the door a crack. ‘Lord Baron, did you call me?’ No answer. With that I made up my mind and walked in: I saw there was no one in the room. The armchairs were empty; on the edge of the table lay a closed book—the very same, bound in morocco; the empty kümmel glass had fallen to the floor and rolled under the table; and only the tablecloth fringe swayed slightly, as if someone had brushed against it with their knee. I went to the window: it was closed. Mother of God, what had happened? I looked at the shelves: books and more books. Perhaps the baron was hiding: but where? And besides, we are too old, he and I, for childish games of hide-and-seek. I woke Fritz: we searched high and low. Then I asked the watchman, ‘Had the baron gone out?’ ‘No.’ We took torches and went all around the garden. So it began—we have been at it for two days now. Tell me, sir, is it possible for a person to leave a room without having left it? Eh?”
Just then the carriage stopped at the manor gates, sparing Unding the need to reply. He jumped down and rushed toward the house without waiting for the steward’s footsteps. Fritz, tousled and sleepy, opened the door to him, and the poet, passing down the row of old portrait squares framed in faded gold, hurried up the spiral stairs leading to the library. He thrust the door open and, hat in hand, strode into the room. Everything was just as before. But no: the clock, which someone had evidently forgotten to wind, was silent; and the back of the armchair, from which the baron’s old waistcoat had hung its empty arms, was bare. And the morocco volume? Yes, it lay exactly as the steward had described: on the edge of the table, within reach of the armchair. Unding walked up and touched one of the leather corner pieces. Yes, the very same. His agitation might have momentarily stopped his fingers, but there was no time to lose—downstairs a door slammed and footsteps could be heard approaching. Taking hold of the corner piece, Unding flung the book open and began leafing through the pages: three—and on—thirty-nine—farther on—sixty-five, sixty-seven—now. His fingers trembled slightly as he turned the page: the empty square inside the black typographical rule* was not empty: in the center, shoulders hunched, stood Baron Munchausen.
He was wearing his traditional waistcoat and straggly pigtail. True, by his right hip there was no sword, as in the edition of 1785, and his hair was noticeably whiter. But the casual observer, who had seen other copies of this edition, would have said, “The color has rubbed off with time and faded.” In any case, in the whole world one could not have found another eccentric who thought what the poet Ernst Unding did: “So that was his last move—he played himself.” And felt what he did: an acrid tear tingling in his lashes. That was really too much! Frowning angrily, he reached for a pencil, but an epitaph would not come. For a minute he sat with his elbows on the arms of the chair, peering at the dim and shrunken outline of his friend who had finally returned to his old book. The sweetly musty pages smelled to Unding of eternity itself.
Then suddenly the footsteps of the steward, who had seemed to linger in the mazelike passage, sounded close by. He would have to hurry. Taking the binding gently and reverently by its leather corner pieces, Unding lowered the morocco lid. Then, book in hand, he turned to the shelves crowded with spines and considered where to stand the morocco coffin. Right here: between leather and parchment, between decorous Adam Smith and the tales of A Thousand and One Nights. The door behind him creaked open. Turning around, he saw the steward.
“The baron will not return,” said Unding, brushing past him, “for he never left.”
The old man went hobbling after in hope of a plainer answer, but could overtake neither the answer nor the poet. Within five minutes, Unding was seated in the carriage gazing at the back of Michael Heinz, who now and then quickened the hooves’ clip-clop with a whistle of his long and melodious whip. Crunching over the half-frozen ground, the wheels were already bowling toward the bridge when Unding suddenly leaned forward and touched Heinz’s shoulder.
Heinz turned around on the box and saw, pressed to the passenger’s knees, an open notebook. He expressed no surprise. Rather he adjusted the harness, then settled down to smoke and wait. Meanwhile the text, a weave of jumping gray letters, said:
Here, beneath a morocco shroud,
waiting for the judgment of the living,
flattened into two dimensions, lies
he who walked through the world’s walls,
Baron Hieronymus von Munchausen.
As a true warrior, this man
never once dodged the truth:
All his life he fenced against her,
parrying facts with phantasms.
And when, in response to her thrusts,
he made a decisive lunge, Truth itself,
as I am a witness, dodged the man.
Pray for his soul to Saint Nobody.
Ernst Unding put his notebook away and made a sign to the driver: onward. From under the wheel rims once more came the tinkling of fine icy panes on pools.
1927–1928
NOTES
1. EVERY BARON HAS HIS FLIGHTS OF FANCY
Alexanderplatz: The heart of 1920s Berlin; renamed in honor of Alexander I after the Russian tsar’s visit in 1805.
“Rebellion in Kronstadt!”: An anti-Bolshevik revolt in March 1921 at a naval base near Petrograd by sailors whom Trotsky had called “the pride and glory of the Russian Revolution.” Kronstadt and other risings around the country prompted
Lenin to institute his tactical New Economic Policy.
Ernst Unding: Earnest Nonsense. (German)
ersatzes: An allusion to the substitute foods, substitute goods, and substitute substitutes that Berliners were reduced to consuming during World War I.
fictionalism: Or the philosophy of “As If” advanced by Vaihinger (see note above), who held that the human mind, in order to think and to preserve itself, constructs fictions, such as God, immortality, and freedom; while it knows these faiths to be false, it may benefit by acting “as if” they were not.
Tieck and I sat up all night disputing . . . I reminded him that . . . a rope, though in moonlight it resemble a snake, cannot bite: Ludwig Tieck (1773–1853), the Berlin-born son of a rope maker, was a leading exponent of German Romanticism, an inventor of folktales, and translator of Don Quixote.
Fichte: Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762–1814), an idealist German philosopher who held that the non-ego (“not-I”) is the unconscious product of the ego (“I”): the mind creates everything that we think of as the reality which we inhabit.
Saint Augustine: An early Christian church father and philosopher (354–430) who, in his Confessions, insisted on the truth: “He who knows the truth, knows the light.”
1789, 1830, 1848, 1871: Years of revolutionary upheaval in Europe, from the French Revolution to the Paris Commune.
The Return of Munchausen Page 13