“Nevertheless, it does not at all follow from this that the trade-union minority should be the legitimate representative of the nonunion majority!”
“I have not said that. The conscious minority is the representative not of the unconscious majority, but of the whole; it is the representative of the class. Analogously, man in general is not the representative of the other organisms on our planet, but he is in full measure the representative of life here, because it is in him that this life has achieved self-consciousness.”
“Applied to my own case,” Menni said sarcastically, “your argument leads to a melancholy conclusion indeed. I would doubtless not have been able to accomplish anything without the millions of workers who turn my plans into reality. But I do not have the slightest desire to unite with them; on the contrary, I am more inclined to regard myself in opposition to them. Consequently, I must be the most unconscious being imaginable. How very flattering!”
Netti laughed.
“You have a different consciousness, which in its own way is very highly developed. It is the consciousness of the class which preceded the proletariat, which paved the way for it and continues with its own, admittedly not very gentle, methods to educate the workers. That class forged ahead through the struggle between man and man, through the war of all against all; it could not do otherwise, for its historical mission was to create a human individual, an active being inspired with self-confidence who would be distinct from the human herd of the feudal epoch. This mission has been accomplished, however, and now it is a different task that falls to the working class. What must be done now is to gather these active atoms, bind them together with a higher bond, introduce harmony and order into their uncoordinated collaboration, fuse them into a single intelligent human organism. This is the meaning of the new consciousness whose embryo is to be found in the workers’ organizations.”
“Be careful now, your argument borders on dangerous metaphysics. For you these classes and this future humanity have already become living beings with a special, fantastic life . . .”
“Why fantastic? It is real—much broader and more complex than the simple sum of individual lives of the chaos of isolated consciousness. Moreover, the notion of a living being changes from epoch to epoch. If our forefathers, even the most learned among them, had said a few hundred years ago that man is a colony of one to two hundred trillion invisibly small living beings, would it not have sounded like the strangest metaphysics?”
“So evidently you want to transform human individuals into beings which resemble cells?”
“No, that is not what we want. The cells of an organism are not conscious of the whole to which they belong. For that reason they instead resemble the present-day type of individual. We, on the other hand, are striving to make man fully aware of himself as an element of the great laboring whole.”
Menni rose and paced the room in silence for a few moments. He stopped and said:
“Obviously this discussion is getting us nowhere. What should we do? Would you agree to share your authority with someone else in such a way that you would be responsible for the technical inspection and he would take charge of the administrative?”
He glanced somewhat uneasily at Netti.
“Very gladly,” came the answer. “That would be the best solution.”
“Thank you,” said Menni. “I was afraid you would refuse.”
“You had no reason to be,” replied Netti. “Having administrative authority would put me in a difficult and delicate position. To be the official representative of one side and yet have all one’s sympathies and interests with the other side would result in such divided loyalties that the proper balance would prove extremely difficult and perhaps even impossible to maintain. If one is to be true to oneself and preserve the lucid wholeness of one’s consciousness, such contradictory roles must be avoided.”
Menni paused to think for a moment, and after a brief silence remarked:
“You are consistent in your peculiar logic—I will grant you that much.”
2. Arri
Upon returning home Netti reported as usual the entire conversation to Nella. Arri happened to be there at the time. When Netti left for a few moments to attend to something, Arri and Nella exchanged sober glances.
“What he says is very important,” said Arri. “And of course it is only the beginning; there is more to come. We should think about it and talk it over.”
“Yes,” answered Nella. “Come to see me tomorrow morning. He won’t be here then.”
The following day Arri arrived tired and gloomy. It was as if he had aged during the night, but his eyes shone with a strange luster.
“I have been thinking a great deal, Nella. My thoughts have not been happy ones, but I am absolutely sure about the conclusion to which they have led me. Menni and Netti are natural enemies. Right now they are glad to avoid a struggle, but this will not last long. No matter how they try, life will bring them into conflict, violent conflict. They love and respect each other very much, but that will only make their clash the more painful. The first major strike on the Project and it will be impossible for them to remain at peace with each other. If it’s not a strike, then it will be something else. Hostile forces are already gathering around them and will force them into a struggle which they do not want. I can see that it is painful for you to hear all of this, but it is the truth, Nella!”
“It is the truth,” she said softly. “I was thinking the same thing myself.”
“But how will it end, Nella? All the forces of the past, both the best and the worst, will rally around Menni, and the newborn forces of the future will close ranks around Netti. The old eagle will prove stronger than our young falcon and keep him from spreading his wings. Even if Netti does not perish in this struggle, his life and vigor will be sapped and our great cause will suffer an enormous loss. We must prevent this from happening, Nella!”
“But how? Is it even possible?” she asked. “I have been searching and searching, but I have not yet found a way.”
“There is only one solution, Nella. Menni must withdraw, leave the field. He must be forced to step aside. That seems inconceivable, but there is only one way to do it: he must experience . . .”
He stopped short and hung his head, as if to brace himself. Troubled, Nella quickly walked over to him and took his hands in hers.
“What is it? Tell me! Don’t you have the courage? It must be something very difficult. Tell me, for heaven’s sake!”
“Yes, Nella, it is difficult. But listen to me carefully. I think that there is a force that can conquer Menni, deflect him from his path. That force is love. And there is a person who can evoke the force—you, Nella!”
She released his hands and took a step backward.
“What are you saying, Arri!”
“I have thought out very carefully what I am telling you, and you can believe me, Nella. You know that my feelings toward you have never been merely fraternal. Only the deep conviction that there is no other way is forcing me to suggest to you what I regard as the last possibility. You are still beautiful, Nella; time seems to be powerless against you. You still have your marvelous voice—that voice that no heart can resist. Menni will be stunned when he sees you. To him you are the poetry of the past; more, you are Netti’s mother and the person who inspired him in the struggle that gave Menni back his work and power. Menni is a man who did not know real love in his youth and who has spent many years in solitude. When he falls in love, it will prove stronger than he is.”
Arri’s voice was muffled and cracked. Nella sat down, bowed her head and hid her face in her hands.
“I don’t know whether that is possible, but it is humiliating, Arri!”
“You are a mother. For a mother anything is possible and nothing is humiliating.”
She raised her head.
“I do not really think so. And . . . we must wait, Arri. I have a feeling that something unexpected is going to happen.”
At th
is very moment, Menni, alone, was pacing from corner to corner in his cell. Netti was about to leave on an inspection tour, and Menni was waiting for his son to come and get his final instructions. Menni was strangely agitated, and without noticing it himself, he began thinking aloud.
“. . . I won’t be seeing him for several months . . . I’ve become quite attached to him . . . I have a pain in my heart . . . Childish sentimentality! I am going to miss him, it will be darker here . . . He has radiant eyes . . . Nella’s eyes.”
He stopped and sank into thought.
There were footsteps in the corridor and a knock on the door. Netti entered, and they began discussing business. When they had settled everything and Netti was getting ready to leave, Menni hesitated for a second and then stopped him.
“I wanted to ask you about something else. Do you have a picture of Nella?”
“Yes. As I matter of fact I have it on me. I took it because I am leaving this evening. Here it is.”
Menni looked with amazement at the picture.
“Is this the latest one?” he asked.
“Yes, it was taken quite recently.”
Netti thought for a moment and added: “You can keep it, if you like. I have another one.”
3. Deeper and Deeper
Netti’s trip turned out to be longer than expected. He left in early autumn and returned in spring, and was thus gone about a year, measured in our time. The mistakes and confusion that the dishonest administrators had allowed to creep into the technical organization of the Project proved more difficult to correct than the new leaders had imagined. Although throughout his trip Netti had sent brief, precise reports on his findings at the construction sites and the measures he had taken to rectify the situation, upon returning he was required to render a detailed oral report that took several days to discuss. These long conversations often digressed from purely factual matters to become exchanges of thoughts, opinions, and plans for the distant future. As often happens with persons who share a true inner kinship, the period of separation seemed to have brought father and son closer together and weakened their mutual reserve.
As a representative of Project Administration, toward the end of his trip Netti had attended the ceremonial opening of the newly completed Ambrosia Canal. The young engineer’s impressions of the event were still fresh in his mind when he told Menni about it.
“I wish I were a poet so that I could do justice to all I experienced on that day. I stood together with the other engineers at the crest of the arched bridge that crosses the canal at the locks. On one side the steely mirror of the Mare Australe stretched into eternity, while below on the other side the gigantic excavated bed of the still unborn river ran off across a plain in a dark, broad band that narrowed as it approached the distant horizon. Hundreds of thousands of excited spectators dressed in their holiday best billowed in waves along the embankments. Farther on, the canal was lined on either side with the beautiful buildings and gardens of a city that did not exist fifteen years ago. Even farther off could be seen a forest of masts of ships that were anchored in two basins to protect them from the flood of water that would soon rush along the bed of the canal. The golden rays of the sun in the crystal-clear air mingled with a mood of joyous expectation, fusing everything together under an invisible blanket of delicate gossamer. For a moment it seemed as though this fabric would be rent asunder as a detachment of troops, their weapons flashing coldly and jangling harshly, cut through the brightly colored crowd. Dark, blood-stained memories flooded over everyone, threatening to drown the beauty of the moment. This time, however, the gray snake-like column was harmless, and the oppressive specters of the past dissolved into a fog and evaporated under the warm rays of the present.
“A signal shot was fired, and my hand gripped the lever of the electrically operated sluice gates. It seemed to me that everything had come to a complete standstill, but of course that was merely an illusion. The quiet surface of the sea was suddenly creased by a ravine whose walls plunged steeper and steeper as it approached the bridge. All sounds were immediately drowned in the deafening roar of the waterfall. Then the noise diminished somewhat, and the ecstatic shouts of thousands of people could be heard above it. Swirling and foaming, the turbid wall of water rushed northward at a terrifying speed along the bed of the canal. The great event had come to pass: the dawn of a new life was breaking. What a triumph for the united efforts of all mankind, for all-conquering labor!”
“Strange!” Menni remarked thoughtfully. “Everything undergoes such a peculiar transformation in your mind. Where I find it self-evident to speak of the triumph of an idea, you see the triumph of labor.”
“But it’s all the same thing,” said Netti.
“I do not understand,” Menni continued in the same musing tone, as if he were thinking aloud. “I think that I know what an idea is and what exertion and labor are. I am not speaking of the united labor of the masses, which for some reason eclipses all else in your mind but which for me is merely a mechanical force that can expediently be replaced by the work of machines. But even the intellectual labor of a conscious individual . . . I have always served an idea, and I have always been the master of my exertions. Exertion is merely a means, while the idea is the highest goal. The idea is more than people and everything belonging to them. The idea does not depend on them—on the contrary, people are subordinate to the idea. I am as certain of this truth as I am of my own personal experiences.
“Several times in my life I have mastered an idea and uncovered the truth. It cost me a great deal of strenuous work and an intense struggle with the secret . . . And at these moments everything I had gone through was immediately blotted out by the radiant brilliance of my discovery. It was even as though I myself had ceased to exist. From behind the veil pierced by my thought and will emerged something so great and necessary that not even the entire collective energy of all mankind could change it. How could anyone make this idea cease to be the truth? If mankind refuses to recognize it and follow it, does the idea become any less true for that? Even if humanity disappears, the truth will remain the truth. No, we must not deprecate the idea! Effort is required to find the path to it, and crude labor is often needed to translate its greatness into reality, but such means are far removed from its higher essence.”
“I do not at all wish to deprecate ideas, but I do have a different understanding of their essence and relation to labor. You are right when you say that the idea is higher than the individual and that it does not belong to him and rules over him. But look here, you have not defined its supreme essence, and there, I think, is the crux of the problem.”
“I do not quite understand what you want. The supreme essence of an idea consists in its logical nature. Surely that is obvious to anyone who lives a life of ideas? Or is this still not enough for you? Do you want something else, something greater?”
“No, it is not enough, because your answer is sophistic. To say that the essence of an idea is logical is the same as saying that an idea is something ideational, or in other words, that an idea is an idea. One is no wiser after such an answer than before it. In your research you would not be satisfied with so little. It is not much use to you to know that air is air and water is water; you demand that they be analyzed.”
“I do not find your comparison very apt. But in any case, if we could analyze ideas physically and chemically as we analyze air or water, I would be the first to welcome the possibility. But isn’t that a dream?”
“Not as much as you seem to think. An idea cannot be analyzed chemically, of course, but an analysis based on life is quite possible. Xarma began but did not live to finish the task, and he has therefore remained incomprehensible. I have continued his work.”
“And have you been successful?”
“Yes, I think I have.”
“Then let me hear your findings . . . if you hope to make me understand you. I am not trying to be sarcastic; I have simply become convinced that in certain things we tend to fo
llow different systems of logic. I will not presume to decide beforehand which of us is right.”
“Very well, but in that case we will have to abandon the field of logical abstractions and approach ideas as they are found in life itself. For example, our forefathers struggled a thousand years for the idea of freedom, which is undeniably one of the great ideas of humanity. When I began studying history and tried to fathom the soul of those distant generations it became clear to me where the idea of freedom had come from and how it had developed. Millions of people lived within boundaries that they came to feel were increasingly constrictive. Each step of the way their labor, their efforts, their aspirations to develop their potential, and the creative work born in their minds ran into obstacles and encountered such overwhelming opposition that all this was reduced to impotence. Then the whole process would begin all over again and meet with the same fate. In such a way a myriad of isolated and uncoordinated human efforts perished; there was suffering, but there was no idea. This suffering gave birth to new efforts that were just as ill-defined but more intense and even more numerous. Little by little they began to merge and move in the same direction. As they flowed together they formed an ever mightier torrent beating against the old obstacles. And this was the idea of freedom—a unity of human efforts in a living struggle. The word ‘freedom’ was discovered. It was no better or worse than other words, but it became the banner of concerted effort, much as bits of ordinary cloth served to express the unity of combat forces in the armies of earlier times. Take away the word ‘freedom’ and the stream of efforts remains, but the awareness of their common direction and unity disappears. Remove these efforts and nothing will remain of the idea.
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