Journey by Moonlight

by Antal Szerb

  Now, reading his name, he remembered Waldheim’s peculiar charm, which he had quite forgotten in the intervening years: the fox-terrier liveliness of his bright, round, shaven head; his miraculous loquacity (for Waldheim held forth unstoppably, at full volume, in long perfectly constructed sentences almost always full of interest, even in his sleep it was generally supposed); his indomitable vitality; his perpetual appetite for women (which keeps this type of man always busily active around his more attractive female colleagues); above all his distinctive quality, which, following Goethe, though with modest reluctance, he himself termed ‘charisma’; and the fact that the study of the concept of Spirit, in all its detailed workings as well as the abstract whole, held him in a white heat of passion. He was never indifferent, always feverishly busy with something, in raptures over some great and possibly ancient manifestation of the Spirit, or detesting some ‘dull’ or ‘cheap’ or ‘second-rate’ piece of stupidity, and invariably sent into a trance by the very word ‘Spirit’, which for him actually seemed to mean something.

  Thoughts of Waldheim’s vitality had an unexpectedly invigorating effect on Mihály. Ambushed by a sudden urge to see him again, even if briefly, he suddenly realised how utterly lonely his life had been in recent weeks. Loneliness was an inescapable part of awaiting one’s fate, which was his sole occupation in Rome and impossible to share with anyone. It was now brought home to him for the first time how deep he had sunk into this passive, dreamy waiting, this immersion in the sense of mortality. It was like a tangle of seaweed sucking him down towards the wonders of the deep: then suddenly his head had burst out of the water, and he breathed again.

  He must meet Waldheim. One possible way of effecting this now seemed to offer itself. In the article reporting the lecture, mention was made of a reception to be given in the Palazzo Falconieri, the headquarters of the Collegium Hungaricum. He remembered that there was a branch of that organisation in Rome, a hostel for young aspiring artists and scholars. Here they would at least be able to give him Waldheim’s address, if he were not actually living there.

  The address of the Palazzo Falconieri was not hard to find. It stood in the Via Giulia, not far from the Teatro Marcello, in the district where Mihály most loved to loiter. Now he cut through the alleyways of the ghetto and soon arrived at the fine old Palazzo.

  The porter received Mihály’s inquiry sympathetically, and told him that the professor was indeed in the College, but it was his sleeping time. Mihály looked in amazement at his watch. It was ten thirty.

  “Yes,” said the porter. “The professor always sleeps until twelve, and must not be roused. Not that it’s easy to wake him. He sleeps very deeply.”

  “Then perhaps I can call back after lunch?”

  “Sorry, after lunch the professor goes back to sleep, and cannot be disturbed then either.”

  “And when is he awake?”

  “The whole night,” said the porter, with a hint of awe in his voice.

  “Then it would be better if I left my card and address, and the professor can let me know if he would like to see me.”

  When he arrived home late that afternoon a telegram was waiting for him. Waldheim had invited him to dinner. Mihály immediately boarded a tram and set off for the Palazzo Falconieri. He loved the ‘C’ line, that wonderful route which would take him there from the main railway station skirting half the city, passing through various areas of woodland, stopping at the Coliseum, brushing past the Palatine ruins and racing alongside the Tiber, the cavalcade of the millennia passing in procession on either side of the rails, and the whole journey taking just a quarter-of-an-hour.

  “Come,” shouted Waldheim in answer to Mihály’s knocking. But when he tried the door it appeared to be stuck.

  “Hang on, I’m coming … ” came the shout from within. After some time the door opened.

  “It’s a bit choked up,” said Waldheim, gesturing towards the books and papers piled on the floor. “Don’t worry, just come in.”

  Negotiating entry was not a simple matter, for the entire floor was strewn with objects of every description: not just books and papers, but Waldheim’s underwear, some extremely loud summer gear, a surprising quantity of shoes, swimming and other sportswear, newspapers, tins of food, chocolate boxes, letters, art reproductions, and pictures of women.

  Mihály looked around him in embarrassment.

  “You see, I don’t like having the cleaners in while I’m here,” his host explained. “They leave everything in such a mess I can never find anything. Please, take a seat. Hang on, just a second … ”

  He swept a few books from the top of a tall pile, now revealed as a chair, and Mihály sat down nervously. Chaos always disconcerted him, and in addition this particular chaos somehow exuded an aura that demanded respect for the sanctity of learning.

  Waldheim also sat down, and immediately began to hold forth. He was explaining the state of disorder. His untidiness was essentially abstract, a manifestation of the spirit, but heredity also played a part in it.

  “My father (I must have told you about him) was a painter. Perhaps you’ve heard of him? He would never allow anyone to lay a finger on the things piled up in his studio. After a while he was the only one who could go in. He was the only person who knew where there were these islands you could safely step on without falling into something. But then even the islands became buried under the flood of litter. So my father would close up that studio, take another, and begin a new life. When he died we discovered that he had five, every one filled to overflowing.

  Then he described what had happened to himself since he had last seen Mihály, his academic career and his world fame as a philologist, about which he boasted with the naïve charm of a little boy. He “just happened to have with him” newspaper clippings, in a variety of languages, which deferentially reported his various lectures, among them the one Mihály had seen in the Popolo d’Italia. Then he turned up some letters from a string of eminent foreign scholars and writers, all very friendly, and an invitation card to Doorn, to the annual summer convention of the Former Emperor’s Society of Post-Imperial German Archaeologists. From somewhere or other he produced a silver goblet inscribed with the ex-Emperor’s monogram.

  “See this. He presented it to me after the whole society had drunk to my honour in good Hungarian Tokay.”

  Next he proudly displayed his photographs, flicking through a great pile at high speed. In some he appeared with highly academic-looking gentlemen, in others with various ladies of less scholarly aspect.

  “My distinguished self in pyjamas,” he expounded. “My distinguished self in the buff … the lady is covering her face in embarrassment … ”

  Then, as a final inclusion, Waldheim was pictured with an extremely plain woman and a small boy.

  “Who are these? This hideous woman with her brat?” Mihály asked, tactfully.

  “Oh dear, that’s my family,” he replied, and roared with laughter. “My wife and my son.”

  “You have a family?” Mihály asked in amazement. “Where do you keep them?”

  For Waldheim’s room, his manners, his whole being were so much that of the perpetual and incurable university student, with the stamp of the ‘I never want to grow up’ stud. phil. so clearly upon him, that Mihály simply couldn’t imagine him with a wife and child.

  “Oh, I’ve been married for centuries,” he said. “It’s a very old photo. Since then my son has got a lot bigger, and my wife even uglier. She fell for me at Heidelberg, when I was in my third year. Her name was Katzchen, (isn’t that wonderful?) and she was forty-six. But we don’t trouble each other very much. She lives in Germany, with my dear father-in-law and his family, and they look down their noses at me. More recently this is not just because of my morals, but because I’m not German.”

  “But surely you are German, at least by descent?”

  “Yes, yes, but an Auslanddeutsche, from Bratislava, my God, such an outpost in the Danube basin! That doesn’t count
as real German. At least that’s what my son says, and he’s intensely ashamed of me in front of his friends. But what can I do? Nothing. But please, eat up. Oh dear, haven’t I had you to dine here before? Just hang on a second … the tea’s already brewed. But you don’t have to drink tea. There’s also red wine.”

  From somewhere among the arcana of the floor he produced a large package, removed several objects and papers from the desk and placed them under it, put the package down and opened it. A mass of raw Italian ham, salami and bread spilt out into view.

  “You see I eat only cold meat, nothing else,” said Waldheim. “But to make it less boring for you I’ve arranged for a bit of variety. Just wait a moment … ”

  After a long search he produced a banana. The smile with which he presented it to Mihály seemed to say, “Did you ever see such thoughtful housekeeping?”

  This student-like casualness and incompetence Mihály found enchanting.

  “Here’s a man who’s achieved the impossible,” he thought with a touch of envy, as Waldheim stuffed the raw ham into his mouth and continued to hold forth. “There’s a man who’s managed to stay fixed at the age that suits him. Everyone has one age that’s just right for him, that’s certain. There are people who remain children all their lives, and there are others who never cease to be awkward and absurd, who never find their place until suddenly they become splendidly wise old men and women: they have come to their real age. The amazing thing about Waldheim is that he’s managed to remain a university student at heart without having to give up the world, or success, or the life of the mind. He’s gone down a path where his emotional immaturity doesn’t seem to be noticed, or is even an advantage, and he pays only as much heed to reality as is consistent with the limitations of his own being. That’s wonderful. Now if only I could manage something like that … ”

  The meal was barely over when Waldheim looked at his watch and muttered excitedly:

  “Holy heavens, I’ve got some really urgent business with a woman, just nearby. Please, if you’ve nothing better to do, it would be very kind if you would come along and wait for me. It really won’t take long. Then we can find a little hostelry and continue our really interesting dialogue … ” (“He obviously hasn’t noticed that I’ve not said a single word yet,” thought Mihály.)

  “I’d be delighted to go with you,” he said.

  “I’m extremely fond of women,” Waldheim announced as they walked along. “Perhaps excessively. You know, when I was young I didn’t get my share of women as I wanted to, and as I should have, partly because when you’re young you’re so stupid, and partly because my strict upbringing forbade it. I was brought up by my mother, who was the daughter of a pfarrer, a real Imperial German parish priest. As a child I was once with them and for some reason I asked the old man who Mozart was. ‘Der war ein Scheunepurzler,’ he said, which means, more or less, someone who does somersaults in a barn to amuse the yokels. For the old man all artists fell into that category. So nowadays I feel that I can never do enough to make up for what I missed in the way of women when I was twenty-five. But here we are. Hang on a moment, won’t you. I shan’t be long.”

  He disappeared through a dark doorway. Mihály walked up and down, thoughtfully but in good spirits. After a while he heard an odd, amused coughing. He looked up. Waldheim had thrust his bright round head out of a window.

  “Ahem. I’m on my way.”

  “A very nice lady,” he said as he emerged. “Breasts hang down a bit, but it’s not a problem. You have to get used to that here. I met her in the Forum and made a conquest of her by telling her that the Black Stone was probably a phallic symbol. You really can’t imagine how useful religious history can be for getting around women. They eat it out of my hand. Mind you, I fear you could probably do the same with differential calculus or double-entry book-keeping, so long as you talked about it with the proper intensity. They never listen to what you actually say. Or if they do listen, they never understand. All the same they can sometimes have you on. Sometimes they really are almost human. Never mind. I love them. And they love me, that’s the main thing. So, let’s go in here.”

  Mihály made an involuntary grimace when he saw the place Waldheim proposed entering.

  “I’m not saying it’s pretty, but it’s very cheap. But I see, you’re still the fussy little boy you were as a student. Never mind. For once we’ll go somewhere better, for your sake.”

  Again came the smile that spoke consciousness of great generosity, as he added that, also as a favour to Mihály, he would be quite happy to pay for his own drinks in the more expensive place.

  They went into an establishment that was possibly a shade or two better. Waldheim again held forth for a while, then seemed to become rather tired. For a few moments he seemed lost in thought, then turned with alarming suddenness towards Mihály:

  “But what have you been doing all these years?”

  Mihály smiled.

  “I learnt the trade, and worked in my father’s firm.”

  “You worked? In the past tense? And now?”

  “At the moment, nothing. I ran away from home. I loaf around here and try to think about what I should be doing with myself.”

  “What you should be doing? How can there be a question? Take up religious history. Believe me, it’s the most topical subject today.”

  “But why do you think I should become a student? What have I to do with the academic life?”

  “Because anyone who isn’t actually stupid ought to study, in the interests of his soul’s salvation. It’s the only thing worth doing. I don’t know, perhaps also art and music … but to spend your time doing anything else, like working in a commercial company, for a man who isn’t totally stupid … I’ll tell you what that is: affectation.”

  “Affectation? How do you mean?”

  “Look. I remember you started off as a pretty decent religious historian. I’m not saying … well, you were a bit slow on the uptake but hard work can make up for a lot of things and people with far less talent than you have gone on to become excellent scholars, in fact … And then, I don’t know the facts but I can imagine what went on in your middle-class soul. You found that the academic path doesn’t guarantee a living, that you didn’t want the boring routine of school-teaching, and this and that, so really you had to go for something practical, considering all the supposed necessities of a wealthy person. This is what I call affectation. Because even you realise that these supposed necessities aren’t real. The practical career is a myth, a humbug, invented to cheer themselves up by people who aren’t capable of doing anything intellectual. But you’ve got too much sense to be taken in by them. With you it’s just an affectation. And it’s high time you gave up this pose, and got back where you belong, in the academic life.”

  “And what do I live on?”

  “My God, it’s not a problem. You see, even I manage.”

  “Yes, on your salary as a university teacher.”

  “True. But I could equally live without it. People shouldn’t throw money about. I’ll teach you how to live on tea and salami. Very healthy. You people don’t know how to economise, that’s the trouble.”

  “But Rudi, there’s another problem. I’m not very sure that a life of scholarship would be as satisfying for me as it is for you … I don’t have the enthusiasm … I can’t really believe in the importance of these things … ”

  “What sort of things are you talking about?”

  “Well, for example, the factual basis of religious history. What I’m saying … sometimes I think … does it really matter exactly why the wolf reared Romulus and Remus? … ”

  “How the hell could it not matter? You’re utterly crazy. No, it’s just affectation. But that’s enough talk for now. It’s time to go back and work.”

  “Now? But it’s past midnight!”

  “Yes, that’s when I’m able to work: no interruptions, and for some reason I don’t even think about women then. I’ll work now until four,
and then run for an hour.”

  “You’ll do what?”

  “Run. Otherwise I can’t sleep. I go to the river bank and run up and down beside the Tiber. The police know me and they leave me alone. It’s just like at home. Come. On the way I’ll tell you what I’m working on at present. It’s really sensational. You remember that Sophron fragment that came to light a little while ago … ”

  By the time he had finished his exposition they were standing outside the Falconieri building.

  “But going back to the question of what you should do,” he said unexpectedly. “The only difficulty is starting. You know what? Tomorrow I’ll get up a bit earlier for your sake. Come for me, let’s say, at eleven-thirty. No, twelve. I’ll take you to the Villa Giulia. I bet you haven’t been to the Etruscan Museum, right? Well, if that doesn’t give you the urge to take up the old threads, then you really are a lost man. Then you better had go back to your father’s factory. So, God be with you.”

  And he hurried into the darkened building.

  XV

  THE NEXT DAY they did indeed visit the Villa Giulia. They looked at the graves and the sarcophagi, with their lids supporting terracotta statues of the old Etruscan dead enjoying their lives—eating, drinking, embracing their spouses, and proclaiming the Etruscan philosophy. This, being wise enough not to have developed literature in the evolution of their cultural life, they never committed to writing, though of course it can be read unmistakably on the faces of their statues: only the present matters, and moments of beauty are eternal.

  Waldheim pointed out some broad drinking bowls. These were for wine, as the inscription proclaimed: Foied vinom pipafo, cra carefo.

  “Enjoy the wine today, tomorrow there will be none,” Waldheim translated. “Tell me, could it be expressed more succinctly or truly? That statement, in its archaic splendour, is as definitive and unshakeable as any polygonic city-walls or cyclopean buildings. Foied vinom pipafo, cra carefo.”