People of the Book

by David Stacton

  “Take me away,” she said. “I am afraid to be here. Take me away.” That soldier had stopped coming down that road over and over again. She waited now not for a stranger, and a shock, but for Mysendonck. If he would come to her, she would never have to lie beside that road again. They could be happy. She had never wanted that to happen before. It was a great honor she was doing him; she was letting him save her.

  “Which one of you?” he asked.

  She could not hide a slight bargaining narrow of the eye. “Manglana. Always Manglana.”

  She tried to cling to him, but he did not want to be clung to.

  “No.”

  “But I am willing to go away with you. It is what I want to do.”

  “You want someone to save your neck.”

  “You do not know what he can do.” Her voice was harder. “It is your neck as much as mine.” Men fail. It was what she had always known. You give them everything, but they fail. That soldier began to come down the road again. “Why won’t you?”

  “Because I do not want to,” said Mysendonck, aware of Lars in the next room.

  *

  Was this what Mysendonck lived for? It did not seem much. It takes more than disillusion to break us of our hero, but since we live by him, the sight of what he lives by demeans us. It in no way diminishes him. For that is merely his human side, and what we cannot do without in heroes is not their human. So all we do is to feel the more wretched ourselves, and need them back again the more. For how should we live without that grandeur? The smaller we feel, the larger it looms.

  He felt unclean. He shrank from Hannale. But Hannale, dreaming of Prospero and Miranda, was unaware of this, and turned against him in the warmth of the bed and snuggled, smiled, seemed pleased. She had found a father and seen a pretty lady. Lars was alone.

  Feeling something hard and cold against him, he reached down and pulled out the brass tube of the kaleidoscope, which Hannale took to bed with her as though it had been a doll. He pulled it out and set it on the floor, and as he did so, patterns which had formed again settled out and were only pieces of agate and broken glass, lying meaningless as the tube touched the parquet.

  Watching the door, encumbered by Hannale, and with his arm gone to sleep but afraid to disturb her, Lars at last fell asleep himself. If it had not been for the woman, he would have gone next door. Something urged him up to do so. Mysendonck would have liked him to do so. He so needed Mysendonck, and Mysendonck so needed him. He sensed that. But as it was, he could not. Despite the heavy-footed pacing up and down in there—what makes more noise than a loud man trying to go softly?—he slept and did not have quiet dreams.

  For if there was not Mysendonck, who was there?

  45

  The Magician did not propose to be deserted. He was stoic by mature. It was his habit to sit quietly while those around him showed themselves for what they were. It was an attitude from which he derived a confirmed still satisfaction, and it left him his peace. But when his own safety was endangered, then he was less benign, and tucking up his robe, stalked his game along the ridge, like a great cat. It is not seen until it pounces. It does not kill, except to feed.

  Last night’s performance had unsettled him. No one likes to see his life acted out before him, by strangers, for the amusement of toughs too idiot to draw the parallel, embarrassed by anything that is beautiful, or touching, serious, profound, or sad. They laugh at that, the empty embarrassed giggle of those not equal to experience; they feel something, but rather than face it, turn it into a joke. Otherwise they grow restive and sullen and bored. Above all they cannot bear the hieratic truth that about the beautiful there is nothing pretty, tender, sweet; about the noble, nothing merciful, self-indulgent, or human. They cannot bear the austere mask of involuntary moral rectitude. They cannot face it, that an act of grace and a coup de grâce are as often as not identical. And so the robbers had laughed and left early. They prefer the sweet to the bittersweet. Their love lacks metaphysics. That leaves them only the sweat. And in their sweat they die.

  Now, at dawn, the actors were leaving, too. He watched them from the tower, while they took The Tempest away with them, and goodness knew what other repertoire they could enact but never understand, a motley crew of indistinguishable wanderers straggling across the court and quickening fearfully once they reached the meadow, condemned to feel emotions written for them, felt by a man they had never met, and like most of us, to feel no other. The Katzburg meant nothing to them but a hot meal.

  Take away their clothes, and they are no one. They have never walked with God. They have only imitated Him, or asked Him a favor. They entered the wood from whence they came, and the boughs healed after them. It was as though they had never been. This forest is the Hyrcanian. And Teut must serve the King of the Spring, and be served by Amlothi after him, a truth the Teutons are disliked for having always known. “I must be cruel, only to be kind.” Below him the Katzburg lay still sleeping, and the mists rose, began to dissolve, and left not a rack behind.

  The only rack is the one we lie on, and ask our executioner to tauten daily. He loves us, in his way. We are what he lives for. Looking up at that black mask, we see our own. He is an artist of the small notch. He sweats for us; we sweat for him.

  *

  The Magician did not examine his own motives before the event. If men did, there would be no event. For men have no motives; they merely act out what they are, and so become what they will be next. Then they explain. They perform an autopsy over a dead act. Having lost, they play their cards a second time.

  He was not cruel. On the contrary, exacerbation had made him gentle. The raw is much more gentle than the smooth. But he was an idealist, and a sentimentality in the mind is even more ruthlessly destructive than the sentimentality of the heart. The empiric are more understanding, the pragmatic kinder. There was now nothing he did not know about those motives which move men. He knew, himself, how to move them. But idealism brought it all down. He believed that difference can be settled by discussion, that men have only to be shown the good to want it. He knew better, but he believed this. He knew you must appeal not to a patent good, but to a hidden evil, would you do good yourself. But when it came to cases he could not do it. And so he acted worse than a bad man, as good men will. For men do not want good done to them. They want to take their strandhugg and go.

  There is nothing so dangerous as intelligence, for it is beyond good and evil. The truly learned are all five years old and their eyes have the maniac intelligence of small children, who stare and memorize on the edges of the grown-up world. They will watch a murder, and when it is done, ask only, why was Aunt Agathe wearing a blue dress? They have gotten to the heart of the matter. Why was she? You will never know. But without the intelligent, there would have been no blue to wear. If you want a first and second murderer, they are not hard come by, but you will save time if you ask a child.

  So the Magician took the occasion to come upon Hannale unexpectedly, spoke to her soothingly, inquired what she thought of the robbers, and so got not only the name of the one who made her most nervous (a black-bearded oaf called Hans), but also elicited, unexpectedly, the useful information that he did not like Mysendonck, because Mysendonck had cut down his crony a few weeks before, at the baggage trains.

  The Magician then went to find Hans where he sulked, a distasteful interview, but necessary. Perhaps it was, at that, for the Magician forgot that he, too, had his horoscope, must be beware of certain conjunctions, and was as caught in the stars as anyone, though perhaps for longer.

  You do not offer such people money. You give them carte blanche to tear their betters down, and then reward them, if possible, with an easy death.

  *

  Hans spent the day in such sibylic utterances as: “It won’t be long now.” “He thinks he’s so high and mighty, but he ain’t.” “Someday I’ll be giving orders around here, just you wait and see.” “There’s those in this world as knows a man’s real worth.” And of
course had no idea what he was doing, for total him up, and you would have been down to zero in no time.

  The Magician saw no reason to total him up, for the size of the egg has nothing to do with the nourishment in it. But since he put no faith in the courage of cowards, and knew nothing of those pipes in the cellars, he graciously sent across to the robbers a sufficiency of his own heavy dark red wine, not his best, but his second best, which they would like better. When asked, by way of return, to dine among them, a thing he had hitherto not deigned to do, he did not refuse, but said that he would bring Selina.

  “It will be interesting for you,” he said, “to watch.” There remained only one last small thing to attend to.

  Saddling up for his morning ride (he had to get away, and if there is nowhere to go, at least we can keep moving and return by the back way, if return we must), Mysendonck looked over his shoulder and said, “Why not come along?” He was disturbed. He had to make it a dare.

  “I can’t,” said Lars, who now had new reasons for being unable.

  Mysendonck kept his back to him and mounted.

  “I’d like to,” said Lars. Though he did not know she was there, Hannale was watching bright-eyed from her corner.

  “But you can’t.”

  It was something he must do. Given five more minutes, and he could have come along. But he was not given five more minutes, so he shook his head.

  “Shiiit,” said Mysendonck, and rode off. But after a few paces his shoulders drooped, and going toward the wood he looked lonely, cast adrift, and somehow lost.

  Lars had to go after him, and then it was too late. Mysendonck had disappeared, and who knew what path he had taken?

  *

  “Would you like to play a trick on Mysendonck?” asked the Magician, stooping to her height.

  Hannale thought this over (it did not take long), and nodded.

  “Then here’s what we do,” said the Magician, who with his usual equanimity had given to no man more than his own part of his instructions. To be obeyed, we do best to tell others what to do, but never what it is that they are doing. It is only the exceptional man who will obey an explanation.

  All the same, he did not like it. She was only a child.

  *

  Formerly it would have given Mysendonck pleasure to ask the Magician to visit his world, and to show him how he might be served there. For in the beginning, he had had pride in this place and these men. But not now. To have Manglana here would have given him pleasure, but not now; to have Selina here, to show her he was a demigod in his own world, but not now. This is how a demigod comports himself in his own world. But Lars had cast him over. Lars was not here. It had no meaning without Lars.

  It had no meaning of its own. What world has, without the perfect one, with all his lovable failings?

  He felt abased.

  Only Hannale seemed alert, but smally troubled, and with the fidgets, but more than usually bright-eyed. It was a slow and apprehensive meal. They were at separate tables. As for dining with his own men, Mysendonck would not have it. Like Earl Haakon, he must have a seat above his carls.

  The hall was dark and choked with soot. The food was coarse and ample. He was worried about something he had sensed in his men since he had come back from his ride. He had been worried by the ride, too. Ten times he had halted and looked over his shoulder, thinking he heard another horse. An invisible rider had been with him. You cannot call your best friend Ariel. And coming back, at dusk, with the reglazed casements flaming at empty sunset, he had found no one there.

  The Magician worked to put him at his ease, lovingly. He had never been more gracious. He pretended awe. Mysendonck eyed the lower table, and then spotted what was wrong: Hans was missing.

  After an hour or two of this, the Magician nodded to Selina, nodded to Hannale, and rose. Lars went with them.

  The Magician detained them in the archway, and asked them to come back to the schloss. Hannale slipped up the stairs, disheveled herself, and waited for what came next. It was some sort of game. And then Hans swarmed at her out of a corner, his beard hurt, he began to rip at her, and alarmed, for it was no game, she screamed for Lars.

  Mysendonck sprinted for the stairs. The Magician hampered Lars for the moment necessary, and then let him go. Hannale went on screaming. This had almost happened before; it was going to happen now. The Magician smiled, took Selina’s arm, and began slowly to mount the stairs.

  *

  The room was dark. As soon as Hans heard a crash against the outer door to Mysendonck’s room, he moved out of it, through empty salons, toward a small door he had been told he would find at the far end of the building. He would collect his bloodgelt later.

  Hannale was by now unable to stop that sound. Mysendonck burst into the room, could see nothing, groped around for her, and as the Magician had thought, once Hannale was frightened she would not reason, she would go on screaming, no matter who touched her.

  To control men you must play on their fears. And the Magician had shuffled his fears, and played them well. Into the room right after him, Lars had out that knife Mysendonck had given him, it had been waiting in its sheath too long, and the hand knew where to reach, and struck again and again. It was a pleasure. It was out of the bottle now. It was as it should be.

  Calling for a torch, the Magician ascended the stairs with neither pleasure nor displeasure, but held Selina firmly back with him.

  Mysendonck called neither for help nor for his men. He knew they would not come, and besides, it was after dark on the playing fields at last. He could not say that he felt sorry. He could feel the fist behind the knife, it was the one he would have wanted, the strokes felt sharp but easy. If we cannot find affection one way, we will have it another. It was over and on his own terms. Earl Haakon killed nine kings, and was himself the tenth. What man would not welcome the Commendatore?

  Der Jüngling bist du, der seit langer Zeit,

  Auf unsern Gräbern steht in tiefem Sinnen;

  Ein tröstlich Zeichen in der Dunkelheit—

  Der höheren Menschheit freudiges Beginnin.

  (You are the youth who watched by our grave,

  Calm and pensive, a comfort to us.

  The joyous beginning of higher humanity.)

  Coming in from the outer room, the Magician held above him his torch, and saw one man in two bodies. For from now on Lars would always be the Huntsman of Soest. That was to be both his hair shirt and his trophy, for he had killed his hero.

  With a little sigh, Mysendonck slid down Lars’ chest, his waist, his knees, and looked at the blood on his hands as though to say, thank you. Why not? Lars was his owner. Blood ran along the floor under him, with the inquisitive movement of quicksilver; and over his body passed its last shiver of delight.

  “Lars,” he said. “Hold me. You saw the horse in the field. No one has ever held me. So hold me. It is like affection.” And putting his head in Lars’ lap, for Lars had followed him down to the floor, he held him around the waist, hard, while behind him his body died, for it is the head dies last.

  “I am glad it was you. You were always my death,” he said into that lap. And wanting to say that word last, he said, “Oh Lars.” He was crying. He was happy. But his fingers had lost their strength. It was a gratitude, and a relief. He was loved. He died.

  Lars smoothed out the fine black hair. It was his first experience of a body left behind. He did not want to give it over.

  “I am a star wandering about with you, and flaring up from the depths.” It is an Orphic hymn.

  *

  “Close the eyes,” said the Magician impatiently.

  “I don’t want them closed,” shouted Lars, holding the head in his lap. “Get out.”

  And since there is something worse than grief, that has much more than grief’s authority, Hannale sidled away around him, and they left him in the dark, with his soul’s dead.

  O star. O dark and mourning star. Why did we not warm to your black light sooner?


  *

  He did not think about it. He just told the robbers to carry the body to the churchyard, and spaded the soil himself. He was unaware of authority, but when we need it, we have it and so we are obeyed. He told them to leave him, and that, too, they did.

  If we cover the body first, the face is left; if the face, there is the body. But he did not want to cover that face. Full-lipped, betrayed, serene, it was his own. He spaded the coarse dirt in, but he would have no mound. Earth from the body’s displacement he scattered and left the surface level, and may the green spring grass of Wollin grow back over it.

  We want to dig them up again, for we can still see that face. There is always one more thing left to say. He could still feel that embarrassed, hesitant, protective arm across his shoulders, and hear that husky voice. It was an inheritance. From now on, I am Mysendonck. Forgive me: I had not known.

  I know now.

  *

  Herr Grotius, who does not know the Katzburg to exist—he knows nothing of the wild places of this earth, nor of those sorrows with which men light their joys—speaking with his usual reason, has said:

  I.ii.5: The same opinion is thus expressed by Seneca the father: “It is but a just retaliation for anyone to suffer in his own person the evil which he intended to inflict upon another.” … From a sense of this natural justice, Cain knowing himself guilty of his brother’s blood said: “Whoever finds me shall kill me.”

  But with his unflinching humanity, in which there is much humane but nothing human, nothing adulterate, he has added:

  II.i.3: It has already been proved that when our lives are threatened with immediate danger, it is lawful to kill the aggressor, if the danger cannot otherwise be avoided, an instance, as it has been shown, on which the justice of private war rests.

  Poor Grotius had never had a unique friend, and would not have understood the endless link, had he had.