The Island of Second Sight

by Albert Vigoleis Thelen

  “It’s so distressing, my friend. He wants to rig one of his sessions and have me play the part of an anonymous member of the audience. It’s a hoax, and I just won’t have any part in it.”

  The Wise Man of Darmstadt was once again staying at the Príncipe, where he was eating his way through the menu and drinking the vin à discrétion in such quantities that the management might have considered taking counter-measures if he weren’t the hotel’s greatest attraction. As often as he checked in, the No Vacancy sign went up. And ever since his South American Meditations was published, at Zwingli’s instigation the hotel offered him unlimited credit.

  Don Joaquín Verdaguer once described for me the way Count Keyserling conducted his School of Wisdom in the pine grove of the Hotel Formentor, on the Formentor peninsula. He sat on the ground with his legs crossed. Seated around him, likewise with legs crossed, were his pupils and auditors from all over the world. On a certain fateful day, the famous-notorious Spanish writer and aphorist Don Ramón Gómez de la Serna, an intellectual acrobat and prestidigitator, joined the throng, hunkered down, crossed his own legs, and pretended to be a run-of-the-mill participant and not the “Ramón” he was known as by every Spaniard. His forte was his so-called greguerías, which means “bird chatter”: dazzling conceits that arise from his peculiar Donramonistic world-view. A regular visitor to Madrid’s rastro, the city’s central flea- and knickknack-market, Ramón studied the stuff offered for sale and, following intensive examination, deduced new aspects concerning those particular objects’ mode of existence. Then he began unfolding his existential philosophy. Ramón was practicing existentialism well before this sort of thing became a fad. It is likely that he busied himself with the God’s Eye in chamber pots, although I have yet to come across any aphorism of his concerning this branch of the ceramic arts. In addition, Ramón collected epitaphs, and when he made appearances as a lecturer he liked to balance on a rope stretched above the stage. But at Keyserling’s school on the Formentor peninsula he refrained from stretching a rope between the pine trees. Like every other mortal disciple, he took his seat amid the ants, eye-to-eye with the Darmstadt conveyor of wisdom.

  The Sage asked his pupils to name a subject on which he could improvise. He would then (now there were smiles around the whole circle) end up by pronouncing a compelling judgment. Now any teacher knows how hard it is to think up a clever topic. And once you have found a topic, at least half of the solution to its problems will be obvious. Ramón knew this, too, and so he motioned to an expectant waiter standing at the edge of the Wisdom School—one must recall that the Hotel Formentor had the reputation as the best hotel in Spain—and asked him to fetch a coffee pot. The camerero rushed away and returned carrying a luxury article. Ramón handed it to the German philosopher saying, “Here’s your topic: The Coffee Pot.”

  Keyserling—I am following Verdaguer’s account of the incident—had already imbibed a quantity of wine, and was now even more flushed than in his normal standing state. Thus no one noticed his embarrassment, which would have been all the greater had he realized that the man presenting him with his topic was none other than Gómez de la Serna. Well now, what might a profound German philosopher have to say about The Coffee Pot? Keyserling turned the pot around and around, meditating all the while. Finally, with a rapid gesture like a circus seal he placed it in front of his snout and started explaining what he, as a German philosopher in general, and as a Darmstadt Keyserling in particular, had to say about this utensil. He accomplished this brilliantly, deploying wit, paradoxes, scorn, and profundity, getting quickly to the heart of the matter so adroitly that everyone in the squatting circle was simply amazed. Who would have thought that so much wisdom could be derived from a simple coffee pot, from a Coffee Pot an sich?

  Keyserling, who was himself surprised at how well he had done this trick, took a deep bow and placed the vessel on the ground on top of an ant hill. Then he, too, motioned to the waiter, asked him to bring over a porrón, and proceeded to pour the red liquid in an archaically measured arc into his eloquent gullet. This feat, too, he accomplished without staining his shirt. There was more applause. He was the hero of the pine grove, just as he loved to be the hero anywhere and everywhere. Then he casually inquired whether anyone else might have something to say on the subject of The Coffee Pot, while remaining convinced that no one could ever top him on a subject he had treated so exhaustively.

  All those present who recognized Ramón—and who among the Spaniards here did not know him?—looked over at Ramón. He asked for the pot, blew away the ants, and started in. Our brilliant guest, he said, has discussed the brilliant surface of this brilliant object quite brilliantly, but nonetheless superficially. He, Ramón—and with the mention of the name, the Wise Man from Darmstadt underwent his initial shock—asked if he might be permitted to say a few words concerning the darker recesses of the topic at hand. Whereupon Ramón Gómez de la Serna began regaling the circle with his greguerías, proving two things at once: that German philosophy was lacking in depth, and that a coffee pot was an ultimately inexhaustible subject.

  When the pupils arose from their squatting position and brushed the ants from their lower extremities, they noticed that the Sage was reeling slightly. Had his legs, too, gone to sleep? Or had he sat down in the middle of an anthill? He retired to his deluxe hotel suite as a vanquished philosopher, and as such he quickly departed from the hotel and the island.

  Kessler was unfamiliar with this saga of the coffee pot, which had taken place some few years back. When I recounted it for him, he said, “Aha! So that’s what’s behind this piece of trickery! Keyserling had better watch out!”

  Keyserling’s plan was to assemble a select audience in the small auditorium at the Príncipe, treat them with some nuggets of wisdom, then ask for a random topic from his listeners and, after a minute for meditation, deliver an exhaustive discourse on the subject. Quite a number of philosophy aficionados had arrived from the Spanish mainland, people who out of sheer ennui were preoccupied with problems of life-enhancing wisdom—a dangerous kind of audience in a country that has never produced a real philosopher, since every citizen already possesses his own philosophy of idleness. Ramón was not invited; Hermann wasn’t about to take any risks. So it was a stroke of luck that this other conde, his old “schoolmate” Harry, was staying on the island. It was Hermann himself who recommended Mallorca as a suitable place of exile and a site conducive to the writing of memoirs. Counts of a feather will flock together, so they soon found each other.

  Hermann began their conversation by railing against the Nazis, especially Goebbels, who had detained his wife as a hostage at the Darmstadt School. He, Hermann, was forced to take an oath stipulating that during his lecture tour in Spain he would keep philosophy and politics strictly separate, a feat that has been one of philosophy’s great accomplishments since the days of Plato. Then Hermann cooked up his fairy tale about his and Harry’s common schooldays. God only knows where that common school was located, for Keyserling was born in Livonia and Kessler in Paris, 12 years apart—although such a time differential is perhaps irrelevant when dealing with minds that functioned at such a sublime remove from space and time. According to Hermann’s fable, Harry, the older of the two, had more than once had to repeat a whole school year—a most unlikely sequence of events given Harry’s superior intelligence, even for a youngster brought up on a remote country estate.

  In short, Keyserling badgered poor Harry so relentlessly that he finally surrendered, in order to maintain his composure and his ability to go on with his own work. He agreed to attend the lecture at the Príncipe, make believe he was just some guy in the audience, and suggest a topic for Hermann to discourse upon. Conde de Keyserling would make a few introductory remarks, greeting his guests in six or seven different languages—but of course only after consuming a liter of red wine and a few armadillos. Then he would ask for the evening’s topic from his esteemed audience: “Just step right up, ladies and gentlemen, and
don’t be shy, because this mental acrobat can handle anything.” His circus-barker railery would give rise to genteel merriment, perhaps even some genuine surprise at so much un-academic clowning. But no one would come forth with a topic. Each member of the audience would be thinking, “Let somebody else make a fool of himself.” Keyserling knew from experience that the first few minutes were non-threatening. The moment would arrive when the piston reached the dead point. The danger would be past, the lecturer himself could breathe easily and suggest a few subjects to choose from—unless, of course, some Ramón stood up… That would have to be avoided, and so, Harry my old friend, why don’t you and I think up a topic, and you pretend to be an aficionado in the audience? The big advantage was that nobody at all would recognize Harry.

  Kessler told me that this kind of chicanery disgusted him. But now he couldn’t get rid of the man. What should he do?

  “Play along with him, Count Kessler! Suggest some topic to Keyserling, give him three days to prepare his spiel, and when he gets up there on the stage and motions to his accomplice, you trip him up by announcing a completely different subject. One swindle is worth another. But both topics must be of a kind to give him real trouble. It’s time that the charlatan got his comeuppance!”

  Count Kessler was unwilling to enter into this double-dealing fakery, out of a real fear that the Baltic philosopher would strangle him alive coram publico. He agreed only to concoct for his schoolmate a particularly thorny subject: “The Machine as the Upstart of Our Century.”

  In the meantime Count Keyserling gave a two-hour public lecture in a large theater in Palma on a subject dear to his heart: “Spanish-Mediterranean Culture as the New Hellas.” He spoke without notes, partly in Spanish, partly in Catalan, and was a huge success. All the Hondurans were on hand, as were all the island’s anarchists, a few clergymen, several aristocrats, and even a nursing mother whose presence the Kalmuck count found particularly touching and inspirational—again and again his glances wandered in the direction of the place where Young Hellas was getting suckled. My friend Enorme was sitting next to me. As a Krausite he was interested in Keyserling, and as a conspirator he had already been clued in by me concerning the conspiracy being hatched by the two counts. Enorme and I decided that the best way to outwit the philosopher was for us to shout some questions from the audience that would take him out on political thin ice.

  With Zwingli’s help, Keyserling arranged everything perfectly. Rows of seats were set up in the auditorium of the Príncipe with a respectful space in front of the stage; a long green table, and to the right and to the left of the table some artificial palms, just as at Pilar’s, but bigger. The select audience was truly crème de la crème, and Zwingli knew most of them. They represented literature, music, the visual arts, journalism, banking and industry, as well as the feared aficionados of all the above fields of activity. They spoke a good dozen different languages, and Conde de Keyserling, flushed with a red vintage, chatted with each of them in the appropriate tongue. He was in his element, the grand monde, the sounding-board for his boundless wisdom. Many beautiful women had also arrived; all around the hall there was a swishing of fans, a sparkling of jewelry, an aroma of intellectual excitement. A thin and wordless Count Kessler pressed his way through the noisy crowd, visibly annoyed, and intent upon avoiding his old schoolmate. As soon as he spied us, he rushed over, and I introduced him to the Krausite Don Sacramento, whom Kessler took for a Mexican. Then Zwingli arrived in his capacity as Don Helvecio. He asked us to take first-row seats that he had reserved for us. Kessler declined such a prominent focal point. Like his ancestor Johannes in St. Gall, he took a seat on the hindmost bench.

  The event proceeded on schedule. Kessler, the programmed “anonymous man in the audience,” sat anonymously in the audience. Then he was approached by the Reverend Don Francisco Sureda Blanes, a Mallorquin writer, amateur philosopher, and Ramón Lull researcher. He was the organizer of this charla, he knew Count Kessler, and right away fished him out of his anonymity. He pulled the reluctant count forward to the green table, where some members of the lecture committee had already gathered. For the most part these were local dignitaries, but they also included a foreigner who was being celebrated throughout Spain: Francis de Miomandre, a hispanist who had produced a monumental new translation of Don Quijote into French.

  Don Darío whispered to me that even though Conde de Keyserling had quaffed a lot of wine, he wasn’t even tipsy.

  Taller than everyone else in the hall by a head, a head that was now redder than ever and that (it must be told) emerged from a pink shirt with green necktie, his beard fluttering smartly, his eyes twinkling with excitement—there he stood before us, and listened as Reverend Don Francisco introduced him: “You have come to witness something that has never been seen before…” I realized right away that when God created a Keyserling, He could not have had this particular Keyserling in mind, for the little ditty we learned as Lower-Rhineland kids went this way: “When God’s breath became a paltry thing, He created the famous Count Keyserling.” To create this Hermann, God would have required His full diapason. The ditty is more fitting for his cousin Eduard Keyserling, the melancholy narrator of Baltic aristocratic family chronicles, a personage whom a mild zephyr could have blown off the face of the earth.

  Count Keyserling spoke Spanish fluently, but a certain agitation in his audience told him that people were not following his words. How about English? No? Then let’s try French. He was willing to obey the wishes of his esteemed listeners. Applause from all present except Vigoleis and Don Sacramento. Although both of us were in full command of the French language, we lacked the conversational practice that would allow us to play our trick on the celebrated philosopher. With Spanish we could have pulled it off. Keyserling could tote up his first two victims.

  His circus act went along as planned. The mental acrobat in his pink shirt and dashing white beard invited the audience to present him with the evening’s subject for discussion. “And please, don’t hold back. This is a master class, so is anyone brave enough? No one? Nobody at all? Is this so difficult? No one from the green table, either? What’s the matter?” The Conde wrung his hands as if conjuring a genie. I noticed how he now winked toward Harry Kessler, and how the latter, the anti-clown, glanced off into the corner where we were sitting. If he didn’t stand up right away, Hermann would lose, for someone in the first row was clearing his throat—presumably it was somebody’s Adam’s apple being rolled up and then back down. There was deathly silence, and everyone gazed forward toward the man with the breathing problem. At this moment, Count Kessler arose from his seat at the green table.

  I cannot offer a historically accurate portrait of Harry Kessler, for I neither believe in historical exactitude, nor have I ever kept written notes. But this much I recall of that evening’s gala philosophical spectacular: Count Kessler had on his natty Bauzá suit, which I could describe down to the last button—not because my client Silberstern was so interested in the Count’s wardrobe, but because I myself had, by coincidence, asked the haberdasher at Bauzá to make me a suit from the very same fabric and with the very same cut. It was on this very same gala evening that the Count and I discovered that we shared the same tailor, the same taste in clothing, and the same trust in the potential sales value of his book Peoples and Fatherlands.

  Kessler, who had given a thousand speeches in front of more hostile audiences than this one, spoke slowly, with almost touching modesty and with a firm voice. No one besides us two and Keyserling could have interpreted the faint rosy flecks on his cheeks as a sign of trepidation. As a phony he was playing his role quite convincingly. He began by saying that it was not easy to offer a topic to a philosopher of Keyserling’s standing. It would be necessary to reach, or at least to approach, the Count’s level of competency. “Well now, mon cher Keyserling, how about this: ‘La machine comme parvenue de notre siècle’?”

  There it was! Drumroll and crack of the whip! The clown leaps into the
ring and pulls a bunny from his nose. Count Kessler sat down. If now he just wouldn’t look over to the place where Thälmann is sitting—if he could just go on with his thoughts about “Times and Faces”—his private faces, his private times—while the other Count clears his throat.

  An electric fan sent a breeze across the green table. The artificial palms started rustling, and the philosopher’s beard, caught by the puffs of air, blew out horizontally. Don Quixote in person!

  Hermann played his role better than Harry, for he was everything at once: philosopher, tippler, diplomat, Don Quixote, Sancho Panza, magician. And because his published works legitimized him for decades into the future, unlike Harry he didn’t need to keep his mind focused on the past. Well now: “The Machine As Upstart”? Hermann squinted and surveyed his mixed audience. Then he tested the ropes that would lift him up to his trapeze. Were all the rings and hooks secure? Taking the measure of this Upstart would be child’s play for Hermann. Drumbeat! Crack of whip! The pink shirt takes a bow, the green necktie shimmers menacingly. “Mesdames et messieurs, la machine comme parvenue…nous verrons.”

  Hermann had obviously not wasted his time with the bottle. He had prepared everything exactly to his taste, and his performance earned him a summa cum laude. The way he attacked the topic was simply ingenious. He immediately went for the depths—Harry hadn’t tossed him a coffee pot. Hermann didn’t just go foraging on the surface, he plunged to the very bottom and revealed the ocean’s darkest secrets: fish with rear-end lights, lanceolate eyes, phosphorescent jellyfish, high-voltage sea monsters—these were the precursors, an entire aquarium full, of all of Nature’s “upstarts” that were eventually to reach terra firma. Hermann then ascended slowly to the surface, and slithered ahead as Wisdom’s amphibian. He ended his oration with an even more ingenious conclusion—the nature of which I can’t remember. After an hour, both the subject and the lecturer were obviously exhausted.