by Antal Szerb
1922
THE WHITE MAGUS
IN THE DAYS of the Byzantine Empire in which our tale is set, many stories were told of the Princess Zoë. The only daughter of Emperor Constantine the Great, her beauty and goodness were renowned throughout Christendom, and people came from the far ends of the land to catch a glimpse of her, in her long dress that trailed stiffly behind her, on her way to church, where she would bow deeply before disappearing behind the great portal. The poor who turned to her always found her compassionate, and when she raised her slender hands in prayer some invisible blessing seemed to flow into her. It was said she could even heal the sick.
One day Princess Zoë boarded a sailing ship and spent the day at sea. It was spring, the sea was as blue as the sky, the sky was as deep as the sea, and where they met soft breezes caressed the fledgling waves. The Princess stood singing in the prow of the ship, her hair flying free. “How beautiful life is,” she exclaimed, “and how young I am!”
When she returned, towards evening, the whole city was out on the seafront waving to welcome her back. The shopkeepers stood outside their shops, women crowded in windows and mothers held their children aloft. “Welcome back, Princess Zoë,” they shouted. “God has brought you home safely from the kingdom of salt!” For the heart of the stone city, even as it cooled, beat inside her too, and in her face shone the classical beauty of ancient Greece, in its final and most haunting form.
When she reached the Palace news was brought to her that a little girl, the dearest to her of all her little friends, had died while she had been at sea. The cause was a long-standing but totally mysterious condition. The Princess was filled with self-reproach. Somehow she thought that had she remained by the side of her beloved little friend she might have kept her alive. From then on some inexplicable influence took possession of her. The happiness of her days darkened and gave way to the tearful melancholy of deep compassion.
The next day a throng of women came to her complaining that their children too were sick. The symptoms of the illness were always the same. The children became very cold and inexpressibly sad; they were full of longing, but for what could never be established because by this stage they could no longer speak. They did not cry, nor would they eat. Their little bodies grew steadily colder, while their faces took on a startling beauty, and by the time they died they had come to resemble the old statues of gods that householders in those days still sometimes found in their cellars. People were almost certain that through death the children were finding a way back to the happier, sun-blest lands of ancient Hellas. The doctors could find no cure, and ransacked their Galens in vain to find a name for this strange affliction.
The calamity that had struck Byzantium weighed heavily on Princess Zoë. She loved its children above everything. She felt truly at home among them and personally knew almost every child in the city. As the strange epidemic spread she busied herself night and day, going from house to house visiting the sick, comforting them and helping out wherever she could. The moment she drew near, the patient’s condition would take a turn for the better. At the touch of her hand a warmer life would flow into them. They were able to laugh again, and they joined her in chanting little rhymes. When she came and sat on their beds, those who had difficulty sleeping enjoyed happy dreams, filled with wonderful and inexplicable images of the past.
But Zoë was just one person, and the sick children were many. Moreover, the moment she left the condition would return. As soon as the child was alone again, the chill took an even firmer hold. The streets of Byzantium filled with long, slow processions of tiny blue coffins.
Zoë was indefatigable, loyally accompanying every grieving mother on these last journeys. But not one of those distraught parents knew the depth of pain that she did. With every child that went to the grave, part of her own life was being buried. It was not just the mothers’ tears that burnt into her heart. It was also the nameless, mysterious grief that had claimed the children, and her earnest desire to understand the fatal secret in their eyes, as they slowly faded into death.
One evening she was making her way home with her ladies-in-waiting, ostensibly to take some nourishment herself, though really she was more concerned about the fact that her women, tired as they were, had refused to leave her on her own. Along the way they called in on yet another sick little child, when she suddenly remembered that an especially dear little one, who lived at the other end of the city, was due to enter the critical phase of his illness that day. She persuaded her women to carry on without her, then she borrowed a simple, ordinary dress from the sick child’s mother, not wanting the citizens to see her in the street without her attendants. If news of that reached the ears of the Court they would be punished for her misdemeanour.
She hurried through the town, almost running, but even so she arrived late. At first the parents failed to recognise her. They asked her, rather rudely, who she thought she was and why she was bothering them so late at night, and told her to mind her own business. It took some time to persuade them that she was indeed Princess Zoë, and that they should let her in to see the dead child. She placed a flower in the little boy’s clenched hand and bade him a silent farewell.
Slowly, wearily, she made her way back towards the Palace. Suddenly she felt her face starting to burn, and the chilling words of farewell she had so often heard took on a fresh meaning for her, as a peculiar sensation of coldness such as she had never felt before took hold. In the dark and unfamiliar streets the wind seemed to blow with an even greater sharpness, and she glanced around apprehensively. This was a new Byzantium. She noticed, for the very first time, that everything was made of stone. The houses and public fountains were of stone, the streets were paved with stone. Wherever she went, stone temples and stone archways weighed down over her head, and the footsteps of people hurrying home clattered and rang in the street. Every one of them was a complete stranger, and the weary, indifferent glances falling on her seemed to come from an immense distance, dressed as she was in someone else’s clothes, covered by a headscarf and not in the least beautiful. Zoë had only ever seen these people when they lined the streets through which her carriage was passing. On those occasions there seemed a sort of glow on their faces, some lingering glimmer of an antique radiance, and she had thought that they too were children, children who had simply grown older. But now she saw that this was not true, that on their pallid brows they carried the mark of the stone city, and it was only their constant motion that made them seem alive. She tried to fill her mind with thoughts of the sea, and the huge blossoms in the vast imperial gardens, and then it struck her that in all the windows of the city there was not a single flower to be seen—nor could there possibly be. She saw that flowers never could grow in this place—the cold withered them in the root, just as it blighted her dear ones, the children—and that she herself was the last, lonely blossom, the forgotten relic of a long-dead summer.
The road home was very long, and when she finally arrived at the Palace to find that yet more women had come to beg for a visit, she was filled with such a stupor of weariness that she sent them away without even a word of comfort. Though longing for sleep, she was so tired she could barely undress.
Her bed was icy cold, the blanket immensely heavy. Its folds seemed to have been sculpted from solid marble. Her limbs felt no less heavy, and sleep claimed her instantly.
The next morning another throng of grieving women were there waiting for her to awaken. She attempted to rise but, held down by the weight of the blanket, her frozen limbs refused to budge. She tried to explain that she was very tired, she would not get up that day but the day after—but the words simply circled round in her head, malevolently, in some strange foreign tongue, and she could not utter them. She folded her hands over her breast and simply waited for night to come.
Thus she remained for several days. Everyone who saw her during that time was astonished by how much more beautiful she had become. She was now so beautiful that it no longer gave rise
to feelings of pleasure but rather of fear and horror, as at some supernatural visitation.
And they knew that she too had been struck down by the same mysterious disease that had carried off the children of the town.
The Palace was plunged into mourning. The Emperor Constantine began to neglect his duties of state. Prayers for the young Princess were said in every church in the city. Doctors came and doctors went, but there was no known cure for this condition. With the death of each child something of Zoë’s own life had gone to the grave.
And then—after Thessalian prophetesses had read the signs and pronounced in vain; hermits had come out of the deserts to make the sign of the cross, to no avail; long-bearded Jews had hung up strange stones to work their influence for her, without result; Arab holy men had danced ululating beneath her window, to no effect; madmen and dwarves had turned cartwheels, and made no difference; two-headed animals bred specifically to brighten faces such as hers, had all failed—for her mysterious affliction simply grew ever deeper, more silent, more death-like—someone finally thought of the White Magus.
The White Magus had not been seen for seventy years. He lived alone, up in the north, at the top of a high mountain in the Carpathians. Since then he had renounced everything to do with the world and devoted his life to studying the eternal verities. It was said that he knew all the deepest secrets of nature and of human life. He, if anyone, would surely be able to help the little Princess.
A delegation was quickly drawn up, with the Archilogothetos at its head, with instructions to seek out the White Magus, if he were still alive, up in the Carpathian mountains.
The emissaries had to battle against many obstacles on the way. Melting snow had washed away the roads that ran between the peaks; the Danube was in flood, and crossing it proved fraught with danger. In the forests of the snow-covered lowlands wild Slavic tribesmen lay in wait for them with poisoned arrows.
At last they arrived at the permanent snowfields. They had come to a terrain into which no one had ever before ventured. This abode of tranquillity and silence had remained undisturbed in the shadow of the snow for many thousands of years. Those of the party who were versed in the lore of dreams and omens realised, trembling, that they were now very close to the White Magus.
One day they came to a stream beneath whose waters drifted strange flowers of frozen crystal, and they knew that this must be the mountain on whose peak he lived. They continued their painful journey upwards, picking their way between fields of snow and rivers of ice. One by one the mules collapsed. The weakest members of the party became ill or suffered from terrifying hallucinations, and the group began to break up.
It was already night when its remaining members reached the Magus’ ice gardens. In the astonishingly bright light of the stars they could see across enormous distances to the other peaks. Immense fields of ice stretched out before them, gleaming palely in the darkness. The cold was terrible. A blue light emanating from the palace itself flickered back and forth across the garden.
When they reached the top of the slippery stairway the Magus appeared at his gate to greet them. His austere, distinguished face made all petty thoughts seem shameful, and their bent, weary backs straightened as if under a reproach.
After listening attentively while the Archilogothetos explained the reason for their coming, he promised to visit the little Princess and do everything in his power to help her. It would be hard indeed to leave his astronomical tower and return to the bustling, petty-minded world from which he had grown so remote, but he respected both the moral code that required him to help all who turned to him and the law that made the Emperor the ruler of the world. While he remained in that world he would always follow his duty.
However, on that particular night certain very special events were about to be played out in the heavens, events to be witnessed only once in a hundred years, and which set the pattern for the next hundred, and he felt obliged to spend that one last night in his tower. Towards dawn, with a heavy heart, he bade farewell to the eternal stars.
The next day they set out for Byzantium. With the Magus at their side, the road was now very easy. He knew of pathways that led between the snowfields, and the Danube meekly allowed his longboat to ride on its back. Along the way he gladly dispensed advice to all who sought his counsel, treating everyone with the same kindliness and respect.
When they reached Drinapolis word came that Princess Zoë was on her deathbed. Alarmed and concerned, the Magus increased the pace of the journey. But by the time they arrived at the city walls of Byzantium the bells were already tolling. The Princess was dead.
The Emperor Constantine who received the Magus was a man broken by grief.
“If you had arrived just a few hours earlier, you might have saved her!”
“I am to blame,” replied the crestfallen Magus. “If I had set out immediately I would have been here in time. Eternal shame upon my head!”
He entered the room where the body lay and examined it carefully. When he returned his expression was even more sombre.
“I do not believe I could have helped her while she was alive,” he declared. “Your daughter must have been a very special person, my lord. It takes a most exceptional character to die of that most helpless form of love—pity. She froze to death because the children of the city were dying of cold, in their yearning for the lost sunlight of ancient Greece. It is a perilous thing to allow yourself to face life with a bared heart, not knowing, as one should, the need to abstract oneself from the world. You see, up there in my astronomical tower I can foretell every misfortune that blows down onto the world from the fateful stars. Should I ever allow pity to overwhelm me, if only for a moment, I would be dead within the hour. But the eternal winter of the Carpathians shields my heart. The sea of life cannot reach my tower, other than as a pure and rarified vapour. I could have done nothing for your daughter while she was still alive; and now that her heart is cold… But I have never yet made a wasted journey…”
Deep in thought, he wandered through the Palace gardens.
During the night he called again on the Emperor, who had remained beside his daughter’s bier.
“My lord, I cannot leave with this business unfinished,” he began. “I have decided to resort to the very greatest, and most dangerous, of all forms of magic, something a magus can work only once in his life—the art of raising the dead. I cannot reveal its many secrets and difficulties to you, but there is one problem you will have to find a way round by some means or another. You know that in this vale of woe everything comes at a price, just as the great mystery of birth requires both pain and the shedding of blood. If I am to bring a dead person back to life there must be an exchange with someone still living. My lord, if I am to revive your daughter I shall need a volunteer for sacrifice.”
“I am sure a great many people,” the Emperor replied, “would be prepared to give their lives for her. The heart of the entire city beat in her breast. I would willingly die myself, but unfortunately affairs of state require my continuing existence.”
The next day heralds let it be known throughout the town that they were looking for someone to lay down his or her life for the sake of the little Princess. “The life of the body is transient, but this person’s name will live in grateful memory for ever.”
But in all that city of stone, no one came forward. The fact that Zoë had died, and would never again be seen going to church in her long, trailing dress, did not concern them, and they probably did not even notice that their lives had become even more impoverished and oppressed than before.
The Magus had expected no less. He knew the people. He knew that their drab lives were so limiting they were incapable of giving anything for the sake of a greater cause.
He saw too that there was only one person, someone not caught up in petty concerns, whose life was indeed worthy of such a sacrifice, and that person was himself. It did not seem to him unreasonable or unfair that he should surrender his life for someone el
se, someone he did not know and whose existence had so far been a matter of perfect indifference to him. It was not as if he were someone who would one day be important. He too would have to die one day, and death was not something he feared. He had lived twice as long as people usually did. He already knew all there was to know, and more than was permitted to man. The world had no unredeemed promises left in store for him.
He communicated his decision to the Emperor, who was so astonished he was quite unable to find words to thank him.
A long-abandoned building in the Palace gardens was fitted out for the Magus. Guards were stationed all around so that no animal or human could come near. There he spent the night in acts of sorcery. The guards were convinced they could hear all sorts of voices inside. According to some of them, just before dawn the building was bathed in a strange blue light.
As soon as he woke the next morning, the Emperor called on the Magus. He found him sitting in a vast armchair in the middle of the empty room, a broken man. In a barely audible voice he announced:
“My lord, the great spell has done its work. Everything on earth and in heaven has assisted its aims. All that remains is for me to die.”
“And what is your last wish, Magus?” the Emperor asked.
“I have no last wish, just as I had no first one. But my final instructions are these: to place the body of the little Princess on a white bier, clad in the full ceremonial robes of a lady of royal birth, and carry it at midday down to the square outside the Cathedral. There you must set down my body too, on a black bier, and that is where the miracle of life and death will take place. Live happily, my lord.”
All routine work in the city came to a halt. Too inflamed with curiosity even to eat, the citizens put on their finest clothes. With trembling hands Zoë’s former attendants dressed her corpse in the formal, pure-gold coronation robes a woman was permitted to don just once in her life. On her head they placed the huge, heavy diadem. In inexpressible excitement, the Emperor knelt before the crucifix.