Allah is Allah,
And Mohammed is the prophet of Allah!
And the birds in the windows respond with a sleepy chattering:
Allah is Allah,
And Mohammed is the prophet of Allah!
The pelicans lie in the torn and soaked tatters scattered here and there or hang like signal flags from the legs of overturned tables. And from the minaret comes the chant, for the third and last time:
Allah is Allah,
And Mohammed is the prophet of Allah!
The jacks-of-all-trades, the alchemists, and the diviners stand up dreamily and sleepily and wrap their heads in the drenched silk rags woven with the images of pelicans. It is three minutes past midnight. “Gentlemen, we are almost late for the nighttime prayers; let’s hurry to the mosque, or, if nothing better, out into the fresh air, where we might be fortunate enough to locate the east. Let us honor the memory of the prophet!” The outer doors are opened and the blue night steps in; a fresh breeze from the stars blows throughout the hall; and the men hurry off to prayer. But behind them lie the maidens like saplings, strewn across the floor and over the couches, dead drunk and naked.
61.
Salvation is much closer than most people suspect. On the doorsteps Steinn met a Benedictine monk whom he recalled having had as his traveling companion on the Rome-Paris express. And this Benedictine monk addressed him with redemptive words.
“Leicester Square! Leicester Square!” said the monk as he laid a hand on his head, and Steinn grabbed the monk’s cowl and followed him. And the monk repeated the redemptive words at every third step:
“Leicester Square!” one two three. “Leicester Square!” one two three, “Leicester Square!”
In a short time they arrived at Leicester Square, where a great celebration was clearly in full swing. The crowd was so enormous, both on the square itself and on the streets leading to it, that the streetcar and automobile traffic had been stopped, while old women and children were trodden under by the thousands, without anyone noticing or taking the trouble to gather these poor wretches together and bring them safely away.
What was happening?
Steinn pressed his way through the crowd and didn’t stop until he could see the cause of the celebration. In the center of Leicester Square, Jesus Christ was being crucified. It was the crucifixion that everyone had come to see; around him circled the throng. Christ hung there upon an enormously tall tree and had obviously been nailed up in a hurry, probably without having been judged or subject to due process of law, because they hadn’t given a thought to tearing off his clothes. He was dressed according to the latest fashion, like a young intellectual, poverty having long since ceased to be a virtue; his shirt was of fine-woven silk with a pattern of tiny stripes and golden buttons on the sleeves, diamonds on his tie, his hair carefully curled, his socks of bright-colored silk, a crease in his trousers, shoes with a gentlemanly cut. The bright, close-shaven face had radiated visibly with talents and virtues up until today, but now it was sweaty and deformed, the eyes bloodshot. Steinn could not understand at all why the man did not frown at the mob clustering around him.
What a mob! Because no matter how far he looked out over the crowd his eyes never came to rest on anything but whores! Mere whores! All of mankind, nothing but simple, accursed whores! Whores who demand bridal gifts and bridal gifts and bridal gifts! Whores who want to clothe themselves in silk and diamonds, feathers and furs, and demand music, roses, and happiness! – either emaciated whores or fat whores, dirty whores or spruced-up whores, dainty to the depths of their souls, beautiful whores or ugly whores, foolish or gifted, their voices dusky or fair. They stand here in one mass like sardines, and shout at Jesus Christ the crucified: “I, I! Me! Me!”
And then Steinn noticed that he was no exception: he himself was a whore just like all the rest, and when he glanced down he noticed a huge stain on his jacket, just below his chest. There he had spilled his champagne glass during his last orgy. And he was even about to ask the Crucified One for a new jacket when lightning started to flash and thunder to boom, and Heaven and Earth to quake. The day of wrath was at hand. The sun darkened and the cliffs were cloven, and from them ran dead men in underwear, at their wits’ end. And it seemed to Steinn as if the curtain of the temple was torn asunder from top to bottom.
Book Six
62.
“Brussels – Berlin – Moscow!” calls out the train attendant in the first-class waiting room at the station in Basel, as if these were three villages situated next to each other, and the clock strikes. It is morning, and within two minutes the express train is on its way. And all day such a heavy rain patters on the compartment windows that one could imagine that the train was running along the bottom of a rushing river. Through the rain one can dimly see forests, fields, and human dwellings like moving pictures behind mica, and the rain claps robustly on the station pavements like applause in a huge hall. Evening comes and the light dwindles.
In a Belgian village the train ejects cramped souls into the darkness and the rain. Among them is a foreign traveler, his collar dirty and the ends of his sleeves dark with locomotive soot. The travelers who step out pull their cloaks tighter, turn their hat brims down and their collars up, hurry through the station building, and disappear into cars and horse-drawn carriages. But the foreigner stands alone, unmoving, on the platform after the train has gone, looking about like a man who has fallen into a crater, with no protection against the flood of water but for a tattered English hat on his head, sweaty and sooty. When he had started out his only luggage had been a dirty handkerchief, which he had lost two days ago between Rome and Florence. Here he stands destitute, and the rain trickles down his neck; only after all of the others have turned in their tickets does he dare to make his way through the station gate. He asks the station manager in a whisper, his heart pounding like that of a newly confirmed youngster who asks for the first time of the man in the street where the prostitutes can be found:
“Is there an abbey here?”
“Unfortunately not here at the train station, sir!” replies the Fleming, and he looks around to see whether anyone was near enough to hear how clever his answer was and to admire his wit.
“I mean whether there is an abbey here in the vicinity,” corrected the traveler.
“That’s another matter,” said the man. “I’m afraid that it would be more advisable for you to spend the night here in the village, because it’s both dark and raining.”
“Would you please be so kind as to point me in the direction of the abbey?” asked the other.
“It’s up the mountainside. You cannot walk there in less than half an hour in daylight. And in this darkness and foul weather it seems to me fairly impossible for a complete stranger to venture up there.”
All the same the man condescended to accompany the foreigner out of the station, and then he pointed straight up in the air.
“There’s the abbey,” he said.
Some workman or other showed him where the path to the abbey turned off from the village road up a slope; at first there were steps leading up so that one could walk fairly easily for a time. A dim light from a lantern down on the road cast a gleam up along the foot of the mountain, but as one ascended into the trees the gleam disappeared. The traveler found himself in a palpably black night on a narrow path between tall pine trees; the rain poured down. Now it took a great deal of work not to lose the path, and he used his hands and feet to probe his way forward.
After skulking along in this way for some time he discovered that it was all for nothing: he was no longer on the path, but instead on a slanting ledge on the hillside. He searched around for several moments to see if he could find the path again, but it was no good; he ended up in tighter and tighter spots the longer he searched. The slope was spongy with wet earth and rotting leaves; he lost his footing, and it was only by luck that he was able to grab a tree trunk to stop himself from falling. The soil wet his ankles; his shoes filled with
mud.
Should he turn back?
But before he gave himself time to decide what he ought to do he turned automatically upward, facing the slope. He advanced both on his knees and on all fours over the drenched earth, searched for hand-holds in the branches above him, scratched himself on nettles that stung like fire, muddied his hands. Now and then he thrust his feet against stumps or grabbed on to a tree trunk. He scrambled his way higher and higher, drenched, sweaty, dirty, and exhausted, and the ascent seemed to him to take an eternity. Finally he thought he caught a glimpse of the ridge of the hill against the sky.
Awaiting him here was the most difficult stretch: a dense thorn-brake more than waist-high. He felt his way along a clear, narrow hollow, but the brake grew as thickly everywhere along the ridge, leaving him no other choice but to break through. And so he broke through. The thorns stung his bare hands; they hooked on to his clothing and tore it, pierced through his clothing and into his bare body, wounding him. But he no longer cared about anything, no longer winced at any pain; instead he grabbed handfuls of the thornbushes, pushed the resilient branches to the sides and stood in the next instant upon the ridge.
The darkness was too deep for him to be able to distinguish one thing from another; he glanced about to try to discover a light in a window, but to no avail. He roamed around for a short time, until he decided that his best course would be to try to find himself a place to sleep. But then powerful bells started to clang a short distance away; the air quivered at this mighty sound. They can’t be more than fifty steps away, he thought, and he walked overjoyed toward the sound. Presently he was stopped by a high wall; he found a gate and in a moment stood in the courtyard between tall gables. The metal of the bells rang and rang, and the heart of the stranger hammered with fear and trembling as he stood there in the courtyard of the abbey. At each gable was an entryway; on one side the abbey, on the other the church. After some hesitation he ventured up the abbey steps, felt about, found the string of a bell, and rang the doorbell. And after he had rung the bell it finally dawned on him where he was; he awoke like a sleepwalker. What business did he have here? He knew no one here and no one knew him! This house wasn’t built for men of his sort; here dwelled holy men. Here dwelled men who believed in God and Jesus Christ, but he was the most heretical of men and believed neither in God nor Jesus. What was he searching for here? His homes were waywardness, the wilderness. No, he thought, I’ll hide and lie down to sleep in the churchyard until dawn.
But it was too late; inside, someone was fiddling with the door, then a little hatch on the upper part of the door was opened and a nose poked out. In the next moment the door was opened, and a lay brother in a brown cloak, with a hood drawn forward over his head, let a lantern cast its gleam out through the doorway. And the gleam fell upon a wretched wreck of a man who appeared to have fallen into the hands of robbers on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho. He stood there at the threshold of the monastery with large horn-rimmed glasses shielding his dilated and fear-stricken eyes, dirty and ragged as if he’d emerged from a peat pit, his hands bloody like those of a criminal, soaked to the skin like a keelhauled castaway. The rain took the color from his cap, and the drops trickled down his face like streaks of tobacco juice: the Great Weaver from Kashmir.
The doorkeeper glanced at him sharply and appeared to conclude that the man had recently escaped from a madhouse. He gave no greeting, and asked, with no introduction:
“What do you want?”
“Is there a man here called Alban?” asked Steinn Elliði.
“If it is the prior whom you mean, Father Alban de Landry,” answered the brother, “he is not available before seven o’clock tomorrow morning. The fathers have just finished the completorium, and now it is magnum silentium.”
“Magnum silentium?”
“Yes, magnum silentium.”
The dryness of the doorkeeper’s answers was enough to call forth the dominant in Steinn Elliði’s heart, and without digging any further into what this “magnum silentium” meant, he ordered:
“Go to Father de Landry, and tell him that there is a man here who absolutely needs to speak to him right away.”
“Since so much is at stake, sir,” said the servant, after discovering by the foreigner’s voice that he was an educated man, “might I then invite you to step into the foyer” – he showed him into a comely waiting room situated next to the entrance hall, turned on the light, and left.
A substantial amount of time passed, and Steinn waited. Everything was silent, as at the bottom of the sea. On the wall hung a graceful portrait of our Lady from Luxembourg, Consolatrix afflictorum: the Mother of God with the child, her countenance like a spruced-up mermaid, her dark purple, golden-stitched gown lined with crinoline, a crown on her tiny head. It was almost comical that this woman should be the consolation of the afflicted. Over the door hung a replica of the Spanish Crucifix of Holy Christ from Limpias, one of the most poignant representations of the crucifixion in the world, because the sweat, tears, and blood that ooze down Christ’s breast are not like painted-on sweat, tears, and blood, but rather like sweat, tears, and blood. And the eyes waver back and forth in the death struggle; they look sometimes at me and sometimes at you, admonitory as if they wish to say, “Memento mori,” and sometimes to God in Heaven crying, “Eli, Eli!”86 Hanging there upon his cross is a living man who will likely give up the ghost this very night.
63.
Father Alban opens the door quickly and stops in the doorway. He is clad in a raven black full-length cloak, his hands hidden in the arms of the cloak, his palms clasped. The strongly built, magnificent head of the canon is uncovered except for a black skullcap on its crown. He is pale-cheeked, but the look of his eyes is therefore even more powerful, his mouth closed; from him radiates strength and cold austerity. But when he sees his visitor an incredibly gentle smile comes over his face, and in one instant the austerity has changed to clemency. He recognizes Steinn Elliði again at first glance, bids him good evening in a bright Gregorian voice, extends both his hands, and greets him joyfully. It was by no means clear to Steinn Elliði as to what controlled his actions, because he threw himself down onto his knees before the cloaked man and kissed his hand. Perhaps it was due to the monk’s personality that he greeted him with such affection and feeling, or rather, and more than anything, due to the hope of his own salvation.
“Forgive me for coming here at night and disturbing you,” he stammered. “But I have come a long way to ask you to help me. I have come to ask you to tell me what I should do. If God exists, then everything is vanity except for him. My sufferings have overstepped all limits. Tell me, do you think that God exists? And what does this God demand?”
“Stand up, dear sir, and let’s be bold!” answered the ascetic. “It’s God himself who has led you here, and a great celebration awaits you. If you had remembered to put your address on your letter to me, for which I thank you sincerely, I would have written to you a long time ago. But now you have come, and I am given not only a chance to praise God for leading one and all where he pleases, even without me writing a letter, but also to glorify once again the most precious message in the Gospel, that is, that neither death nor life nor angels nor principalities nor the realized nor the untold nor powers nor heights nor depths nor any other creature is able to part us from the love of God, who revealed himself in Jesus Christ our Lord. What does God demand, you ask? He never demands anything but this: that you come to him as a little child. When Christ challenges modern man to follow him he does not demand that a man leave his father and mother, sisters and brothers, wife, children, and home, because modern man turned his back on all of these things long ago, and they are of little worth to him. Modern man has opinions, interests, ideals, convictions, and knowledge. These things are most precious to him, in the same way that men of old loved their fathers and mothers, wives and children. For this reason Christ says to modern man: Forsake your opinions, interests, ideals, convictions, and knowledg
e; lift your crosses to your backs and follow me. Unless you turn around and become like children you will never be able to enter the Heavenly Kingdom–”
He helped Steinn to his feet and smiled into his eyes with deep clemency. And all of this touched Steinn’s heart.
“This house stands open to you,” the monk continued. “Imagine that you have come home. In this place peace reigns. We monks of the Benedictine order have two mottoes: one is ‘Pax,’ the other ‘Ut in omnibus glorificetur Deus.’87 Let us make them our truths! Now please follow me into the monastery, friend, and the brother will fry some eggs for you, because you must surely be hungry. And what a great wonder it is to see how you look, my good man – and bloody all over! You surely haven’t been in a fight? And where is your luggage? Oh, fine; since you have no luggage I shall provide you at least with dry undergarments, since you are thoroughly wet. Eh bien, now we’ll go to the refectory.”
A heavy, black oaken door was opened, upon which the word “Clausura” was painted near the top in red letters; then came a corridor that extended a very long way, silent as a crypt, but the footsteps of the men echoed in all directions. The lay brother walked ahead of them with a lantern. Finally came a wide hall, cold and empty: the refectory, with a great crucifix at the far end, bare tables and benches along the walls. In the center of the hall was a little table laid with a cloth, chairs around it; Steinn was offered a seat there. Speaking was permitted in hushed tones only. Both the lay brother and the father left, and Steinn sat in the dark hall like a spellbound character in a folktale. All was quiet.
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