Not so easy; it was a lovely thing, we did not like to hammer it roughly with stones. Jamie picked up an ordinary-looking pebble and scratched a couple of lines with it on the gold, muttering some of his Gaelic words, and passed it once quickly through the fire. “Now strike it with your stone,” he said. I struck it, and there it lay, split cleanly into three pieces. One piece, a trifle smaller than the others, had the greater part of the writing on it Tom and I sat still, not touching the gold, waiting.
Jamie picked up the smallest piece and tucked it into his pouch. Then he leaped suddenly in the air and clacked his heels together, thumbing his nose at us, and psst! like that, he was gone.
We both crossed ourselves quickly, all ashiver, fearing we had dealt with the devil himself. But then I said, “He is maybe a Welshman, or even a Scot, but I think he is not a demon, for then why would he have needed our help? And you must remember how he snored, like any natural man.”
“Eh well,” says Tom, “we knew he was a warlock.”
Whatever he was, we were free of him, and now I told Tom everything that had happened, just as I have been telling it to you. He shook his head and sighed, “Ah, Hamo, Hamo! what a marvelous adventure! Could I but have gone with you!”
Then I remembered why he could not go, and the rest of it, and now my fingers were shaking with impatience to get all my clothes off, Tom helping me. I could scarce breathe till I might discover what had been taken from me. We looked carefully, both of us, and there was no part of me lacking, nothing, not so much as a toenail. Tom laughed. “Ah, I’ll warrant he was mocking you—it would seem a merry sort of jest to him, the black-hearted bastard he is, man or demon.”
But I could not help wondering: if they had stolen nothing from my outward and visible body, what had they taken instead? I considered myself—not an easy matter, Brother, though easily said—and I felt myself to be the same man I had always been. Ah well; I was accursed, but I did not know it; not yet.
Tom heaved another great sigh, deep out of his guts, and he said, “Think now, Hamo, what a marvelous song it would make! To speak with an old dead king, and win the red gold. . . .”
I knew what was in his heart. It was always his deepest longing to be a bard, a minstrel; not to wrench a livelihood out of the folk by clever trickery, but to win it with praise and joy, as a singer of tales. He could not do it; he had no gift for it, no more than I have myself. What do you think, Brother Albertus? Does everyone cherish some deep unhealing sorrow for the one splendid thing he can never do?
We could not make the song; we only sat quietly there together until it grew light enough for us to see each other’s faces, and the two broken pieces of the red gold lying there on the ground between us.
Neither of us moved to touch it. The light grew, and the sun rose, and a finger of sunlight reached down along the mound, pointing at the gold. We’d not have been surprised if it had crumbled into a bit of dust, as they say faery gold does at the touch of morning. But no: it brightened in the sun, it soaked up the light and gave it back in glory, you might think it was a living thing that had suffered from darkness all those years under the earth and now sang with joy. It was ours, the true red gold. . . .
Now am I come to the sad and sorry part of my tale, Brother Albertus, and I ask you to hear me with compassion.
We lost no time in finding ourselves a snug place where we set up our furnaces and crucibles, and we labored earnestly to do all that was said in the book, employing our red gold as the Elixir, of which a tiny bit should suffice to change all the melt into its own pure nature, into true gold. Well. In a word, we could never get back more gold than we put in.
One day I found Tom sitting with his head in his hands, nigh to weeping, and he said, “I am greatly to blame, Hamo, I have made you think me a greater scholar than I am. I can read the secret words in our book, saying Seize and slay the dragon, lift out his entrails, bring the green lion to the current of the Nile, and so on, but I do confess to you I have no notion at all what these things mean, nor what the old masters are telling us to do.”
I had been wondering about it myself, but it grieved me to see my poor friend taking the whole weight of our failure on himself, and I said, “Tom, I am thinking we ought not to have been so ready to trust yon fellow Jamie.”
“Why, did he not have a potent spell? Did it not get you into the mound as he said it would? And surely he knew the value of the red gold, for he desired it for himself.”
“He did,” I said, “but I am not sure he wanted the gold as much as he did the secret writing on it. Most likely that was some excellent ancient magic.”
“Do you mean—? Are you saying—?” Tom was swelling slowly to full fury, his face turning red. “When he told us that the red gold was the Elixir-?”
“I would not say he was lying,” says I, “I was only wondering about it”
Tom was not wondering. He crashed his great fist on the table so the spoons jumped to the floor. “Why, that misbegotten limb of Satan! That—that creature—he to cozen us? I will have the heart out of him with my bare hands, by God’s bowels I will! I will hang him up by the heels and cut out his tripes to feed him—I will . . .”
I don’t know what more he planned; the rest was in Cornish. I waited until he grew weary and then I said, “We have no power to hunt him down, Tom, well you know it. Here we be two simple fellows trying to make an honest living, and him a warlock.”
He did know it, and he sat drained and spent, the way he does when the anger has run out of him, and he said, “So, then, we must go back to our old trade. We have gold. . . .”
And so we did. I cannot bear to spend many words on this, Brother, for the horror is still with me. We found a patron, we sat at drink with him, and Tom spoke with him learnedly, as we had so often done; I, the humble assistant, waited until Tom should turn to me and say, “Now my good man here has somewhat to show you,” and I was to unwrap the little bar of red gold and say, “Look you, master, a small bit of the gold we have made.”
And I could not do it. I felt the words fighting each other in my throat, and knew what would happen if I spoke; I had just enough wits to fall on the floor, foaming at the mouth, and I heard Tom say, “Poor fellow, he’s not had one of these fits for a month,” and somehow he got me away. Truly feared for me he was, thinking of poison or some dread illness, for well he knew I never had fits.
Ah, the case was far worse than he thought! For I was accursed; I knew now what dire mutilation the old King had wrought on me. He had taken away my power to lie.
Better, far better, he had stolen an ear or even an eye! Only think, Brother, how easily your welfare or even your life may depend on your ability to lie! Never tell me the monastery is different from the rest of the world in that way, I would not believe it. Could you face even one day in which you knew that you could utter no word other than the truth, however great the need? Would you not be forced to a vow of silence? Can you not pity me, Brother Albertus? Yes, I see you do, I thank you for your tears. I could not have wept better in my evil old days, no, not even with the best of onions. . . .
I have striven against my fate, hoping to find the curse weakening with time. Often, while I have been speaking with you, I have tried to cheat just a little, not wishing to deceive you but merely as one might test a wounded arm to see if it has healed enough for use. All to no avail; the words I sought to bend have come out of my mouth straight, I have not been able to tell you anything except the exact truth. —You shake your head, you think such a thing impossible? But consider, Brother, you have the best possible reason to believe it. Am I not the one who is telling you? And I am Hamo the Accursed, who cannot lie.
Now when I had made Tom understand what had happened to me, I begged him to let me go my separate way, for I was surely no use to him. “My poor friend,” said he, “you could never make your way alone in the world under such a curse. Let us think what we can do.”
I will not spin you a long tale of those dreary days. In our despair
, we thought of setting up an honest mercer’s shop, but we had not the gift for it; nothing went right, in no time at all we were deep in debt, and my poor Tom whisked off to the debtors’ prison. We still had our red gold, buried in a safe place, but it would not have been enough, and anyway we could not let them have it. There’s much virtue in it, even if it may not be the Elixir.
So I gave the sheriff’s men the slip, and whispered Tom that I’d make the money to set him free, and then I took to the greenwood, as we ought to have done in the first place. I had almost enough for his needs when I had the misfortune to kill that merchant on the highway, and there, but for the holiness and kindness of your sanctuary, would have been the end of my pitiful tale.
You might think that for a man who has seen such adventures as mine it would be tedious merely to go on living from day to day, but I do not find it so; I am truly grateful for this enchanted world God has given us, and who knows what further joys and wonders I may find in it? So I have decided not to wait out my whole forty days in sanctuary. My good friend Tom is out of prison now—never ask me how it was arranged—and he is waiting for me. We’ll try our luck with our comrades in the greenwood, or maybe on the high seas; there’s Tom’s cousin, captain of his own ship, a free trader—I suppose some folk would call him a pirate.
It’s useless to struggle, Brother Albertus, I am stronger than you. I do not wish to hurt you; have we not enjoyed these days and hours of friendly converse? However, I must win time to leave this place quietly, you see, and so I must tie your hands and feet—I hope that is not too tight? Yes, your habit fits me quite well, I knew it would. I am sorry I cannot leave you my breeches, but you may have this old coat to keep you warm until your brothers find you. It will not be long.
Oh aye, the abbot. You say I promised to tell him how he could make gold from lead?
With respect, Brother, that is not what I said. Look back at your writings; you will find my words were: I will tell you all I know of the making of gold—and is not this just what I have been confessing to you? One moment; I must tie this cloth over your mouth. I cannot have you crying out too soon. —Very well, you shall learn the final secret. Tell your abbot to take all his silver plate and jewels and his tools of whatever metal, and all his papers that tell of the wealth of the abbey in land and in sheep, and he shall go to the master goldsmith in London town and say, Give me gold enough for these things. Thus he may transmute any object whatever into gold. This is the exact and perfect truth: I, Hamo, have said it.
Does something trouble you, Brother Albertus? Nay then, do not fret your kind heart with fears for my safety, I shall be well away before any pursuit can set out. Farewell; remember me in your prayers. Pax tecum.
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Artistic genius and the sources of creativity are maters that remain rather mysterious to the most diligent students of psychology, art...and history. What, for instance, moved Johann Sebastian Bach to write the Brandenburg concertos? What was in his mind at the time? Perhaps Carter Scholz has the answer, though we can hope not.
* * * *
THE JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH MEMORIAL BARBECUE AND NERVOUS BREAKDOWN
Carter Scholz
—Yes, it’s true, I said, I’m responsible for the Brandenburg concertos, concerti, whatever you like to call them. Pass the ribs, would you please?
I was at the annual musicologists’ picnic in the University of California at Berkeley’s botanical gardens. The gardens are laid out by locale and by era, boasting thousands of specimens, and we were on the Northern European trail, just south of the Miocene redwood grove. Since I had come across eight thousand miles and three hundred years to be there, I was the object of particular attention.
—A pity this can’t he put to better use. God made a woman out of a rib, I said, washing the pungent meat down with Oktoberfest beer. —With all respect due the ladies present, it pleases the solipsist in us to imagine a woman made of our own flesh. The fellows up there (and I nodded in the direction of the genetics lab) know what I mean. But let me tell you about Bach . . . and with that I cut off any debates on sexism, incest, or cloning.
—Bach married his cousin Barbara, of course, so he probably had a touch of the solipsist about him. Most great men have. That, and his lusus ingenii, the games he played with spelling and numbers in his works, argues for it. That was my thesis, of course, and I was lucky enough to get a grant to work it out historically.
—This time hopping is an uncanny business, said fussy Abrams. —If we can rely on Freud—
—Yes, I interrupted my interrupter, for I knew he was about to botch my story. —The uncanny is that which leads back to something long known to us, once very familiar, and forgotten or repressed. The Freudians would say: noninferential knowledge of the future, and less emphatically of the past (and knowledge of distant, current happenings even less so), appear uncanny to us, so to what process of repression may these feelings be referred? I say this. When we are very young, past, present, and future have no meaning to us. Likewise, in the midst of the highest musical experiences we also lose our sense of time’s arrow pointing to the impending tonic at the end of a piece, and we live only in timeless moments of sense. As we grow older, the separation of events into a temporal order becomes normal, and the original direct experience unfamiliar. We make signs. Musicians write scores. To reject continuity for the fullness of the moment is not a luxury a mature individual can allow himself, particularly not a historian. Until recently, of course. More beer, please?
—I did a lot of hopping about, so there’s no point to saying earlier or later. . . . Two different continuities are involved, Bach’s and my own, and I’ll tell you only about the intersections. I flew to the time labs at U.C. Donaueschingen . . . but perhaps you want to know about the process. My colleagues in our little Kunstgestapo will forgive my boring them for a moment
—In this going-back, there are certain requirements of continuity, attention to detail beyond period costume and learning the language. Everywhere I showed up in the past, my name was Johann and I was left-handed. Johann was as common a name then as Lisa is now, so I had a lot of freedom, and of course it’s the Germanic form of my own name.
—I hopped first to Leipzig in 1723, as Johann Heinrich Ernesti, rector of the Thomaskirche, where Bach was the new cantor. First I put the real Ernesti under sedation and locked him in a closet and then strolled out to vespers. It was Good Friday, and Bach was to direct the first performance of his Johannes-Passion. You can imagine my excitement. In school my first full-scale analysis was of that work, and in the balmy days of youth, when I still harbored the ambition to compose (didn’t we all?), I thought I might write one myself. This was before the impossibility of religious music, not to mention music as a whole, had been made clear to me. I imagined a tribute to John the Evangelist, to John the Divine, to Johann Sebastian, and, naturally enough, to myself. I found it significant that Johann had chosen the gospel of his namesake for his first passion. This was the cornerstone of my thesis— that religious music is the most egocentric, self-reflective of all. Now, you’ve heard the stories that Bach’s first passion was based on Mark, written some fifteen years earlier. I can dispose of that objection. I produced from my attaché case the manuscript and fair copy of the Mark-Passion, dated 1709, and tossed it into the fire beneath the barbecue spit.
—Don’t panic, the music isn’t lost. I lifted this from Bach’s study in Weimar, but most of it was reworked into cantatas in Leipzig, from memory. The old boy had an astounding memory.
—It was a fine day in Leipzig in ‘23. It was spring, the trees were in bloom, and the smell of garbage was kept down by the breeze. I tried to see it with Ernesti’s eyes. People thronged to St. Thomas’s for vespers. The bells tolled across the square, and you could hear them far down the river, where some few impious strollers enjoyed the late light. The sun sparkled on the water where the banks bent, and threw the face of the church (which is rather ugly) into sh
arp relief. I reflected on the clouds as symbols of God’s love, binding heaven and earth with their sacramental water, until the bells stopped, and then I hastened in to hear the passion.
—On his way to the choir, the Thomas cantor tripped over his robes and lost his wig. The choristers giggled. He practically had to strike them to restore order, and when the music began . . . well! Old Bach was a sight, puffing red-faced over the score, scowling at the players, thrusting warning fingers at the singers, heaving with exertion, trying to hold his wig on. ... I think he’d been drinking. Speaking of which . . .
—Thank you. The boys had had about a week to practice, and their voices were, well, unremarkable. The instrumentalists fared a little better, but they were occasionally as much as two beats ahead of the choir. It was a travesty. A woman behind me said, “God help us, it’s a musical comedy,” and I had to agree. On his way out, fuming and muttering, Bach looked straight at me, and it jolted him. He stumbled. I realized that although this was my first trip, he might have recognized me from earlier years. His memory was not necessarily confined to musical matters.
—I should have a memory so good, said Olafson, and helped himself to some fried brains.
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