by Beech, Mark
Sebastian stared for a moment into its refulgent depths, until a lid like thin ivory-hued parchment descended swiftly across the jewel’s surface and was as quickly retracted. It was then, when something reached forth to him from the gemmed forest in the box—some fragmentary revenant of godhead etched from the ancient silvers of moon and starlight—it was then that Sebastian Alvanley knew that life would never be quite the same for him: for he was about to receive his final and rightful inheritance.
The Company of the Lake
Jonathan Wood
Du bist, mein femes Tal,
Verzaubert und versunken.
From Die Kindheit by Hermann Hesse (1915)
At the edge of the lake, a variety of breezes evolve and winnow their way through the reeds out and across through the open fields below the mountains. If you are lucky enough to be alone at the time of such an occurrence, you will experience a sense of involved and vivid ‘otherness’, where one becomes somehow part of the landscape; a feature perhaps with its reflection in the water that is never quite still and motionless. The appreciation of the breeze in solitude develops the poetic mind and allows it to open like a heavy door into a room full of light or perhaps simply a chamber filled with the reflection of the moon on water, never itself motionless. It is possible to mentally picture oneself standing stock-still, in tune with the landscape, as the breeze approaches and then proceeds on its way through the body of reeds and into the surface of the meadow. From this observation, both at once tangible and intangibly framed, you can participate in something that is finite and infinite. The skilled artist may capture the precision of this moment’s start, but cannot capture its termination or so it can seem. By the time the mind has appreciated the subtle carriage of the breeze, it is already off and up into the foothills of the mountains beyond. These mountains or imposing hills perhaps, are bald, in that they have no snow and the forests merely finish within the reach of mankind’s ability to climb, where flints and stones and goats and sheep scatter and settle to be first to catch the changes in weather. Where the breeze dissipates into mere memory, it meets the upland currents and the stronger impulses of nature. Dumb animals and shepherds and foolhardy climbers have no orientation to appreciate this degree and substance of change, for they are too fixed in their postured and prodigious attention to the detail of the lake below, where we began. The view of the lake has a rare quality, as if its surface is composed of expanding slate and as if its boundary has a well-defined and perfectly executed and polished edge. Imagine that an exquisite draughtsman has been called and commissioned to distil an altitudinal perspective of the lake, so that it appears all-too precise and one dimensional, imposing and almost illusory, even beyond the natural comparison of any picture in a book. The imposing lens of the lake, opaque and brittle in its subtle distinction offers the seasoned observer an opportunity to experience that which lies between the earth and the sky; a very old fancy if you will, of something even older.... and as darkness falls and the hillsides fall silent, save for the horseflies, then our story can begin in earnest, if it has not already done so many moons ago and if the parameters of its canvas are not already framed beyond our understanding.
There is something in the tendency of gentlemen to question whether they really attain and to harbour all manner of doubts and fancies and there is something quietly compelling in the allure of an old shuttered house by the lake.... and so it is thus:
The carriage brought the four to the edge of the meadow that led down to the lake. The journey had been uneventful, save for the predictable effect on the stomachs of the passengers from the many cobbles that paved their way until the edge of town. The window had been pulled down and the familiar odours of the countryside and of the horses soon transported these companions into happier frames of mind. These odours awoke their sensibilities to last year at the same time, when the windows of the carriage had been pulled down to the same effect. It was the symbolic first opportunity every year to commune with the past and in so communing, the certainty of the past was sanctified and effectively confirmed. The sounds of water fowl were also apparent on the air and the first indication of air-borne eddies sporadically winding and coiling above the marshy ground. The midges were the first arrivals and would last well into the favourable winter along with the memories that linger in the mind, recounted by the fireside. As the midges die so the memories strain for attention before the natural hibernation that the mind adopts and in tune with the crying embers of the fire that lingers in the grate, illuminating the faces of the living and the memories of those now dead.
The Company of the Lake met at the same time each year and in the pursuit of freedom and levity, they would depart from the town as one. These gentlemen had grown accustomed to each other and it was as if they were all brothers.... but they were not. It would not be a lie to say that despite growing accustomed to each other, it was evident that each of the Company were able to hold their own and to use the power of language to great effect. Sometimes, it was an unspoken power, which they all felt, because they considered themselves all poets and felt in this respect to be in some way immortal. Sometimes when a single rain drop would fall imperceptibly on a cobble stone, any one of these gentlemen who witnessed it, would be cut to the core, with the rarest native and elemental sense of seeing something that the first men would have experienced and appreciated. They were like that... distilling in isolation, the minutiae of Nature’s oneness. You too will dream of the image of a raindrop as it falls onto the cold stone.
Unaccustomed to any kind of panic or rush, our gentlemen were content to stand with their bags as the carriage departed, with thoughts of the great house on the edge of the forest in their minds. This great house, was not really so great, but it seemed so to them, both in reality and in their imaginings. It was certainly a good house, with fine ceilings and marble fireplaces and a rare airy quality, in part due to the opening of the windows and the great shutters that seemed permanently harnessed back against the wall, against the crafty onset of ivy that still somehow could not quite clasp itself to the struts and panels. The great house had a small library with a variety of books that would not displease any general student, although it was perhaps lucky that seasoned antiquarians were not often found to be staying. It was described as an efficient library and so it was. Perhaps the desk in the library with the lamp and the drawer that is always locked may unburden itself one day of any secrets that it withholds from us. Perhaps..... but maybe not for such things happen only in stories and of course there were more pressing things to think about like settling in and visiting every room as if it were the first time; the excitement of opening a door into studied emptiness and silence is the bewitchment of both young and old.
And so, the first night passed without incident save for the crackle of the characteristic and anticipated log fire and the happy perennial dialogue of the journey recalled. Against the stillness of the night, only an impression of the breeze was apparent with the promise of airy rooms and extinguished candles that let their pallid, acrid smoke rise to the ceilings presaging sound sleeps for all.
Dreams sometimes come in the infinite small of the night as if they are thieves, robbing the dreamer of his innocence and implanting thoughts or the seeds of thoughts that are at the least a jarring intrusion against the familiar walls of normality. Sound sleepers are sometimes followed at a distance by the inhabitants of the forests of the night and when the window drapes are pulled back with good intent in the anticipated freshness of the morning, so their caresses linger in the mind, like the touch of lost lovers or those abandoned through forbearance, far too early in life. Today was such a day and Anton was the first to sense it. The very act of pulling the drapes back was in itself a dramatic and somewhat poetic act. The certain permanence of the scene revealed by such an act... the lake in its dawn beauty manifest with breeze-borne currents was a delight to behold and gave him a long and anticipated release from the last remnants of the sickly-sweet burden of t
he night’s posset, golden and lyrical as it was. His dream had been fathom-deep and the rise to break the surface back through the veil had been painfully slow.
Anton had dreamt that he was sitting on a rock by the shoreline, discoursing with a person much older than himself. This gentleman had been walking in the distance, and appeared at first merely as a vague shadow on the horizon of the lake, something that winnowed in its gentle abstraction before becoming more precise. In this dream, Anton felt as if he had known this gentleman, for this is how he described him to the others over breakfast, as if he had known him for many years. The gentleman in his dream seemed familiar with the environs and described it as a “strange and star-blank shore” and proceeded to talk at length about the house. He indicated to Anton that he would be back and that he should raise his eyes to stare at the impending storm clouds and the hills beyond. Anton did so in his dream and of course when he looked down again, the stranger was gone, but the hills were there. At this very moment, Anton had felt the first raindrop of the season in the nocturnal season of his precious slumber and had reached out to capture it on his face. Awoken, he merely caught a vagrant tear from out his left eye and the sense of something gone, lost forever.
Karel had dreamed of that familiar spire of the old cathedral, more like a dome, reflected in the silence of the window of the academy, where he had listened to that fine recital. He had been assailed by dreams that were pleasing, like a pallid stream of tone poems flowing with the sweetest lyric into his soul. For Karel, it could be no other way. He practiced a studied optimism even in the depths of the deepest slumber and to be able to touch with his subconscious mind, the image of the spire again was as significant to him as if it were the face of his departed mother, coming to provide news from beyond the veil that we must all pass through one day. He sensed that Anton’s slumbers had been less peaceful and like a true friend sought to bring him back into the fold of the living, so that the phantoms of his mind could depart in peace. It is a prerogative of the mind of the civilised man to allow the passage of nocturnal phantoms back into their realm as seamlessly as possible. Karel had often posited that each of them was a “Sharon”, able to slowly raft back and forth from the Isle of the Dead. The smile on his face could not be hidden, it was infectious and alluring with the precise and simple joy of certainty and confidence. He placed his left hand on Anton’s right shoulder as he surveyed the scene through the drapes and Anton felt as if he had been blessed by a priest. The spiritual warmth of the hand was palpable and yet Anton knew that what he had dreamt was defined by its nature as being from a different shore.
Florian had entered the Company some years ago as the youngest member, and yet had exhibited what you would term an “old head on young shoulders”. Anton, Karel and Dietrich looked up to him and for Dietrich there seemed to be a special bond that was palpable for all to see and to feel. Perhaps it was the fatherly nature and wisdom of Dietrich that made it so, but this in its own turn made Anton feel somewhat detached from the thread of this spirit of the Company and Karel in his infinite wisdom simply ‘understood’ it and did nothing to either nurture or discourage it. The art of doing nothing came easily to Karel and for eternity he was being ribbed about it by the others and by his family. But what is life if it simply becomes a travail; an eternal waking up to the monochrome of drudgery and the elliptic vision of the ‘small span’ that is bred in the quiet hours of the early dawn when each of us is at our most vulnerable and drunk with the tidal waters of illusion.
Days for the Company were passed with simple pleasures evolving on the air as if they were breezes descending from the mountains so near to where they were. There was a delight in practicing the art of doing nothing and Karel was the effortless propagator of this credo. A light breakfast was also the preface for the expectations of the day, where the promise of a walk around the perimeter of the lake bred in their minds, the concept of a long and fabled ancient journey, with only the certainty of water lapping by their feet and the constant presence of the shuttered house, both in their sights and very much in their minds. For Anton, the presence of the house in his mind’s eye was a constant and even when he was back in the city and away from this paradise shore. He could not quite interpret the resonance of the image beyond the surface but deep down Anton knew something instinctive about it and had done since he was a child. Anton could recall that summer’s day as a mere callow youth when his father took his hands from his eyes and said “There Anton, what do you think? This shall be our dream house for evermore!” Anton’s father had been a generous man to his family and had delighted in this property with such a classically wrought warmth that it went beyond sentiment into the other world of emotional weight, where day resided in a half-perceived, half-acknowledged light with the sun permanently in the background, as in an old painting. Anton could feel the presence of his father still, around the lake and in the house. He could see him eating of his lunch at the now empty chair by the window, with the half-filled delicate engraved glass of claret, reflecting deep hues of light into the moisture of his eyes. His father’s eyes told many stories and gave away many impressions, for he was a good man and Anton drew strength of sorts from returning to this house every year, with the companions of his youth. For Anton, the magical days of youth could never be recaptured in the humanity and spirit and assurance of the modern gentleman and so he lived with his companions in his mind as if they were shouting from his memory to him from an open window to go exploring or to come in out of the rain, with voices as perfect as youth can raise and so in the dalliance of his mind, the past too was for him a constant.
Only Florian’s voice was not part of this cacophony in Anton’s mind, for he was younger and had not been part of Anton’s childhood company. Florian had seeded himself in the Company after a chance encounter with Dietrich, when the spring air was at its most vibrant and intoxicating, like a beloved champagne revealed for a special occasion in the bosom of the family. Their conversation had been giddy with the precepts of philosophy and culture and it was as if they were two young composers collaborating, confronting and elaborating some secret opus. That is how it happens sometimes; the affinity that becomes a bond that then becomes an alliance of sorts, breeding distrust and disquiet in others. The Company were in a sense all at one, but the fracture lines were there, like brittle arteries on a plaster wall, drying and cracking with the endless summers and the age that comes upon us unaware like a visitor from the future, who you have never met. You could also sense the fracture lines with every revolution of the wheels of the carriage that brought them to this hallowed place and yet it was Anton whose sense of pleasure was marbled through with a chiding inner sadness that he could do nothing about. His soul was slate grey and besmirched and obscured by slow-moving storms that cast their pall over his entire sensibility. It was always so.
Anton longed to be alone with Karel and to enjoy the unconditional and desirous company of this special friend, whose attributes were so life-enhancing. He remembered the arc of Karel’s body when he dived into the lake from the boat, his frame disappearing as if without splash, only to break the surface on the other side of the boat with a joyous shout and exclamation that “this was life itself” and that this lake “was the womb” for all eternity, in its everlasting waters fed by the mountain rain and by the secret bubbling ancient springs below it. Anton’s dreams were sometimes infused with the images and sounds of these ancient springs and that forth from these springs would filter and splash the essences and minerals of the past, cascading and eddying upwards into the life of the lake itself. He sometimes longed to dive to the bottom of the lake to let his face be comforted by the icy springs, the torrents from nowhere but from the past, in the darkness beyond night, where myth became reality in the imagination, where archetype merged with solidity. He imagined the muffled imprint of Karel’s boat on the surface above, the oars breaking the surface, sending discordant tones below, and the base of the boat, like an ark, sitting and bobbing, di
sassociated from the oarsman and his passengers, as if it were separate and as if Anton was something from the lake who preferred to stay submerged, with just the memory of the house for comfort and connection with the world above. Every morning to him was a coming back up to break the surface of the day, with the fight for breath and the sounds of the springs in his mind; the incessant disgorgement from the land into the element of water that we love to see personified in ancient friezes and wall coverings and sculptures.
What splendour there is in a marble or stone head disgorging its fluid bounty into the air, onto wood and stone and into the earth itself, perhaps seen in the pages of a book or described first-hand by a traveller with the sun on his aged and patchwork face, diademed with his memories.
And in the gardens behind the house, there was such a stone head, an effigy if you will, wrought by the personal masons of Anton’s father, as if conjured from ancient times. It displayed a magical and all-pervading smile as if it knew everything and from out its mouth flowed spring water pumped from the lake that fell and flooded down into an ornate series of troughs and steps, letting it flow naturally back into the lake, cascading into the edges of the water in the kiss of consummation. The stone beard of this effigy was two-pronged and aged and pitted with the minerals that it has spat forth for ever more and upon its head were two wondrous pointed tumps that gave its face an aged and wise disposition that it did not merit. Behind the sculpted sockets there was darkness and layer upon layer of residue from the detritus of snails and slugs that seemed to give it a strange and obscure femininity.... daubs and besmirchments and unholy embellishments from the inhabitants of this eternal spring as it splashed out across its lines. There was in this face somehow the intimation of some distant androgyny that transcended all that had been given solid being in this stone. And even in the deepest droughts of the endless past summers, the flow would never quite dry up, but would dribble across the cruelty of its lips and the insidious allure of its stone teeth and down its two-pronged beard like impassioned spittle from a wild animal in the throes of abandonment or agony, or perhaps both.