Gustav Meyrink
Translated by Mike Mitchell with an Afterword by Franz Rottensteiner
The elegantly-dressed foreigner standing somewhat undecided on the pavement in the Jodenbreetstraat gazed at the strange inscription in remarkably ornate white letters on the black sign outside a shop diagonally opposite:
Out of curiosity, or merely in order to get away from the jostling of the crowd, who were commenting with typical Dutch frankness on his frock coat, his gleaming top hat and his gloves, all things which seemed to have rarity value in this quarter of Amsterdam, he crossed the road between two greengrocer’s carts drawn by dogs. He was followed by a couple of streeturchins with hunched shoulders, cavernous stomachs and low-slung backsides who slouched along behind him, their hands stuffed deep into the pockets of their incredibly baggy blue canvas trousers, thin clay pipes sticking out through their red neckerchiefs.
The building with Chidher Green’s shop occupied the space between two narrow streets and had a glassed-in veranda running right round the front and up the alleys on either side. From a glance through the dusty, lifeless windowpanes, it seemed to be some kind of warehouse which probably backed onto a Gracht, one of the many canals used for goods traffic. The squat cube of the edifice looked like the upper part of a dark, rectangular tower, which over the years had sunk into the soft, peaty soil right up to the glass veranda.
In the middle of the shop window a dark-yellow papiermache skull sat on a pedestal covered with red cloth. It was a rather unnatural-looking skull: the upper jaw beneath the nose aperture was far too long and the eye-sockets and shadows at the temples had been painted in with black ink. Between its lips it held an ace of spades. Above it was written: “The Oracle of Delphi, or the voice from the spirit world.”
Large brass rings, interlocked like the links of a chain, hung down from the ceiling carrying garlands of gaudy postcards: there were warty-faced mothers-in-law with padlocks on their lips, or wives with a rolling pin raised threateningly; other cards were done in transparent coloured paper: well-endowed young ladies in negligees modestly clutched together over their breasts, with the instructions, “Hold up to the light to view. For the connoisseur.”
Handcuffs labelled “The Infamous Hamburg Figure-ofEights” lay amid rows of Egyptian dream-books, imitation bed-bugs and cockroaches (“to be dropped into the glass of the man next to you at the bar”), rubber nostrils that could waggle, glass retorts filled with a reddish fluid (“The Love Thermometer- irresistible to the Ladies!”), dice-shakers, bowls full oftin coins, “The Terror of the Compartment (never fails to break the ice on a railway journey - essential for travelling salesmen!)” consisting of a set of wolf’s teeth that could be fixed below a moustache, and giving its blessing to all this splendid display was a wax female hand projecting from the matt black rear wall, a lacy paper frill around the wrist.
Less because he was interested in buying anything than to get away from the fishy smell emanating from the two young locals who insisted on remaining in close attendance, the stranger entered the shop.
A dark-skinned gentleman, close-shaven, purple jowled and hair glistening with oil, was sitting in an armchair in the corner, one foot in an ornately-patterned patent leather shoe resting on his knee. The characteristically Balkan features looked up from the paper they were immersed in and shot the foreigner a razorsharp glance of appraisal. At the same time a window, notunlike those in railway carriages, clattered down in the head-high partition separating the customers from the interior of the shop, and in the opening there appeared the upper portion of a young lady in a low-cut dress with a blond page-boy hairstyle and provocative light-blue eyes.
It took her no time at all to realise from his accent and halting Dutch - “Buy, some thing, not matter what” - that she was dealing with an Austrian, a fellow-countryman, and she spoke in German as she began her explanation of a conjuring trick involving three corks which she had immediately produced. As she did so she brought the whole range of a practised feminine charm into play, from the breasts deliberately displayed to the male, to the discreet, almost telepathic scent given off by her skin which she intensified by occasionally lifting her arm to send a supplementary blast from the armpit.
“You see the three corks here, sir? I put one and then a second in my right hand, which I close. So. The third I put” - she smiled and blushed - “into my pocket. How many are there in my hand?”
“Two.”
“No. Three.”
Three it was.
“The trick is called `The Flying Corks’ and only costs two guilders, sir.”
“Fine. Show me how the trick is done.”
“Could I ask for the money first, please? It’s our normal practice. “
The foreigner handed over two guilders and was treated to a demonstration of the trick, which was merely a matter of sleight of hand, plus several further waves of feminine scent and, finally, given four corks, which he pocketed with admiration for the commercial acumen of the firm of Chidher Green and the absolute conviction that he would never be able to do the trick himself.
“Here you see three iron curtain rings, sir”, the young girl began again. “I put the first…” - her demonstration was interrupted by loud drunken bawling from the street mixed with shrill whistling; at the same time the shop door was violently opened and then flung to with a crash.
The foreigner started and, turning round, saw a figure whose bizarre attire astonished him.
It was a gigantic Zulu with thick lips and a dark, curly beard, dressed only in a check raincoat and a red ring around his neck. His hair dripped with mutton-fat and had been brushed up in an extravagant style, so that he looked as if he was carrying an ebony bowl on top of his head.
In his hand he held a spear.
Immediately the Balkan gentleman leapt up out of his armchair, gave the savage a deep bow and insisted on taking the spear from him and putting it in an umbrella-stand. Then, pulling aside a curtain with an obsequious gesture, he ushered him into an adjoining room with many polite How-goes-it-sir’s and If-you-please-Mijnheer’s.
“Perhaps you, too, would like to come in and sit down for a while?“The young lady turned back to the foreigner and opened the door in the partition. “At least until the crowd has quietened down a little.” She hurried to the glass door and, with a flood of Dutch oaths - “Stik, verreck, god verdomme, val dood, steek de moord” - pushed a burly fellow, who was standing in the doorway spitting in a broad arc into the shop, out into the street and bolted the door.
The interior, which the foreignerhad entered meanwhile, was divided into sections by cupboards and bead curtains, with chairs and stools in the corners and a round table in the middle at which two portly old gentlemen, to all appearances merchants from Hamburg or Holland, were sitting by the light of an oriental lamp staring intently into peepshows, small cinematographic machines, by the humming sound that came from them.
Through a passage between shelves filled with goods one could see into a small office with windows of frosted glass giving onto the side street. There an old Jew, looking like an Old Testament prophet with his caftan, long white beard and ringlets, a round silk cap on his head and his face hidden in the shadows, was standing motionless at a high desk making entries in a ledger.
“Tell me, Fraulein, who was that strange negro just now?” asked the foreigner when the shop assistant returned to continue her demonstration of a trick with the three curtain rings.
“Him? Oh, he goes by the name of Mister Usibepu. He’s an artiste, one of the troupe of Zulus that’s appearing at the Carr Circus just now. A fine figure of a man”, she added, her eyes shining. “In his own country he’s a doctor of medicine.”
“Oh, I see, a medicine man.”
> “Yes, a medicine man. And he’s over here to learn from us, so that when he returns home he will be able to impress his fellow-countrymen and maybe win himself a throne. Professor Arpad Zitter from Bratislava, Professor of Pneumatism, is teaching him at the moment”-with two fingers she pushed apart a slit in the curtain and let the foreigner look into a closet that was papered with playing cards.
With two daggers sticking crosswise through his throat, so that the points protruded at the back, and a blood-stained axe deep in a gaping wound in his head, the Balkan gentleman was just swallowing an egg whole, which he proceeded to take out of the ear of the astonished Zulu, who, having taken off his coat, was dressed only in a leopardskin.
The foreigner would have liked to have seen more, but the girl quickly let the curtain fall when the Professor shot her a reproachful glance. A shrill ringing sent her rushing to the telephone.
`Strange how colourful life can be if you take the trouble to look at it from close to and turn your back on the so-called important things, which only bring vexation and suffering’, the foreigner mused to himself. From a shelf with all sorts of cheap toys he took down a little open box and gave it an absent-minded sniff. It was full of tiny carved cows and trees, whose foliage was made of green-painted wood shavings.
For a moment he was overwhelmed by the evocative smell of resin and paint-Christmas! Childhood! Waiting breathlessly at a keyhole, sitting on a wobbly chair upholstered in red cotton rep with a greasy stain on it; the Pomeranian - Durudelbutt, yes, that was his name - was under the sofa growling and bit the mechanical sentry in the leg and then came crawling along to him, one eye half-closed and somewhat annoyed: the spring of the clockwork motor had come loose and smacked him in the face; the crunch of pine needles and the long drips of wax on the red candles burning on the tree …
There is nothing that can revive the past so quickly as the smell of paint on wooden Nuremberg toys. The foreigner shook himself free from the spell. ‘Nothing good comes from memory: Life starts sweetly enough, then suddenly one day it is looking at you over a headmaster’s spectacles and it ends up as a gargoyle dripping with blood … No, no, I refuse to be drawn back.’ He turned to the revolving bookcase next to him. ‘Nothing but books with gilt edging?’ With a shake of the head he deciphered the strange titles on the spines, not at all appropriate to the surroundings: Leidinger G. History of the Bonn University Choral Union, Aken F. An Outline of the Study of Tense and Mood in Greek, Neunauge R.W. The Treatment of Haemorrhoids in Classical Antiquity - ‘Well, at least there seems to be nothing on politics’ - and he took out Aalke Pott On the Growing Popularity of Cod Liver Oil, vol 3 and leafed through it.
The poor paper and wretched print were a bewildering contrast to the expensive binding. `I must be mistaken? It doesn’t look like a hymn to rancid oil?’ The foreigner found the title page and was amused to read:
Sodom and Gomorrha Series A Collection for the Discerning Bachelor
(Jubilee Edition)
Confessions of a Depraved Schoolgirl
Second part of the celebrated work The Purple Snail
‘Really, isn’t that just the twentieth century in a nutshell: all scientific mumbo-jumbo on the outside and inside: money and sex’, muttered the foreigner to himself in a gratified tone and then laughed out loud.
One of the two stout businessmen (not the Dutchman, he was unmoved) looked up apprehensively and, muttering a few embarrassed words about `marvellous views of historic cities’, tried to make his escape. He was endeavouring to bring his facial expression, which the visual delights he had just enjoyed had given a somewhat swinish look, back under control, and resume the demeanour of the solid businessman with nothing on his mind but the blameless pleasures of double-entry bookkeeping. But the demon who leads the sober-minded astray had not finished with him. It was just an unfortunate little accident, a chance occurrence, but it laid bare the soul of the respectable member of the Hamburg Chamber of Commerce and trumpeted abroad the dubious nature of the establishment he had allowed himself to be enticed into.
The worthy merchant was in such a hurry to put his coat on that he knocked against the pendulum of a large clock hanging on the wall, setting it in motion. Immediately the door, decorated with scenes of family life, flew open and instead of the expected cuckoo there appeared a scantily dressed woman with an extremely saucy expression on her wax face. As the chimes solemnly struck twelve she sang in a husky voice:
“John Cooper was boring
A great piece of timber.
He bored and he bored
But his tool was too limber -
Limber, limber, limber -” it suddenly repeated, changing to a croaking bass. Either the demon had relented or a hair was stuck in the gramophone mechanism.
Determined no longer to suffer the teasing of the impudent sprite, the captain of industry squawked, “Disgusting!” and fled.
Although he had come across the moral strictness of the Northern races before, the foreigner still found it difficult to explain the extreme embarrassment of the old gentleman until it began to dawn on him that he must have met him somewhere before and had probably been introduced to him in rather different company. A fleeting memory of an elderly lady with sad, delicate features and a beautiful young girl seemed to confirm his suspicion, but he could bring neither name nor place back to mind.
There was no help from the face of the Dutchman who stood up now, looked him over contemptuously from head to toe with his cold, watery blue eyes and then waddled slowly out. That cocksure, brutal face was completely unknown to him.
The assistant was still on the telephone. To go by her answers, it must be a large order for a stag night.
‘I could go now, the foreigner thought to himself; `what am I waiting for?’
He suddenly felt weary, yawned and collapsed in an armchair. A thought wormed its way into his mind, `With all the mad things destiny leaves lying around, it’s a surprise your head doesn’t sometimes explode, or something like that! And why should you feel sick in the pit of your stomach when your eyes devour something ugly?! What has that to do with the digestive system, for God’s sake? - No, it’s not the ugliness that does it, he span out the thread of his thought, `you can get a sudden attack of nausea by staying too long in an art gallery as well. It must be some kind of illness - museumitis - unknown to medical science. Or could it be the air of death surrounding all things man-made, whether beautiful or ugly? There must be something in it, I cannot remember ever having been made to feel sick by the sight of even the most desolate landscape. Everything that bears the sign `man-made’ has ataste of tinned food: it gives you scurvy.’ He gave an involuntary laugh at the sudden memory of a rather baroque reflection of his friend, Baron Pfeill, who had invited him that afternoon to the cafes `The Gilded Turk’, and had a deep hatred of anything to do with perspective in painting: “The Fall did not begin with eating the apple, that is base superstition. It was hanging pictures in houses that did it! Scarcely has the plasterer made the wall sheer and smooth than the Devil appears in the guise of an “artist” and paints you a “hole” in it with a view into the distance. From there it’s only one step to the bottomless pit where you’re hanging in full fish and soup on the dining-room wall yourself next to Isidor the Handsome or some other crowned idiot with a pear-shaped head and a Cro-Magnon jaw, watching yourself eat.” - `Well, yes’, the foreigner continued his musing, `you have to be able to laugh at anything and everything. The statues of the Buddha all smile, and not without reason, whilst the Christian saints are all bathed in tears. Ifpeople would smile more often, there would probably be fewer wars. I’ve been wandering round Amsterdam for three weeks now, deliberately ignoring all the street names, never asking what this or that building is, where this or that ship is coming from or heading for, I’ve not read any newspapers: there’s no point in having the same thing served up as the latest news as has been going on for donkey’s years; I’m living in a house where every single object is foreign to me -
I’ll soon be the only ‘private’ person left that I know; whenever I come across something new I no longer ask what it does, nothing does anything any more, everything has something done to it! And why am I doing all this? Because I am fed up with playing my part in the old game of civilisation: first peace to prepare for war and then war to win back peace etc., etc.; because I want to see a fresh, unknown world, I want a new sense of wonder such as must strike an infant if he were to become a grown man overnight; because I want to be a full-stop rather than eternally a comma in the punctuation of time. I’d quite happily relinquish the `tradition’ of my ancestors which subjected them to the state; I want to learn to see old forms with new eyes rather than, as up to now, seeing new forms with old eyes - perhaps it will give them eternal youth! I have started well; now all I have to do is to learn to smile at everything instead of gawping in astonishment.’
Nothing is so soporific as the sound of whispering voices when you cannot make out what is being said. The soft and hurried conversation between the Balkan gentleman and the Zulu behind the curtain hypnotised the foreigner with its unceasing monotony so that for a moment he fell into a deep sleep.
When, a second later, he jerked back awake he had the feeling that he had been granted an amazing number of insights, but all that remained lodged in his consciousness was one meagre sentence, a fantastic hodgepodge of recent impressions and the continued thread of his philosophising, ‘It is more difficult to master the eternal smile than to find the skull that one bore on one’s neck in a previous existence from among the millions of graves on earth; we will have to cry the eyes out of our heads before we can look on the world with new eyes and a smile.’
`However difficult it is, I will seek out that skull!’ The foreigner continued to worry at the idea that had come to him in his dream, firmly convinced that he was wide awake, whilst in fact he had dropped off again. ‘I will force things to speak clearly to me and reveal their tnie meaning, I will force them to speak in a new language instead of whispering in my ear old chestnuts such as: Look, a medicament! Take this to make you well again when you have overindulged; or. See! a delicacy; now you can overindulge and take your medicine again. - I have just seen the point of my old friend Pfeill’s saying that everything chases its own tail, and if life has nothing better to teach me, I will go into the desert to eat locusts and clothe myself in wild honey.’
The Green Face Page 1