“Anyone who heard you speak like that”, said Hauberrisser with a laugh, “would be sure to assume you were the most cynical hedonist imaginable.”
“Wrong!” said Pfeill, pushing the cigar-box with its curved and bulging sides towards him. “Wrong and wrong again! I am punctiliousness itself - towards myself. I know that your opinion is that life is meaningless. It is a delusion that I myself shared for a long time, but it gradually dawned on me that all one needs to do is to quit the rat-race and start living a natural life once more.”
“And all this”, Hauberrisser gestured at the cork-lined walls, “you call natural?”
“Of course! If I were poor I would have to live in some buginfested attic, but if I were to do that now, of my own free will, it would be as unnatural as you could get. Destiny must have had something in mind when it sent me into the world rich. Was it to reward me for some deed I did in my former existence and - touch wood! - have forgotten? That tastes a bit too much like theosophical humbug to me. No, I think it most likely that fate has allotted me the noble task of gorging on the sweet things of this world until I am replete and desire a crust of stale bread for a change. Well, I’m ready to do my bit. I could be mistaken, but that wouldn’t be a disaster. Should I give my money to the poor? At once, if you like; but first I would want to know the reason. Just because it’s been written in so many fat tomes? No. And I refuse to be taken in by the socialist slogan of `Get away from the trough and let me get my snout in’. If someone is in need of sharp medicine should I give them a syrupy draught? Water the wine of destiny? That’s the last thing I want to do.”
Hauberrisser gave a wink.
“I know why you’re grinning like that, you old rogue”, Pfeill went on in an irritated tone. “You’re alluding to those couple of guilders I sent to the shoemaker - by mistake, of course. The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. A gentleman doesn’t remind a friend of his moments of weakness! I’ve spent all night berating myself for letting myself go like that. What if it should be too much for the old fellow and drive him out of his mind? I’d be to blame.”
“As you brought the matter up”, said Hauberrisser, “I must say that I don’t think you should have given him so much at once; instead you should have -“
“let him starve bit by bit”, Pfeill broke in sarcastically. “That’s all balderdash. I admit that if you follow your feelings, much will be forgiven you because you have much loved, but I think that before condemning me people should at least have the decency to ascertain whether I am deliberately looking for forgiveness. I intend to pay my debts, moral as well as financial, right down to the last cent. I have this idea that long before I was born my admirable soul was cunning enough to ask for great wealth, as an insurance policy; so as not to be able to enter the Kingdom of God through the eye of a needle. You see, my soul just doesn’t like raucous hallelujahs and hates tedious music. If only heaven were nothing but an empty threat! But I am firmly convinced that there is such an institution waiting for us after death. That makes it an extremely difficult balancing act on the one hand to remain a decent person, and on the other to avoid endingup in a future paradise. The blessed Buddha himselfused to rack his brains over that problem.”
“And you too, as I can see.”
“Certainly. Just to be alive is not enough, is it? You seem to have no idea at all of the demands that are made on me. I don’t mean social engagements and such, I have alady wholooks after the house and sees to all that as well; no, I mean the demands of spiritual labour that come from my intention to - to - found - a - new - state and a new religion. There, it’s out.”
“Good God, you’ll be locked up next!”
“Don’t worry, I’m no revolutionary.”
“And are there many in your sect, yet?” asked Hauberrisser with a smile, suspecting it was all a joke.
Neill gave him a sharp look, paused for a moment and then said, “I’m afraid you seem to misunderstand me, as usual. Can’t you sense that there’s something in the air, something more palpable than ever before, perhaps since the world began? Prophesying the end of the world is a thankless task, it’s been predicted too often down the centuries for it to be credible any more. In spite of that, I think that those who feel such an event is approaching will be proved right this time. It doesn’t have to mean the destruction of the earth, the destruction of a way oflife is also the end of a world.”
“And you think such a drastic change in attitude could take place overnight?” Hauberrisser shook his head doubtfully. “I am more inclined to believe that some devastating natural catastrophe is imminent. People don’t change from one day to another.”
“Did I say that natural catastrophes would not occur?” cried Pfeill. “On the contrary, I can sense their approach with every nerve within me. But as far as an abrupt change in human attitudes is concerned, I hope you only appear to be right. What do you base your assumption on? How far back in history can you look? Only a miserable couple of thousand years! And even over that short period haven’t there been enough sudden outbreaks of spiritual contagion to make one wonder? There have been children’s crusades - though I grant you that it is unlikely whether mankind will ever rise to a bureaucrats’ crusade. But all things are possible, and the longer they are in coming, the more probable they are. Until now men have torn each other apart for the sake of certain dubious invisible beings that are careful notto call themselves spirits but’ideals’. I think the hour has finally come forthe war against these invisible enemies, and I would like to play a part in it. For years I have been aware that I was being trained in spiritual warfare, but until now I have never had this clear feeling that a great battle against these damn’d ghosts is at hand. I tell you, once you start clearing out all those false ideals, there’s no end to it. You’ve no idea what piles of humbug brazenly posing as truth you have inherited. That’s what I call founding a new state, you see, this clearing the mind of intellectual lumber. However, out of consideration for the existing order and out of courtesy towards my fellow human beings-God forbid I should try to impose my views about inner truthfulness and unconscious hypocrisy on them - I decided from the outset that my state - I call it the Germ Free State because it has been thoroughly disinfected of the spiritual vines offalse idealism - should only have one subject, namely myself. I am also the only millionaire of my belief. I have no need of converts.”
“I see you’re not much of an organiser, then”, said Hauberrisser in relief.
“Nowadays everyone thinks they can organise; that shows how wrong it must be. What is right is always the opposite of what the herd does.” Pfeill stood up and started walking up and down. “Even Jesus did not attempt to organise people, he just set an example. Madame Rukstinat and company naturally assume the right to organise all and sundry. Only nature and the world spirit have that right. My state will last forever, it doesn’t need an organisation. If it did, it would have failed.”
“But, my dear Baron, if your state is to have any point at all, it must eventually consist of more than one person. Where are you going to find your citizens?”
“Listen. If one man has an idea, that just means that many others will have the same idea at the same time. Anyone who doesn’t see that doesn’t know what an idea is. Thoughts are contagious, even if they are not expressed; perhaps most contagious when they are not expressed. I am firmly convinced that at this very moment a large numberhave already joined my state and eventually it will flood the world. We have made great progress in physical hygiene, people even disinfect door-knobs so as not to catch some disease, but I tell you, there are certain slogans that transmit much worse diseases, racial and ethnic hatred, for example, demagoguery and such. They need a much stronger disinfectant than we use on door-knobs.”
“You want to eradicate nationalism, then?”
“I am not going to weedkill things in other people’s gardens that won’t die of their own accord, but in my own I can do as I like. Nationalism seems necessary for most
people, I admit, but it is high time there was a `state’ whose citizens were held together not by borders and a common language, but by their outlook; that will still allow them to live as they like.
In a certain sense people are right to laugh at someone who sayshe intends to transform mankind. But they overlookthe fact that all that is needed is for one person to transform himself root and branch. His achievement will never fade, whether the world recognises it or no. Anyone who does that tears a hole in the established order that will never heal, whether the rest notice it immediately or in a million years. All things that come into being remain, they only seem to disappear. That is what I want to do, to tear a hole in the net in which mankind has caught itself; and notby preaching, but by escaping from the meshes myself.”
“Do you think there is any causal connection between the catastrophes you believe are imminent and the change of attitude you assume is about to come over mankind?” asked Hauberrisser.
“Of course, it will always seem as if it is some physical calamity, a huge earthquake, for example, that makes men search their conscience, but that is an illusion. The question of cause and effect, or so it seems to me, is quite different. We can never perceive causes; all that we can see is the effect. What appears as the cause is only the first symptom. If I let this pencil go it will fall to the floor. Every schoolboy would assume that letting go of the pencil was the cause, but I don’t. Letting go is simply the first, unmistakable sign that it is going to fall. Every event that precedes another is its symptom. The cause is something completely different. It is true that we imagine we are capable of bringing forth an effect, but that is just a terrible delusion, that is just the world making us see things in the wrong light. In reality there is one mysterious cause, and one cause alone, whichmakes the pencil fall to the ground and which, beforethat, made me let go of it. A sudden change in men’s attitudes and an earthquake may well have the same cause; but that the one should be the cause of the other is completely out of the question, however plausible it might appear to common sense. Each is an effect as much as the other. One effect cannot produce another, at most, as I said, it can be a first sign in a chain of events, but nothing more. The world we live in is a world of effects; the realm of true causes is hidden. If we should ever discover it we would be able to perform magic.”
“But to be master of one’s own thoughts, that is, to discover their hidden roots, would that not be the same as performing magic?”
Neill came to a sudden halt. “Of course! What else? It would take us to a distant peak from which we would not only be able to view everything, but also to make everything we want come about. At the moment the only magic we men perform is with machines, but I believe the hour is at hand when a few at least will be able to perform it through will-power alone. All those marvellous inventions, all those admired machines are nothing more than blackberries that we gathered along the path that leads to the summit. What is of value is not the invention itself, but man’s inventiveness, not the picture - it’s value is measured in monetary terms at the most - but the ability to paint. Any one picture can fall to pieces, but the ability to paint will not be lost, even if the painter should die. What remains is the power that has come from heaven; even if it should sleep for centuries, it always awakens when the genius who can reveal its majesty is born. It is a great comfort to me that what our worthy merchants manage to cheat our artists out of is merely the mess of pottage and not the true blessing.”
“You’re not letting me get a word in edgeways”, Hauberrisser broke in. “I’ve had something on the tip of my tongue for ages.”
“Why don’t you say it? Out with it, then.”
“But first of all another question: have you any reasons or - or signs for saying we are approaching a turning point?”
“Hm. - Well. - I suppose it’s more a matter of feeling. I’m really pretty much groping in the dark myself. There is one thread I’m following, but it’s as thin as a spider web. I think I have found certain boundary markers which tell us when we are entering anew area. It was a chance meeting with a Juffrouw van Druysen - you will meet her today - and something she told me about her father that gave me the idea. My conclusion- perhaps a completely unjustified conclusion-was that such a `boundary marker’ in human consciousness is a similar inner experience for all those who are ripe for it. And this experience - please don’t laugh - is the vision of a green face.”
Hauberrisser grasped his friend’s arms excitedly, suppressing an exclamation of astonishment.
“Forgoodness’ sake, what’s the matterwith you?“exclaimed Weill.
The words tumbling out ofhis mouth, Hauberrissertold Pfeill what he had experienced.
They were so engrossed in their conversation on these strange events that they scarcely noticed when a servant came in to announce the arrival of Juffrouw van Druysen and Doctor Ishmael Sephardi, handing Baron Pfeill a tray with two visiting cards and the evening edition of the Amsterdam News.
Soon they were all immersed in a discussion on the green face.
Hauberrisser left it to Pfeill to recount his experiences in the Hall of Riddles and Eva, too, only put in a word here and there as Doctor Sephardi told them of their visit to Swammerdam. Hauberrisser and Eva were not embarrassed, but they were both in the grip of a mood in which they found it difficult to speak. They had to force themselves not to avoid looking at each other, yet each could sense the effort the other had to make to keep their remarks to banalities. Hauberrisser found Eva’s complete lack of feminine coquetry almost confusing. He could see how careful she was to avoid anything that might suggest a desire to please or that she took more than a passing interest in him; and yet at the same time he felt ashamed, as if he were being tactless in his inability to conceal the fact that he was well aware of how far her apparent inner calm was the result of iron self-control. He guessed that his thoughts were equally apparent to her, he saw it in the pretence of boredom with which she played with a bouquet of roses, in the way she smoked her cigarette and in a thousand other tiny details. But he could find no way of helping her.
A single pompous remark on his part would have been enough to give her the confidence she was feigning, but it would also have been enough either to wound her deeply or to have made him appear a prig, both of which he naturally wanted to avoid.
When she entered he had for a moment been struck speechless in amazement at her beauty and she had accepted it as a kind of admiration to which she was accustomed; but then, when she realised that his confusion had not solely been caused by her but was also the result of the interruption of his interesting conversation with Baron Pfeill, she became convinced that the impression she had made on him was one of a crude self-confidence in her female charms, and this filled her with an embarrassment which she found impossible to rid herself of
Hers was a beauty that any woman would have borne with pride, but Hauberrisser instinctively sensed that for the moment Eva’s virginal sensitivity felt it as an embarrassment. What he wanted most of all was to tell her openly how much he admired her, but was afraid he would not be able to strike the right, natural tone.
He had loved too many beautiful women in his life to lose his head at the first sight of even such loveliness as Eva’s. In spite of that he was already more in thrall to her than he realised. Initially he assumed she was engaged to Sephardi, and when he saw that that was not the case he felt a thrill of delight. He immediately rejected it. The vague fear of losing his freedom again and being carried away by the old torrent of emotions made him wary. Very soon, however, he felt growing inside him such an intimate sense of belonging together, that any comparison with what he had until then called love paled into insignificance.
The silent communication between the two set the air tingling, and Neill, was too sharp-sensed for it to remain hidden from him for long. What particularly moved him was the expression of deep sorrow which, however much Sephardi tried to conceal it, clouded his eyes and vibrated in every word of the n
ormally reserved scholar’s hasty, forced conversation. Pfeill could feel this lonely man relinquishing a silent but perhaps all the more ardent hope.
“But where do you think it will lead”, he asked, when Sephardi had finished his account, “this bizarre path that Swammerdam’s - or Klinkherbogk’s - `spiritual circle’ imagine they are following? I fear it is leading them to a boundless ocean of visions and -“
“and expectations that will never be fulfilled.” Sephardi gave a melancholy shrug of the shoulders, “It is the old story of the pilgrims who entrust themselves to the desert without a guide on their journey to the Promised Land, only to march towards a mirage or a painful death from thirst. It always ends with a cry of ‘My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?’ “
Now Eva’s serious voice joined in the discussion. “You may well be right about all the others who believe Klinkherbogk is a prophet, but not about Swammerdam. I am certain of that. Remember what Baron Mill told us about him. He did find the green beetle. I am convinced it will be granted him to find the greater goal he seeks.”
Sephardi gave a gloomy smile. “I wish him every success, but the greatest insight he will achieve, if he does not destroy himself in the attempt, is `Lord, into thy hands I commend my spirit.’ Believe me, Eva, I have spent more time pondering the hereafter than you probably give me credit for. I have spent a lifetime racking my brains - and my heart - over whether there is any escape from this earthly prison: there is none! The purpose of life is to wait for death.”
“But then”, objected Hauberrisser, “the most sensible people would be those who live for pleasure.”
“Certainly. If you can. But some are incapable of that.”
The Green Face Page 11