Meetings With Remarkable Men

by G. I. Gurdjieff

  Everywhere, among the Turkish and Persian Armenians, as among the Russian Armenians, various parties and committees were being formed; attempts at unity were made even while sordid quarrels kept breaking out among the different factions; in short, a violent political explosion was taking place, such as recurs from time to time in Armenia, with the usual train of consequences.

  Early one morning in Alexandropol, I was on my way, as usual, to the river Arpa Chai to bathe. Half-way, at the place called Karakuli, Pogossian overtook me, quite out of breath, and told me that the day before in conversation with the priest Z he had learned that the Armenian Committee wished to choose several volunteers from the members of the party to send to Moush on a special mission.

  ‘When I got home,’ Pogossian continued, ‘it suddenly occurred to me that we could make use of this opportunity for our purpose, that is, for trying to find traces of the Sarmoung Brotherhood; so I got up at sunrise and came to talk it over with you, but as I missed you I ran to catch up with you.’

  I interrupted him and said that in the first place we were not members of the party, and in the second place ...

  He did not let me finish but announced that he had already thought everything out and knew how it could be arranged, and all he now needed to know was whether I would agree to such a plan.

  I answered that I wished at any cost to get to the valley which was once named Izrumin and that it was all the same to me how I got there, whether on the devil’s back or even arm-in-arm with the priest Vlakov. (Pogossian knew that this Vlakov was the man I most disliked and whose presence exasperated me a mile away.)

  ‘If you say you can arrange it,’ I continued, ‘then do whatever you please and as circumstances demand, and I agree beforehand to everything, if only as a result we get to the place I have set as my goal.’

  I do not know what Pogossian did or with whom or how he talked, but the result of his efforts was that several days later, provided with a considerable sum of Russian, Turkish and Persian money and a great many letters of introduction to people living in the different places along our proposed route, we set out from Alexandropol in the direction of Kaghyshman.

  In two weeks we arrived at the banks of the river Arax, which is the natural frontier between Russia and Turkey, and crossed it with the aid of some Kurds who had been sent to meet us. It seemed to us that we had now surmounted the greatest difficulties, and we hoped that from there on everything would go smoothly and successfully.

  We travelled mostly on foot, staying either with shepherds or with people recommended to us in the villages already passed through, or with those persons to whom we had letters from Alexandropol.

  It must be confessed that although we had undertaken certain obligations and attempted, as far as possible, to carry them out, we never lost sight of our real purpose for the journey, the itinerary of which did not always coincide with the places of our commissions; on such occasions we did not hesitate to leave them unfulfilled and, truth to tell, did not experience on this account any great remorse of conscience.

  When we had passed the Russian frontier, we decided to go over Mount Egri Dagh, even though it was the most difficult way, because it gave us a better chance of avoiding the numerous bands of Kurds and the Turkish detachments who were pursuing the Armenians. Having crossed over the pass, we turned south towards Van, leaving on our right the region of the sources of the great rivers Tigris and Euphrates.

  During our journey, we had thousands of adventures which I will not describe, but there is one that I cannot pass by in silence. Although it happened so many years ago, I still cannot recall this incident without laughing, and without at the same time re-experiencing the sensation I had then—of instinctive fear combined with a presentiment of imminent catastrophe.

  Many times after this incident I found myself in very critical situations. For example, more than once I was surrounded by scores of dangerous enemies; I have had to cross the path of a Turkestan tiger; and several times I was taken literally at the point of a gun; but never did I have such a feeling as I experienced on this occasion, however comical it may seem now, after the event.

  Pogossian and I were calmly walking along. He was humming some march and swinging his stick. Suddenly, as if from nowhere, a dog appeared, then another, and another, and still another—in all about fifteen sheep-dogs, who began barking at us. Pogossian imprudently flung a stone at them and they immediately sprang at us.

  They were Kurd sheep-dogs, very vicious, and in another moment they would have torn us to pieces if I had not instinctively pulled Pogossian down and made him sit beside me on the road. Just because we sat down the dogs stopped barking and springing at us; surrounding us, they also sat down.

  Some time passed before we came to ourselves; and when we were able to take stock of the situation we burst out laughing. As long as we remained sitting the dogs also sat, peaceably and still, and when we threw them bread from our knapsacks, they ate it with great pleasure, some of them even wagging their tails in gratitude. But when, reassured by their friendliness, we tried to stand up, then, ‘Oh no, you don’t!’—for they instantly jumped up and, baring their teeth, made ready to spring at us; so we were compelled to sit down once more. When we again tried to get up, the dogs showed themselves so viciously hostile that we did not risk trying a third time.

  In this situation we remained sitting for about three hours. I do not know how much longer we would have had to sit there if a young Kurd girl had not chanced to appear in the distance with an ass, gathering keesiak in the fields.

  Making various signs to her, we finally managed to attract her attention, and when she came closer and saw what the trouble was, she went off to fetch the shepherds to whom the dogs belonged, who were not far away behind a hill. The shepherds came and called off the dogs, but only when they were at some distance did we risk standing up; and all the time they were moving away the rascals kept an eye on us.

  As it turned out, we had been most naive in assuming that after crossing the river Arax we would have left the greatest difficulties and troubles behind us; as a matter of fact, it was only there that they began.

  The greatest difficulty was that after crossing this frontier river and going over Mount Egri Dagh, we could no longer pass for Aisors, as we had until the encounter with the dogs, because we now found ourselves in places populated by genuine Aïsors. To travel as Armenians, in regions where at that time they were being persecuted by all the other races, was quite out of the question. It was also dangerous to go as Turks or Persians. It would have been preferable to pass ourselves off as Russians or Jews, but neither Pogossian’s appearance nor mine would permit this.

  At that time great care had to be taken if one wished to conceal one’s real nationality, because to be found out in any disguise would have been very dangerous. The natives were not then over-pardcular in their choice of means for getting rid of undesirable foreigners. For instance, it was rumoured from authentic sources that several Englishmen had recently been flayed alive by Aisors, for having attempted to make copies of certain inscriptions.

  After long deliberation, we decided to disguise ourselves as Caucasian Tartars. Somehow or other we made the appropriate changes in our dress, and continued on our journey.

  Exactly two months after crossing the river Arax, we finally came to the town of Z, beyond which we had to go through a certain pass in the direction of Syria. In this pass, before reaching the famous waterfall of K, we were to turn off towards Kurdistan and it was somewhere along this road that we expected to find the place which was the chief objective of our journey.

  In our further peregrinations, since we had by this time sufficiently adapted ourselves to surrounding conditions, everything went along fairly smoothly—until one unexpected accident changed all our intentions and plans.

  One day we were sitting by the roadside eating our bread and the tasekh11 we had brought with us. Suddenly Pogossian jumped up with a shout and I saw darting away from under h
im a big yellow phalanga. I at once understood the cause of his cry and, springing up, killed the phalanga and rushed to Pogossian. He had been bitten in the leg. I knew that the bite of this insect—a kind of tarantula—is often fatal, and so I instantly tore away the clothes to suck the wound. But seeing he had been bitten in the fleshy part of the leg and knowing that sucking the wound would be dangerous if there were the slightest scratch in one’s mouth, I took the lesser risk for both of us, seized my knife, and quickly cut away a piece of my comrade’s calf—but in my haste I cut away too much.

  Obviating in this way all danger of fatal poisoning, I felt less anxious and immediately began washing the wound and bandaging it as best I could. As the wound was large and Pogossian had lost much blood and all kinds of complications were to be feared, it was not possible for the time being to think of continuing the journey we had mapped out. We had to decide at once what was to be done.

  Having talked it over together, we decided to spend the night there on the spot, and in the morning to find some means of reaching the town of N, thirty miles away, where we had a letter to deliver to a certain Armenian priest—a commission we had not carried out as this town was not on the route we had planned before the accident.

  The next day, with the help of an old Kurd who happened to be passing and who turned out to be quite friendly, I hired in a little village near by a kind of cart harnessed to two oxen, which was used for carting manure, and putting Pogossian in it, set out in the direction of N.

  It took us almost forty-eight hours to cover this short distance, stopping every four hours to feed the oxen. We finally arrived at N and went straight to the Armenian priest, to whom we had a letter of introduction as well as the letter to be delivered. He received us most amiably, and when he learned what had happened to Pogossian, he immediately offered him a room in his house, which of course we most gratefully accepted.

  While still on the road Pogossian’s temperature had risen and, although it went down on the third day, the wound had festered and had to be treated with great care. That is how we came to accept the hospitality of this priest for almost a whole month.

  Living so long under the same roof with this priest and frequently talking with him about anything and everything, very close relations were gradually established between us. Once, in the course of conversation, he told me, by the way, about a certain object he possessed and the story connected with it.

  It was an ancient parchment with some kind of map on it. It had been in his family a long time, and had been passed down to him by inheritance from his great-grandfather.

  ‘The year before last,’ said the priest, ‘a man who was quite unknown to me came and asked me to show him the map. How he could have known that I had it I have no idea. It all seemed to me suspicious, and not knowing who he was, I did not at first wish to show it to him and even denied that I had it; but when he persisted in asking me about it, I thought, “Why should I not let him see it?” and I did show it to him.

  ‘He had hardly looked at the parchment when he asked me whether I would sell it to him and immediately offered me two hundred Turkish pounds for it. Although the sum was large, I did not wish to sell it, not being in need of the money and not wishing to part with something I was accustomed to having and which I cherished as a remembrance.

  ‘This stranger, it appeared, was staying with our bey. The next day the bey’s servant came to me, on behalf of their newly-arrived guest, with an offer to buy the parchment for five hundred pounds.

  ‘I must say that from the moment the stranger had left my house many things had seemed to me suspicious: first of all, this man had apparently come a long way specially for this parchment; then, the incomprehensible means by which he had learned that it was in my possession; and finally, the intense interest he showed while looking at it.

  ‘All this taken together proved to me that this thing must be very valuable. So when he offered such a sum as five hundred pounds, although inwardly tempted by the offer, I feared to let the thing go too cheaply and, deciding to be cautious, again refused.

  ‘In the evening the stranger came to see me again, this time accompanied by the bey himself. When he renewed his offer to pay me five hundred pounds for the parchment, I flatly refused to sell at all. But as he had come with our bey, I invited them both in as my guests. They came in and we drank coffee and talked about one thing and another.

  ‘In the course of conversation it transpired that my visitor was a Russian prince. He told me, among other things, that he was interested in antiques and, as this parchment fitted so well into his collection, he, being a connoisseur, wished to buy it and had offered a sum far above the value of the article. But he considered it would be foolish to pay more and regretted that I refused to sell it.

  ‘The bey, who had been listening attentively to our conversation, became interested in the parchment and expressed a wish to see it. When I brought the parchment and they were both looking at it, the bey was obviously astonished that such a thing was worth so much.

  ‘During the conversation the prince suddenly asked me how much I would take to let him make a copy of my parchment. I hesitated, not knowing what to answer, as, speaking frankly, I was afraid that I had lost a good customer. He then offered me two hundred pounds to let him make a copy, and this time I felt ashamed to bargain as, in my opinion, he was giving me this sum for nothing.

  ‘Just think, for permission merely to make a copy of the parchment I was receiving as much as two hundred pounds! Without thinking longer about it, I agreed to the prince’s offer, telling myself that, after all, the parchment would remain with me and I would always be able to sell it if I wished.

  ‘The next morning the prince returned. We spread the parchment out on the table, and the prince added water to some powdered alabaster he had brought with him; after covering the parchment with oil he spread the alabaster over it. Several minutes later he removed the alabaster, wrapped it up in a piece of old djedjin I gave him, paid me two hundred pounds, and went away. Thus did God send me two hundred pounds for nothing, and I have the parchment to this day.’

  The priest’s story interested me greatly, but I gave no sign of it and simply asked him, as though out of curiosity, to show me what it was for which he had been offered such a large sum of money. The priest went to a chest and took out a roll of parchment. When he unrolled it I could not at first make out what it was, but when I looked at it more closely ... My God! What I experienced at that moment! I shall never forget it.

  I was seized with violent trembling, which was all the more violent because I was inwardly trying to restrain myself and not show my excitement. What I saw—was it not precisely what I had spent long months of sleepless nights thinking about!

  It was a map of what is called ‘pre-sand Egypt’.

  With great effort, I continued trying to look as though I were not particularly interested in this thing and spoke of something else.

  The priest rolled up the parchment and put it back in the chest. I was no Russian prince to pay two hundred pounds for making a copy, yet this map was perhaps no less necessary to me than to him. I therefore decided, then and there, that at any cost I must have a copy, and at once began to think how it could be obtained.

  By this time Pogossian was feeling so much better that we used to take him out on the terrace, where he would sit for long hours in the sun. I arranged that he would let me know when the priest went out on his business and the next day, on hearing from him that the priest had left the house, I went stealthily into his room to fit a key to his heirloom chest. The first time I was not able to note all the details of the key, and it was not until the third attempt, after numerous filings, that I succeeded in making one fit.

  One evening, two days before our departure, while the priest was absent, I got into his room again and took the parchment from the chest. I took it to our room and throughout the night Pogossian and I traced all the details of the map, after having covered it with oiled paper. Th
e next day I put the parchment back in its place.

  From the moment I had this treasure—so full of mystery and promise—securely and unnoticeably sewn in the lining of my clothes, it was as if all my other interests and intentions evaporated. An eagerness which was not to be restrained arose in me to reach at any cost and without delay the places where, with the aid of this treasure, I could at last appease that desire for knowledge which during the past two or three years had given me no rest, gnawing me within like a worm.

  After this perhaps justifiable, but nevertheless—whatever way one regards it—culpable treatment of the hospitality of the Armenian priest, I talked things over with my still half-sick comrade Pogossian. I persuaded him not to spare his lean financial resources but to buy two good local saddle-horses, of the kind we had noticed during our stay there and whose peculiar, quick, ambling trot we had admired, so that we could set off as soon as possible in the direction of Syria.

  The gait of the horses bred in that locality is indeed so smooth that one can ride on them almost at the speed of the flight of a large bird, holding in one’s hand a glassfull of water without spilling a single drop.

  I will not describe here all the ups and downs of our journey, nor the unforeseen circumstances which forced us frequently to change our route. I will only say that exactly four months after we took leave of that hospitable and kindly Armenian priest, we reached the town of Smyrna, where, on the evening of our arrival, we had an adventure which happened to be a turning-point in the subsequent destiny of Pogossian.

  That evening we went to a small Greek restaurant for a little diversion after the period of difficulty and strain we had just been through. We were leisurely drinking the famous douziko and helping ourselves to this and that, as is the local custom, from the numerous small saucers piled with all kinds of hors-d’œuvres, from dried mackerel to salted chick peas.

  Besides ourselves, there were several groups of people in the restaurant, most of them sailors from the foreign ships anchored in the harbour. They were rather rowdy and it was evident that they had already visited more than one tavern and had got themselves, as is said, ‘pretty well soaked’.