Meetings With Remarkable Men

by G. I. Gurdjieff

  ‘By the second day after my arrival in Tiflis, matters had come to such a pass that I found myself without a single cent in my pocket. I had to beg the wife of one of my people to lend, or simply give me, her last ring, containing a small diamond of approximately one and a quarter carats, which I immediately sold so that everyone might eat that evening.

  ‘Things were made still more difficult by the illness I had contracted while crossing the Caucasus Mountains, where one is subjected to enormous differences of temperature between the day and night. My condition became worse, since I could not lie in bed, but, with a temperature as high as 104°, was compelled to run about the city in order to find at any cost some way out of this desperate situation.

  ‘I acquainted myself with all the prospects of the local business world and, having seen that, in spite of the general depression throughout Transcaucasia, the trade in both new and old Oriental carpets was still flourishing, I at once decided to occupy myself with this business.

  ‘I chose several qualified persons from those who had come there with me and also from those of my relatives who had lived there a long time, and, having taught them how to assist me, I very quickly organized a serious business in carpets.

  ‘Some of my assistants went round in Tiflis and the neighbouring towns and searched for and bought up all sorts of carpets; a second group washed and cleaned them, while a third repaired them. The carpets were then sorted out and some of them were sold retail, and the others wholesale—either for the local trade or for export to Constantinople.

  ‘By the third week this carpet business had begun to bring in such an income that there was not only sufficient money for all to live on, but a great deal left over. In view of these profits and the obviously still greater prospects of this business, the desire arose in me to establish my Institute on a temporary basis there, without waiting for peace and my return to Moscow; the more so as I had always intended to open a branch of the Institute in Tiflis.

  ‘While continuing the carpet business I therefore set about organizing the Institute; but it soon became dear, in view of the great housing crisis in Tiflis at the time, that it would be impossible for me to find quarters suitable for my purpose unaided, and I applied to the Georgian government for assistance.

  ‘The Georgian government met me half-way, and directed the mayor of Tiflis to assist me in every way to find a building “worthy of such an important establishment of general public significance”, and to place it entirely at my disposal The mayor himself, and several members of the municipal council who were interested in my work, were indeed very assiduous in searching for the necessary building. But in spite of all their good will they could not find anything suitable, and offered me temporary quarters, promising to change them shortly for something permanent and more adequate.

  ‘Thus, for the third time, I began the organization of the Institute, and first of all set about the same inevitable business of acquiring the necessary furnishings and equipment.

  ‘Here, among the inhabitants of Tiflis, many people had been deeply affected by the change in their conditions of life and felt the need to turn towards other values. As a consequence, within a week after the opening of my Institute, all the special classes which had been started in these temporary premises were filled up, and there were also waiting-lists of two or three times as many people for the classes I expected to start as soon as we had a larger building.

  ‘In these temporary premises which were unsuitable in every respect, and under exceedingly trying conditions, “work on oneself” began to come to life. Studies were carried on for several months by dividing the pupils into separate groups and by arranging working hours in the morning, afternoon and evening, and even late at night.

  ‘But the government kept putting off the question of the promised building week after week, and it became more and more impossible to continue the work in our inadequate premises. And when, owing to the Bolsheviks’ advance into Georgia, all the harassing difficulties of daily living increased and the Georgian government itself was shaken, I finally gave up wasting my time and energy in the struggle with the conditions round me. I decided not only to liquidate everything in Tiflis, but even to break with everything that up till then had tied me to Russia, and to emigrate beyond its borders and found my Institute in some other country.

  ‘I sold for a mere song everything acquired for the Institute in Tiflis and, providing as well as possible for those of us who remained behind, I left under great difficulties for Constantinople, taking with me thirty people.

  ‘At the time of my departure from Tiflis, the sale of carpets had brought me a considerable sum of money. I calculated that, even after providing for the people remaining behind and allowing for the expenses of the journey, there would still be enough on arriving in Constantinople to last for a fairly long period.

  ‘Alas, we had counted without the Georgians! Thanks to them we were not able to make use of this money which had been earned, literally, by the sweat of our brows.

  ‘This happened because the local currency at that time had no value outside the country and could not be exchanged anywhere, so those who went abroad took with them, instead of currency, diamonds or rugs. I likewise decided to take, instead of money, several precious stones and twenty rare carpets and, having fulfilled all the official requirements for their export, I distributed them among my companions.

  ‘Yet on leaving Batum, although we had the documents certifying that we had paid all the duties and taxes, the so-called Special Georgian Detachment, quibbling about something or other, confiscated quite illegally, supposedly only temporarily, almost all the carpets I had distributed among the people accompanying me. Later, at Constantinople, when we took steps to recover them, Batum had been occupied by the Bolsheviks, the scoundrelly Detachment with its chiefs had dispersed, and, of course, there was no trace of the rugs. Of the twenty, only two were saved, having come via the diplomatic bag entrusted by the Finnish consul to a Finnish member of the Institute.

  ‘And so I found myself in Constantinople in almost the same situation as on arriving in Tiflis.

  ‘I had at my disposal only two small diamonds and the two remaining rugs. From the sale of these, even at a good price, I could not count on enough money to provide for such a crowd of people for more than a very short time, especially since all of us needed clothes. When we were living in Tiflis there were no clothes to be had, and all our things were so ragged that it was impossible to go about in them in this city, where life was more or less normal.

  ‘But luck was with me; I immediately ran across several fortunate business transactions.

  ‘Among other things, I collaborated with an old friend and countryman of mine in the resale of large consignments of caviar; in addition, I participated in the sale of a certain ship. And my finances improved once more.

  ‘While still in Tiflis I had renounced once and for all the idea of making Russia the permanent centre of the activities of my Institute, but I did not then know the conditions of life in Europe well enough to have any definite plan as to where to settle. On thinking it over, however, it seemed to me that Germany, owing to its central geographical position and its cultural level, about which I had heard so much, would be the country most suitable for my purposes.

  ‘But, having been held up in Constantinople because of the eternal question of money, so painful for all those who have no uncle in America, I had to occupy myself there for several months longer with all sorts of business deals in order to have enough cash to go on further. Meanwhile, so that the people who had accompanied me should, as is said, continue with “the work”, I rented the only large premises I could find in the part of Constantinople called Pera, where almost all the Europeans live. And whenever I was free from my commercial affairs, I directed the class in movements which had been begun in Tiflis, arranging public demonstrations on every Saturday to accustom the pupils not to be embarrassed in the presence of strangers.

  ‘The loc
al Turks and Greeks, who assembled in large numbers to watch these demonstrations, showed a great interest in the movements and in the music which I had composed specially for them, as well as in the various activities carried on by my people in preparation for the future work of the Institute in Germany; and I received an ever-growing number of requests from the visitors to be allowed to take part. At the same time the generally unstable situation in Europe continued to threaten all my projects, since the mutual distrust between governments made the obtaining of visas for foreign countries very difficult, and there were also great fluctuations of the rates of exchange from day to day.

  ‘I decided therefore that I would extend the range of my activities there in Constantinople by organizing public lectures to elucidate various aspects of my fundamental ideas, and by opening courses for the study of three fields of human manifestation, namely, movements, music and painting, considered in their relationship to objective science.

  ‘And so once again I plunged headlong into feverish activity, continuing to make money by every possible means in Constantinople itself, as well as in Kadiköy on the opposite side of the Bosphorus, to which I had to cross over by boat almost every day. All the rest of my time I devoted to the classes I had organized, in which a great many new pupils were now participating—so that the only moments I could find to draft the synopsis of the series of lectures, which were to be read by certain specially prepared pupils, were during my trips to and fro on the ferry and in tram-cars.

  ‘I lived in this feverish activity for about a year, until the long-awaited visas arrived, by which time the chronic hole in my pocket, made by the rapid flow of money through it, had finally become somewhat stopped up and something had even begun to accumulate in the folds.

  ‘Since at that time the wiseacring of the Young Turks began to have a particular smell, I decided—without waiting for the various delights which were bound to develop in connection with these wiseacrings—to get away with my people as quickly as possible, with our skins whole. So, having speedily transferred my classes to Kadiköy and placed at their head some of the most qualified of my new pupils, I left for Germany.

  ‘Arriving in Berlin, I obtained lodging in various hotels for all the people who had travelled with me and rented, in a part of Berlin called Schmargendorf, a large hall for continuing the interrupted work. And then I immediately began to travel about Germany, going to different places where various acquaintances had found possible buildings for the Institute.

  ‘After seeing a certain number of them, I finally chose, in Hellerau near the city of Dresden, a house which had been specially designed and equipped on a rather grand scale for a new cultural movement, recently much talked about, called the Dalcroze system.

  ‘Finding this house and its installations more or less suitable for the founding and further development of the headquarters of the Institute, I resolved to acquire the complete establishment. But while carrying on negotiations with the owner, a proposition was made to me, by a group of English people who had become interested in my ideas, to open the main Institute in London; and they offered to undertake all the expenses and problems of organization.

  ‘In view of the precarious financial situation brought about by the continuing crisis in every country, affecting both myself and those with whom I had dealings, I was tempted by this offer, and went to London to see for myself the state of affairs there, on the spot.

  ‘As the progress of the work in Berlin under my direction was of great importance to me, and any prolonged absence would have been detrimental, and as I could not work out all the questions connected with the English proposal in a short time, I decided to travel to London every two or three weeks for several days; and, each time, I went by a different route in order to become acquainted with other European countries.

  ‘As a result of my observations during these journeys, I came to the definite conclusion that the best place for the foundation of the Institute would be neither Germany nor England, but France.

  ‘France gave me the impression of a country which was then politically and economically more stable than the others; and although less central geographically than Germany, yet its capital, Paris, was considered the capital of the world, so France seemed to be a sort of cross-roads of all the races and nationalities on earth. Consequently to my eyes it appeared to be the most suitable base for the diffusion of my ideas.

  ‘England, owing to its insular situation, would not have allowed any development in this respect; an Institute founded there would have taken on the narrow character of a local institution.

  ‘That is why, on one of my journeys to London, I definitely refused to found the central establishment there; but I agreed to send over instructors specially prepared by me and also a certain number of my pupils, who were to be maintained there until the opening of an English branch of the main Institute.

  ‘In short, we arrived in France during the summer of 1922.

  ‘There I found that, after having paid all the expenses of the journey, I had at my disposal only one hundred thousand francs.

  ‘Having arranged in Paris a temporary lodging house for my pupils, I rented the Dalcroze School as a temporary hall for the continuation of our work, and began to look for a house, and also for funds, to establish the Institute.

  ‘After a long search, the most suitable of the many properties I inspected near Paris proved to be an estate named the Château du Prieuré, situated not far from the famous Château de Fontainebleau.

  ‘The owner of this château, who had inherited it from a celebrated lawyer, and who wished to be rid of it as soon as possible owing to the great expense of its upkeep, preferred to sell rather than rent. Having several buyers in view, she dragged out negotiations with me, manifesting thereby the tendency which contemporary meteorologists would formulate in the words: “either snow or rain or something or other”. On my side, as you well understand, the depleted state of my exchequer at that time gave me no possibility of buying it.

  ‘Finally, after much beating about the bush and many stipulations, the owner consented to postpone the sale of the property for a year, and to rent it to me for this period for sixty-five thousand francs, giving me six months to decide whether I would buy; after which she would have the right to sell the property to another party and I would be obliged to vacate without delay.

  ‘Having leased the Château du Prieuré under these conditions, I moved to this estate the next day with fifty pupils. This was on the first of October 1922. From that day on, under specifically European conditions quite foreign to me, there began one of the maddest periods of my life.

  ‘When I walked through the gates of the Château du Prieuré, it was as though, right behind the old porter, I was greeted by Mrs. Serious Problem. My one hundred thousand francs, down to the last sou, had already been scattered to the winds, partly in paying the rent of the property and partly in the expenses of living for three months in Paris with so many people. And now, besides continuing to maintain such a crowd of people, I had to face the immediate prospect of spending another large sum of money on furnishings and equipment, since neither the furniture, nor other household articles in the place had been planned for such a number of residents—with a further large number coming from England, as the branch in London had not been opened.

  ‘My situation was further complicated by the fact that when I arrived in Paris I spoke no Western European language.

  ‘On my departure from Batum this question of languages had begun to disturb me. But in Constantinople I had nothing to worry about, since the languages chiefly used there were Turkish, Greek and Armenian, all of which I knew well. As soon as I left Constantinople, however, and arrived in Berlin, great difficulties in this respect began to appear for me. And now here in Paris, faced with the necessity of again finding means to cover colossal expenses, I felt more than ever the need to know European languages, while at the same time I did not have a minute in which to apply myself to learning them. />
  ‘To do business through interpreters was next to impossible, especially for commercial transactions, where one needs to catch the mood of the man one is dealing with and to play on his psyche. Even with a good interpreter, the long pauses necessary for the translation destroy all the effect one has made, not to mention the difficulty of rendering the intonations, always so important in such negotiations.

  ‘And I did not even have a good interpreter, since all the people who might have helped me in this problem came from other countries and knew French as foreigners usually do, and Russians in particular, that is to say, just enough for what is called drawing-room conversation—and even then not in France—while all this time I needed sound French for serious commercial negotiations.

  ‘The amount of nervous energy I wasted during those first two years in France, at the moments when I felt that what I had said was not being translated correctly, would doubtless have been quite sufficient for a hundred of your novice brokers on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.

  ‘In view of the fact that on arriving at the Château du Prieuré a considerable sum was urgently needed for furnishings, which would be impossible to earn at once, I began to look about for a possibility of obtaining a loan to cover the most pressing needs. My intention was to organize the work of the Institute for the time being in such a way that I could devote half of my time to earning money, and thus gradually pay off what I had borrowed.

  ‘I succeeded in arranging this loan in London, where I borrowed from various persons interested in the Institute. This was the first time I departed from the fundamental principle I had imposed upon myself fifteen years before: namely, to take on myself sole responsibility for the accomplishment of my work, without accepting any material help from the outside.