‘I can categorically affirm that until then, in spite of the enormous expenses, and the failures and losses brought about through no fault of mine but through the political and economic circumstances of the preceding years, I did not owe a cent to anyone: everything was the result of my own labour. Friends, and people who had interest in or sympathy for my ideas, had many times offered me money, but I had always refused, even at difficult moments, preferring to surmount the obstacles by my own efforts rather than betray my principles.
‘Having alleviated the immediate difficulty at the Prieuré by this loan, I set myself red-hot to work. My task at this period was, one can indeed say, superhuman. Sometimes I had to work literally twenty-four hours a day: all night long at Fontainebleau and the whole day in Paris, or vice versa. Even the time of travelling back and forth by train was taken up with correspondence or negotiations.
‘The work went well, but the excessive pressure of these months, immediately following eight years of uninterrupted labours, fatigued me to such a point that my health was severely shaken, and despite all my desire and effort I could no longer maintain the same intensity.
‘In spite of the obstacles which hindered and restricted my work—the poor state of my health, the difficulty of carrying on business negotiations without knowing the language, and the number of my enemies, which increased, as has long ago become a law, proportionately with the number of friends—I nevertheless managed to accomplish within the first six months most of what I had planned to do.
‘Since for most of you Americans, particularly in modem times, the only effective stimulus for the flow of thoughts is the familiar image of a balance-sheet, I wish at least to enumerate for you, quite simply, the expenses that I succeeded in meeting from the time of my entering the Château du Prieuré up to my departure for your America.
‘The following is approximately what was paid:Half the cost of a large property plus a substantial sum towards the purchase of a small adjacent property.
The entire cost of the initial outfitting and installation of the Institute including:Repairs, alterations, and putting of the property into shape. Purchase of miscellaneous materials, tools and agricultural machinery; instruments and apparatus for the medical section, etc. Purchase of live-stock—horses, cows, sheep, pigs, poultry, etc.
To all this was added the considerable cost of the construction, fitting out and decoration of a building intended among other things for the exercises of movements and for demonstrations—a building called by some the Study House and by others the Theatre.
Finally, I succeeded during this period, even while providing for the needs of guests and pupils of the Institute, in paying back part of the loan I had contracted.
‘One of the best sources of income during these months was the psychological treatment of certain difficult cases of alcoholism and drug addiction. I was widely considered one of the best specialists in this field, and the families of these unfortunates sometimes offered me very substantial sums for giving up my time to them.
‘I remember especially a rich American couple who entrusted me with their son, judged to be incurable, and who spontaneously doubled the agreed fee in their joy at his cure.
‘In addition, I went into partnership with some business men, and undertook with them a number of financial ventures. I made a considerable profit, for instance, from the resale, at an unexpectedly good price, of a whole block of oil shares.
‘I made two profitable business deals with a partner by opening, one after the other, two restaurants in Montmartre, which I organized in a few weeks and sold as soon as they were well launched.
‘It even seems strange to me how easily I can now enumerate the results of my efforts during that period, when I remember how they were always accompanied by inner experiences disturbing the whole of me and demanding an incredible tension of my forces.
‘During these months I had to be at work at eight in the morning and only finished at ten or eleven in the evening; I spent the rest of the night at Montmartre, not only for my restaurant business, but also for the treatment of an alcoholic who got drunk every night in that quarter, and who gave me a great deal of difficulty because he did not wish to be cured.
‘It is worth mentioning that my external life at this period, when I was spending every night in Montmartre, provided many of those who knew me, or had seen or heard about me, with rich material for gossip. Some envied my opportunities for gay revels, others condemned me. As for me, I would not have wished such revels even for my bitterest enemy.
‘In short, the urgent necessity of finding a stable solution for the financial problem of the Prieuré, the hope of finally freeing myself from these chronic material cares and the wish to be able to devote myself entirely to my real work, that is, to the teaching of the ideas and methods on which the Institute was based—a wish postponed in its fulfilment from year to year owing to circumstances over which I had no control—all led me to make superhuman efforts, regardless of the disastrous consequences that might ensue for me.
‘But in spite of all my reluctance to stop, as is said, half-way, I was compelled again to interrupt everything just before completing the preparation of those conditions which alone would have made it possible to accomplish the fundamental tasks of the Institute.
‘During the last months of this period the state of my health had indeed become so poor that I was compelled to reduce my hours of work. And then, when I began to be affected by certain ailments I had never had before in my life, I confess I became worried and decided to cease all active work, both mental and physical; however, I continually put off doing so up to the day when a bad chill forced me, willy-nilly, to stop everything.
‘The circumstances are worth describing:
‘One evening I finished my work in Paris earlier than usual, at about ten o’clock, and as I had to be at the Prieuré without fail the next morning, where an engineer was coming to discuss plans and estimates for a special steam-bath I intended to construct, I decided to go there at once, go to bed early and have a good sleep. So, without stopping anywhere, not even at my apartment in town, I started off for Fontainebleau.
‘The weather was damp; I closed the windows of my car; and during the trip I was feeling so well that I even began to make plans in my mind for a pottery kiln which I intended to construct before long, at the Institute, in the ancient Persian style.
‘On approaching the Fontainebleau forest, I was thinking to myself that I would soon be coming to a place where in damp weather there was often fog late at night. I looked at my watch—it was a quarter past eleven. I put on the large headlights and accelerated the car in order to pass this damp place more quickly.
‘From that moment on I remembered nothing, neither how I drove, nor what happened.
‘When I came to myself I saw the following picture: I was sitting in the car, which stood right there on the roadway; around me was the forest; the sun was shining brightly; a big wagon loaded with hay had stopped in front of the car and the driver was standing at my window tapping on it with his whip, and it was this which had awakened me.
‘It seems that in the evening, after looking at my watch, I must have gone on about a kilometre and then fallen asleep against my will, which had never happened to me in my life before. I had slept on until ten o’clock in the morning.
‘Luckily the car had stopped nearly where it should have been according to French traffic regulations, and all the morning traffic must have passed me without disturbing my sleep. But this wagon-load was too big to pass, and the driver had to wake me.
‘Although I had slept very well in these strange conditions, the chill I caught that night was so severe that even now I can feel its effects.
‘From then on it became very difficult for me, even with violence to myself, to demand from my body too strenuous an effort.
‘Willy-nilly, I had to stop all my business. The situation of the Institute therefore became critical in the extreme. Not only was it impo
ssible to complete indispensable tasks, but everything already accomplished was threatened with ruin because bills were coming due and no one was equal to taking care of them in my place.
‘I would have to contrive something.
‘One day, when I was sitting on the terrace of the Grand Café, famous among foreigners, thinking about my current affairs and how they were affected by my state of health, I reflected as follows: ‘ “As in my present condition I cannot, and at least for a certain time must not, work with the intensity which is required for such a great task, but must on the contrary allow myself a complete rest, even if only temporarily, why should I not immediately carry out the plan I have made to go to America, without waiting to complete the preparations for the trip?
“‘A tour through the different states of North America, with constant travelling and change of environment, far from the usual surroundings and consequently always with new impressions, will create the necessary conditions—in accordance with my established subjectivity—for a complete rest.
‘ “All the more so, because I will be far away from the place where my present interests are concentrated, and free for a while from a certain feature of my character which I know only too well from repeated experiences during my frequent travels through wild countries. Each time I have been subjected to the ‘kind manifestations’ of God’s creatures, quadruped as well as biped, and however badly I have been battered by them, as soon as I am even slightly better this feature always impels me to somehow struggle back on my feet and plunge at once into the enterprise in hand.”
‘In order that you may understand what I mean by not waiting to complete the preparations for the trip to America, I must tell you that when the Institute in France was first organized, I began to prepare material for a series of lectures which would make known to the public the fundamental ideas of the Institute and their application to different domains, such as psychology, medicine, archaeology, art, architecture, and even to the various, as they are called, supernatural phenomena.
‘In addition I had begun to prepare pupils for a series of demonstrations which I wished to present on a tour through Europe and America. My aim was to introduce, in this way, into the process of the everyday life of people the significance of these ideas, and to show the practical results to which they could lead—ideas based on material I had collected in different parts of Asia inaccessible to the average man.
‘As a result of these reflections on the terrace of the Grand Café, I decided to take the risk of leaving at once, simply with the material which had already been prepared.
‘I even gave myself my word not to work on anything serious whatsoever, from the moment of leaving France until returning there, but to eat well, sleep a great deal and read only books whose contents and style were in keeping with the spirit and character of the stories of Mullah Nassr Eddin.
‘I was ready to run the risk of this venture because I was beginning to hope that my pupils would now be capable of organizing various lectures and demonstrations in America by themselves, without my participation.
‘One of the chief dangers of carrying out this sudden decision, which I had made for the two purposes of restoring my health and adjusting the finances of my Institute—this child I had conceived and had borne with incredible difficulties and which was only just beginning to live an independent life—stemmed from the fact that in order to succeed it was necessary to take with me no less than forty-six people, who in America, as in France, would be of course entirely in my care. It was the only way to resolve the agonizing material problem, but it was impossible not to take into account that, in the event of failure, the general situation would be still worse and could even lead to complete catastrophe.
‘What a trip to America with forty-six people meant financially, you, with your passion for making frequent trips from this continent to Europe, will easily comprehend, even without any of your discussions. And you can better weigh the gravity of this madcap step if you will take into consideration the simple fact that for your trips you change your dollars into francs, whereas I, on the contrary, had to change my francs into dollars.
‘At the moment of deciding to go, the only money I had in reserve was the three hundred thousand francs which I had collected and set aside for the payment due on the fifteenth of February, the day when the deed of purchase of the Château du Prieuré was finally to be signed. I none the less resolved to risk spending this money on the trip and hurriedly began to prepare for our departure.
‘While proceeding with the preparations necessary for such an expedition, that is, buying tickets, arranging visas, purchasing clothing, making costumes for the demonstrations of dances and so forth, I concentrated all my attention on the classes of movements and increased the number of rehearsals held in the now completed Study House. Noticing once again how embarrassed the participants were in the presence of strangers, I decided to give, just before sailing, several public demonstrations at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysees in Paris.
‘Although I knew that this last-minute undertaking of mine would cost a pretty penny, I did not in the least expect that the total would soar to such fantastic heights.
‘And indeed, the Paris demonstrations, the steamship tickets, the paying of the most urgent bills, the provision of money for those who were staying in Europe, as well as certain unforeseen expenses which made their appearance almost imperceptibly, swallowed up the whole of the three hundred thousand francs even before my departure.
‘And so I found myself at the last minute in a super-unique tragicomic situation. Everything was ready for our departure but I could not sail. To set out on such a long journey with such a number of people and not have any reserve cash for an emergency was, of course, unthinkable.
‘This situation revealed itself in all its splendour three days before the sailing of the boat.
‘And then, as has happened to me more than once in critical moments of my life, there occurred an entirely unexpected event.
‘What occurred was one of those interventions that people who are capable of thinking consciously—in our times and particularly in past epochs—have always considered a sign of the just providence of the Higher Powers. As for me, I would say that it was the law-conformable result of a man’s unflinching perseverance in bringing all his manifestations into accordance with the principles he has consciously set himself in life for the attainment of a definite aim.
‘This event took place as follows:
‘I was sitting in my room at the Prieuré searching in my mind for a way out of the incredible situation that had arisen, when suddenly the door opened and my old mother came in. She had arrived only a few days before with several members of my family who had stayed on in the Caucasus after my departure from Russia; and it was only recently that I had succeeded, after : great deal of trouble, in getting them to France.
‘My mother came over to me and handed me a small packet, saying:‘ “Please, relieve me of this thing: I am so tired of always carrying it around.”
‘At first I did not understand what she was talking about and automatically untied the packet. But when I saw what was in it, I almost jumped up and danced for joy.
‘To explain to you what this thing was, which at this desperate moment could arouse in me such a feeling of gladness, I must first tell you that, when I went to live in Essentuki, the agitation of minds which had spread everywhere in Russia evoked in the consciousness of every more or less sensible person a foreboding of ominous events to come, and I therefore sent for my old mother, then at Alexandropol, to come and live with me. And later, when I went off on the scientific expedition I have mentioned, I entrusted her to those who remained behind in Essentuki.
‘Then, I must tell you that in that year, 1918, in the Caucasus as in all of Russia, the value of the rouble was declining daily, and everyone who had money bought objects of universal use and more stable value, such as precious stones, precious metals, rare antiques and so on. I also converted al
l my capital into valuables which I always carried on my person.
‘But at the time of the departure of the expedition from Essentuki, since pillaging raged everywhere under the guise of search and requisition, I would have incurred a great risk in carrying all these valuables myself. So I distributed part of them among my companions in the hope that, even if we did not escape the pillaging, there would nevertheless be a chance for some of us to save something; and the rest I divided among those who remained in Essentuki and Piatigorsk, among whom was my mother.
‘One of the dungs I gave my mother was a brooch which I had bought shortly before in Essentuki from a certain grand duchess who was in great need of money, and, on giving it to my mother, I told her that she should take particular care of it as it was very valuable.
‘I was sure that, constrained by necessity, my family must have sold this brooch soon after my departure; or, if not, that it had been stolen during their constant moving from place to place, because each town at that time was at the mercy of a band of pillagers without respect for anyone or anything; or finally, that it had been lost on the journey twenty times over.
‘In short, I had completely forgotten about this brooch and the thought of bringing it into my calculations could never have arisen in any comer of my brain.
‘But it seems that when I entrusted the brooch to my mother and asked her to take particular care of it, she thought that it must be very valuable to me personally as a remembrance, and had to be returned to me. All these years she had guarded it as the apple of her eye, had avoided showing it to any of her family, and had always carried it about with her like a talisman, sewn up in a little bag. And now, she was glad to be able to return it to me at last, and to be rid of something that had been a constant worry to her.
‘Can you imagine my relief when I recognized this brooch and realized at once how I could make use of it?
Meetings With Remarkable Men Page 33