The Green Face (15 page)

Immediately after that the daylight was obliterated by a
crooked row of tall, spindly houses; they stooped forward,
apparently about to collapse, each supporting the other as if the
ground were shaking. Passing a number of bakeries and cheese
shops, he came upon the peaty surface of a broad, still canal
beneath the bright blue sky. The rows of houses on either bank
confronted one another like strangers; on the one side they were
low and modest, like humble craftsmen, on the other towering,
massive warehouses, aloof and self-confident. There was no
bridge between them, only a tree which, growing out of a
wooden fence festooned with fishing-lines with floats of red and
green feathers hanging down to catch eels, leant its inquisitive
trunk across the water and stretched out its branches towards the
windows of the rich.

Hauberrisser strolled back in the direction from which he had
come and soon found himself back in the middle ages, as if time
had stood still for hundreds of years in that part of the city:
sundials on the walls above richly-wrought, elaborate coats of
arms, gleaming windowpanes, red tiled roofs, tiny chapels sunk
in shadow, brass door-knobs reflecting the white, cherubic
clouds.

A wrought-iron gate leading into a convent courtyard stood
open and he went in. Beneath the drooping branches of a willow
he saw abench. The whole area had been taken over by tall grass.
There was no sign of a human being anywhere, no faces at the
windows. It seemed completely deserted. He sat down on the
bench to collect his thoughts. His unrest had vanished, and the
worry that reading the wrong name over the shop might be the
sign of incipient illness had also long since disappeared. He had
come to feel that much stranger than the - admittedly odd -
external events was the alien mode of thought into which he had
recently fallen.

`How has it come about’, he asked himself, `that I, who am
still relatively young, look on life like an old man? People of my
age don’t think as I do.’ He went through his memory to try and
establish the point at which the change had taken place within
him. Like every young person, he assumed, he had been a slave
to his passions until he was well over thirty; the only bounds to his search for pleasure had been the limits of his wealth, and his
physical and mental endurance. He could not remember having
been particularly withdrawn as a child, so where were the roots
from which this alien stem had sprung, this flowerless stalk that
he called his present self?

`There is a secret, inner growth…’, he suddenly remembered
he had read those words only a few hours ago. He took the sheet
from the roll of paper out of his pocket and looked for the place.

“… for years it seems impeded and then, unexpectedly, often
set off by something trivial, the veil falls away and there is a
branch full of ripe fruit; we had not noticed it flowering, but now
we see that without knowing it we had tended a mysterious tree.
Oh that I had never allowed myself to be persuaded that any
power outside myself could bring forth that tree, how much
misery would I have been spared! I was sole lord of my destiny
and knew it not! I thought that because I could not alter it by
deeds, I was powerless before it. How often did it not occur to
me that to be master of one’s own thoughts must also mean to
bethe all-powerful controllerofone’s owndestiny. But I always
rejected the idea, because my half-hearted attempts never
showed immediate results. I underestimated the magical power
of thought and fell back into the old error that has plagued
mankind since Adam: to take the deed fora giant and the thought
for a mere figment. Only when you can command light can you
also command the shadow and - destiny; anyone who tries to
achieve it by his deeds is only a shadow fighting a vain battle
with shadows. But it seems that we must allow life to torture us
almost to death before we finally grasp the key. How often have
I tried to help others by explaining this to them; they listen and
they nod and they believe, but it all goes in at the right ear and
comes out at the left. Perhaps the truth is too simple for people
to understand it straight away. Or must the `tree’ reach up into
the sky before understanding can come? I sometimes fear that
the difference between one person and another is greater than
that between a person and a stone. The whole purpose of our life
is to develop a fine sense for what makes the tree flourish and
keeps it from withering. Everything else is merely shovelling
dung without knowing the reason why. But how many are there alive today who understand what I mean? They would imagine
I was talking in images if I were to tell them. It is the ambiguity
of language that separates us. If I were to publish something
about `inner growth’, people would interpret it as meaning
becoming cleverer or better, just as they take philosophy for a
theory and not the practice. Obeying the Commandments alone,
even with complete sincerity, is not sufficient to promote inner
growth, for it is merely outward form. Breaking the Commandments is often a better hot-bed, but we keep the Commandments
when we should break them and break them when we should
keep them. Because saints only perform good deeds, people
imagine that by performing good deeds they can become saints.
They follow that path and believe they will be counted among
the just; but they are following a false belief in God and it will
lead them to the abyss. They are blinded by mistaken humility,
so that they start back in horror, like children at their own image
in the mirror, and fear that they are going mad when the time
comes when they shall see His face.”

Suddenly Hauberrisser felt himself refreshed by a glimmer
of hope that had slept so long within him that it seemed completely new; joy and hope sprang up within him, although he did
not know why he should rejoice or what he should hope for -
nor, for the moment, did he desire to know. Everything that had
happened to him since he had first seen the name Chidher Green
no longer seemed the workings of a malevolent fate; he suddenly felt that fortune was smiling on him once again,

Something within him exulted, ‘I should rejoice that such a
noble beast from the uncharted forests of the spirit has broken
through the fence surrounding the familiar world and come to
graze in my garden, rejoice, and not be concerned that a few
rotten fence-posts have collapsed.’

He was now convinced that the last lines of the page very
probably referred to the face of Chidher Green, and he was
burning with impatience to learn more, especially as the last few
words suggested that the next page would describe in detail
what was meant by ‘magical power over one’s thoughts’. He
would have preferred to dash straight home and spend all night
poring overthe roll ofpapers, but it was almost fouro’clock, and Pfeill was expecting him.

A humming noise reached his ear and caused him to turn
round. He stood up in astonishment at the sight of a man, quite
close to the bench, wearing a fencing mask and holding a long
pole in his hand. A few feet above him hung a sack-like object
that swayed back and forth, then caught one comer on a branch
of the tree and hung there, bouncing up and down.

Suddenly the man went after it with the stick and caught it by
the point, or rather, by a small net that was attached to it, shouldered the pole with the strange sack attached and climbed, with
a satisfied grunt, up the fire-escape of the house, disappearing
along the flat part of the roof.

“It’s the convent beekeeper”, said an old woman, appearing
from behind a water-pump and noticing Hauberrisser’s bewildered expression. `“They swarmed and he has just caught the
queen.”

Hauberrisser went out and after following a few twisting
alleyways came to a square where he found a taxi-cab to take
him to Mill’s country-house near Hilversum.

There were thousands of cyclists along the broad, straight
road. The car sailed along through a sea of heads and shining
pedals, but Hauberrisser ignored them for the whole of the hour
the journey took. The landscape flew past unnoticed; his eyes
were fixed on the image he had just seen: the man with the mask
and the swarm of bees, huddled round their queen as if they
could not live without her.

Nature, which had said her silent farewell to him on his last
journey out into the country, had now turned a new face towards
him, and he felt he could read the words she was forming with
her lips.

The man catching the queen, and with her the whole swarm,
seemed like a symbolic image to Hauberrisser.

`What else is my body than a teeming army of living cells’,
he said to himself, `revolving round a hidden centre according
to a habit that has been handed down over the millennia?’

He suspected there was some mysterious connection between what he had just seen and the laws of physical and spiritual nature, and he realised how the world would glow anew with a magical radiance if he should ever manage to see all the
things that habit and routine had robbed of speech in a fresh
light.

At Hilversum the car turned off the main road and glided up
the avenue of limes through the park surrounding Pfeill’s villa,
Sans Souci, which was glowing white in the afternoon sun.

Pfeill was standing atthe topofthe outside staircase andcame
down with a cry of pleasure when he saw Hauberrisser arrive.

“It’s marvellous that you could come, you old stork. I was
beginning to fear that my telegram hadn’t reached you in your
lair. Has something happened? You look so pensive. By the
way, may God reward you for sending that superb Count
Ciechonski; he’s a real tonic in these depressing times.” Hauberrisser wanted to protest and explain that he was nothing more
than a confidence trickster but Pfeill was in full swing and
would not let him get a word in. “He came to visit this morning
and I naturally invited him for lunch. I think three pairs of silver
spoons have disappeared already. He introduced himself as -“

“a godson of Napoleon the Fourth?”

“Yes. Of course. But he also dropped your name.”

“He had the effrontery!” said the furious Hauberrisser. “He
needs a good box round the ears; that would teach him to stick
his brass neck out!”

“But why? All he wants is entry to a gentleman’s gambling
club. Why not let him have his way? Liberty consists in doing
what one desires. If he’s determined to ruin himself, why not let
him?”

“He won’t. He’s a professional card-sharp”, Hauberrisser
interjected.

Mill looked at him pityingly. “You think he would get away
with that in these modem poker-clubs? They all cheat. He’d lose
his shirt. By the way, have you seen his watch?”

Hauberrisser laughed.

“If you love me”, Weill said, “buy it from him and give it me
for Christmas.” He crept up quietly to one of the windows
opening onto the veranda, signalled to his friend and pointed
inside - “Look, isn’t that marvellous?”

`Professor’ Zitter, in spite of the hour wearing tails with a
hyacinth in the buttonhole, shoes as yellow as an egg-yolk and a black tie, was sitting in a cosy tete-A tgte with a middle-aged
lady who was so excited at finally having captured a man again
that she had red blotches on her cheeks and was making a
rosebud mouth.

“Do you recognise her?” whispered Neill. “It’s Madame
Rukstinat; God rest her soul - as soon as possible. Look! He’s
showing her the watch. I would like to bet that he’ll try to charm
her by showing her the mechanical couple behind the dial. He’s
a real ladykiller, there’s no doubt about that.”

“It was a christening present from Eugene-Louis-JeanJoseph”, they heard the `Count’ say, his voice trembling with
emotion.

“Oh Vladdymeersh!” lisped the lady.

“By Jove, she’s already calling him by his first name!” Pfeill
whistled through his teeth and drew his friend away with him.
“Quick, off we go; we are de trop here. Pity the sun’s shining,
otherwise I would switch off the light - out of pity for
Ciechonski. No, not in there!” He pulled Hauberrisser back as
he was about to go through a door the servant was holding open.
“There’s politics a-brewing in there.” He had a brief view of a
large gathering assembled round a bald-headed speaker with a
full beard who was standing in an eloquent pose with his fingers
spread out on the table in an imperious gesture. “Let’s go to the
Jellyfish Room.”

As he sank into the soft beige chamois-leather of the club
chair Hauberrisser looked round in astonishment: the walls and
ceiling were covered with sheets of smooth cork that had been
so skilfully hung that the joins were invisible; the windows were
made of curved glass and the furniture, the comers where the
walls joined, even the door standards were all gently rounded;
there was not a straight edge anywhere, the carpet was so fluffy
it was like walking ankle-deep in sand, and everywhere was the
same soft, matt, light-brown colour.