Bright Magic

by Alfred Doblin

  Here we have the hydrogen atom. It consists of a positive nucleus and an electron circling the nucleus along an elliptical path. We have here well-ordered, if also somewhat primitive, social relations. Still, within this modest framework, the atom does what it can. The electron takes its elliptical course with inimitable grace around its positive nucleus, which has watched it do so, arms folded, since the dawn of time. They share no intimate secrets (and perhaps that is precisely why the relationship is so stable). The electron draws not a millimeter closer to the nucleus it has been given. As soon as it seems to want to get closer, at certain points along the ellipse, a mere glance from the nucleus is enough to put it back in its place. Heaven only knows how they ended up in this singular relationship.

  So now will the electron gain any insight into the outdated and compulsory aspects of its situation from this new announcement, and what conclusions will it draw—the electron, and perhaps the positive nucleus too, whose desire to leave its central position of rest is palpable? Nothing much happened. The relationship was too set in stone, neither side had enough initiative. Here and there an electron took it upon itself to change course and orbit in a circle around its sultan, the positive nucleus; elsewhere, an electron invited its former pasha to trade roles with it and take the elliptical trip itself. There was a little disorder and chaos, that’s all—on the whole, they both just acted terribly flattered. The electron practically preened. Where was there any compulsion here, it asked. Everything’s lovely here. It is magnificent, it has stood the test of time. And it blissfully, elegantly, made its way around the silent positive nucleus, which for its part stroked its mustache (so to speak) and for the first time nodded at it kindly.

  One might have expected the lithium atom to behave a bit differently. For here there were a whole bunch of electrons making extremely complicated orbits around their ancestral nucleus. Here, etiquette required that one electron always make an elongated ellipse and two electrons make smaller ellipses. (This supposedly had to do with important events in the early history of the Lithium people, honored in memory; the events have been forgotten, but the ellipses remain.) Couldn’t the electrons now change their custom, or abolish it altogether? Wasn’t the door wide open for them to do so, thanks to the new teachings? The result was nothing: here too, just haughty pride and maybe a little schadenfreude about the misfortune and uproar in the rest of the world, once so proud.

  •

  In this wondrous time, it sometimes happened that certain rays of light arrived too late. Maybe you’d think this wouldn’t matter—there are so many rays of light in the world. But listen and learn the wondrous ways in which this made itself felt after all. The rays of light the sun had been sending out for millennia rushed with monstrous speed through the ether. They marched at the insane rate of 186,000 miles per second, without stopping. They did so because the sun had sent them forth and because they followed the rules. The light thus arrived on earth and came into contact with plants, animals, etc. It heard the latest from all sides. The light, to tell the truth, had never cared much about news, it was always happy to arrive after its long trip and be there at last. But what was this they were whispering to it now? It was an interrogation, they were asking (rather maliciously) what it was up to, how it felt, how it was doing. The light didn’t understand. For the questioners, the enlighteners, the ordinary roosters that the sunlight woke up on their perches every morning when they wanted to sleep later, it was a treat to see the light in the dark for once, at least about itself, and to teach it something.

  Why, they crowed at the light (having considered the question the night before, in consultation with the owls, who felt bothered by the light for other reasons, shady characters as they were), why did the light arrive so early in the morning? What was the big hurry?

  The light, breathless as always, stammered something about its duties, and how it couldn’t slow down below 186,000 miles per second.

  But why, what for, and what’s the big rush, where’s the fire? What difference did it actually make whether the light arrived at the prescribed time, other than satisfying its pride with an admittedly extraordinary athletic achievement—that by now, though, everyone knew more than enough about already. Less might, in this case too, be more. What did it accomplish? Nothing. It could be sure of that. It arrived right on schedule, made day, and went on its way at night, only to do the same thing again the next day, and why—when you looked at things in the proper light? To give us, the birds and the other animals, the opportunity to carry out our meaningless actions? And make it possible for human beings—who, by the way, think along exactly the same lines—to vent their moods on the other creatures?

  “It is a crackbrained thing,” crowed the roosters with feeling, “how the light does its job. It’s day labor, there’s nothing else like it under the sun. All to provide illumination for others, who take these colossal sprints for granted. As far as we’re concerned, the light shouldn’t bother. Thanks anyway. Let people plug in lamps when they need light.”

  At this, a number of rays of light approaching the earth slowed down above the stratosphere, shocked. The main body of them, who had not yet come into contact with the Nature down below, continued to arrive, but because they allowed themselves more and more time, the event still made itself felt. The enlightened rays were dawdling. Whether they were looking for company, a conversation, a diversion—who knows. In any case, many of them arrived among humankind in a strange condition, usually blue. Often a day late, too. They were not embarrassed in the least. They knew that materialism ruled, and as one of the spokesmen for this freedom movement once said, “I am empowered to do whatever I have the power to do.”

  Well might we marvel at the fact that, one day, several rays of light, having arrived in Canada, liked that beautiful country and decided to stay a while. They had found a charming, very comfortable, and not at all unreasonably priced villa on Mont-Tremblant, ninety miles from Montreal. The villa was in a sheltered location in a mountainous region and had ten rooms, a large well-tended garden, swimming pool, tennis court, post office nearby. There was no risk of hay fever. The present owner guaranteed absolute tranquillity and the chance to rest and recuperate—exactly what they, the rays, these tired interplanetary travelers, were looking for. They wandered around in front of the villa for a long time, took a peek in at all the rooms, and seemed quite satisfied. We do not know what ever came of this interesting venture.

  In any case, what the owls and roosters and other advisers and co-conspirators were pushing the rays of light to do in the present situation—return to the sun—did not take place. The path between sun and earth is simply a one-way street, a fact which, from the perspective of humanity’s interests, can only be welcomed. Otherwise, precipitate actions at that time might have led to utterly unforeseeable consequences. If even a few rays of light had returned to the sun and proclaimed materialism, this would have led in the blink of an eye to collisions between celestial bodies, each going its own way at will. One would have to reckon, too, with oscillations of the earth, which would have had unfortunate effects on any individuals suffering from vertigo. Then, too, the more frequent onsets of darkness would lead to longer-lasting nightlife and increased alcoholism. None of this came to pass. There were amazing phenomena of light, but all of a cheerful kind: plays of colors at midday, a kind of northern lights at night. Everyone was taken aback, but they all felt that light, too, was taking part in materialism, in its way. Strange gleams and glitterings appeared without warning. Life on earth began to be especially lively and full of variety. The rigorous law, once one fell in with it, began to show its friendly face.

  It felt like being under a constant rainbow. The telescopes worked ecstatically; a feverish commotion came over the astronomers whose calculations were no longer correct. They couldn’t find their mistake. The most obvious answer (at least at that point)—that the rays too had liberated themselves and were now independent, partaking of the general freedom—occurre
d to no one.

  One astronomer asked another to double-check his calculations and look through his telescope—maybe there was something wrong with his eyes? The gentlemen shuddered and did not dare to admit it: Something had happened to the laws of computation, some hobgoblin had crept in and discombobulated everything.

  We all know the story of the stick someone puts in water. It is straight, it stays straight . . . but it looks broken. The injustice thereby done to the stick had never before been noticed. It hadn’t escaped the stick itself, of course. The contradiction between reality and appearance tormented it. Something had befallen it that could not but be mortifying. For while false appearances in the world usually served to make creatures look more elegant and attractive than they really were, this one spoiled its appearance. Every time someone stuck it in water (and it immediately looked broken), it waited anxiously to be taken back out, to assure itself that it wasn’t actually broken. Numerous sticks had developed hydrophobia. They hated the underhanded water and avoided it whenever they could.

  That all changed. The change was long overdue. The stick no longer let itself be broken. When someone put it in the water it went straight in. It defied the laws of refraction. It bent not a millimeter, not a hairbreadth. No matter what angle you looked into the water from, you could see that the stick was straight.

  •

  Oh, the things that happened in that time. What did not come about was the ideal that many were aspiring to, that some birds and elements dreamed of: solidarity arising in Nature, everyone banding together to form a united front and embark on a common campaign together. Despite brilliant isolated individual achievements in the transmission and dissemination of information, the systems of communication were too underdeveloped for that to happen. It also, more fundamentally, did not fit the principle now in force, that of radical independence. Every blade of grass wanted to stand on its own two feet. What chaos then, what intoxicating freedom, and, alas, how many tragedies. In the spring, in Paris, in the Bois de Boulogne, you could see snails, famous for their slowness, racing up and down bushes and trees at a truly insane speed. They did it not because they were driven to but because they were not driven to—simply to do it and refute the slander that they were slow.

  Now they were sailing across the most beautiful, nutritious, fattest leaves and buds but without paying any attention. Carried away by the sport of it, they were in too much of a hurry to eat. As a result, they fell into the grass by the hundreds, exhausted and starved, to the amazement of the forest management authorities, who thought it was a snail disease. It bordered on suicide.

  The river crabs acted in a more harmless fashion. It had struck one of them that they had made themselves look ridiculous since time immemorial by walking backward. They would never have thought to do so themselves. It must be a hereditary defect. They corrected it at once. Out of the Seine they climbed, in massive hordes, onto bridges and piers where they were comfortable, and they paraded proudly before the deeply astonished residents of the Quai d’Orsay—a heroic act that the humans could comprehend and respect no more than they did the snails’ sudden speed. Housewives and children came running from the nearby streets and simply stuffed the crabs into their baskets. The crabs waved their tails, tried to protest, explain, suddenly even wanted to go backward into the river. But now there was no going back, only straight ahead into the cooking pot.

  In that time, seduced by the imposing sight of swimming fish, a number of horses jumped down from the embankments and tried to do the same thing in the water as the fish. Many of them drowned before the swim meet could be set up, still trying to explain their intentions to the fish.

  The fish, in turn, inspired by the horses, wanted to go onto land and see for themselves what it was like there. Behold the thirst for knowledge. They didn’t want to swim around forever just because they happened to have been born in the water and descended from forefishfathers. Onto land, out of the water, to the promised land! And the deluded fish swam right up to the fishing lines, swam like mad after the fishing boats. How they crowded around the nets, all to prove their freedom. The baffled fisherman did nothing to stop them—they signaled the fish from above to be patient, everybody would get their turn, there was more than enough room. And then, when the fishermen pulled in their nets, the fish had what they wanted: They were lying not on land, true, but on the wooden decks. Even there, life on land seemed wondrous and strange. They snapped and snapped in amazement and encouraged one another to be strong. Easier said than done though. Before very long, after flinging themselves around just a couple more times and touching the floor with their tails, they were dead.

  While we’re on the subject of the ocean and fish, we should mention that ships on the water had started thinking about their weight and equilibrium and felt that, the way things were going, it might be time for a change there too. Why, for example, should they always have to sail with their masts and chimneys pointing up? That looked like a law, or a police regulation.

  Easy to fix. They rocked and swayed. They lay on their side as they sailed along. It made a very great impression indeed on the passengers. But they weren’t trying to alarm anyone. It was all meant in good fun. The ships, with nothing bad up their masts, straightened back up as soon as they realized the passengers were scared. Admittedly, just to lay down on their other side after a little while, a capricious game that, in the end (when you figured it out), you couldn’t hold against them. Until then, they had always been perfectly up-standing.

  A few of the smaller steamers and sailboats, though, went further. They adopted an amorously loose lifestyle. For instance, they folded their sides (including the benches) down to the surface of the water and floated there like opened flowers. Their occupants were frightened, but they had no reason to be. The little boats closed back up and thought of something else to do.

  One time, late in the evening, an older pleasure boat was steaming up the Rhine, near Koblenz. It was full and the passengers were sitting under Chinese lanterns in a merry mood. Since they were approaching the famous Lorelei cliff, the passengers, drunk on wine, began singing the beautiful old song about the Lorelei from start to finish, and when one side of the ship had stopped singing, the other side started up again from the top. Meanwhile, the ship steamed along as usual. But when it was repeated yet again that “a wild ache overcomes the boatman aboard his small skiff” when he sees the Lorelei and hears her wonderful song, the ship seriously believed that the people meant it, and it didn’t know what it should do, and it was scared, since they did keep singing in the last verse that “the waves, in the end, swallowed up both the boatman and his boat.” The faithful ship definitely wanted to avoid that at all costs. So it sped up as they approached the cliff. The singing onboard got out of hand; the ship, aghast, raced even faster. It sped past the cliff and then could no longer stop: It was beyond its strength, it had to go up on land to recover, and it crept a few feet up the neighboring mountain. Cursing, the ungrateful people pulled the ship back into the water with ropes. It didn’t understand what had happened. But it was in full agreement that they not use it for such river rides again.

  •

  That was humane. Yes, if human beings had only paid attention, they could have learned many new and unexpected things about the true nature of Nature, which they considered blind, dumb, wild, and ferocious, lock, stock, and barrel—the spitting image of dunderheads, libertines, and tyrants.

  In the United States of America, on the East Coast, there were tornados and hurricanes. But now, free and able to move however it wanted, a tornado in Pennsylvania turned out to be sad about the damage it had recently caused and wanted to make up for it. So when its time came again, it controlled itself and used all its power to pick up a group of schoolchildren waiting for the morning school bus, carry them high over the buildings and fields—slowly, so as not to scare them and to let them enjoy the view—and eventually put them down right in front of the door to their school. It did this several tim
es, until its time was up. The much-maligned tornado heard with pleasure, with a sense of gratification, how the children praised it and were upset when it didn’t come back.

  And if this already borders on the miraculous (but it was only Nature revealing itself, nothing more), how much more so did the behavior of the thunderstorm in central Germany above the city of Bayreuth, in the summer, during yet another extremely well-attended production of Wagner’s Ring of the Nibelungs, universally hated by all of Nature. This is a long-winded musical drama, of a nature entirely in accord with human style. The performance was over, the people poured out of the festival hall. By that time, to receive them and to protest, mighty storm clouds had gathered above the city. Rain poured down, lightning flashed. But instead of crashing like usual, the thunder issued forth in a mighty song, and look, it was singing (what a blessing after all the crimes and desolations of the opera) the aria from Mozart’s Magic Flute, “Within these sacred halls, revenge has no place,” a booming bass voice resounding with the power of an organ and making a deep (if unfortunately only temporary) impression on the crowd below.

  •

  Nature, no longer sure of things, confused, was all aflutter. No one cared anymore about what the new revelations—the theory of atoms, electrons, and feelings and thoughts constituting nothing but a superstructure above them—actually stated. They just clung to one idea: that everything was meaningless, purposeless, pointless, and futile, there was no reason in the world, everything just lived its life. The bees were humming around their hive, inspecting what they had created—the honeycomb construction that many animals and even human beings marveled at as nothing short of miraculous — but the bees hung their thick little heads, their hearts were filled with confusion. What had they done, really? What were they? A queen lived in their hive and laid eggs, hundreds of them were drones who served the queen as prince consorts and fertilized the eggs, and there were thousands of workers who built the wax cells, gathered food, and cared for the young. How intelligently it was all arranged, how cleverly, but it was a devilish cleverness. Yes, the whole thing was nothing but a machine in which they were all cogs, without knowing it or wanting it. Everything was so geared to the machinery that they themselves had been born as parts, with, e.g., strong hairs on their back legs for stripping off and transporting the flowers’ pollen. Grim with wrath, the bees, once so joyous, so fully immersed in the tasks of preparing their honey and raising their children, inspected their handiwork and hummed: “Hexagonal cells, one precisely hexagonal cell after the other—what’s the point of this math? Why go on? Enough, let us build other kinds of cells, according to our own taste—rectangles, cubes, octagons, spheres, ovals, whatever we feel like.”