by Unknown
When in the 8th and 9th century the now famous, prophetic words of Bramsen and later of Nyttenmat were heard, it was as if the Aidersen also knew, deep down inside: “Everything that excels will necessarily defeat everything that doesn’t; the superior spirit and truth will prevail, sooner or later.” Or “It is the law of nature and creation that thousands of planets inhibited by living, thinking beings meet their ‘great destiny’. Some already have.” As for our little earth, they said: “Don’t let insufficient time intervals cloud your judgment; if you want to make comparisons, choose a bygone era. For example, compare our times to the Stone Age.”
The great elders, predecessors and precursors of Chillerin, the wise ones who waited for death to open up new horizons of superhuman knowledge and mental development, never, not for a second, believed that they would ever just cease to exist. As if they knew…
I’ve concluded, therefore, that virtue is eventually rewarded, that a moral compass is a prerequisite for bliss, that consciousness is ultimately the “God within us”! Even philosophy was vindicated when it highlighted the ideal of moral personality in a cruel world. And in that temporary, marginal and transient world, within a context of finite human fate, people had spoken of “the eternal” and “the indestructible”, and had conceived infinity as a notion.
For me, even Wagner, who in his opera Parsifal presented the idea that purity can defeat all temptations and achieve redemption, was vindicated.
I’ve been sitting here all night trying to make out all the temples that are scattered throughout the Valley of the Roses, with my eyes glued either to one of the many powerful telescopes that they have here on the gestel’s balcony or to the night vision binoculars that Stefan gave me.
It’s after two a.m. It’s been hours since my companions went to bed and I’m still roaming uncontrollably on the terrace, amid an ecstasy of the senses, not even thinking about fatigue, not even having the need to let my feeble body sink into my armchair.
A thousand things that I’ve seen on the Reigen-Swage and the map of the Rosernes Dal pop into my mind and I want to find as many of them as I can. I even managed to discern a few dozen statues and monuments, out of the millions that are erected outside the temples. Names, dates and all sorts of artworks and significant achievements are spinning inside my head.
If Stefan were here right now, I would ask him, “What is the deeper meaning of the Valley? Is it true that nothing is ever really lost?”
Myriads of personal memories and thoughts are flooding my mind and soul.
The magical diffused light fades away and the light of the new day takes its place in the crystal clear blue sky. It’s the twelfth today. I didn’t think I’d make it here. I didn’t think I’d get the chance to see the Valley with my own eyes; but I did, and now I want to see everything!
“Did you stay here all night long?” asked Stefan, suddenly breaking the silence. He was up very early, around ten past six, right on time for the sunrise. The girls were still asleep. He looked a bit worried about the fact that I hadn’t lain in my armchair at all, but I calmed him down saying that I was feeling very refreshed and revitalised.
“I don’t think anyone slept last night,” he said. “But at least we lay down for a few hours.” Hilda didn’t get a wink of sleep all night. Her heart was beating like crazy and at three a.m. she got up and took a pill to calm her down. She was overexcited, much like a child that can’t wait for the dawn of Christmas Day… You see, here no one wants to leave this life without having seen the Rosernes Dal at least once.”
Stefan spoke to me about the universal capital with the usual, for the times, pride that stems from pure excitement, love and experiences of their childhood.
“Tomorrow afternoon we’ll go down to the Valley,” Stefan told me before he left. “Did I tell you it was tomorrow afternoon? It’s important. You have to prepare the troje, the formal piece of clothing designed for the occasion, but that should be the least of your worries. Above all, prepare your heart! Take a retrospective look at your life and pray from your heart. You’re one of us now. Just make sure that your thoughts are pure. Everybody is praying these days. You should pray too; for mother earth, for the institutions, for our dead, for the final deliverance from barbarism, for the end of prehistory.”
I’m sitting on the terrace with Silvia, waiting to hear the bells. Stefan told me that it’s been a week now since the regular, morning bell-tolling started from the spires of the Unsung Martyrs. These days are known as the twelve days of prayer before the memorial service. Silvia is sitting next to me holding my arm. “Sometimes, our inner being is in need of a gentle sense of solitude and tranquillity, accompanied by a caring and loving presence, away from the bustle of the world, an isolation that serves as a sign of respect and appreciation for all these beloved places ...” she whispered.
I told her that I honestly couldn’t agree more and squeezed her hand warmly when the first bells rang. There is something about these sounds that reminded me of Christianity even though their intensity and aesthetic value is greatly enhanced.
With eyes closed and both palms pressing her temples, Sylvia listened in silence, lost in her thoughts and focused on her prayer. “Oh, let me hear the bells,” she had said shortly before, when I tried to express my excitement in a few words.
We shouldn’t be talking here. After the holy bell-tolling, Stefan told me that no one, in no other circumstance and nowhere else in the world, could ever hear a melody as divine as the one that comes out of the spires of the Martyrs. It's incredible that it has no match around the globe.
AN AMAZING RESEMBLANCE
In the afternoon we are scheduled to descend to the Rosernes Dal. And this is the day and time you chose to visit me Anna? And in this way?
On June 29, 1906, while we were lying on the grass of the small, joyful valley of our homeland, dreaming about our future together, you told me verbatim: “How thirsty the human soul is for solitude sometimes! How thirsty for a sense of peace, for a view like this, alongside your loved one…” I remember that five days later I was leaving for Rome. Oh, my dear Anna, you deserve all the happiness of the world, wherever you are…I used to say that the purpose of my life was to protect you and guard you from all evil. On July 8, I had similar thoughts in Piazzale Napoleone at sunset, on the long terrace of Valanie overlooking west Rome. “We should see this together,” I had told her.
In the summers of 1913 and 1914, just before the Great War, when my life had already taken a downward spiral, I went back to that part of the south, to that same terrace of the French architect.
Oh my! The case is so similar… Of course, Silvia hasn’t got the slightest idea about that since I’m being fanatically cautious, hiding it very well from all three of them; Silvia, Stefan and Jaeger. Does my destiny have any more surprises in store for me? My soul bows before this miracle that managed to annihilate the abyss of memory and time.
13-VII Again
(Quite a while later)
I think that what made my love with Anna so divine wasn’t the intensity of the erotic passion, but the quality of our emotions. What we lived has become “holy” precisely because it was so pure and kind, a genuine reflection of what today is called the Samith. And that’s why the possibility of our love was not extinguished by physical death. Time failed to erase it…
DOWN TO THE VALLEY
Sightseeing in the city
14-VII
(2 a.m.)
From five p.m. to midnight I spent my time with Stefan, going from terrace to terrace, ascending and descending their famous and fantastic elevatores, a kind of public lift we would call them, and using all their new vindebros—bridges designed for mild hiking—without the slightest effort, among countless thousands of late-nighters, like us, pilgrims all dressed in formal, mandatory uniform of the Valley. Stefan was striving to explain to me, in the best possible way, everything that we saw in the oldest part of the sacred state.
Unlike in Norfor and the other c
ities we’ve visited, I never felt the need to lean on Stefan while in the Valley. You can never feel lost or terrified here. The river and surrounding villages always give you a clear sense of direction. The feelings of indisposition, helplessness or hesitation that I’ve experienced elsewhere do not apply to this place.
We’re wearing a pair of short, dark-coloured trousers with black stripes that stop slightly below the knee, green silk high socks, a white double breasted vest with white lapels and special white boots that make no noise whatsoever when they touch the ground. And I forgot the green stole-belt that decorates the uniforms of the standard Cives.
At first glance, there are two or three things across the region of the old, central Rosernes Dal that make a strong impression on the traveller: the clarity of the sky due to the lack of traffic, the absence of purely residential areas across the great state, and the lack of the “aura of a capital city”, contrary to the other megacities I’ve visited, mostly in terms of lifestyle and pace of life. I´ve only seen individual means of transport here, and still, they were very high above, personal linsens or vigiozas that don’t scare you and don’t affect the clarity of the sky.
Here you’ll see no daners, no gigantic, hovering satellite islands, no underground cities or any other sorts of hidden urban extensions and no steel overhead bridges resembling streamers like those in Blomsterfor. And instead of residences, there’s an incredible ocean of monuments and parks and arcades and altars and flower beds. And I wonder, where do these six million people live? I’m quite sure they live on the remote, light blue slopes and hillsides that surround the Valley-excluding of course the Lorffes, the Tilteys, the Ilectors and the great artists.
And then, exactly what sort of capital is this? Rosernes Dal, equal in size to Norfor, seems more like an idyllic haven of the intellect rather than a real capital city to me… I would accept a term like “the capital of dreams and beauty” to describe it, but it certainly doesn’t feel like the centre of their current universal political and economic community.
It may be the ultimate supervisory authority and the coordination and alignment of their few institutions emanates from here, but none of this becomes obvious to the outsider. A key element in the life of this vast city is what could possibly be called the worship of a mixture of things, like religiosity, art, meditation, and other great spiritual endeavours, which no one tries to hide. In my view, the Valley of the Roses could be described as a kind of Lhasa and Medina of the current “Western” world.
This is, then, where the great-grandchildren of the Europeans who survived the ravages of the wars live: Anglo-Saxons, Slavs, Germans, Greeks, Latinos, Scandinavian, Walloons and Flemings, Dutch and Swiss, Finns and several more nations of European descent.
15-VII
Once again, I’m staying up late writing after having spent the entire day sightseeing, from seven in the morning until nine in the evening. The four of us took a walking tour of the city centre. The early April heat was toned down by the cool breeze and the scented air that wafted with it. You have to walk to most places; otherwise you don’t have time to see anything.
On the way back, our excitement gave way to fatigue. A good shower and a light dinner accompanied by refreshing frozen fruit juices—they don’t touch anything that has alcohol in it and I’m not even sure they’re familiar with its use, except maybe wine. But the girls remained silent the whole time. I noticed that they sat away from each other at the table, both immersed in their thoughts; shortly after they retired to their rooms misty-eyed.
“You keep on with your books and your writing. Don’t bother comforting them,” Stefan whispered to me with a smile. “They’ll be fine… Nobody ever knows why a woman cries. Are their minds gripped by memories? Are they feeling a sense of dissatisfaction despite everything that they saw today? Are they tears of joy? Or are they tears of boredom caused by the lack of employment since all of the main problems of life are solved?”
He was in a somewhat inappropriately good, for the occasion, mood, and although he was trying to be discreet, one would think that he was mocking them for their excessive sensibility. He reminded me that one of the many names used to describe the Valley of the Roses was “the Kingdom of Human Suffering”, referring to the longing of the soul and the deep human element of inner pain, but I think that this name has a more profound and historical meaning; it’s a tribute to the bloody centuries of prehistory.
I didn’t know what to say so I didn’t reply and a few minutes later I withdrew to my room as well. For the first half an hour after dinner I leafed through two compact travel guides about the Rosernes Dal, which, to be honest, were aimed at children and then I settled down to write.
All sorts of images swirled through my head. The face of this great city has been completely changed these days. You bump into thousands of foreign pilgrims, who have travelled from all different parts of the world, everywhere on the streets and massive motorways. They’ve come for the big procession scheduled for the day after tomorrow. They seem to be very comfortable in the slaabroks, the mandatory uniforms that I described above, which they only take off when they go to sleep in the luxury hostels, the gestalads and the civesheims located on the surrounding hillsides.
These days the Valley is full of Tilteys, Ilectors and Lorffes, as well as representatives of the clergy. They walk around the city just like everyone else, simple and modest, making people feel equal. I’ve never seen so many of them gathered in one place, but I’ve also never seen such a lack of interest from the people around them. It seems that the concentration, the devotion and the reverential mood of each visitor leaves no room for acclamation. Or better that their common worship for the Nibelvirch is so dominant in their hearts that it leaves no room for any other sort of enthusiasm.
In fact, even the outfits of these great men do not differ much from those of the ordinary Cives. The only thing that changes is the colour of the socks, the stole and the belt. And yet the final visual effect is not at all monotonous since their insignia complete the outfit—golden chains with emeralds, pearl cumberbunds—lending a very quaint and charming tone to the boulevards, mainly at night-time.
Stefan tells me that this year’s participation is unprecedented, and yet it seems that all these crowds were housed adequately and efficiently in no time in the endless urban extension built on the surrounding hills. In fact, he tells me that there’s still more space in the larinters, the hostels and the apartments. They have a long tradition in organisational capabilities and, once again, they’ve done a wonderful job.
At 5:30 in the afternoon, John Humphrey and Ulfink Enemark in the flesh, walked by, a few meters away from where we were standing. Stefan pointed them out to me. I barely noticed the famous creator of Fabiola and the poet of “Dream on the Riverside”, “Forgotten Promise” and “Irenaeus”. My eyes were fixed on the statues. I’m less interested in real people. The same goes for the priestesses. We encountered several of them, some older, other younger, dressed in the typical snow white robe. As I have read, the patrons and protectors of their faith are the Lorffes themselves even though, in practice, they rarely take part in the rituals. The greatest of them possess the undisputed social primacy in contemporary life. Even nowadays, history seems to repeat itself in many ways. For example, the current social ranking resembles that of the Egypt of the Pharaohs, but without the violence and the flaunting of power.
THE PANTHEON
I noticed that the current language is richer than ours. Here’s an example: while they’ve always had separate words for “prophet” and “poet”, since after the time of Volky, they also have a third word that means both. The same happens with the words “priest”, “thinker” and “philosopher”; they now have a word that expresses all three.
I knew that in the Pantheon I would find thousands of works by all the great spiritual men that have existed from my time and onwards. But the area of the Pantheon is extremely large; it’s an entire town in itself. I only spent a few hours
there when it would take years for someone to study this entire cultural and spiritual heritage. One can find the names hosted there in school textbooks and read about their work. The guidebooks of the Valley are there to help you find content by a specific author or the exact shelf location of a specific book in that vast library. Poets, philosophers, researchers of the natural sciences, music composers, thinkers, humanitarians, public and political figures, mystics, artists, social reformers, educators: they’re all here, as long as their work has stood the test of time. Einstein, Newton, Pythagoras, Homer, Milton, Virgil, Socrates, Plato, Confucius, William Tell, Gautama Buddha, Matteotti, Bach, Handel, Rousseau, Tolstoy, Kierkegaard, Seneca, Pascal, Bergson and Rilke are some of the historical figures from the eras before mine that are hosted there.
Their life-size marble, brass, copper and synthetic ivory statues, most of them decorated with scenes from their work, that stand on equally tall pedestals, symbolise, at least in my own mind, a triumphant vindication of the cultural legacy of the “prehistoric and uncivilised”, as they call them, times. It gave me considerable pleasure and satisfaction to see some of our great men come alive everywhere around me! Something that really struck me was that I even saw crowned ones, like Codrus, Numa Pompilius and Marcus Aurelius!
No discrimination existed between our men and theirs, from the beginning of the Eldere and onwards, neither in the position of the statues, nor in their dimensions, nor in anything else. The only thing that slightly changes is the interpretation of the “Source” of thought and inspiration of each of them because today there is no contradiction between the real and the ideal.
