by Rene Daumal
Others again, the Philophasists, study the languages of foreign countries and past eras, though they are quite incapable of speaking or even writing their own language properly. For language has to be created, and they claim to be “pure scholars,” not craftsmen.
Still others discourse upon useless objects, and their name sounds like someone sneezing. The Aesthetishams labor to pronounce upon the productions of others; they themselves create nothing, for they dwell in the realm of “pure knowledge.”
33
I became bored amongst all these people. More amusing seemed the Logologists, that is to say the Clarificators of clarifications, who strain their ingenuity stripping down the observations of other people in order to extract from them some truth which is useless and insubstantial. The first conversation I had with one of them is well worth recording. I spotted him through a half-open window, seated at his worktable before some highly complicated calculating machines, with his feet in a tub of hot water and a lump of ice held onto his head by some bandages. A new street light had just come on at the corner of the block and a powerful ventilator had been started. And so it seemed a good moment for me to call out to him: “Fine weather we’re having, eh?”
“Just a minute,” he said, looking up. And after a moment’s thought he went on “This is how it ought to be expressed: All fine weather is pleasant. Now, today’s weather is fine. Therefore, today’s weather is pleasant. A syllogism in Barbara: irrefutable. So indeed, my good man, you were right. Fine weather!”
We were friends from that moment. He went on: “But if we are to raise your proposition to the status of universal law, I must make a few calculations. So come back in a quarter of an hour.”
He turned to one of his machines; I went off to have a rest under a bandstand and then came back. He profferred a folder of typewritten sheets, and the first of them follows.
weather: W today’s weather: tW
fine: f pleasant: p
Me: M (negative): ´
Proposition:
(W = f > p/M) (tW = f) > tW = p/M + p/M´
Postulate:
Courtesy (c) calls for confirmation of a natural affinity between those concerned within the relationship we are dealing with; otherwise:
c(M + M´) > (p/M = p/M´).
Proof
W > (W × M) (W × M´)
and
(f = p)/M + (f = p)/M´ < c(M + M´)
Therefore:
(tW = f) > tW (M = c) × tW (M´ + M) × p × c
p × M´ = (c × M) (p/M)
and, by virtue of the absurd nature of:
(f = f´) > (M = M´) × c’
and of:
c´ ≥ 1 × pM,
we have:
(tW = f) = p × M´ = 1 × (c × c´) × (tW.p. + M.c) …
There were five pages like this. I pretended to read them and the Logologist said to me: “And so anybody who had spoken as you did would have been right, and I rejoice with you, with a logically unassailable joy, that it’s fine.”
In the meantime, the street lamp had gone out with a blown fuse, the ventilator had given up, and anyway, it had never been fine, I’d only said it to make conversation, but I didn’t want to contradict him. I still felt a little cross with him because he’d lumped me together with “anybody”; I don’t wish to boast, just the opposite, but I’m not just “anybody.” Yet, in a sense, the truth of the Logologists is indeed “anybody’s truth.”
34
The Sophers proper are make-believe travelers in search of their goddess Sophia. Ensconced in armchairs they spend what they call their lives in labors and pleasures cartographical. One of them told me about his career and here is a rough idea of what he said.
As he was on the very threshold of adulthood, and about to blunder on into life, he took fright and withdrew into his shell. Deep down in his shell he became entangled in childhood memories one of which was the bright, moving, hazy figure of the unfortunate Sophia. Sensing that he was not being watched, he was not ashamed to take a vow that “he would have Sophia.” First of all, however, he would have to acquire a clearer picture of her. He bestowed upon her all the characteristics he himself lacked. He was cowardly and puny, she became powerful and serene. He was dull and awkward, she became ineffable and full of grace. Then he sat down at his worktable and called for all the papers bequeathed over the ages by Sophia scholars. For some years, he traveled without ever leaving his chair, following with pencil and map, the routes traced by his predecessors. In the end, having arrived at Terra Incognita and the Seas of Darkness, he said to himself: “Now it’s my turn to take up the compass and the sextant.” And so he himself assumed the task of inventing countries and drew maps of them, which afterwards he found great pleasure in running over with a magnifying glass. I’m telling this story in my own way. For his part, he was convinced that he had really undertaken all these expeditions and that he had almost reached his goal.
Others believed they had already arrived, and were instructing their disciples in the art of peregrinations behind closed doors. One, who was blind, spoke of Sophia’s glowing complexion. Another, who stuffed his ears with cotton wool, spoke of her melodious voice. Yet another, who could not even tell a lie, spoke of Truth. They all, with an unwitting pun, called themselves philo-sophers; a fair number even believed they were learned men, and some really did have wise old heads screwed the wrong way onto the shoulders of newborn infants.
35
Near to the Sophers, who looked down on them rather, stood a small band of internees grouped around a young Tibetan whom they considered their leader. This Asian was known as Nakiñtchanamoûrti, which means, in the language of Sanscruting, “Incarnation of nothing whatsoever.” I had an opportunity of taking a look at him. He did not look ill to me, perhaps just a little too easy-going, and I suspect that he was being kept there against his will by the machinations of his so-called disciples. They regarded him as the trustee of all wisdom, and he answered them saying:
“Leave me in peace. I have nothing to teach you. Get out of here. Each of you must do his own seeking,” and other equally sensible words. But the disciples, and especially the women, opened their eyes wide, assumed an air of inspiration, and interpreted the words of the Master in what they called an esoteric sense. This word was intended to express, so our pocket dictionary informed us, “a hidden flattering meaning that we imagine beneath harsh words the better to suffer them.”
“Take a close look,” an old woman was saying, “at the first sentence the Master pronounced: ‘Leave me in peace.’ Four words: It is the cabbalistic tetragram, the sacred quaternary of the Buddhaguru, which the Greeks pronounced Pythaguru. ‘Leave’ is, according to grammar (which was once a sacred science), in the second person. ‘Me,’ is first person, and the preposition ‘in’ takes us towards the third person: herein lieth the Trinity. Note also that ‘leave,’ second person, contains two ‘e’s,’ and that the Master starts with the second person and not with the first, meaning that the point of departure for us human beings is in duality and struggle. After this comes the first person, that is to say that we elevate ourselves to the notion of the self which surpasseth duality. Finally, with the preposition ‘in,’ which contains two letters in a single syllable, we go beyond the illusion of self to identify ourselves with impersonal reality. The fourth word ‘peace,’ which falls outside the constraints of the trinitarian division, aptly describes the state that is reached after we have negotiated the three preceding stages. Many other timeless truths are hidden still within these four words, but they are intended only for the ears of the initiated. Everything is said in this simple sentence. Only a god could speak thus.”
Then she went on to the next sentence and in this manner dealt with each word that the Master had reluctantly uttered, much to the great wonderment of his disciples of whom the unfortunate Tibetan was quite unable to get free.
36
I did not have much trouble finding my way. All I had to do was to walk towards the
cathedral whose papier mâché spire soared six hundred meters up to the rooftops. But the way was by no means straightforward. I had to pass through districts cluttered with chapels, wayside crosses, churches, mausoleums, basilicas, pagodas, dagobas, stupas, mosques, synagogues, totem poles, and mastabas—all a mock-up, of course—in the midst of which was a bustling masquerade of people dressed up as priests of every creed under the sun. Some were carrying out rites without understanding them, others were explaining the rites without performing them. Some were saying words of wisdom in unintelligible tongues, others were delivering inanities in the idiom of the people.
In this district stood the holy water factories that Professor Mumu had told me about. The preparation of the liquid is very simple. A few words of magic and a few gestures over any quantity of tap water and, lo and behold, it is transmuted! It is true that for this rite you must wear a special robe and have a small circle of scalp shaved clean. The water is subsequently poured into a type of tiny trough sealed in position at the entrance to certain buildings, and the sick can come and dip their fingers in the water and wet certain parts of their bodies with it. It seems that, even through clothing, the liquid is effective in the end.
In these same buildings, large crowds congregate from time to time to sing and to glorify the name of the Lord. It is the name of the Lord that they glorify and not the Lord himself, for there are as many Lords as there are followers (and perhaps even more), and all they hold in common is their name. The main rite performed is called the servile, which they pronounce service, though it is more or less the opposite of what was once meant by this appellation. Servile, in fact, (the word is clear enough) involves the notion of an inflexion of the legs and arms and of a bending of the knee.
Some, during a public servile, secretly wear felt strips round their knees, for it is frowned upon to bring cushions. Then they put their hands together perfunctorily, heave sighs, wriggle, put on sad or contrite or inspired faces, and stammer incomprehensibly, all the while casting furtive glances at their neighbors, who keep sniffing, or are overdressed, or have a better seat, or are not regular attenders.
From time to time, young boys dispensing sweet-smelling vapors endeavor to disguise the fetid odor arising from the crowd. They are unsuccessful in this, and in the end, the master of ceremonies dismisses everybody with three Latin words, which mean literally: “Go forth, it has been sent.” I asked two holy water manufacturers what had been sent. This did not go down very well, for one of them said: “What! Why the good news, of course!”
“Eh?” the other broke in sharply. “That sounds a bit heretical, my dear fellow. Our Latin is not the Latin of Cicero, and missa has been attested as a substantive since before the time of the Early Fathers.”
The other one came back at him with a quotation from Tertullian and, forgetting all about me, they engaged in a fierce duel with the Papal Bull; this is a magic weapon, a single well-aimed blow from which can strip a manufacturer of holy water of his black robe and livelihood for a number of years.
37
The areas round about teemed with Sophers of every kind. Amongst them, and very much in fashion, were the Astromancers, Idyllomancers, Palmologists, Iridomancers, Flatulencers, Astragalomancers, Molybdomancers, Fritillarists, and Rhabdologists, all of whom were skilled in telling the past and the future and in conjuring away the present. I was about to give my date of birth to one of these sayers of sooth out of sheer curiosity, when I was distracted by the voice of Professor Mumu.
“You’re wasting your time,” he was saying, “there are too many of them. But as with the Scienters, I’ve grouped together the best Mancers of our time into an Institute where they work on a production line. The customer is examined there in turn by specialists in astral conjunctions, tarots, lines on the hand, spots on the eyeball, intestinal noises, knucklebones, molten-lead shapes, dice, and the magic wand—in fact, in all the various means that Man uses in order to discover without covering or exposing, to understand without standing or sitting, or to become enlightened without lightening or darkening. And as all these people scrape together a living with thoughts like these: “Me, I can understand the secrets that free you from universal determinism … everything is subject to necessity, but me, I can participate in a superior reality … Man is overwhelmed by the shades of darkness, but me, I can partake of the secrets of the gods … me, I can comprehend … me, I can … me, I can do … me, I can exist in a transcendental state ….’ We have consequently given them the generic name of the Meyie or Meyicans, and call their profession Meyic; these words they have taken over without understanding them, changing them slightly into Magi, Magicians, and Magic. If you would care to follow me …”
“No thanks!” I said to him with a shudder. “I have no wish to know anything which I have not worked hard to find out for myself. I’m pretty sure it would be the same thing here as with the Scienters: in the process, I’d get left in a dustbin.”
“You are much too shrewd to be honest. But one thing you are still unaware of is that I have installed here an Abyssologist, as we call certified inspectors of dustbins. At least come along and see him at work.”
38
I duly went along. The inspector of dustbins was set up in a remote office, which was smothered in heavy drapes and barely lit with night lights. He was standing at the head of a patient’s bed and saying to him: “Just settle down comfortably on the couch. Close your eyes and relax. Don’t think about anything. Let yourself drift off into a half sleep, and then you are to tell me everything that passes through your head, keeping nothing back, without choosing or judging. Take your time about it.”
Five minutes went by without a word being spoken, and then the prostrate man said: “Isn’t it hot in here!” And he wiped his hand across his forehead. The inspector jotted something in a notebook and asked: “Were you sometimes too hot when you were a child?”
“Sometimes. For example, the time I had the measles. I had an eider down on me and my mother used to put a hot-water bottle into my bed.”
“Was that unpleasant?”
“At first, my feet would get burnt. But after, it was quite nice.”
“Was it always your mother that brought in the hot-water bottle?”
“Yes. Oh well, once it was my sister; but she had put the stopper in wrong and the water got everywhere.”
“Aha!” murmured the inspector with an exclamation of suppressed triumph. He wrote something down quickly and said:
“Do you sometimes forget your umbrella?”
“No, I don’t use any such cumbersome and inefficient instrument.”
“Very interesting. And did your father use an umbrella?”
“Yes. Anyway, he was a proper gentleman.”
The Abyssologist noted down something else and started his questioning again. I couldn’t see what he was driving at. I found it pretty sickening for a man to degrade himself like that and deliberately make an ass of himself in front of someone whose only claim to authority was his title and status. Professor Mumu upbraided me for my naivety and explained to me that the patient being questioned was, in intention at least, a dangerous criminal who if he had been less cowardly in his youth would have mutilated his father, outraged his mother, horrified his sister, and scandalized his uncle in the most appalling manner; he added that his veiled confessions would cure him of his wayward impulses, which would be transformed into charming artful objects, amongst which we would soon be making our way, for the converse of the proverb was true: Paradise is paved with bad intentions.
39
A question that is as old as the world came to me, and I wanted an answer to it before visiting the dwelling place of the gods. I questioned the Professor: “How is it that this world does not get filled up? How do the surplus bodies manage to get away? Because, since they are not really living, they can never die.”
“Yes, we’ve given that a great deal of thought. Since you’ve asked me, I’ll tell you. But it must stay just betwee
n us two.”
He had me sit down under a tree made of brass, and began:
“Death has to be organized, you know, otherwise life would be no more than a perpetual vicious circle. A few patients, it is true, die of their illnesses in the end, especially among those who were brought here as grown-ups; from time to time, you get the odd Fidgeter who explodes, or lets himself be gobbled up by his car, Fabricators who change into statues, or pianos or penholders, Clarificators who turn into thermometers or bookworms. But the young, my dear sir, the immortal young who are born here, and have grown up here, how are they to be liquidated? Hitherto, nothing had been done for the young. So when I arrived, I found myself in conflict with hordes of adolescents for whose ever-increasing numbers there was no longer any room in our hospitals. They were threatening to wreck everything, they were stamping their feet, and could have smashed up the floor boards, burst through the ceiling, and landed on the ground floor where they would have contaminated everybody.
“I had to adopt emergency procedures. I called together a committee of Composers of useless utterances, and I was able to persuade them to write a certain number of works of propaganda designed to point out to these young people the quickest ways to destruction.
“Some recommended brutal methods of suicide, such as hanging, shooting, drowning, and others; they had some success among young intellectuals with a predisposition that way, but it was not enough.
“Others advocated slow lingering suicide by poisoning. In verse and in prose, ofter very skillfully, they sang the praises of beautific mummification by opium, the theatrical, tumultuous transmutation of everything by hashish, the swarming, breath-taking dizziness of cocaine, the metaphysical stupefaction of ether, and the disintegrating effects of various other substances. This was a great success and it has lasted. The manufacturers of drugs and the drug trade are still flourishing, and the volumes of verse which stimulate them are selling like hot cakes.
“Other men of letters composed treatises, supposititiously translated from Eastern languages, in which was elaborated the art of rapidly becoming neurasthenic, neuropathic, cachectic, demineralized, phthisical, and finally a cadaver through the use of diets and appropriate respiratory exercises. But this was effective only with those young people who were called intellectual or artistic, and the others still pullulated like maggots.
