by Joseph Roth
On the screen they showed an Egyptian princess. She was bathing naked in the Nile with some naked playmates. She fished out a little box, daubed with pitch inside and out. In this box lay Moses, the future leader of the Jews, the lawgiver of the world.
Very small, infinitesimally small, was the box in which lay Moses, the leader of the Jews and lawgiver of the world.
But large and pretty were the breasts and thighs of the princess and her bathing friends, and, although the lawgiver of the world amounts to much more than a woman’s breast, the box in which he lay immediately disappeared as though swallowed up by the cone of light, and the princess splashed towards the shore, and we saw her back as before we had seen her breasts.
And as everything in the world has its rank and degree, I believe that even the truth of true things is falsified and turned upside down when these are used as pretexts for that which is great and sublime. So in using the wondrous discovery of mankind’s lawgiver as an excuse for showing the beautiful back and pretty breasts of the Egyptian princess, they destroyed the beauty of her body.
And this is one of the aims of the Antichrist. It is ever his goal to desecrate one marvel through use of another. By this, too, we may recognize him.
Later the war was shown. It was the Russo-Japanese War. Entire regiments were marching. They didn’t move from right to left or vice versa; rather, they came, as small as specks of dust at first from the background of the screen (which was not really a background), growing ever larger, swelling and marching directly towards us as they became ever more enormous, and they appeared as if they were about to trample over the front rows of spectators with their hobnailed boots. The first double row of marching soldiers were already lifting their massive feet to step upon our necks, and we began to duck in anticipation of the footfalls. But then they vanished, just as shadows vanish. They couldn’t survive outside of the screen. They had achieved as much as shadows can achieve. They had been able to grow, to swell to the size of a colossus. But in the same degree to which they grew larger they also became more transient and empty, and the textured surface of the screen began to show under the impending threat of their iron-shod boots. They were large, these shadows, but also porous. Holes appeared, bright holes, in the midst of their vast bodies, and the more threatening they seemed the more powerless they grew. The first column dissolved into space, then the second, the third, the fourth, the tenth. Soon we realized that we didn’t need to duck any more. But, just as this terror was overcome, an even greater one attacked us. And this was caused by our realization that the columns marching towards us were the images of actual troops. In the instant they were filmed marching they had been alive. Through the act of filming they had become shadows, the shadows they should not have become until later but which they actually became shortly after the film had been shot. We were seized with terror at the sight of them, because we were not yet accustomed, as are people today, to seeing living shadows without living bodies, and so at that moment we did not know if the shadows that were marching towards us were actually those of fallen soldiers. In one or another of the spectators this might have awakened the memory of the biblical scenes they had just viewed, that is, the breasts of the bathing Egyptian girls. And since the latter, as every child had to know, were dead and decaying for thousands of years, this understanding helped confirm that the shadows were those of dead soldiers.
So the true wonder, which uplifts us or flushes us with a fervent bliss, is different from the so-called technological wonder, which merely terrifies or amazes us or fills us with arrogance about the progress we have achieved. For we know that the latter was achieved through ‘natural things’. So we quickly recover from our fear and astonishment (while our arrogance increases), and we think about it and come to the conclusion that the bathing Egyptians are our living contemporaries who have set aside their clothing and sold the shadows of their naked bodies for money; shadows that were paid for just as real bodies are paid for in this world. But if this was the case with the girls, how was it with the soldiers? Surely they had not sold their shadows for money. And what an injustice, what a special injustice, even compared with the injustices that we have become used to in this world and which we have gradually come to perceive as right. The girls had been given money merely for doing healthful and pleasant work – for bathing in a river. On the other hand, the soldiers, who were marching to their deaths and were about to become true shadows, had not been paid a penny for giving up their shadows. Yes, at the moment they were off to meet their suffering, in the last hour of their lives, their shadows had been stolen at a moment when they could not think of asking for money. We, however, were paying for them with our entry fee, in other words, in order to see them heading to their deaths (just as we had paid to see naked, bathing Egyptians). And because the soldiers had not requested payment for their shadows, it was really they who were paying for the shadows of the bathing girls! Even if the film producer was committing a base fraud by pretending to show the discovery of Moses when in reality he only showed a tiny box (but life-sized shadows of women), yet at least he had invested money in this sham – money that even the law says justifies this or that. But the soldiers who were going to their deaths had received no payment from the man. He had stolen their shadows. And even in our world, in which money plays a role in justice, theft is punished. However, the man who animated the cinema with shadows could not be punished since otherwise it would not be possible to charge an entrance fee to exhibit the product of his crime. If only he had stolen the shadows of soldiers heading towards their deaths to demonstrate how many men must die for a cause that has no concern with any individual among them – but, no, he had actually stolen their shadows for the very same reason that he had bought those of the naked girls. For he knew that we were human, and he offered to us both the lust of the flesh and the horrors of death. He was deliberately playing on our sensuality, directed equally towards the flesh of our living brothers and living sisters as towards the horrible destruction of our neighbour. He exploited our human frailty, through theft if possible, and when he could not steal, through money. And so he put on a so-called ‘programme’ such as is still shown in all the cinemas of the world today.
To whom can it be due that a fruit of human reason, and therefore of divine grace, has been utilized, from the very first instant of its practical application, to distort that reason?
Which of all the forces that control our existence is equipped with such malice and power that it can pay bathing girls and steal from dying men.? Is he just an ordinary thief? Is he not more likely the same one who pays young girls to undress and enter the water while he arms men and sends them to their deaths, selling the shadows of the one and the other for the price of a ticket? Had he really robbed the soldiers of their shadows? Is he not far more mighty than just a thief or robber? Who can use the miraculous rescue of the lawgiver of the world as an excuse for girls to undress? Who can thus play upon our sensuality, which craves living flesh with the same intensity with which it devours horrible death? Who can thus transform the gift of reason into a curse? Who has the power to pay girls who are merely bathing and to rob the dying soldiers? And both at the same time? Had he not arranged a war between Russia and Japan? Just as easily as he arranged a bath for the naked girls? Did he not select the very moment when our reason began to do wondrous things to fool us? The very moment at which we believed that we could not be blinded, since we were performing so-called miracles? Can one fool gods? And do we not think that we are gods because we are in the process of learning from the gods how to perform miracles and even to make them intelligible? This is the moment for the Antichrist, this moment in which we take ourselves for gods because we perform miracles that we understand, even though we are not gods.
This is his hour; this is the hour of the Antichrist.
AND I ALSO BECAME A SOLDIER
Then there came unto the world the Great War, which is called the World War; many became soldiers, and I also becam
e a soldier.
We know that all around the world the Antichrist mingles with the soldiers as he has always done; with soldiers, who are compelled to regard life lightly while continually in the presence of Death, for it is actually Death who is their father and not the kaiser, and the ‘other world’ is their real fatherland even during their lifetime. It is therefore remarkable that the sons of Death should also let themselves be seduced by earthly things, that they should live for earthly glory and conceive a love for it. Although the Evil One can rarely seduce them with the clinking coins that others put into their wallets, he seduces soldiers with similar, somewhat larger coins which they can pin on to their chests. And he also seduces them through stars and buttons, through stripes and braids. I have seen so many who, one hour before we marched forth to sink into the arms of our father, Death, hastily obtain through cunning, baseness, the shabby trick of foolish ambition or even by physical violence, one more star, one more button, one more length of braid, so that he might be distinguished by these things from the others at the very second that they are all about to die. The train that carried us to the battlefield contained different kinds of cars, and in the better ones were those who had more braid and better buttons.
The first thing I will relate is that during the time when we were training and learning to use weapons we had various mundane tasks to perform on a daily basis. So one day I went out with a squad of soldiers whose job it was to collect metal throughout the town from which would be made cannon and cannonballs – latches, candlesticks and, in general, all kinds of domestic utensils that contained copper, brass, nickel, iron or steel. A large wagon covered with a canvas roof was driven into the courtyard of the barracks, and it was similar to the one that had delivered the first film theatre into our town. We were twenty-four soldiers, and the twenty-fifth, or, more accurately, the first, was the sergeant. When the horses were harnessed and the driver was ready to pull on the reins, the gate of the barracks was opened wide, and into the courtyard rolled a large black automobile with soft curtains spread over its windows. From the car stepped a very friendly black-clad gentleman carrying a black briefcase. Everything about him was dignified and kind – his pointed grey beard, his thick soft moustache and the gentle brown eyes with which he inspected us. From the pockets of his overcoat he withdrew chocolate bars and packs of cigarettes, and everyone received some of one and some of the other. If we had been one hundred or even one thousand, even then, none of us would have left empty-handed. This gentleman was like a kind yet powerful father. His mild, charitable hands had the ability, as soon as they were plunged into the depths of his pockets, to produce presents that he hadn’t even brought with him. He smiled at us, got back in his car and drove on ahead of us. And where he stopped we also stopped, went into homes and retrieved domestic utensils to put in our large wagon. After we had emptied many houses the black car stopped before a church. Here the mild gentleman stepped out and hurried up the steps with his hat in his hand. We followed him and stood, our caps in our hands, in the golden twilight of the church. The sexton came. The gentleman murmured something. The gentleman motioned to us, and we followed the sexton. We entered a small yard bordering the church. In the yard stood two bells, church bells, covered with verdigris as though with bluish-green velvet cloaks. They were old bells. Just as men attain the dignity of silver in old age, so do old bells acquire the dignity of verdigris, which is a kind of moss for metals, so that we are reminded of the ground in thick forests and of all types of ancient rocks and walls and stones. The bells were heavy. And as it was the first day we had been assigned to such a task we lacked suitable equipment, and while we were considering how we could lift the bells the kind gentleman came and said we should first overturn them and then roll them out of the yard. So we laid the bells down and saw that they were hollow bells, missing their clappers, which are the souls of bells; they were thus empty and dead bells. The gentleman bent down, and when he noticed that the clappers were missing he asked the sexton about it. So two of us went with the sexton and returned with the clappers. We then rolled away the bells with our hands, although it would have been easier to push them with our feet. But we didn’t dare. The empty bells echoed dully against the stones of the yard. Next, we threaded thick ropes through the holes, tied one end of each rope to a side of the wagon, and by mounting the vehicle we were able to hoist the bells up. We then drove on with two dead church bells, one on each side of the wagon. We stopped again in front of a large red-brick building outside of town, and in a great hall that already contained thousands of metal utensils of the type that we had brought with us (and hundreds of bells both laying and upright) we unloaded the contents of our wagon, the booty of our labours. And the clappers were put into a large zinc kettle. As we dumped them they emitted a ringing sound, as though they had remembered that they were bell clappers that were supposed to ring.
The bells were made into cannon. Later I was sent to the front. And on the side of one of the many roads through which we passed stood a kind gentleman, still young in years, clad from head to foot in brown leather and wearing large goggles that were part of his leather helmet. Now there seemed to be something missing from this helmet. I didn’t know what, but it was quite obvious that there was something missing. Only much later did I realize that what was missing from the helmet was horns. This leather-clad gentleman gave us all chocolate and cigarettes, which he extracted from a roomy leather sack carried by two soldiers. He then hurried back to the side of the road, and we marched past him again (as is normally done only for generals and other high military officers) while he turned the crank on a black box that had a round glass eye in the middle. This eye swallowed all of our shadows. So now I knew that many years before the shadows of the Russian and Japanese soldiers had been bought with chocolate and cigarettes. And I could already envision our shadows on the screens of theatres throughout the land.
Shortly before Christmas a black automobile came and stopped just behind the battlefield where dead soldiers lay, and several gentlemen stepped out of the car. Among them was one who seemed especially kind and dignified. We all liked him immediately, mainly because of his reassuring grey beard. We had halted, that is to say, in the parlance of war, that we could rest before beginning once again to shoot and to die. We were marched not far from the black automobile. The kind-looking gentleman spoke to us. And what he said pleased us because of his gentle and agreeable voice. He ordered a number of large leather sacks to be fetched, and it took twenty of us to lug these sacks, from which chocolate and cigarettes were distributed to the soldiers. At this time an aviator began to circle over our heads. And since the aviator was one of the enemy (called in the language of war ‘an enemy pilot’) he dropped a bomb. And then the black automobile vanished, smoke and stench rising from the place where it had stood. The kind gentleman turned around and left, accompanied by the others, who were somewhat more rigid-looking. Then a large grey car owned by the general pulled up and took away these gentlemen, whom we never saw again.
And when we returned to the battlefield, which in the language of war is known as ‘the trenches’, on the night that Jesus Christ was born, many of us died with pockets full of cigarettes and chocolate. These good gifts were taken by the survivors from the pockets of the fallen. And the guns made from bells continued to launch their thunder over our heads and towards those who, in the language of war, were known simply as ‘the enemy’.
While we are speaking about the bells, I must explain how I was reminded of them after the war when I was poor and searching for work. There was employment to be had in the large red-brick building where we had once unloaded the metal and the bells, a place called the arsenal. We went there in search of work. In the great hall lay cannon, some whole, some damaged, some broken in pieces. There stood the gentle, grey-bearded man with the mild golden-brown eyes, and he directed us what to do. We loaded the broken weapons on to iron carts, and some of us smashed the undamaged ones with hammers. Outside, a large cover
ed wagon was waiting. We loaded the cannon remnants on to it, and when it was so full that it could hold no more we drove it to a large factory, and there we unloaded the remains of cannon and guns.
The factory supervisor (who looked like our sergeant) made sure that everything was unloaded.
‘What are you going to make with it?’ I asked the supervisor.
‘All kinds of useful things,’ said the supervisor. ‘The war is finished, my friend! We’re going to make latches, locks, doors, candlesticks, mortars and bells – yes, church bells.’
THE CANNON AND THE BELLS
Since that time, whenever I hear the song of the bells, it seems as if gun barrels are swaying over the roofs and the towers of the churches, as if they are being swung not by worthy sextons or cheerful boys but by the one of whom I am speaking in this book. Has he not already so confused the ears of men that they find the thundering of cannon pleasant, even sweet, but the song of the bells unbearable? And has he not he apparently given these men the right to have perverted hearing and to be proud of it?
Ask the people in that expansive country where fools call themselves ‘godless’ before God has abandoned them (and only because they think they have abandoned Him) – ask them what the bells have done to them that they extract them from the churches.
They will give the following reply: ‘The bells toll and boom and disturb our rest.’
And ask them whether the booming of the bells is more unmelodious than, for example, the howling of sirens or the discordant singing of crowds of people in the streets on various festive occasions or ten gramophones being played simultaneously in a single, thin-walled house.
They will reply: ‘Sirens and gramophones have never been turned into cannon with which to kill us.’
And say further: ‘Then mustn’t you also banish the latches and metal vessels from your houses?’
