10
As Pilgrim and Forster arrived at Tours in the evening hours of Wednesday, July 3rd, news of the fire at Chartres had already reached the press. FIRST THE MONA LISA, NOW THIS! one headline read. CHARTRES AFLAME! read another.
There were photographs of smoke pouring from the cathedral’s doors and of the ruined choir stalls, but the story itself was sadder than that.
It was not until investigators began probing the damaged areas that the remains of a man had been discovered. It seemed that one of the lepers in the churchyard, seeing the flickering light of fire on the stained-glass windows, had crawled inside to fight the flames any way he could, and had perished in the process. Other lepers and beggars had already formed a bucket brigade by the time les pompiers arrived and finally brought the fire under control—but no one had managed to save the first man in.
When Pilgrim read of these things, he fell silent and refused to eat. Nonetheless, he and Forster went and sat in the dining-room of L’Hôtel Touraine, shuffled the menus and drank wine.
“I shall take up smoking again,” Pilgrim said at last, and sent Forster to buy cigarettes. He had not smoked for some years, having given it up when he noted that Sybil Quartermaine had become addicted to it. Most unbecoming, he had told her, particularly in a woman. But now he needed the distraction—something to fiddle with—fuss with—concentrate on when the boredom of Forster’s pathetic countenance became too much to bear. Forster had started to look not unlike Mole in The Wind in the Willows—a little lost, a trifle disoriented—endlessly sad. Like Mole, Forster wanted to go home.
In the night, Pilgrim dreamt of the fingerless, toeless man who had been described in the newspaper accounts, crawling to the flames, unable to subdue them. A life had been lost. The last thing Pilgrim had had in mind—and the only thing he had prayed would not happen. The cathedral stood, largely undamaged, but a man had died. Pilgrim’s dream addressed this irony with images so vivid that he called out for them to stop and Forster had to wake him.
In the morning it rained. Too late.
At noon on Thursday, the 4th of July, Pilgrim and Forster got into the Renault, having eaten a light breakfast. They headed south.
“May we know where in Spain?” Forster asked, attempting to sound casual, as if the question was of no real interest.
“Avila,” Pilgrim told him. And that was all.
Forster had never heard of Avila. It meant nothing to him.
At two o’clock, they stopped on the outskirts of a small village by the name of Le Virage, which meant the bend, referring to an elbow in the river—the river being the Loire.
There was an inn at the crossroads. The next stop was to have been Poitiers, but Forster was doubtful they could achieve it by nightfall.
Having had only café au lait and a shared croissant, they decided to pause at the inn, named for the family who had owned and run it since before the Revolution—L’Auberge Chandoraise.
Pilgrim, discontented and restless, sent Forster in to see if a meal could be arranged.
“Get us a decent table,” he said, “and order a bottle of claret. Tell them we are ravenous, and to kill the fatted calf.”
Forster did not even smile. Standing beside the motor car, he nodded, pushed back his cap and made for the entrance.
I shall go and look at the river, Pilgrim thought, watching his valet go his way. I have always been partial to rivers, and the Loire is amongst the most beautiful.
Sliding into Forster’s seat behind the wheel, Pilgrim threw the still-vibrating engine into gear.
As Forster entered L’Auberge Chandoraise, he imagined that he heard the Renault drive away, but knowing this was impossible—since Mister Pilgrim had never driven—he proceeded to find the propriétaire.
Pilgrim was approaching the river on a cart track when he had a moment of blind panic, suddenly realizing he did not know how to stop the motor car.
He had watched Forster do so at least twenty times, but all he could think of was the gesture that had accompanied the end of each journey. Handle. Handle. He had pulled a handle. But where, where?
Left hand. Left hand. It had to be with the left hand. Frantically, his eyes still on the cart track, Pilgrim grasped at the air between his left leg and the door.
Brake! Brake! For God’s sake!
At the very last minute, he found it and gave a mighty pull. The Renault shuddered to a stop, throwing Pilgrim against the steering wheel so violently that he thought it might have pierced his diaphragm. The breath was knocked completely out of him and he had to struggle to regain it.
The river was no more than five feet from the front wheels—five feet of tall grass and willow wands and five feet of incline—downwards.
Pilgrim got out and leaned for a moment against the hood of the Renault. From a bridge nearby, he heard the sound of children at play. A dog barked. The proximity of the river was pleasing to him. He had always enjoyed the sight and sound of water. And its smell.
Here the Loire was wide and somewhat treacherous. Its undercurrent was swift and powerful, though its surface seemed languid enough, moving at a seemingly leisurely pace. But, standing at the edge and looking down, Pilgrim could see the turmoil in the depths, where a profusion of dangerous weeds could drag a man under in seconds.
The image of Sybil rose in his mind—he could not tell why. Possibly it had to do with his near disaster with the motor car and the fact that she had been swept away by an avalanche just as he had so nearly been swept away by the river.
He gazed across the water at the opposite bank. There were cows over there in a field. And a dog. A cowherd’s dog. A black dog. A dog at the river’s edge, who eyed him with an almost merry look and wagged its tail.
The river, he thought. The Styx, Loire, the Thames, Las Aguas, the Arno, the Scamander at Troy…There has always been a river near at hand.
Once, he had attempted to drown himself in the Serpentine. To no avail.
But who was to say that water could not become his ally and his accomplice, now that Sybil was dead and the gods were departing?
In the wilderness, I found an altar with this inscription: TO THE UNKNOWN GOD…And I have made my sacrifice accordingly.
Here was wilderness enough. Fields where vistas had no visible conclusion—a sky as wide as Creation—trees and the chatter of unseen children—a river whose depths he could barely fathom. Pilgrim did not even know where he was, except that he knew it was somewhere south of Chartres en route to Spain and Avila.
He glanced over his shoulder at the Renault, where it sat amidst the tall grass looking like an intruder from another planet.
Almost all the way, he thought.
And then: why not?
He tried to conjure the Unknown God—the one remaining god of whom he had no experience.
Pray.
There may be answers. There may even be forgiveness for the death of that man I killed at Chartres. Mea culpa. Mea culpa. Mea maxima culpa…
Pilgrim lightly beat his breast, and as if the dog were not enough, he swept the sky in search of a further sign.
It was there, as always. The ever-present wings of an eagle.
Pilgrim walked back to the motor car.
Think nothing. Do.
He opened the door and climbed inside.
The incline was such that he need not even start the engine. Releasing the brake would be enough.
He smiled.
There is a willow grows aslant the brook…he remembered. And there it was before him—Ophelia’s willow tree—standing to one side as if making way for his passage, just as it made way for hers.
Slowly, he reached down and released the brake.
May it finally be over, he murmured—and closed his eyes.
Someone presently came running into the courtyard of the Auberge Chandoraise. A boy who had been fishing from the nearby bridge with an older friend.
An automobile had been driven into the river, he claimed, and his friend was divin
g to see if the occupant could be saved. Come at once!
That was all.
Everyone ran.
The boy who had remained behind was pulled from the water, exhausted. Men stripped off their clothes and took his place.
“I saw him! I saw him!” the boy kept repeating. “He was in there! I saw him! But when I went down to find him, there was no one…”
The motor car was empty, except for its baggage.
Forster waited. He begged to be allowed to join the divers but they would not allow him. These men knew the river. He did not. He was unaware of its dangerous currents and its weeds. One life was enough to lose. Two would be pure waste.
Police, villagers and passing travellers all collected on the riverbank. For a death site, it was a scene of extraordinary vibrancy, what with its naked divers, its women, its children and the resplendent figures of overdressed tourists, some of whom retrieved picnic hampers from their motor cars and told their chauffeurs to spread blankets on the grass.
The search lasted for four hours—and then the local prefect called it off. “We shall find the deceased,” he announced, “at some future time down-river. Clearly, he has been swept away.”
Forster stayed until it was dark. Had Mister Pilgrim succeeded at last in committing suicide, or had he survived some accident that had befallen him? Forster would never know—but he could guess. On the far side of the river, a black dog raised its head towards the moon and bayed.
11
One week later—on Thursday, July 11th—Jung received an envelope at the Clinic. It had no return address, but had been mailed from Dieppe, in Normandy.
It was from H. Forster, Esq.—and Jung had to smile at the mild pretension of the signature, clearly long contemplated but never before used. Mister Forster is now a gentleman, he thought. Well—as the English say, bully for him!
On the other hand, it was not a welcome letter, containing as it did the news of Pilgrim’s presumed demise.
Oddly, neither Forster in his communiqué nor Jung in his reaction to it could bring himself to use the word death. It was as though, in reference to Pilgrim, the word was forbidden.
Forster did not write of the events at the Louvre, nor did he write of what had taken place at Chartres. He did admit to having played a role in Pilgrim’s escape and he described their flight in the Renault and what he called Mister Pilgrim’s desire to pay his final respects to certain temples of art.
And how were these respects known to be final?
The enclosed letter from Mister Pilgrim would explain.
Forster had written with a kind of simple respect for another man’s integrity that was rare and touching. There was not an ounce of condescension to Pilgrim’s illness or mental distress. The man was simply who he was, and that was that. He had beliefs and passions that were both unique and disturbing, moving and unsettling. His love of art and of nature—especially of birds—and of his dog Agamemnon had been unyielding.
He had a most original sense of dress, Forster wrote, and it was a privilege to lay out his clothes.
His foibles, if I may call them that, were endearing. His rejection of certain foods—his insistence on having his bath be of a certain temperature—his bad-tempered letters to The Times—his unfailing loyalty to friends, et cetera, et cetera. His discipline was exemplary and he wrote every day. He could be wonderfully rude to people of whom he despaired and equally patient and polite with people, however boring, who felt they had something of importance to say to him. He never required me to shut the door in anyone’s face—a form of rudeness he deplored—but he did instruct me on some occasions, having ascertained who had rung the bell by looking down from above, not to open the door. That will save you from slamming it, he would say.
As to Mister Pilgrim’s demise, I can only say this: that I was absent in the Auberge for no longer than ten minutes, during which time I arranged our luncheon as instructed. When I emerged to inform Mister Pilgrim of this, he was nowhere to be seen.
A young person came and told us someone had driven an automobile into the Loire. I knew at once that it was him. Mister Pilgrim.
Everything was done that could be done to recover him, but he was gone. Now we are without him. I will grieve until I die. Though he was, of course, my employer, I believe he was also my friend.
You and I did not meet, but I got what I know of you from Lady Quartermaine, who had the utmost faith in your care of Mister Pilgrim. As it turned out, she was mistaken; and while I do not intend that as an insult, the truth remains—we all lost him.
In a few days, or many, we shall no doubt hear of the discovery of Mister Pilgrim’s body, in which case, I shall return to France to reclaim it. It will then be my sad duty to see him properly dealt with—cremated, as he wished, and scattered in the garden at Cheyne Walk, where he was happy.
In the meantime, I wish to say that I discovered the enclosed letter in Mister Pilgrim’s luggage. It is addressed to yourself and so I must assume that he meant you to read it—which, of course, I have not done. I have kept his fountain pen as a memento. It is blue—his favourite colour.
I remain,
Sincerely yours,
H. Forster, Esq.
Pilgrim was never found. Forster never returned to France. A lifetime had ended. Or one of them.
12
Jung set Forster’s letter aside and sat for a moment mourning the loss of Pilgrim and also, as he sat there, mourning his increasing awareness of what had been lost to him forever in Pilgrim’s imagined recreation of the past.
He flirted with the phrase creative recreation of the past—also, a decisive recreation of the past—and even a definitive recreation of the past. But he could not settle on any one of these. What was it that Pilgrim had achieved with such supreme confidence?
Madness is always confident of its own resources, Jung decided. Madness always knows its own boundaries and never wavers. It speaks more truly from its own heart than I am able to speak from mine…
He smiled.
Madness knows itself through and through, he went on, and we who are not mad know nothing through and through. We guess—we stumble towards truths—we disguise our uncertainty with apologies and silences, claiming politely that we “know” nothing, while giving the appearance of knowing everything. Mister Pilgrim never once stepped back from being himself. He lived entirely on the brink of everyone’s acceptance, while suffering the endless deprivation of anyone’s belief. He was never allowed to cross the line…
Who had ever said to him: I believe you.
Only Lady Quartermaine, so far as Jung could tell—and even with her, there was a wariness. She wanted to believe. At least that much was true.
Jung took the second letter and unfolded it.
It was no longer than three and a half pages. Its salutation said: My dear Herr Doktor Blockhead…
Jung smiled yet again. Here was Mister Pilgrim, intransigent to the end—ever pressing forward with his attack on reason.
“You don’t have to believe this, but you should,” Jung whispered—echoing Pilgrim’s voice.
My dear Herr Doktor Blockhead,
As I near the end of my journey, I remind you that you once said to me that if you were to believe me, I must imagine myself in Galileo’s shoes, or the shoes of Joan of Arc or of Louis Pasteur. You made the point that each of these visionaries had faced tribunals entirely made up of sceptics but that none had retreated from the need to be believed. Each had pressed forward, even after death, until in time they were proven right. The earth does revolve around the sun, God does seek to be heard through His saints and inoculation does prevent disease. An eclectic trio of believers, to say the least.
But I am wary, now, of tribunals. Wary and weary. You have pondered the question of whether there might be what you called in my presence once: the collective unconscious of humanity, a phrase I believe you coined. Clearly, Herr Doktor Dunce, the answer is yes—for I am living proof of it. I have been present at every tu
rning of humanity’s fortunes and, as I have attempted to impress upon you, the burden of the collective unconscious has been, for me, doubly unbearable—since in all my time the human race has steadfastly turned away from the gravity of its own warnings, the integrity of its own enlightenment and the beauty of its own worth.
The evidence is overwhelming. At every given opportunity, we have rejected the truth of our collective memory and marched back into the flames as if fire were our only possible salvation.
I have been much and often aware over the past few years of yet another conflagration standing in our immediate path. I cannot tell what form it will take, but it is there and it awaits us. Sooner rather than later, we shall be impelled to embrace it. All because we have refused yet again to pay attention to the educated voices inside of us that have called out universally: STOP!
And of course, neither you nor anyone else believes that what I have foreseen will actually come to pass. Not to be believed is part of my eternal punishment—my life sentence, that extends through so many lives and so much time.
The point I am making is this: your collective unconscious is already proven worthless. You, Herr Doktor Bumble, turned your own back on it when you confronted me and refused to believe. But is it not true in science that a theory is nothing until it is proved? When you interrogated me, you stumbled and fell because you refused to accept me as proof of your own theory. You have failed because you cannot differentiate between the consequences of being right and the consequences of being wrong. You forget that in between these two, there are the consequences of being neither—but merely lost.
Pilgrim Page 46
