Plexus (46 page)

He came on me just as I had finished the paragraph.
“What!”
he exclaimed. “You're reading Elie Faure?”

“Why not?” I was at a loss to understand his amazement.

He hesitated a moment, scratched his head, then answered falteringly: “I don't know, Henry… I never thought.… Well, I'll be damned! Do you really find it interesting?”

“Interesting?”
I echoed. “I'm mad about Elie Faure.” “Where are you at?” he asked, reaching for the book. “Ah, I see.” He read the paragraph over, aloud. “I wish I had the time to read that sort of book—it's too much of a luxury for me.”

“I don't follow you.”

“One has to swallow such books early in life,” said Karen. “It's sheer poetry, you know. Makes too much of a demand on one. You're lucky you have time to spare. You're still an aesthete.”

“And you?”

“Just a work horse, I guess. I've put my dreams behind me.”

“All those books in there.…” I nodded in the direction of the library. “You've read them?”

“Most of them,” he answered. “Some of them I'm reserving for leisure moments.”

“I noticed you had several books on Paracelsus. I only glanced at them—but they intrigue me.”

I hoped he would snatch at the bait, but no, he dismissed the subject by remarking, as if to himself, that one could spend a lifetime struggling to grasp the meaning of Paracelsus' theories.

“And what about Nostradamus?” I asked. I was intent on getting
some
spark from him.

To my surprise his face suddenly lit up. “Ah, that's another story,” he replied. “Why do you ask—have you been reading him?”

“One doesn't
read
Nostradamus. I've been reading
about
him. What excites me is the Preface which he addressed to his infant son, Caesar. It's an extraordinary document, in more ways than one. Can you spare a minute?”

He nodded. I got up, brought the book back, and hunted up the page which had inflamed me just a few days before.

“Listen to this,” I said. I read him a few salient passages, then stopped abruptly. “There are two passages in this book which… well, they baffle me. Perhaps you can explain them to me. The first one is this: ‘M. le Pelletier (says the author) conceives that the
Commun Advènement
, or
l' avènement au règne des gens du commum
, which I have rendered “the Vulgar Advent,” extending from the death of Louis XVI to the reign of Antichrist, is the grand objects of Nostradamus.' I'll come back to this in a moment. Here's the second one: ‘As an accepted visionary he (Nostradamus) is perhaps less swayed by the imagination than any man of an at all kindred type that one can mention.' “ I paused. “What do you make of them, if anything?”

Karen took his time before answering. I surmised that he was conducting an inner debate, first, as to whether
he could spare the time to make adequate answer to the question, second, whether it would be worth his while to waste his ammunition on a type like myself.

“You understand, Henry,” he began, “that you're asking me to explain something highly complex. Let me ask you first, have you ever read anything by Evelyn Underhill, or by A. A. Waite?” I shook my head. “I thought as much,” he continued. “Naturally you wouldn't have asked my opinion if you hadn't sensed the nature of these perplexing statements. I'd like to ask you another question, if you don't mind. Do you understand the difference between a prophet, a mystic, a visionary and a seer?”

I hesitated a moment, then said: “Not too clearly, but I see what you're driving at. I believe, however, that if given time to reflect I could answer your question.”

“Well, let's not bother now,” said Karen. “I merely wanted to test your background.”

“Take it for granted that it's nil,” said I, growing a bit annoyed by these preliminaries.

“You must excuse me,” said Karen, “for beginning in this fashion. It's not very kind, is it? A hangover from school days, I guess. Look here, Henry… Intelligence is one thing—native intelligence, I mean. Knowledge is another. Knowledge and training, I should say, because they go together. What you know you've picked up in haphazard fashion. I underwent a rigorous discipline. I say this so that you will understand why I fumble about instead of answering right off the bat. In these matters we speak different languages, you and I. In a way—forgive the thought!—you're like a superior type of savage. Your I.Q. is probably just as high as mine, perhaps higher. But we approach the domain of knowledge in diametrically opposite ways. Because of my training and background I'm quite apt to underestimate your ability to grasp what I have to impart. And you, for your part, are most apt to think that I am wasting words, splitting hairs, parading my erudition.”

I interrupted him. “It's you who fancy all this,” said I. “I haven't any preconceived notions whatsoever. It doesn't matter to me how you proceed, so long as you give me a definite answer.”

“That's just what I expected you to say, old man. To you it's all quite simple and straightforward. Not so to me! You see, I was taught to postpone queries of this sort until convinced that I could find the answer nowhere.… However, all this is no answer, is it? Now let's see.… What was it precisely you wished to know? It's important to get that straight, otherwise we'll end up in the Pontine Marshes.”

I read the second statement over again, giving emphasis to the words “less swayed by the imagination.”

To my own astonishment I caught myself saying: “Never mind, I understand it perfectly now.”

“You do?” cried Karen. “Huh! Explain it to
me
, then, will you?”

“I'll try,” said I, “though you must realize that it's one thing to understand a thing yourself and another to explain it to someone.” (That's tit for tat, thought I to myself.) Then, sincerely in earnest, I began: “If you were a prophet instead of a statistician or mathematician, I would say that there was something of a resemblance between you and Nostradamus. I mean, in the way you go about things. The prophetic art is a gift, and so is the mathematical flair, if I may call it that. Nostradamus, it would seem, refused to exploit his natural gift in the usual way. As you know, he was versed not only in astrology but in the magic arts. He had knowledge of things hidden—or forbidden—to the scholar. He was not only a physician but a psychologist. He was many, many things all in one. In short, he had command of so many co-ordinates that it clipped his wings. He limited himself—I say this advisedly—to what was given, like a scientist. In his solo flights he moved from one level to another with cold-blooded precision, always equipped with instruments, charts, tables and private keys.
However fantastic his prophecies may sound to us, I doubt if they originated in dream and reverie.
Inspired
they were, beyond question. But one has every reason to believe that Nostradamus deliberately refused to give free rein to his imagination. He proceeded objectively, so to speak, even when (paradoxical as it may sound) he was subjugated by trance. The purely personal aspect of his work… I hesitate to call it his creation… centers about the veiled delivery of the oracles, the reason for which he made clear in the Preface to Caesar, his son. There is a dispassionate tone about the nature of these revelations which one feels is not altogether attributable to modesty on the part of Nostradamus. He stresses the fact that it is God who deserves the credit, not himself! Now a true visionary would be fervent about the revelations disclosed to him; he would make haste either to re-create the world, according to the divine wisdom he had tasted, or he would make haste to unite himself with his Creator. A prophet, more egotistical still, would make use of his illumination to take revenge upon his fellow-men… I'm hazarding all this at random, you understand.” I gave him a quick, keen glance to make sure I had him hooked, then continued. “And now, suddenly, I think I begin to understand the real import of the first citation. I mean that part about the grand object of Nostradamus, which, as you recall, the French commentator would have us believe was nothing less than a desire to give predominant significance to the French Revolution. Myself, I think that if Nostradamus had any ulterior motive for dwelling on this event so markedly, it was in order to disclose to us the manner in which history is to be liquidated. A phrase like
“la fin des temps”
—what
does
it mean? Can there really be an end to time? And if so, could it possibly mean that time's end is really
our
beginning? Nostradamus predicts a millennium to come—in a time not far distant, either. I am no longer sure at the moment whether it follows upon the Day of Judgment or precedes it. Neither am I certain whether his vision extended
to the end of the world or not. (He speaks of the year 3797, if I remember rightly, as though that were as far as he could see.) I don't think the two—the Judgment Day and the end of the world—were meant to be simultaneous.
Man knows no end, that's my conviction
. The
world
may come to an end, but if so, it will be the world imagined by the scientists, not the world God created. When the
end
comes we will take our world with us. Don't ask me to explain this—I just know it for a fact.… But to approach this end business from another angle. All it can possibly mean, as I see it now—and to be sure, this is quite enough!—is the emergence of a new and fecund chaos. Were we living in Orphic times we would speak of it as the coming of a new order of gods, meaning, if you like, the investiture of a new and greater consciousness, something even beyond
cosmic consciousness
. I look upon the Oracles of Nostradamus as the work of an aristocratic spirit. It has meaning only for true individuals.… To get back to the Vulgar Advent, excuse my circumlocutiousness! The phrase so widely used today—the common man—strikes me as an utterly meaningless one. There is no such animal. If the phrase has any meaning at all, and I think Nostradamus certainly implied as much when he spoke of the Vulgar Advent, it means that all that is abstract and negative, or retrogressive, has now assumed dominion. Whatever the common man is or is not, one thing is certain—he is the very antithesis of Christ
or
Satan. The term itself seems to imply absence of allegiance, absence of faith, absence of guiding principle—or even instinct. Democracy, a vague, empty word, simply denotes the confusion which the common man has ushered in and in which he flourishes like the weed. One might as well say—mirage, illusion, hocus-pocus. Have you ever thought that it may be on this note—on the rise and dominion of an acephalic body—that history will end? Perhaps we will have to begin all over again from where the Cro-Magnon man left off. One thing seems
highly evident to me, and that is that the note of doom and destruction, which figures so heavily in all prophecies, springs from the certain knowledge that the historical or world element in man's life is but transitory. The seer knows how, why and where we got off the track. He knows further that there is little to be done about it, so far as the great mass of humanity is concerned. History must run its course, we say. True, but only because history is the myth, the true myth, of man's fall made manifest in time. Man's descent into the illusory realm of matter must continue until there is nothing left to do but swim up to the surface of reality—and live in the light of everlasting truth. The men of spirit constantly exhort us to hasten the end and commence anew. Perhaps that is why they are called paracletes, or divine advocates. Comforters, if you like. They never exult in the coming of catastrophe, as mere prophets sometimes do. They indicate, and usually illustrate by their lives, how we may convert seeming catastrophe to divine ends. That is to say, they show us, those of us who are ready and aware, how to adapt and attune ourselves to a reality which is permanent and indestructible. They make their appeal.…”

At this point Karen signaled me to stop. “Christ, man,” he exclaimed, “what a pity you aren't living in the Middle Ages! You would have made one of the great Schoolmen. You're a metaphysician, by crikey. You ask a question and you answer it like a master of dialectic.” He paused a moment to draw a deep breath. “Tell me something,” he said, putting a hand on my shoulder, “how did you come by all this? Come on now, don't feign humility with me. You know what I'm getting at.”

I hemmed and hawed.

“Come, come!” he said.

His earnestness was pathetically childlike. The only response I could make was to blush deeply.

“Do your friends understand you when you talk this way? Or do you talk this way only to yourself?”

I laughed. How could one answer such queries with a straight face? I begged him to change the subject.

He nodded silently. Then: “But don't you ever think of making use of your talents? As far as I can see, you do nothing but fritter your time away. You waste it on idiots like MacGregor and Maxie Schnadig.”

“To you it may seem that way,” I said, slightly nettled now. “To me it seems otherwise. I don't intend to be a thinker, you know. I want to write. I want to write about life, in the raw. Human beings, any kind of human beings, are food and drink to me. I enjoy talking about other things, certainly. The conversation we just had, that's nectar and ambrosia. I don't say it doesn't get anyone anywhere, not at all,
but
—I prefer to reserve that sort of food for my own private delectation. You see, at the bottom I'm just one of those common men we were talking about. Only, now and then I get flashes. Sometimes I think I'm an artist. Once in a great while I even think I may be a visionary, but never a prophet, a seer. What I have to contribute must be done in a roundabout way. When I read about Nostradamus or Paracelsus, for example, I feel at home. But I was born in another vector. I'll be happy if I ever learn to tell a good story. I like the idea of getting nowhere. I like the idea of the game for the game's sake. And above all, wretched, botched and horrible though it may be, I love this world of human beings. I don't want to cut myself adrift. Perhaps what fascinates me in being a writer is that it necessitates communion with all and sundry. Well, anyway, this is all surmise on my part.”