The Great Weaver From Kashmir (15 page)

The monk finally smiled in such a way that Steinn thought he understood everything.

“And you have no hesitations about subjecting yourself to such a long period of self-denial for fifty poems?” he asked.

“It's not for the fifty poems, but for the sake of perfection, for the sake of God,” corrected Steinn.

“Eh bien,”
said the monk.

“No, sir. I have no hesitations. My powers know no bounds. ‘The weakest power of my soul is more far-reaching than Heaven and earth,' says Master Eckehart. I don't feel that any ordeal is beyond my strength. My will is strong. Nothing between Heaven and Earth can ever subdue it. What I have firmly resolved shall be accomplished. Three years from now you will see the world shouting from the rooftops the things that I whisper in your ears tonight.”

Now, finally, after Steinn had brought his political chatter to a close and had started to speak of his soul, the face of the canon gleamed with understanding. And the more unexpectedly that his prevarication had struck Steinn before, the more unprepared Steinn was now for the monk's lack of perplexity, as he made his first affirmative remarks: “You intend,” he said, “to compose fifty perfect poems for God.
Très bien.
But has it never occurred to you, who have such a strong brain, that in fact it might not be your poems that God asks of you? Has it never occurred to you that perhaps God is served as little whether you give him either perfect poems or nothing at all? Has it never occurred to you that in fact it might not be your gifts that God demands, no matter how precious they might be?”

This time it was Steinn Elliði who was tongue-tied, and he looked at the monk for a moment with questioning eyes. Is he trying to confuse me? he thought, and felt it worst that he did not know how to score a point against the monk; he was, however, on his guard not to endanger his own perspective under the weight of dialectic, preferring to allow the monk to explain his own view before they went any further. It was as if he suspected the cloaked man of having the ability to best his opponents with their own tricks.

“If God is not served with perfect works, then I admit that I would be curious to hear you clarify the idea of God. What does this God of yours demand?”

“With our external works,
opera externa,
” said the monk, “it is quite easy for us to become famous on rooftops, even overthrow entire states and subdue kingdoms. But of what avail is that? We will never subdue God's kingdom with external works. One Lord's Prayer, prayed at night while everyone is asleep, is a greater event than the revolution in Russia, even if no one will hear about it until Doomsday. If you had any notion as to what one sigh means for those who seek God in the night, the most famous, magnificent deed would become as worthless chaff in your eyes. The truth is not the external, but rather the internal. If you do not trust God to watch over the welfare of the world without you, then it would be healthy for you to remember that he created the world with all of its solar systems without you. Your poems and achievements may be incredible. ‘Your gifts are worth nothing to me,' says the Lord. ‘I only ask for you yourself.' It must be wonderful to hear one's name praised from the rooftops, but
‘Quantum unusquisque est in oculis tuis, domine, tantum est et non amplius,'
says Bonaventura, which he learned from the humble man from Assisi: ‘What you are in the eyes of God, that you are and no more.'”

Whether Jesuit disputational tricks or appeals to mysticism were being employed here, this unmilitant man knew the art of fixing his argument precisely, in sentences that were difficult to work one's way around, and he also knew the power of letting his glance, mild, calm, and steady, accompany his words unyieldingly. And Steinn was
becoming more and more convinced that the man was not a lamb, but an eagle; again he found himself at a loss for words.

“I have never thought such a merciless thought as the one that you have planted in my mind, sir,” he said, “that perhaps art itself is one of the devil's traps. Or what else could you possibly mean? Art, however, demands a sacrifice, sir! It demands self-denial no less than monasticism, and perhaps even more toil, more sleepless nights, more constant moments of despair. A true artist sacrifices everything for his gifts of grace; he renounces life's fortune, even peace of mind; he renounces all human joy and celebrates only the fact that he is able to take on his shoulders all of the burdens that are bound to mankind, and he lies down like a camel to let himself be loaded with them.”

It was almost as if Steinn's voice contained a hint of a plea for mercy. But the monk was still too secure to dispute with him. And Steinn felt more and more that everything he had said, and even what he still had to say, would only come across as vain prattle in the ears of the stranger.

“Once I knew a young man who had planned to follow the same path as you,” began the monk again. “He was also seeking the true reality. And he would not let anyone dissuade him. A young man demands the right to secure for himself, at a high price, the experience of life that he is in fact offered for free in the admonitions of his elders. The Way is all there is for a man, and those who are not on The Way are seeking The Way. Everyone chases his own dream: one to Brazil to play the violin, another to London to compose beautiful poems. No one can escape his fate. And yet The Way leads neither
through Brazil nor through the British Empire. But do not forsake this one thing, and think about it when the time comes when you feel that the solar system will burst asunder and the Earth shatter under your feet: one thing has higher value than anything else, and that is
la vie spirituelle,
the working of grace on a man's inner being.”

Steinn looked silently at the monk's smile and listened to his bright, pure voice, without being able to determine from his words whether he was a lunatic or a sage.

“It would be my true pleasure to be able to meet you sometime later in life,” said the monk finally. “And should the time come when you find yourself compelled to discuss essential matters with a humble servant of the most holy Church of our Lord Jesus Christ, then you know where such an insignificant person can be found.”

Steinn thanked his fellow traveler for his amity, found of course no impulse within him to consider such a visit as things stood now, but asked if he might send the canon a letter at his later convenience; in fact there were still quite a few things left that he wished to say to the Church.

They said nothing more to each other; only the night spoke; the stars flew like sparks outside the window. But the monk's words continued to echo in Steinn's ears, although sleep fettered his tongue: God does not ask for your gifts, but rather for you. They were as indelible as unintelligible runes carved on a young tree. More than anything else, Steinn was overcome by a feeling approximating shame. He felt as if he had gotten more than he bargained for. He had behaved like an actor in a burlesque show before this unassuming man of the cloth. The monk was like a powerful oak
tree, planted a thousand years ago, its roots deep in the Earth – but I am like a rootless, gripless walking stick that some vagrant stuck in the grass yesterday to the disgrace of God, he thought. He felt that he was becoming smaller and smaller in the silence; he knew nothing, was nothing. In the same way, the monk grew larger; his silence was more powerful than his words, deeper. Perhaps he was inspired by the deepest verity of being, was perhaps more than a man, his humanity a revelation of a nobler world. He was perhaps a two-thousand-year-old master and the mouthpiece of the highest spirit, perhaps Krishna. Steinn Elliði was King Arjuna. And the train sped westward through France, like an immense insect from Earth's primeval days.

When Steinn woke in the morning in the Gare de Lyon in Paris he was alone in the cabin; the English couple had risen from death and the monk had vanished completely. But in his breast pocket he found a name-card with these words:
Fr. Alban, moine bénédictin.
²⁹
Sept Fontaines. Belgique.

Sussex, summer 1924. Highly esteemed sir. My deepest thanks for the edifying discussion we had in the train that autumn night in 1921. I make no secret of the fact that your personality has made a deep impression on me. I have not been able to forget you. Of course, I did not understand you completely and have long since
forgotten what you said, but the more that time passes the stronger suspicion I have that there was wisdom in it. I have often thought about writing to you, sometimes even to come visit you. When we spoke together, I thought that I was on the right path. It is characteristic of those who are completely lost, that though they go in empty circles and arrive ten times at the same place, it is almost impossible to convince them that all they've done is go in circles. They even think that rivers run uphill. After I had composed twenty-eight poems I was finally able to see that I had gone in twenty-eight circles. I discovered that I was not on any path at all. I had sailed a fresh fair wind out into the blue. I have a great number of opinions as to what is right and what wrong, but unfortunately I must admit that I do not know what is right and what is wrong. The main point, says Maurice Barrès, is to be convinced that there exist only points of view,
manières de voir,
that they all contradict each other, but that we can with a little effort acquire them all regarding the same thing. But in spite of everything, I lack nothing so much as the dexterity to have all of the world's opinions concerning the same thing at once. All of my
manières de voir
continuously miss the point, and all of my misfortune arises from this. There is not a shred of tranquility within me. I am a roaring lion in the desert. I am the Flying Dutchman, the Wandering Jew:

Johohoe! Johohoe! Hojohe!

Traft ihr das Schiff im Meere an,

blutrot die Segel, schwarz der Mast?

Auf hohem Bord der bleiche Mann,

des Schiffes Herr, wacht ohne Rast!

Hui! – Wie saust der Wind! Johohe!

Hui! – Wie pfeift's im Tau! Johohe!

Hui! – Wie ein Pfeil fliegt er hin,

ohne Ziel, ohne Rast, ohne Ruh!
³⁰

Sometimes I ponder the welfare of mankind and hate those who take an interest in anything else. Sometimes I ponder myself and the immeasurable inside myself, but despise mankind. Sometimes I thirst for nothing but the one true Almighty God and despise myself, but give not a single thought to mankind. When we spoke I mentioned a British friend and said that he was able to appreciate my gifts. But in the end I could no longer bear his presence. I suffer in the company of men who do not suffer. Now he is gone, this British bull, this colonial jackal, gone to Hell to preach to the souls in prison: the Indians in the rat trap of the British Empire; and he has entrusted to me the keeping of his residence in Hounslow near London. Now I am on a two-month gad around southern England in search of myself. I am going to try to collect myself. I am like jetsam scattered along a long beach.

Forgive me for writing to you. But I have no friends whom I trust. At home in the town where I was born I had several companions, but they are simpletons. They comb their hair. Everything is “cosmic” to them. The world is, in their eyes, a foreign magazine. I have not combed my hair once in two years. I have swallowed the entire world. I do not speak; I scream. I do not debate; I give orders. I am a wolf in the fold. I should be imprisoned like a dictator. I should be quartered. The scraps of my body should be scattered about to nourish the birds of the air. All of this I trust you will do.

After I composed the twenty-eighth poem, I said
“Basta!”
I threw that rubbish out like a man on the street who eats nuts and spits the shells here and there; like the Lord of the universe, who shakes suns like ten-aurar coins out of his heavenly jester's sleeves, absentmindedly and nonchalantly, not even to amuse himself, let alone others; or like a wagon driver who used to be the servant of his donkey and cart, but who now, after both donkey and cart have tumbled off a cliff, stands behind on the ledge, empty-handed, and celebrates his victory. But what do you think this Carrington did?

He stole the poems and took them to a printer without my knowledge, and has newspapers and magazines harp on them as masterpieces.

Of course they are masterpieces, but God does not lack masterpieces. God needs souls. Mankind does not need masterpieces. Mankind needs
panem et circenses
.
³¹
Neither I nor others compose masterpieces for God or mankind. Delusion! Poets have never carried the people's burdens. They are the enemies of the people. They are the harlots of the people. They howl at the people. They spit at the people. They cajole the people. They lie. They dress themselves up in sacred linen before the people like hellish sorcerers. They shriek like a woman in the pangs of childbirth. They swallow fire, turn somersaults and contort themselves before the people, all in the hope of subduing them, elbow their way onto the highest seats so that queens can anoint their feet with balsam and dry them with their hair. Their goal is like that of the Roman emperors, to be deified
and worshipped in life. They are lovelorn men. The artist's essential being is nothing but
obsession du sexe.
They're oversexed. They think that they have special permission to break all the commandments of God and man at once. “The simplest form of art is love,” says André Breton. The one who understands this understands the entire hoax. In the future, artistic madness will be cured by a simple operation. The artist has no moral interests, says the preface to
Dorian Gray.
The artist is an immoral intellectual. Art is one of the indulgences of the intellectual. Art refuses to be one of the weapons that are used in the war over the values of life. Art for art's sake is a settled question – and last but not least in favor of the artist. Art is the kingly dream of the peasant, the cocaine craze of the psychopath who lacks the fortitude to work, the tool of the man who sees in it his life's goal of being published in the culture section of newspapers, like the weather forecasts.