Beyond Alexanderplatz

ALFRED DÖBLIN

BABYLONIAN EXILE,

OR, PRIDE GOES BEFORE A FALL

Part Four: Constantinople (First chapter)

Translated by C.D. Godwin

Babylonische Wandrung, oder Hochmut kommt vor dem Fall

first published 1934, when Döblin was in exile,

by Querido Verlag, Amsterdam.

Illustrations by P.L. Urban

https://beyond-alexanderplatz.com

CONTENTS

Part Four: Constantinople (I)

You are humans, and wherever you turn can never escape yourselves 123

Trip through Asia Minor, with a wealth of historical information 123

How Iraq became a free state 125

History of Urfa, and the unmissable attraction of a Kurdish oath 127

Waldemar pursues a separate existence in the luggage van 128

Cephalos: a magical tale for amusement and diversion 130

Journey’s end. Like gentle clouds they draw near to the city of Constantinople 135

Melusine thinks otherwise, and brings her fish-tail to the fore 136

Limp, and sad 137

No interruptions. The first love story 139

The first stroll 143

The first night 146

The ensuing dream 147

Grey dawn 147

A Swede and a Frenchman make enormous efforts to accomplish unambiguously

straight-line deeds 148

Two men exchange views on love; insults ensue 149

The author sighs, the readers complain 152

Numero two: the competitor 152

Conrad learns about the torments of love 153

The kid makes love, looks out of the window, and cries 155

Sweet dreams of a disappointed young lady 157

Old man Waldemar strolls through Istanbul, no particular intention in mind 157

The perils of the big city are revealed in a new guise 159

Interesting facts about gipsies, especially their relationship to the hedgehog 161

The hedgehog and the Gipsy 161

Waldemar, the sheep, is allowed to live because they want his wool 162

How the sweetshop mamselle is getting along now, a tender chapter 165

A stroll and a dream in the forest 167

Murmuring spring and a dream shared 169

Return from the forest 171

Played out 171

Speeches at the feast. A grand and almost total eulogy to Constantinople 172

A completely new chapter: money, the rules for its appearance, and its

inaccessibility 177

The case of Sisyphus 180

A case of professional commitment 180

Little incidents in Istanbul 181

With no prerogative of coinage, they begin to mint coins 183

A booming business 184

Coining and retribution according to the Swiss Penal Code 185

Declaration by the author in his own defence 187

First conversation between Conrad and George on the basis of their existence.

Scoffing at money and human stupidity 187

Second conversation between Conrad and George. A minor correction to the

outcome of the first 191

Third conversation between Conrad and George: the starting point has long been

left behind. Now the talk is of Roman executions 192

Of Roman execution techniques 194

We come at last to the core of the matter: the Persian Foreign Minister 195

Conrad’s career path 196

The hind of Prinkipo 197

George was so right! The hind, her customs and habits 198

Perilous espionage plans grow around the Empress’ grave 200

Irene’s background, and female government 200

Conrad, George and Irene become the focal point of major political events 201

Conrad, the victim, is made ready 202

Conrad reaction to Irene’s schemes. A stroke of genius 204

In the end Irene deploys heavy weapons. First and last hours of an abused love 205

Plesire Nasib Crowned Beauty Queen 207

Politics takes a great step and a certain somebody falls by the wayside, another

marvels but not for long 208

Neat conclusion to the love story, philosophical consolation is declined 212

Of consolations ancient and modern 213

The author peeps into Conrad’s future. He has faith in the funnel and screw 214

PART FOUR

CONSTANTINOPLE (FIRST CHAPTER)

The three of them have fled head over heels out of Baghdad, but settle

into a life of easy frivolity in Constantinople (Istanbul). Each has a good

time in his own way. One loves, another drinks, the third grows rich.

But love and drink reveal their darker sides. Only moneymaking shows a

steadily rising line.

123

You are human, and wherever you turn you can never escape yourself

Even without tuition, they will remain what they are. We have no cause for concern.

They’re beyond hope. We hear Conrad’s happy whinnying: “So, what did I tell you?

Nothing’s changed. And not even I could make it any worse!”

They are human, and so shall suffer.

“You will show me everything. You will show me Heaven and Hell down here. For

there’ll surely be a Hell. I’m curious to see it.” He bared his teeth. “Where is this Hell?”

You three shall see and hear much. Your minds will be kept busy. You shall try like

salamanders to flee through the fire, fire not fire for you, the world’s sensuality shall

captivate you.

But wherever you turn: you will not escape yourselves.

Trip through Asia Minor, with a wealth of historical information

Baghdad 34 degrees north, 44 degrees east, Constantinople 36 degrees north, 29

degrees east. Two degrees of latitude and fifteen degrees of longitude from Baghdad to

Constantinople.

Now let’s give the cobblers’ guild a nod; without it, men would traipse the world

unshod. And so it is the shoe alone that from many a thorn and many a stone keeps us

safe and sound. Some step gaily through this life who, were they shoeless through bad

luck, would suffer endlessly from grief as thorns prick through their stoic pluck. As

long as you have sensible shoes, you’ll be welcome and honoured where’er you choose.

But our three heroes availed themselves of the iron road.

Conrad sat mellow in the train, it’s the Baghdad Railway. It runs from Scutari

through Asia Minor, via tunnels under the Taurus to Al-Muslimiyah north of Aleppo.

And it runs from Basra on the Persian Gulf along the west bank of the Euphrates.

And you approach Basra and are astonished at how many places the world has and

everywhere people are sitting and everywhere they know every nook and cranny, every

chimney, and they quarrel over a square meter of ground, for this is their home. And

at last, if you don’t get off and the Taurus tunnels are behind you, not even Scutari will

evade you, it’s what you wanted, it’s why you took the train.

Conrad sits mellow in his cushioned seat, observes the fleeting landscape, gives

lanky George beside him an appreciative look. “It’s indescribable,” is how Conrad

opens his mouth, “all that’s happened during our absence. No two ways about it. After

those experiences in Baghdad, especially the encounter with that stupid Camilla, I

have no intention of going ahead with the reconstruction of Babylon. What’s done is

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done. In one sense I’m grateful to Madam Camilla for sparing me a misapplication of

my powers. Having said that, George, I should like to declare: from now on I intend to

proceed in two directions: firstly by embracing this world more intensively as an

object of enjoyment, and then by subjecting it to a stern cold critique. Now, I must at

this point make a comment. None of the people under my regime ever hit upon the

notion of building a railway such as this. I spent all my time dealing with absolute

nitwits, and there you have the reason why everything went downhill for us. They no

longer sacrificed to me, as was their duty – I’ll leave that aside. But putting their time

to no good use – this I find inexcusable.”

Conrad sat on his cushions. The landscape – steppe, steppe – flew by.

“Anyway, I’ve no idea how long this trip lasts. We’ve sat here quite a while already,

and the train’s rushing along. So I ask you, George, where will it end? If the train keeps

going at this tremendous rate, won’t it meet some boundary where it has to stop?”

“It will not meet a boundary, it can keep going for ever.”

“And Constantinople, is that the end of the world?”

“It is not the end of the world.”

“Is it the centre of the world?”

“I don’t know. But there’s even more after Constantinople.”

“So vast, so vast,” Conrad marvelled, his eyes fixed on the bare yellow landscape. “A

blessing to have left the narrow confines of Baghdad, where you became so agitated.

Here on the steppe one thing is like another, hills, deserts, again I have no idea why

they need so much of it, there aren’t many people, all this time I’ve seen just a few

black tents and flocks. Tell me George, I’ve asked you before, why is this wide world

necessary? I’ve often asked you, even when we were sailing the starry heavens and

there was no end to the giant stars, wandering stars, the heaps of nebulae. We glided

so casually through them all. I never understood who it was they served. When I asked,

you recited comical laws that failed to satisfy even you, for laws must be in the service

of someone, some ruler, his will, and you couldn’t name me even one. Now look at

these endless plains! This car is nicely fitted out, the cushions and the big clear

windows that enable one to gaze out at leisure and give oneself over to thoughts about

everything. So tell me, who has a use for these enormous plains and the many places?”

“They belong to various rich men, states, are subject to various kings.”

“And is there one lord, served by all these kings?”

“They don’t all serve the same lord. Some pray and sacrifice to a lord, others don’t.

They call their lord by different names, I don’t know if he gives them orders, but it

seems even they don’t think do, he never tells them clearly what he means.”

“And so they live freely, without supervision?”

“Yes.”

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“Many nations, many kingdoms?”

“Yes.”

Conrad clutched his armrest. “I don’t believe you. I insist, you’re mistaken. For that

would not be a world, but a rubbish dump. You speak of the world. Although it is

certain, George, that they have no time for me any more, it is nevertheless the Earth,

and up there’s the sky, there’s day and night, and something’s lording over it, George,

believe me! You fail to understand, and clearly these humans too fail to understand.

We shall find out, George, how it all hangs together.”

“I do understand, Great One. I’ve been here many times. No one lords over it. And

that’s precisely the uniqueness and the attraction of the new world. Here we can do

whatever we want.”

“Are you serious?”

“Here everyone can do what he wants. It’s the new regime. Whoever is stronger

wins through. That’s all there is.”

“That would just mean dissolution,” Conrad reflected, “then nothing would have

happened except: the world slipped from my hands and fell apart, and no one could be

found to give it direction.”

“But you saw in Baghdad how they cheated us. I myself, let me tell you in

confidence, I got up to all sorts of tricks. To our advantage. The world’s a playground.

Everyone here looks after number one, and it all rolls merrily along.” George pulled

him closer. “Just join in, Conrad! Look around you. It’s marvellous, this world! It only

began to breathe once it was free of us. Such freedom! They still go to church for

appearance’s sake, because they’re still a little bit nervous, they have a memory, there’s

still a residual effect from our times. But in general everyone’s happy, except the weak.

But they’re of no consequence.”

“Why not?”

“They can’t be bothered to be strong. Come, Great One, look around you. Our time

is past. Good riddance. Freedom rules!”

“Ever more scenery!” Conrad marvelled.

George laughed. “We need room! You’ll soon find out why.”

Conrad beamed: “Splendid, splendid.”

How Iraq became a free state

Yellow steppe flew by, yellow steppe, yellow steppe.

As once you flew into the heights, so have you now plunged into the depths, my

heart? As once you crossed rivers and lakes, have you now reached dry land, my heart?

My youth came and went like a wind, its gift lingers like honey on my gums.

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Have you become a bud, a rose, a ruined garden fallen into alien hands, my heart?

This here is Iraq, a state with a great future, it produces petroleum, wheat, barley,

cotton, rice, dates. Imports in 1924 amounted to 191 million rupees, its exports –

carpets, wool, petroleum, opium – 142 million. At the summit of the state sits an

elected king, with a Cabinet and eight ministers. The king nominates the 20 members

of the Senate, while the 88 members of the lower chamber are elected by popular vote.

Foreign policy and finances are managed by England through a Civil Commissioner.

It has a population of three million. But where is freedom?

One day the Great Powers of the West sat around a table and declared their

intention for a complete and final liberation of peoples so long under the Turkish yoke,

and the establishment of governments whose authority would flow from free elections

by the native populations.

And they proceeded to put this into practice. Even the simple man knows that it’s a

long way from idea to implementation, for example taking a lift but it’s currently

under repair. So how will it go with the complete and final liberation of peoples so

long under the Turkish yoke?

Yellow steppe, yellow steppe, yellow steppe. The table issued these soothing words:

We shall include an Article on the following lines: “Not all peoples who have now been

freed are in a position, in the difficult circumstances of the modern world, to rule

themselves. Their progress and development present a sacred task for civilisation.

Therefore the most advanced states shall exercise tutelage over these peoples.”

And so out of the west there appeared, in English uniform, Sir Percy Cox, who

settled his pith helmet more firmly and perused the landscape. There was yellow

steppe, yellow steppe, yellow steppe, and also petroleum, cotton, not to mention

Gertrude Bell. She was a lady archaeologist, knew everything from Assyria to Babylon.

They fetched along Emir Faisal, whose father was the Grand Sharif of Mecca, and

asked if he’d mind becoming King of Iraq. He agreed, and became King of Iraq and no

one knew of it, and no fire burns as bright as a hidden love no one knows about. He

was elected by a plebiscite with a convincing majority.

Still to come was tea with Lady Cox.

To this a nobleman called Talib, from Basra, was invited, who had a different

opinion. He drank his tea. But when he returned to his car, unfortunately an English

lorry was blocking the exit and no mechanics were around. An officer appeared who

took the noble Talib under his wing. He organised a special train, even a steamship.

For it is healthier for some people to travel by sea, voyage to Ceylon, a beautiful

distant island in the Indian Ocean, where there is complete freedom of opinion

concerning the government of Iraq. And when Basra and Baghdad learned of the

remarkable outcome of tea with Lady Cox, they all signed everything there was to be

signed, for Arabs are not natural sailors and coffee to them is preferable to English tea.

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History of Urfa, and the unmissable attraction of a Kurdish oath

Here on the vineclad slopes of Nemrut-dagh lies Urfa. Conrad! Thou art woolgathering

over the distant plain! Women, their full bosoms, silver cups filled with sweetness

shalt thou yet drink! This is Urfa. Once it was Edessa.

Up, up comrades, bold soldiers! Look lively, now the time is nigh, reveal, reveal

your bravery!! Drums, tymbals, fifes, bugles, field guns, cannon royal, muskets’ crack,

no doubt from Valhalla and field of battle all come echoing back.

They trekked out of the west, from the lower Rhine, Maas, Mosel, Scheldt,

Germans led by Godfrey, Baldwin, Eustache, Count Robert of Flanders too. Frenchmen

Hugo de Vermandois, Robert of Normandy, Raymond de Saint Gilles et Toulouse. “Off

you go!” the populace cried, “Off you go, it is God’s will!” Twenty thousand pilgrims

stood before Jerusalem, they must have it, for two terrible days they stormed it, on the

third day it fell into their hands, the Saracens were all despatched, the streets stank of

blood and murder. And Urfa was a Frankish principality in the Orient.

Daisan, the Leaper, flows through the town, taking in twenty-five brooks. A square

bell tower is a relic of ancient times.

Yellow steppe, yellow steppe!

As once you flew into the heights, so you now plunge into the depths, my heart!

Your youth came and went like a breeze, you’ve become a bud, a rose, a ruined

garden fallen into alien hands, my heart.

But in the end, when you cast an eye to the mountains, in the end you see no

Frankish principality. Now it’s Armenians in Urfa. And the Kurds attack the town. One

day they disarm the Armenians, and swear an oath that they won’t do a thing to them.

And since human life has a limited span and everything strives for a natural end,

the Kurds, as they sat with the Armenians’ weapons in their tents on the evening of

that remarkable day, broached the necessity of ascertaining how long an oath should

last. And whoever possessed knowledge of this, regardless of his life’s natural

beginning and end, should speak up. So a great debate began. The youngest asserted

that an oath was valid forever and therefore not subject to death. Those of middle age

said reproachfully that such was conventional talk, but it could not be, for then an

oath would be a god, and on a day that had decided in the Kurds’ favour in such a

grave matter, all should avoid being drawn into blasphemy. It was the oldest, who

smoked the most vigorously and spoke least, who put forward a view that all sides

found acceptable. Possibly an oath did have eternal force. But simple folk should not

venture too far into mysteries. The life of an oath varies according to circumstances.

So let us enquire of our leaders: what are the present circumstances? These said, after

a gratifying survey of the stacked weapons: the Armenians should be massacred this

very night. “And so,” said the oldest, who had seen the most of the world, “those are

today’s circumstances. To which a natural oath is subject.”

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Once enough darkness had gathered, the Kurds began their assault on the town,

and a massacre ensued that required no sacrifice on their part. Given the extent of the

town and its many hidey-holes, it lasted two days. Then came a particularly glorious

conclusion in a church. The objective narrator must however make clear that it was

not the Kurds who filled the church and prayed, but the others, the Armenians, men,

women and children, a huge number, thousands, as many as could squeeze in. They

were all there, at the altar, in the nave, in the gallery, in the sacristy, wailing and

praying. And now the Kurds too entered the cathedral.

But because preceding events had given the Armenians cause to conclude that the

Kurds had not come to join them in a common service of prayer, the strongest men

came together and barricaded themselves, though unarmed, in a primitive but

adequate manner. This took the Kurds by surprise. It induced new reflections and a

further council of war.

There was unanimous indignation that matters that had gone so smoothly for two

days now tended towards a breach of faith, and had run into the sand. In view of the

circumstances they declined to regard the building in question as a church, indeed a

cathedral, but rather as a hiding place and bolthole, and they hauled carpets, cloths,

curtains, beds, mattresses out of the houses and piled them around the church. Then

they retreated. For these objects quickly caught fire. The Armenians inside could not

retreat, and so were choked, one and all. Men, women and children in their thousands

lay afterwards heaped by the doors. Two escaped via the sacristy.

Yellow steppe, black mountain, yellow steppe, black mountain.

“It’s stupefying,” said Conrad, “I could spend a thousand years travelling through

this land and not tire of it.”

“There are people, of course,” said George, “who do not always eat so well at table.”

Waldemar pursues a separate existence in the luggage van

Shivering in the luggage van at the rear was the little man, our loyal Waldemar. How

dreadfully fast the train went. Surely it would run into a cliff, or shoot out over a lake.

The crew were enthralled by him. They opened a window and persuaded him to

look out. He stuck out his head and closed his eyes. He sat in a corner and cried. He

told them his master was totally innocent. He implored them: “Why do you want to

take us all. Have mercy, do. You don’t know what sins you’re committing. We may

have fallen low, but be afraid, all of you! You’ll have what’s coming.”

“When’s that, old friend?”

“Don’t shove us down any farther, we’re already brought so low. My dear chaps,

look, you can see what state I’m in.”

“Your master must be a fine man, yes? We’d like to know how he makes use of you.”

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“Just slow down and I’ll tell you everything.” He blocked his ears, rocked his body

in despair, they were just then crossing an iron bridge, the train rattled horribly, the

carriages were swaying. “Slow down, where are you all heading, you’re already long

past your destination, aren’t you afraid, you hangmen, you murderers?”

“We are cats, my dear old man, and you’re in our trap. Your master too. There’ll be

no more mercy now. But maybe we’ll relent if you tell us who you are, and who you

master is.”

The two luggage van attendants and a conductor swore they would bring the train

to a halt at the appropriate time so Waldemar’s master could jump out, but they

couldn’t let Waldemar out, else they’d be for it. The old man was overjoyed and

thanked them. They checked their watches, there was still plenty of time.

“Ah,” Waldemar began, “you have big railways, they go so fast, so fast on rails. Do

you know it wasn’t always thus! What do you think I am, I wonder?”

“A night watchman.”

“You were an inspector in the bazaar.”

“I saw you once at the big bridge in Baghdad. You were begging.”

The old man beamed: “Did you see my Elsa too?”

“You had a wife?”

“My little grey! I stood there with my little grey and sang, you must have heard me.”

“Your Elsa was a pretty thing, a noble horse.”

“They stole her away from me, and that’s why we’re all here.”

“Come come. You must tell us everything, all the details, so we can answer for it

properly. We have to know: you take all the guilt on yourself, then we can let him off.”

The old man gave a mysterious smile, glanced around, raised an index finger to his

mouth, frowned: “We called ourself Khan Ibn Kurmani, pillar of the government. And

there’s George. He’s the cleverest fellow that ever was. We’re so glad to have him along.

Once he was a poor knave among us, now he’s the master’s right hand.”

“OK. Now it’s becoming a little clearer. But what’s your master’s real name? Why

did he let you go begging?”

“I can’t tell you his name. You’d never believe it anyway.”

“But you must make a public confession, or else we can’t stop the train.”

“His name is – Conrad.”

The three exchanged glances. “So he’s called Conrad. Nothing more?”

“No, he’s Conrad,” the old man smiled a joyful smile.

Now they knew him for a madman. “You must have lived your whole life on the

steppe, old man, and never been on a train before?”

130

They lit up cigarettes and gave him one, even though smoking was prohibited in

the luggage van.

“I lived on the steppe a short while. That was before I found my master.”

“Conrad.”

“Yes. He was already in Baghdad. Did you really not know that he’s Conrad?”

They shook their heads, deeply uninterested. The conductor said he would take a

look at Conrad. After a short while he came back. “Two Persians, first class. Travelling

to Constantinople. This old fellow has bats in the belfry. I must get back to work.”

After such a jovial beginning, our dear Waldemar still had a bitter journey to

endure. They simply would not stop the train. The old man cried and asked what more

they wanted to know. They grew bored, and as he began to grate on their nerves,

annoyed and delayed in their duties as they were, they considered it appropriate to

make him a straitjacket out of an old uniform. There he sat trussed in a dark corner of

the luggage van, whimpering, for the end would surely come at any moment. Conrad

and George kept out of sight.

Conservatories, consonance, we’re approaching Constantinople, consortium,

conspiracy, constables, Constantine, in English the Constant, Crown Prince of Greece,

Grand Duke of Russia, his nephew Nicolayevich outstandingly gifted and educated,

reform-minded, suspected of Nihilism, July 1862 governor of Poland, donatio

Constantini. Cephalos, Cepha-los, long station.

Cephalos: a magical tale for amusement and diversion

Cephalos was a man with a gift desired by all: the ability to transform himself at will.

Alongside this, we lay great store on character. 1

Cephalos had a wife called Procris, who was unfaithful. He suspected her with a

man whose name escapes me. She danced with him a kind of Blues, a slow waltz of

antiquity, and something about it displeased Cephalos. To turn himself directly into

this man and let himself be loved by her like that: such a humane notion never

occurred to him, for he wallowed in wine and jealousy, and as circumstances indicated

he stalked first the one and then the other. In order to find out her game he played a

postman, then a hotel agent, sedan-chair bearer, peeping Tom, flower seller, and

finally a waiter.

It was no small surprise to Procris, the beloved consort, when her beau took his

leave and she asked the waiter for more wine, that the waiter replied: “Just a moment,”

and behind a curtain performed the gymnastics that initiated the transformation:

headstand on bare boards for a full five minutes, slow poking of the tongue towards

himself, inspection of the soles of his own feet, and then, with the help of his hands,

1 Cf.Ovid Metamorphoses Book 7. Döblin has played somewhat free with the Classical accounts!

131

spinning around on his head slowly, then faster with legs splayed and hands stretched

to the sides, finally closing his eyes and uttering the desired name with a nimble leap

back onto his feet. This leap was especially difficult in the case of a transformation into

a fatter person, when Cephalos often suffered injury.

When Procris saw it was her husband, she said innocently: “What, you here? You

told me you were going on a trip. What’s with the lies?”

He tried to respond, but she shouted: “First bring me wine, we can quarrel when

we’re back home.” Cephalos, still tired from the gymnastics and still partly a waiter,

did indeed trot off to fetch wine, and it was only in the corridor that he remembered

about revenge. He stormed back. But she was already on her way to Crete.

In the groves of that island she spent several anxious days in the company of a

penniless woodcutter couple. Meanwhile Cephalos had a better idea. He forgave her,

swore to wallow henceforth only in wine, even brought her – what an affecting touch –

that glass of wine she had ordered back then and had up till now gone without. And

they lived on Crete – for there, with the woodcutters, an idyll developed – several

weeks in full consciousness of their powers, and would have returned to their state of

first love if only the boot had not transferred itself to the other foot.

It was damp in the groves of Crete. Cephalos had no wine and no sense of jealousy.

And he went looking for novelty in the Syracuse area. He commended his wife to the

worthy woodcutters. She promised to do her bit, if only he would do his bit.

Barely had two days elapsed, barely had the earthworm sloughed, the dickybird

moulted, the mouse mulcted, when the circumstances in which she now languished

dawned on abandoned Procris, and she had no desire at all to remain. The woman had

a craving not for novelty, rather for vengeance and recompense. “My dear, dear wood-

cutters,” she said to her hosts, “I have dwelled with you for no great length of time,

and it would benefit my nerves to enjoy your hospitality even longer. But distant

forces draw me powerfully away. A fire has been ignited in my breast, which I would

not advise you to quench. In my life there is a secret. It was a man who was my consort

and who, when I was with my beloved, tracked me down without pity.”

“It was Cephalos!” cried the hosts, happy to be able to report something true, good

and beautiful to their lovely guest.

“Probably,” she said, “it was him. I can say no more about it just now. My heart

must first give vent to its feelings.”

She stepped two paces back, lifted both arms and gave vent thus: “Ho, you

generations of mortals, how do I count myself both as one and as nothing among you

living, for whoever, who of you man, wife, woman, child or child’s child, grandchild or

grandchild’s grandchild, regardless of whatever lineage, ho, ho, who bears more joy

than he seems, and who as he lives in seeming, declines.”

“Very true,” said the simple couple, who understood as little of this as we do. She

took two steps forward, raised her arms still higher:

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“Blessèd that age in which none taste wickedness! Zeus, thy radiant visage smiles

across the mountains, over the clouds, deep into fire I saw thee reign, there in the

shimmering distances of heaven. For as below, so above, as right, so left, when half

above, half below, half right and half left, on the Pontic Sea when from Thrace the ill

wind blows and Night illuminates a hut, from the ground up the dark shore revolves,

kiss me, ye airs, bow down, ye treetops, be with me, ye playfellows of the twilight

forest, and new life blossoms from the ruins.”

The host couple listened entranced. They sighed: “So well educated!” and with cries

of “Euoi!” backed by the cacophonous din of brass cymbals, the thunder-roll of big

drums and the tootling of a Phrygian flute they lowered her arms. But Procris

continued her cries: “See there the head with its soaring horns! Do you aim for me, to

pierce me through and through?” The two old people understood what she meant,

consoled her, everything would turn out right, time would tell, wedded early never

surly. But she, Procris, took up her walking staff and headed out into the wide world

on the trail of her lawful consort, now she on his as earlier he on hers. Accompanied

by the blessings of the woodcutters, off she went.

At a crossroads she knelt down, not knowing what to do. For the place was

equipped with the prescribed waymarkers, but not with any indication of which

direction she, Procris the Vengeful, should take. So she started up again: “Artemis,

Goddess, ho, ho, ye generations of mortals, how do I count myself both as one and as

nothing among you living, for whoever, who of you man, wife, woman, child or child’s

child, grandchild, great-grandchild, nephew or niece, brother or sister in law, in-law’s

brother or sister, regardless of whatever main or collateral lineage, ho, ho, Artemis,

who bears more happiness than he seems, and who as he lives in seeming, declines.”

The Goddess Artemis, who was still alive at the time, was so startled by this totally

unexpected appeal that she at once complied, setting a dog, a little dachshund, down

at Procris’ side at the crossroads, so that it should be he that stopped Procris’ mouth

and fulfilled her prayer. For even at that time people did not know that their greatest

weapon against the gods was prayer. Gods are educated and sophisticated beings, and

nothing is more frightful to them than a too-vigorous prayer. So mostly as soon as

such a prayer starts, they grant the relevant wish and slam the door. Admittedly the

gods never found a feasible way to suppress an endless prayer, and there are people

who claim a connection between the rapid obsolescence of gods in antiquity and the

unrestrained praying that diverted gods from their work and made them so nervous

and irritable that eventually they gave up the business.

Guided by her dachshund, Procris continued her search for Cephalos through thick

and thin, white and black. Many perils would she have to undergo, so she believed, for

one who is vengeful is of heroic bent, and places warfare above calm contemplation.

At this time Cephalos, who was not unfaithful, was at home taking baths. He drank,

passed the time by changing himself into this or that, and thereby charmingly

disturbed the now so orderly conduct of state business in Athens. His inclination to

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jealousy had already abated, for he knew his consort was under the protection of the

woodcutter couple in exigent circumstances, and this contented him. Then one fine

afternoon he noticed a dachshund outside his house. The dachshund was acting

suspiciously, sniffing around a bench. Actually this was not the same dachshund that

Artemis had despatched in answer to Procris’ appeal, rather an acquaintance of that

canine, a companion used occasionally by the divine dachshund for particular tasks.

This auxiliary dachshund was just about to leave its mark on the bench, when it had to

pause. Out of the blue here was another dachshund, sniffing and trying to divert it

from its business. We know: this was Cephalos himself, seized by curiosity, who out of

boredom, just wanting to know what the dachshund intended with his bench, had

turned himself into a dog. Actually he was an animal-lover, and if this dachshund had

a gentle temper he thought to go easy on it.

At that moment the divine dachshund, having wended his leisurely way in the

wake of his companion, appeared on the scene. All of a sudden three dachshunds were

standing by the bench outside Cephalos’ house, the very bench that a few short

minutes before had gazed out into the world completely unmolested. What happened

next, who started it, who was in the middle, who followed on, how it all intertwined

and ended in tragedy, could not be disentangled even by the district attorney hired by

Cephalos’ clan to investigate the case. Strange as it may seem: the domestic quarrel of

Cephalos-Procris climaxed in the question: which dachshund started it?

What had happened was, hardly had Cephalos changed himself into a dachshund

and they’d all done their manoeuvring and sniffing and wagging and barking when the

consort Procris, she herself, the seeker, swooped down on the scene larger than life

and to her surprise found a strange beast among her two companions. “A dachshund?”

the jealous woman thought, and annoyance rose up in her. “A strange dachshund, so

close to my dear husband’s house? There’s a female behind it, this is a woman’s dog.”

And she took up her walking staff, her long-stored jealously erupted, and she

began to whack the poor dachshund most dreadfully. The lady whacked away to her

heart’s content. The other two dogs kept themselves nervously in reserve. And now

Cephalos’ fate was sealed. For in order to reveal himself and change himself back, he

needed to go behind a door or a curtain. In the presence of others it didn’t work. He

tried to run away, tried to call out to her his fear and love, to his consort, the

abscondee, so that she would let him run off, just for a moment, for it was he,

Cephalos, he, the politician, the quick-change artist, her husband. But she whacked,

she thrashed, she meant to murder her rival’s lap dog, and ah! and oh! it was her

husband she struck. Beaten to a pulp, wounded to the quick, he was left lying there,

her arm was sore, her heart full, and now she stepped red as a beetroot, puffed up with

rage, a maenad, larger than life into the house in order to catch Cephalos in flagrante.

The marital home was empty. What, flown already? On the table, the breakfast

table, lay a half-eaten egg, an empty wine jug, a fresh biscuit. It all looked so peaceful.

No trace of a lover, no perfume, no rumpled sofa cushions, no forgotten handkerchief.

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The servant raised a howl of joy when he saw his mistress. Her clothes and hat bore

traces of mud. “Where is he?” her war cry resounded through the atrium. “Outside,”

whimpered the overjoyed exemplar of lifelong servitude. “Where?” And already she

was storming out. She looked in the garden, in the hedges, in the front yard, she

searched inside, found nothing. Now frightened and with realisation dawning, the

bondservant insisted he’d been there a moment ago. Just now, five minutes, ten

minutes ago, his breakfast’s still there.

Now she was again at the doorway where the two dachshunds were playing happily,

and in the dust a third was lying, poor thing, ah, a third one, whimpering. Fearful and

with a still clearer realisation, the servant regarded the strange dachshund.

Yo, my nocturnal clouds! To me, to me! How the thorn doth dig into me! Who lies

in the dust and just now his head touched the sun?

“Who beat him,” he whispered and looked cautiously around him and within him

and over him and added: “Not I, on no account, not I.”

“No, I,” Procris confessed, madwoman, fish caught in its own net, and she said this

in the presence of two witnesses, the gardener and a chance passer-by who had hoped

to use the opportunity to bring the joyful news that the trick Cephalos had employed

the day before to bring the state into disorder had succeeded wonderfully, that new

elections were in prospect, there’d be a total shambles, political shares were rising

astronomically, sensible people were crawling by the thousands into mouseholes.

The chance passer-by was carrying with him two victory banners and a laurel

wreath for the great patriot, despoiler of the Fatherland. Now there he lay on the

ground, he for whom it had all been made ready. And she, the wife, gave a triumphant

cry: she had done it! How did she recognise her beloved Cephalos, now a mortally

wounded dachshund? By the tail. It was the only part she’d spared. And with it he

made clear signals, a Yes with the tail raised, a No with the tail sideways. Tears

streaming, Procris carried the newfound pummelled thing into the house, made him a

bed on the sofa, begged him not to give up the ghost. With a circular motion of the

tail, he promised to do his best.

She asked him why he had transformed himself into a dachshund. Maybe he

thought she loved dachshunds and it was meant as an ingenious welcome for her.

He turned around on the sofa until he found a black spot, and plonked his tail on it.

This meant: “With that question, you’ve hit the bullseye.”

She asked: “Do you believe in my love, O Cephalos?” He shuffled to a white spot,

pointed at it, and lifted his tail high in negation. This meant: “I don’t know.” It pained

her to understand this. Oh she understood all too well, with the instinct of a young

wife awakened to new love.

Why, everyone asks, and no doubt the reader too, of this report that has landed up

in such shattering territory, why did Cephalos not change himself back into a man at

this point? Surely he now had a door and a curtain? Why remain a dog and make no

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arrangements? No, he could no longer do so. Over anyone granted this gift by the gods,

there hangs later the famous sword of Damocles. Caution is called for. Metamorphosis

from human form is hard, hard enough that not one person in a million could master

all the details. In particular, the rapid spinning on the head with arms stretched to the

sides, an indispensable condition for every transformation, requires great skill. We say

nothing of the mighty leap at the final stage, whereby many a metamorphosis has

ended in failure. But what is all that against the reverse-transformation, say from a dog?

Here I quote the requirements for a four-legged creature, so you, reader, may judge

for yourself: run behind a door or a curtain, stand on your hind legs, jump quickly

forward through the air onto your front legs, jump back through the air onto your

back legs, and again forward and again back twelve times quickly back and forth, then

scratch a hole in the floor, stick your tail in, keep it stiff, and circle around it at a

leisurely tempo. Once you have achieved the necessary brio, curl the tail abruptly to a

spiral spring, eject yourself into the air, and now the point is, by rapid twisting and

turning, to touch now your head and now your tail precisely to the hole, each time

saying aloud the name of the desired person. On the twelfth turn you are he. All you

need do then is brush yourself down. As you see, a metamorphosis demands a large

amount of physical freshness and bodily control. How could a mortally wounded

dachshund have the strength?

But why did he not change back later, once he had recovered and was sojourning

on Chios with Procris, who had been banished from Athens for hampering a revolt.

We admit, he did try. He practised now and then, but the exercises failed. Patience

and the correct mindset are required. But the sickbed and a dog’s life had spoiled

Cephalos. Even a dog’s life is delightful in the end. Just ask a dog. And thus, on the

blooming isle of Chios, did the life of superhuman Cephalos come to a peaceful end.

Procris enjoyed her existence at his side. Accompanied everywhere by her dachshund,

he not jealous of her, she not of him, she lived out her days. What she couldn’t

understand, and rightly so, was being banished from Athens. For without Cephalos,

Athens descended into ruin.

There are descendants of his there even today. They reveal themselves by their

leaps back and forth, and their peculiar tail-waggings.

End of the journey. Like gentle clouds they draw near to the city of Istanbul

Through Asia Minor they sped. The Taurus range sends forests and valleys out to the

south, while to the north a bare plateau of steppe and desert stretches away, with lakes

embedded. As sentinels flanking it to east and north are the magnificent peaks of Asia

Minor, the sacred extinct volcano Argaeus with its three summits, primal snow and

glaciers lay siege to it, in the west Sabjum-dagh, Murad-dagh. And there too stands Ida,

Troy’s forested mountain.

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Oh Homer, the Meander flows there, once famed in song, now just a line on a map.

And there a mountain rears up, the natives call it Kayaci Dagh, which we gaze at in

astonishment only as one stares at inapproachable majesty, the terror of a high

mountain, then we shake ourselves, the word Olympus sounds. So this is Olympus,

the snow-covered glorious main seat of the ancient Greek gods? No, my friend, not

this one, not this! This is not that Olympus at whose feet the bards of old sat, amid its

cliffs once was Hera, Mother of the Gods, suspended by Zeus in the aether beneath the

clouds, not every husband employs such robust methods, and then once the Giants

tried to storm it, they strove to pile Mount Ossa onto the lowest peak and then set

upon that the forested range of Pelion, which plan of course went awry. This Kayaci-

dagh is merely some Olympus or other, there’s another one on Cyprus.

Nation after nation arose here and sank feebly away again. Greeks, spread across

the islands to the west, played like midges over the water. Alexander the Great, a man

sent to test the hearts and nerves of states, overthrew Lydia, put an end to the Persians.

Here the Romans bore arms, erected pillars to their power, prayed and dispensed

justice. And it happened that here came the first glimmerings of a faith, words echoed,

not to be washed out of human feelings, the sighing of creatures, avowal of our

wretchedness. New masses swept over the steppes and mountains, Seljuks and

Ottomans from the east and north, the sparkling Mediterranean drew them on,

yearning for sparkling waves, wonderful mirror, a basin into which a shaggy beast

steps, to emerge as a snow-white human being.

Melusine thinks otherwise, and brings her fish-tail to the fore

The Duke of Poitiers once came upon Melusine, little mermaid lady. His heart

pounded when he saw her on the beach, he’d never seen such a mouth and eyes. He

said: “I lost my way in the forest. Tell me, what is your name and will you stay here?”

She went with him up to the castle. “Your castle, Raymond, is dark and grim, all

the walls are so constricting, you must build me a new one.”

In Lusignan he built a castle on the rock, full of halls and verandas, air and sun

could get in everywhere, it was a veritable garden.

Melusine went every day down to the water, neither rain nor cold troubled her, she

sat there or hours, the count heard her singing. He said: “Melusine, you are so lovely,

you shouldn’t go to the lake, I’ll build a chamber just for you.” But she had to go down.

One day he broke through the thicket, tormented, tormented by jealousy. There

she was swimming with fins like a fish, a young fellow of similar kind held her by the

waist, and now on the shore a third lay senseless: Count Raymond, dead to the world.

And when his eyes opened again she said: “Once you met me at the lake. Now I

languish within your walls. I am still a merrmaid creature, you mustn’t reproach me

for it, Raymond. I kiss you one last time, my husband, adieu.”

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Ankara lies on a height. The Grey Wolf lodges in this city, the Turkish soldier

Kemal Pasha, the Ghazi. Anadolu Ekspresi is the name of the train, Haidar Pasha the

final Asiatic station. And over there –

Byzantium, city of seven hills, on a triangular tongue of land between the Golden

Horn and the Sea of Marmara: Constantinople. Istanbul, Hearth of Islam, Gate of

Prosperity.

They drew near the city as if on clouds, gentle airy clouds over the city, little lamb-

clouds floating white and lovely at great height.

The train hauled one sleeping Waldemar in the luggage van towards Haidar Pasha.

The two up front sat alert, serious. It was early morning.

Limp, and melancholy

Although it was the same carriage that had carried them since Baghdad, although well

seated, drunk and slept, they kept quite still. Conrad in particular had narrowed eyes.

Conrad asked himself what had happened. But nothing had happened. They sat

motionless, and waited. And now things surged up in them, all confused, moved them,

they became aware of it: sadness.

Why am I sad? What makes my hands heavy? There were some nice hours, and

then some hours that were not nice. Now, for no reason, it is not as nice as it was just

a short while ago; don’t you want it to be? But it is your human body that ferments

this wine, all you can do it sit and drink.

Conrad was standing on a big bridge.

George had left him by himself, and he’d sent the old man away. He was wearing a

European coat, suit and hat. He’d had his brown beard trimmed, the barber wanted to

take it all off, but Conrad couldn’t bring that on himself. The barber was mystified.

Once the beard had been of lazurite, he’d worn a horned bonnet, what is still true, was

any of it true, did I dream it, who am I, but I won’t be like Camilla, lugging ancient

fantasies around with me, suddenly his heart contracted, no, sir, you are not to cut it

all off. Oh, would that I’d never come to this city! So I’m to live here. I’m such an

outcast. At the bridge Conrad stood gazing into the water. If only I’d stayed in

Baghdad, it was hot, here I’m freezing. It was so lovely in Baghdad, the Jewish alleys,

how I shocked the old man, Sennacherib, and the Lord smote them all, men, horses

and chariots, and down by the river, the fat man on the roof at night, and those two

little boards floating on the black river that flowed so silently, two twinkling little

lights side by side, eddies, the current parted them. How nice Baghdad was. When I

lean over the balustrade I can’t even see my own reflection, oh I wish I wasn’t here.

And anger rose in him: I shall not stay here, I shall tear off these ridiculous cursed

clothes, these stovepipes like the Doctor wore. And his heart contracted most

dreadfully, his throat closed up: that was then, when I first went through the city,

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across the rubblefield, in the burning heat. George stayed behind in the village, as yet I

knew nothing. How, how, was the cry within him, how can I bear it, I cannot bear it.

What has befallen me. What have they done to me. No, no, and he jammed fingers in

his ears, I won’t listen, it’s not true what happened to me, I am still he who sits on the

throne, staff in hand, I’m simply dreaming and have only dropped off for an hour or so,

I wanted to become human and now here I am. Yes, that’s it, and he pressed his chest

to the round iron pillar, I thought it, wanted it, and now I am it. Now I stand here, it is

fulfilled, I am the Great One.

He sensed: this is Constantinople. Here shall my fate be fulfilled.

He took a deep breath, removed the fingers from his ears. And it’s what I wished

for and now I shall carry it through, and I am human and will not chicken out and will

stay like this as long as I want. I don’t want to quit so soon, and that’s why I stand here.

I’m here, just as I wished.

And he let go the iron pillar with a little smile, leaned back against it, I wouldn’t

like to be here forever, I understand now why humans run about so much and

everyone’s doing something, it’s too cold for them to sit around. Baghdad was nicer,

oh how much nicer. And that clever Camilla, she declined to take part in experiments,

she remained proud Camilla, and you could sit on her and still she stank so horribly.

It was in the city of Constantinople this evening that Conrad first really noticed

mosques and churches. There’d been some in Baghdad, even at Babylon, he’d seen a

chapel in the middle of the rubblefield, the grave chapel right above his temple, near

Bab Ilam, Gate of the Gods. But his grief had swallowed all impressions. On this first

evening in Constantinople, a damp evening, fog lay over the city, overhead came the

cry: “Hasten to prayers! Hasten to salvation! God is great! There is no god but Allah!”

And a woe, a heartache, other-worldly, jolted through him. From top to bottom

like a sheet of paper his body was torn asunder. He opened his mouth briefly for a

groaning “Ah”, and clutched his chest. I understand nothing, I am in an alien world, I

know nothing of what rules here. And the manifold solitude, the sense of banishment,

pelted down on him like a block of ice.

This is an alien world, woe is me, what lies ahead, here even I may face Death. “Ah,”

he groaned, “why did George go off leaving me on my own, where is he.”

And with knees soft as butter he crept away from the cursed place, pushed through

the crowds and tried to save himself.

He wandered on. Yes, these are people. How terribly close he felt to them suddenly.

How his gaze lingered on every face. How he begged every face for answers: so that’s

what I am, what is up with me, and the others, what will happen to us.

I was a great, great man, I was king of all kings, I sat enthroned above you all, held

a staff and hurled lightning, enjoyed celestial honours, I had a great throng of servants,

every one a prince and worth more than you, to the least of my servants you were as

nothing, they stood by me and watched over me. So mightily did I rule over the world

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that you built cities and palaces for me, I dwelled in golden chambers, my image sent

terror through them all.

Ailinu, ailinu, what am I now! My throne of gold is smelted down, my palaces no

longer stand, my cities lie beneath the earth. Ailinu, ailinu, I am a dog.

I slink as a mangy cur among you, I am covered all over in boils, I am a yellow

mangy cur and bark outside your doors.

Ailinu, ailinu, I creep among you not knowing if I am alive or dead, ah, I am not

dead, I must stay alive to taste all things down to the dregs.

And because fog lay now so thick over the city and Conrad had no idea which

direction he should go in, suddenly he found himself –

No interruptions. The first love story

– outside a sweet shop. The street was an abyss, the building with the sweet shop an

attempt to throw a bridge across the abyss. Conrad noticed that his feet down below

were wet, and up above water was trickling around his mouth. He opened the door,

the floor was dry, he and the counter were all alone in the shop. But from the next

room came an uproar of women and children.

And now, one after the other, there appeared: through a curtain, a very small boy

with a paper helmet on his head, at the sight of Conrad he jumped back, whereat the

din grew louder, out through the curtain along with the boy came a bigger girl with

tangled hair and a very red tearstained face, they stared at Conrad through great big

dark eyes, whereat the girl pulled the boy back in again with considerable energy, for a

few seconds the din abated, then the small boy appeared again for the third time, now

in the hand of a particularly ancient and very fat woman who couldn’t see well, for she

stood at the curtain turning her white-haired head this way and that, scanning the

room and seeming not to notice Conrad. She vanished, and the din next door rose to a

hellish level, and flushed with anger a youngish female person came from the next

room, was not quite dressed but held a big blanket firmly in both fists across her

breast, shouted back over her shoulder at the children to keep out of the shop. She

gave Conrad an evil look, and when he said nothing grabbed one of the little bags near

at hand and held it out to him. Whereat Conrad smiled and had a look around on the

counter. All sorts of things were laid out there in little boxes, he pointed and asked:

“What’s that, what’s that, what does it taste like?” The woman put down the bag,

shouted over her shoulder, and all three persons listed above appeared, assembled

behind the sweet counter, and provided explanations in numerous foreign languages

all talking over one another, apparently of the sunrise, the sunset, Mohammed’s

ascension to Heaven, of houses, rents, real estate agents, of bad and good weather, of

rainbows, of cats, dogs and mice, of voyages by sea, of life on the land and in high

mountains, of Lottie’s canary, and the treatment for mites.

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All this and more, apparently, was conveyed by the four persons behind the

counter. Conrad understood none of it, whereat the four persons directed their

narratives with gusto against each other at even greater speed and with the strongest

expenditure of vocal capabilities, accompanied by many gestures. Now it seemed to be

about Kemal Pasha’s martial undertakings, differing opinions on the Sèvres Treaty2, of

which Conrad had no memory.

When he failed to respond to their questions, the four persons, or so it seemed at

least, took the conversation in a different direction. At first the dialogue between the

two children, the boy and the bigger girl, repeatedly featured the term “phony chicken”

which, but he did not know this, was the vernacular for the four-shilling coin struck in

large quantities by the Duke Hans-Albrecht of Mecklenburg-Güstrow in 1616, with on

one side his coat of arms, on the other the Imperial eagle with a four on its breast,

which eagle was dubbed “phony chicken”, or “parrot chicken”.3

Meanwhile the two older persons were debating, so vigorously that they were hard

to follow, a theological problem, specifically the question of toleration. They were

both in agreement that it was all a matter of the high-minded toleration of an alien

faith with the intention of leaving it and its adherents unmolested in both public and

private. As regards dogmatically theoretical toleration as well as its practice among the

citizenry, they were clearly of the same heart and mind. Only when one came to the

modern constitutional state did it seem to engender difficulties, which even the

customer was unable to reconcile.

For whole long minutes, perplexity reigned in the little sweet shop. Had Conrad

been just any old body, the scene would have come to a rapid end with the help of

neighbours who would have thrown him into the street. There our hero would have

been consigned to his wet feet and dribbling mouth, and we would have had to begin

our love story from a different starting point. He and we alike were spared this by the

initiative of the children, that pair of grubby inquisitive creatures. Since the stranger

seemed not ill-disposed and had a refined and mysterious appearance, they stepped

out from behind the counter, inspected Conrad fore and aft, and commenced a new

barrage of questions. In the utterances of the girl, who kept scratching her head and

knees, the word “pana” sounded often, Conrad racked his brains. What could they

mean by pana, and by the earlier phony chicken? The Indian unit of weight in which

the Maurya king Chandragupta around 321 B.C. produced his silver coins? Out of the

question. A word that seemed to be “hind” could be made out. “Hind” could mean

many things: a female deer, fishes of the genus Epinephelus found in the warmer

waters of the western Atlantic Ocean, or it could mean “back” as in “behind” or

“hindquarters”; or could they be referring to the bibliophile Ludwig Hain, who was

born in Stuttgart on 5 July 1781 and died as a private scholar in Munich on 27 June 1836,

2 1920 treaty imposed by the Allies, formally ending the Ottoman Empire and negating Turkish

sovereignty. Three years later the Treaty of Lausanne recognised the Turkish state. 3 The Duke is historical (1590-1636), but no info on the coin found.

141

leaving behind a goodly collection of 16,311 incunabula, anastatic reproductions4,

appendices, corrections? Maybe, maybe.5

To achieve a degree of understanding, the debate would have to be brought onto a

different footing. From the two older ladies, who by now had calmed down and were

exchanging furtive smiles, he picked up remarks that could be interpreted as allusions

to Oseen’s approximations in the hydrodynamics of viscous fluids,6 maybe also to

induction lines in a field strength of constant magnitude. The hard problem of plane

stress vectors was airily disposed of, then came citations on the calculation of

ephemeris time and improvements in orbital determination.

By this point Conrad was becoming annoyed, shook himself and posed a counter-

question: “What is infinity? What is the origin of the spectral lines?” And answers had

they none.

The women were nonplussed and disconcerted to hear his angry counter-question:

When is a constant curve M enumerable from many simpler arcs, independent up to

their end point? Please! Hah! What were all discussions of ballistic theory when – not

to speak of other factors – the transform coefficient of the7 Phi-function was obscure

and crying out for elucidation! Here they were faced with an expressly lemniscate

function sin U.

They were overawed by his coarse tone, and stuttered excuses about Bernouilli

Numbers and Staudt’s Partitions, which failed to mollify him. If the two children had

not been there, it would have ended badly. They fingered Conrad’s spattered boots, his

lovely coat, felt without embarrassment in his pockets, and as they did so recited the

nursery rhyme: “Goosey goosey gander, what did you lose? Seven dear goslings, they

all had no shoes. The cobbler had no leather, and he had no last, so seven shoeless

goslings now come past.”

An old bald-headed neighbour, alerted by the din, entered the shop, removed the

pipe from his mouth, and thundered at Conrad: “xi3 xp + x3xi + xp

3xi = 0.”

Quick as a flash he retorted: “x2y2 = 2a3(y – a).” At which the other scratched his

head, laid down his arms, and resumed smoking.

Now peace descended, the storm was over. The two women and the neighbour

exchanged friendly smiles, Conrad stroked the boy’s paper helmet, and had a great

effect on all present when he took from his purse, which he retrieved from the child’s

hands, a banknote that he affixed artfully to the peak of the helmet. Everyone gave a

merry laugh. Conrad now at last without hindrance picked up a bag, popped a sweet in

his mouth, and felt he was at the goal of his desires.

4 A complicated and short-lived method used in the 1840s to reproduce old documents. 5 Translating this paragraph required some trickery, as there are no English words with both the sound

and meaning of “Hain” (grove). Epinephelus was a happy Döblinesque find! 6 Carl Wilhelm Oseen (1879-1944): Swedish theoretical physicist. 7 No ref found for ‘Wagenstraßsche’

142

And with that our sweetie episode in a typical sweet shop would have come to an

end, the sweet shop owner would have flung open the door for him, bowed, jabbered,

clapped her hands together, clutched her brow, would have run to the neighbours,

told them all about it, it would have blazed like wildfire through every alleyway, and a

few days later the legend would have faded. But this was a predetermined, predestined

sweet shop. For, as you have already correctly surmised, Conrad had made his greatest

impression on the youngish person with the blanket around her. It was the value of

the cockade Conrad had unthinkingly attached to her nephew’s paper helmet that

unleashed in her an indescribable sensation.

Could it be, she asked herself, and with lightning speed the answer clearly came,

that a man, so refined, so respectable and rich, would step into this shop only because

of sweets? No. He means me. She looked at the banknote in the boy’s helmet, and

knew: “He loves me very much.”

This girl will play only a small role in Conrad’s story. But she initiates a whole

sequence. And Conrad, when he stood on the bridge and felt that this was the city of

his destiny, had felt correctly.

The boy whispered a remark to the old lady, which Conrad, eye to eye with the

bald man, failed to pick up even acoustically. If you thought about it properly, it could

just as well be a remark about the treasures in portraiture contained in the Copper

Engravings Room of the Museum, or a severe warning against handing over huge sums

for purportedly genuine documents in the absence of expert opinion, which actually

happened in Austria. The young woman now disappeared. In the next room she

completed her toilet. On the open stage Conrad engaged happily with the youngsters,

sat on a cane stool, the children counted the buttons on his coat, inspected the lining,

and chattered away.

Baldy directed a friendly farewell at the old lady, who was standing smirking

behind the counter, and at Conrad. Then he retired. Conrad sucked his thumb and

waited, he knew not what for, but something was being made ready for him, he could

feel it. He sat there quite calm. Outside the fog still lay thick. He’d been standing on

the bridge, where now was the block of ice that meant to smash him to pieces, ailinu,

ailinu, I am covered in boils, ah what must a human endure. It was our indestructible

Conradino sitting there, you can cast him into Hell and he’ll set up a conversation and

ask Satan about heating technology. The old lady kept an eye on the paper helmet and

its valuable plumage. Only once did she direct at contented Conrad, now at peace with

the whole world, a question seemingly in yet another foreign language. Could it be

about the bilinear system of uncials and majuscules, or the four-line system, it was all

the same to him, he returned her smile. From a later remark of Conrad’s she gathered

that he considered, just as she did, the fourth century a turning point in the history of

the Greek script, and that he was sorry if there should at some stage have been any

misunderstanding between them on this point. Then the donna entered, initiator of

the delicious sequence, and occupied the foreground.

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The first stroll

What was she wearing? A dress, as modern as his attire. What was on her head? A

little cap, at an angle. And under it? She herself. What sort of looks did she cast? Let’s

ask – Conrad. He stood as she entered, bowed, and she stepped out from behind the

counter. She was the twenty-three year old daughter of the old lady, shop assistant by

profession, mostly just helping out, and she didn’t live in this house. That afternoon

she’d been standing in for the old lady, because the latter was still out by the waterside

busy with the heavy laundry. The old lady had come back, the young lady was about to

tidy herself up before leaving, when Fate appeared in the shape of Conrad. The young

lady had planned to meet up, at the same bridge where Conrad had stood, with a

gentleman who presumed himself her betrothed.

Now she was all ready to go, and Conrad accompanied her back to the bridge. This

sort of joyful return absolved the evil place, to some extent. The scene in the shop, the

affectionate farewells from the children, who’d left several stains on his light-coloured

coat, the girl at his side, all of it enveloped him in wellbeing.

At the bridge they met, pacing back and forth, the young presumptive bridegroom,

a shy lanky man in knickerbockers. He’d been waiting a long time. When they

appeared he clapped a hand to his mouth, which at the same moment gaped open in

shock. Conrad merely tipped his hat, he liked this young fellow. A few cool words from

the young lady, a query from the youth, from whose face all blood had drained, a

shrug of the shoulders from the young lady, who fastened onto Conrad’s arm and

pulled him along. Conrad tipped his hat again, but the young man must have just then

been staring at the ground. The girl stepped radiantly at Conrad’s side. They hadn’t

reached the end of the bridge when Conrad halted, turned, and drew the girl’s

attention to the young man still rapt in contemplation. She directed a melting smile at

Conrad, shook her head, and again took hold of his arm. Oh, if he could only make

clear to her how sorry he felt for the young man. But the girl kept her nerve. She knew

this rich foreigner must have seen her out somewhere, had followed her and tracked

her down to the sweet shop. He was handsome, and she needed an outfit and new

shoes for a summer festival. So off she hauled her prize. She wanted to go with him to

a fine restaurant, dine until her stays burst, then go dancing. Maybe she’ll bump into

someone she knows in the restaurant, who can talk to the man and get him to say who

he really is. A man like this will be the envy of all her girlfriends.

She’d already come across one such heavenly example two years before. He too

spoke a foreign language, had amazing amounts of cash, and bought her presents. He

lasted five days. Then he had to go travelling, or so he said at least. One of her

girlfriends had once made a similar acquaintance, she was over the moon, and it too

lasted just five days. Lots of foreigners don’t stay longer than that in Constantinople,

especially the best ones. But this prognosis didn’t worry her.

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Our Messer Conradino too would have given a great deal to speak even a few

words of her language. Here we have an opening to remark on how damaging

language can be. For how would Messer Conradino have applied his linguistic skills?

To express his feelings to the girl. And his feelings were focused on the abandoned

youth. He’d have said: “Let’s bring him too!” The girl would have objected, he wouldn’t

have given in, in the end she’d have conceded. All three would have walked on in

acrimony. In vain would Conrad have tried to jolly both sides along. The youth,

Conrad’s prize, wouldn’t have joined them in the restaurant, he’d have stood outside

spying on the girl, for despite everything he still considered himself her betrothed. In

fact, however, Conrad kept quiet, the girl was happy, and the youth – followed at a

distance. All young men in this situation do so, they follow even should their heart be

consumed by fire. They stand outside in storm and wind and rain, wait half the night

in the doorway across the street, and only when they see the couple emerge full of

beans and chattering merrily away to climb into a car and drive off, only then have

they had enough, today they have tasted bitterness to the full, there is no more

torment for them to partake of, and they, even they, slowly set themselves in motion

and drag themselves, collar turned up, eyes down to the pavement, back home to their

dismal room and go to bed with their clothes on.

The girl spoke to Conrad. She pointed out a flower seller, called the roses in her

basket “rose”, he had to say it after her, “rose”, she chose a bunch, he paid, she picking

the coins from his hand, the flower lady said “thanks”, the girl said “thanks”, Conrad

had to repeat it, “thanks”, and then she prompted: “rose, thanks”, and he jabbered

“rose, thanks”, and this took them half a block arm in arm.

This was clearly a main street.

There were many shops. As they strolled, the girl allowed her covetous eyes to pass

across the displays, she knew what she wanted, first came a little glove shop, which

was still open. They stood at the shop window, the girl pulled off her right glove, said

“hand”, he repeated “hand”, and went to clutch it. She drew it back, pulled the glove

back on, pointed out a little hole in the palm, made a pitiable, exquisitely impish face,

and prompted: “hole”. He said “hole”. Then she pointed through the glass and looked

at him: “glove”. He nodded: “glove”. They marched in.

When they were outside again she had new gloves with wonderfully pretty cuffs,

like fencers wear. She held both hands out to him and he knew at once what to do: he

kissed them one after the other. How wonderful that he knew all that, and that he did

everything to make her happy. He was caught in a warm Gulf Stream and was blissful.

Who cares where the current takes him. Maybe to a desert island, or a shore of terrors.

It was a warm current, a marvellous, marvellous current.

The girl took him along many, many streets, they passed many restaurants, the girl

was hesitant, for the man was splendid enough for the most respectable places, but

only her gloves were respectable, the rest was a little inauthentic. The beauty of the

body beneath the clothing she left out of the calculation. That was invisible, only her

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lover could sense it. Speaking was becoming a chore, she sometimes thought back to

her young fellow, she’d really like to be fooling sweetly around with him just now, and

the gentleman was so dignified, maybe an American lord or a French prince. And so

she has to dance and limber him up. Soon they came to a restaurant, a Negro stood at

the door, his mouth blood red. She gave Conrad a little laugh and said “pretty”. He

parroted “pretty”. And suddenly, as they stood in the cloakroom being divested of

coats and hats, Conrad launched into a great speech, and he wasn’t at all bothered that

she understood none of it and made no remarks, she listened, attentive and nervous,

what was he jabbering, oh God, what had she got herself into, should she run away,

after eating, maybe.

What was Messer Conradino, the prisoner, declaiming? He was describing the

beauty of the evening and the girl and the restaurant, and gave to everything a name.

For his mouth seemed to have been half-frozen, and whether she understood or not

there had to be talk.

His knowledge of eating was outstanding, of drinking likewise, who could ever

surpass him in this. As they ate he learned a few new words from her, mouth, wine,

music. Then she made him stand up, there was a small level empty space in front of

the tables, two couples were dancing, Conrad and the girl made a third. No heavenly

orchestra played for them, rather the band XY consisting of a piano, a viola and a

violin, lots of second-class standards, the music was incomprehensible to Conrad, but

it was unparalleled the way the young girl clung to him, led him, and made him feel. It

was incomparably sweet and intoxicating, this experience of the body’s balancing and

turning. She hummed along with the band, the piano player sang something, the girl’s

head rested on Conrad’s chest. She’s singing into me, he thought, oh I was a fool, again

a fool, and utterly a fool to sit up there reigning in Heaven and down here humans

have this, this as well, long before I came, every little human. How marvellous to be

human. It flamed in him, and the girl had to pull him around, for he wanted just to

stand there. I have been awakened, it had to happen, that I lost everything to find this.

I couldn’t have found it had I not been struck down, I was already ossified, fire had to

fall on me, now I understand, it is my path, what was I seeking in that deserted place

Babylon. And the old grief had become a licking flame, and Conrad felt so enormously

strong, standing irrepressible on the Earth’s ground, and all that had happened was a

harmless girl from a sweet shop holding him in her arms and swaying. He sensed the

deep current, and he was the swimmer with mighty arms, thrusting legs.

They sat at their table, drank cognac, the girl took his glass and tipped it out under

the table, even though her glass was small he had to drink from it with her, held in

their teeth. Their lips lay side by side on the narrow rim, cheeks pressed together. All

at once she bit down on the glass, had it to herself, with one toss of the head let the

contents flow into her mouth, the glass fell, fell into her lap, her mouth pressed itself

to Conrad’s, warm cognac ran into his mouth, they were glued together. As people

from the dance floor looked over at them, the waiter presented himself at their table.

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The first night

The evening, the night ran its course, as anyone can imagine. This is nothing special,

and it’s all been said a million times.

It’s a dull flat little song.

Little girl I found on the street, little girl clinging to me, say, what do I see in you?

Is it your black hair that crackles when I stroke it, is it your words that whisper in

my ear, tell me, what do I see in you?

Everything you do and say is dear to me. Your cap hanging on the chair is dear to

me. Your cambric dress on the nail is dear to me, tell me (make it something dear to

us) what do I see in you?

If a wise man were here, I would ask him, he would have to teach my head. But I’d

best not ask anyone, I want only to let my pleasure grow, to kiss you, revere you, for

(and so on – I love you, little girl, or, I am nothing without you, little girl).

What is flat should not be made rounded. (Which goes for a maiden’s belly, too.)

*

He walked with her arm in arm to the door of a little house he didn’t know. He wasn’t

curious how she knew it; indeed it wasn’t her first time on these narrow stairs, and the

Greek attendant bearing the candle ahead of them, who kept a very deadpan face on

account of of the elegant man and the prospect of an American tip, pulled open the

door, clicked on the light, which he never usually did, pulled the curtains closed, such

as they were, asked if the “dear lady” had any instructions, was dismissed with a curt

nod because she thought he was mocking her. Then a bow to heaven and earth.

Scientists concern themselves with things whose utility is uncontroversial. They

reflect on the existence of eigenfunctions of a real variable of bilinear differential

equations, they puzzle over the asymptotic behaviour of solutions to differential

equations, they try to determine the mean error of potency moments. Others, not

content with this, dig into the long-gone world of prehistory, and when they emerge

covered in leaves and mud are able to extend our knowledge of Upper Cretaceous

aptychi and the White-lipped Dagger, a kind of snail, and they do in fact succeed in

making clear to us its appearance and form, the three layers, the duplicate tunica,

mouth opening, valves, tentacles, of course with much disputation. Still others have to

measure human skulls, and here’s a description of someone, he’s euencephalic,

brachycranial, metriocranial, mesosem, euryprosopic, mesorhyne, mesoconchic,

brachyuranic, brachystaphilinic, in short and you can believe it or not, he’s a

pronounced plagiocephalic with indications in the individual characteristics of mixed

oriental and Near Eastern features. Anyway, he’s dead.8

8 Almost all these terms can be found, with a little searching, in anthropological papers online.

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At Czaka-Ceykow in August 1858, a huge trove of Vandal treasure was uncovered

when the serf Andreas Gagyalo was laying a trench for potatoes on the land of his

master, the Greek Catholic pastor Michael Szambo. That same year the pastor sold the

trove to the then Royal & Imperial Coin and Antiquities Chamber in Vienna,9 which

enabled it to be studied. A massive task, but the scholars were undeterred. There were

bronze sieves, flat plates of greenish-white iridescent glass, pottery shards, beakers,

but where did these beakers come from, eh, such questions, always more questions,

the animal groups on them show links to Hellenic work, eh, or not?

They thought whatever came from their pens.

Given the profound earnestness prevailing in the scholarly world and impressing

itself in every line of their printed works, it would be boorish to set down on hallowed

paper the mere encounter of two human beings. Nothing could justify it to the learned

public, other than the righteous desire somehow to shine a feeble beam of scientific

value on the mere encounter between these two human beings. Perhaps our two little

people, I think, are worth at least this consideration: that in a not too distant time

their skulls and bones will become available to the serious researcher.

The dream afterwards

Conrad was asleep in the strange bed. In his dreams three Acrimonies, three Terrors

and one Dread paraded before him.

First Acrimony: lifts skirt, presents a silver-shod foot, sings: “Oh how so deceiving.”

Second Acrimony: has a migraine, cannot speak.

Third Acrimony: leaves, with apologies.

The first Terror is powder-white, has deepset inner eyes, plays with matches, sets

fire to your house.

The second Terror sits on the ground, it’s a weasel, creeps after you, bites your

finger, at night sleeps on your face.

The third Terror is a groan, sits hunched, head in hands, how to go past it quickly.

The Dread has fat cheeks, a martially upcurled moustache, sits comfortably on a

camp stool, has to employ the Chinese Hat, the timpani clangs: “From the earth you

came, to the earth you must return, boom boom.”

Grey dawn

She woke him very early, grey dawn. She had to go to work. What should she do with

him, she didn’t know his name, how to find him again, would she ever see him again?

9 The catalogue of the Kunsthistorisches Museum shows only three Vandal coins, all from N Africa.

148

He sat up in bed besieged by many obscure feelings, she had somehow got dressed,

he stared at her astonished, then shook his head, said something and hugged her tight.

He wouldn’t let her go, but she had no time.

What’s this, she thought, does he really love me? How amazing, he does love me.

But I have to go. What can I do to find him again? If he likes me he’ll be sure to find

me. And she scribbled her name and address in the margin of a tram ticket, held it out

to him. He nodded, laughed, understood. And now as they made their farewells he

was saying lots more in his foreign language, right to her face, she laughed, comical

man, she stuck her tongue out at him.

But he was glad to see her go, he wanted to lie down again. He wanted to surrender

to the special occasion of the previous night.

He saw himself at the bridge, ailinu, ailinu, running around like a mangy cur, fog

over the city, how long ago was it. Children playing by the sweetshop counter, the girl

went with me across the bridge, we left the young man standing, and then the dancing,

embracing. He stretched, eyes tight shut.

I’ve been caught. I’ve died, I’m lying in a wonderful coffin.

I’ve been caught by the arms, because I have arms, I’ve been caught by the mouth,

because I have lips, by the legs because I have legs, by the body, hair and hide, because

I have hair and hide.

We, made of the same flesh and bone, understand what he, still lying there, was

feeling in the fading notes of his after-pleasure. Tristesse. It mixed itself into his calmly

flowing sentiments, after-sentiments, excessive sentiments.

Heavenly choirs are unambiguous, loud and clear. Their lines swing clean and

strong like geometrical figures. Human songs are fractured. A song begins, then a

concertina starts up, plays strangely remote harmonies, the song dodges, veers away,

the concertina slyly falls silent, the song dares another attempt, and now again the

strange harmonies swell.

A Swede and a Frenchman make enormous efforts to accomplish unambiguously straight-line deeds

Sven Born in Uppsala considered the assertion that everything has two sides to be a

villainous heap of bullshit, and pointed to the battles of the Irish that had led to their

abandoning the oath of loyalty so that the Irish could happily remain disloyal, which

had always been their one and only side. And to the assembled brethren and comrades

of “Open air, Open sea, Open land” he proposed a bet: he would make a nonstop

return flight from Uppsala to Stockholm, in a state of drunkenness to boot, so that

there could be no doubting that the same action could be done in the same straight

line drunk or sober. Said non-stop flight took off (attendant circumstances left aside)

one windy day, which, as goat-legged Sven Born opined, increased the credibility of

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the test. The people of Stockholm had prepared a worthy reception, he skidded round,

faced north, got caught in a colossal storm and after heroic struggles tumbled to earth.

But, the Open air Open sea Open land declared, he had nevertheless won the bet,

because a storm’s a storm and there’s nothing you can do about it.

Someone else out-trumped him with a watery deed. This was a 16 year old

swimmer from the French town of Cherbourg, who, after so many had already swum

the Channel, swore he would swim the whole world, straight on in a continuous

direction, accompanied by no one. He would sleep on the water’s mirror-surface, eat

only fish that he caught, he was one of those who eat only raw food, and only on

Sundays would he take a sip from the surface of the water, where it wasn’t so salty.

The event took place many years ago, shortly before the outbreak of the 1870-71 war,

the start was accordingly not much noticed, later everyone forgot about him, for his

father fell in the war, his mother moved to Poitiers in the department of Vienne,

where as everyone knows Charles Martel fought to victory over the Arabs on 18

October 732 and put a stop to their further advance. He had no siblings.

Anyway, in the year 1900, near Panama in the Americas, a man of around 46 years

of age with a full beard and flippers was seen climbing out of the sea. He toddled off in

haste across the narrow isthmus in order to jump into the sea on the other side. Just as

the World War broke out, a sprightly sixty year old man clad only in bathing trunks is

said to have sat under a cherry tree in bloom in a sheltered spot on a beach in Japan.

Speaking French to the Japanese, he enquired about the outcome of the Franco-

Prussian War, but they were alas unable to enlighten him. He spoke with a distinct

Cherbourg accent. He seems then to have resumed his course through the Indian

Ocean and around Africa, avoiding the Suez Canal route so as not to lose time in locks.

In 1932, during the crisis, he climbed white-bearded from the water, made a sad face

and no longer understood the world.

After this he lived in a swimming pool, and later in a bathtub. He refused to shave.

Some asserted that he breathed through gills. He was a decent, inexorable man.

Two men exchange views on love; insults ensue

It was midday before Conrad appeared back at the hotel. George and Waldemar, had a

disturbed night behind them. They inspected the Great One’s face: despite the post-

amorous tristesse things seemed not to have gone badly with him. George so lacked

self-control that, to Waldemar’s horror, he began bawling Conrad out while he was

still climbing the steps. In the room he was bold enough to resign from the Great

One’s service. He acted like a madman. It was all swagger: George meant to impress on

Conrad that times had changed. The Great One remained calm and let him leap about.

That evening he opened himself up to George. He praised him as a prudent travel

advisor, Constantinople was an excellent follow-up to Baghdad, for it made possible

tremendous progress in understanding of the world situation. He lectured: “People

150

have arranged a wonderfully comfortable life for themselves. There’s eating and

drinking, such a cornucopia of food and beverages you could spend half your existence

just on that, all the dishes, so many ways of preparing them, the wines, coffees,

chocolates, lemonades, liqueurs and so much more to get through. That’s for the

tongue and the gums. They have eyes too, and for the eyes there are fabulous colours

they apply to fabrics, clothes, costumes, hats, veils, shoes. They paint their houses and

walls, they hang pictures on the walls and mix the colours so that they’re a delight,

they colour their cheeks, their lips. That’s what they do for the eyes, so they can feast

on it. And then in the coffee houses you have music, we know music from way back,

here it’s new, their search for novelty never ends, they don’t fall into the error of

repetition and so you keep interested, though I have to say I don’t understand it, even

the beat eludes me, they danced to it.”

Conrad paused, reflecting. He thought of the cabaret and how cleverly the girl had

held the cognac between her teeth. He went on: “And at this point one must make a

great discovery, George. That is what I bring you from last night. I can’t exactly

describe the discovery to you. It’s as if you’re in a new country, you know it’s new, of

course you don’t know your way around. They lurk in the background, step towards

you with smooth skin and a delightful smile on the face and with delicate horns and

claws. And if you were to ask me, George, I would tell you: it’s ‘woman’.”

Gentleman George puffed away at his Henry Clay (we’ll leave the selection to him).

There are young men who, somewhere along the Rhine, take a boat and begin to

row. Then the mountaintops begin to sparkle and up there most wonderfully there sits,

as if dreaming, the most beautiful virgin, combing her hair and singing. And as she

combs and sings the young man forgets to row, and though it’s only the Rhine it has

its rocks and reefs, so that a capsizing situation can easily arise.

“Last night I came to know a female exemplar, George. That’s why I left you

waiting. You’d gone off. I’d sent Waldemar away, I felt bad, I stood on the bridge in

the fog. Then I walked on a bit and came to a dreadful alleyway. This one.” He handed

the tram ticket to George, after carefully unfolding it. George read a street, a name.

“You can’t have been there, Great One. It’s not by the bridge.”

“Then it must be where she lives. What is her name?”

“First tell me more.”

“She’s of a slight build, quite buxom, not very young, not elegant, an ordinary

woman. Eating and drinking, George, enjoying a cigar, a turtle soup, a pie, that I

understand. But that two can make a delight, that there are women, and their figure,

their body, their life – that delights me, and only with her do I discover this delight,

I’ve only just had the experience, and still can’t fathom it. Is it love?”

“So it would seem.”

“Do you know it too?”

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George pulled his nose, gave a great laugh, an insulting laugh. “No, Great One. I do

not know it. But while you were wandering around Baghdad and having conversations

with Camilla, I did have some experiences. With me, love is no different from eating

and drinking. For don’t you love your pies as well, Great One? No trimmings needed.

The same with women. You leave your conceits at home. Love is for beginners. You

mustn’t fall into their snares.”

Conrad’s eyes widened. “You know women and don’t love them?”

George laughed again and smacked his knee: “No.”

“Then maybe you don’t know them?”

“On the contrary. It is I who know them best. And they have the same attitude and

value me for it. They value me more than – debutants.”

Conrad regarded him for a few seconds, pushed himself far back in his seat: “So

then you know what I was going to tell you. And why didn’t you ever mention it to me?

I – discovered it last night, with her, the one on the tram ticket, and …” He sat up

straight, roared at George: “You know nothing of it, you donkey! I’m sure of it.

Otherwise you’d have gone on about it. And you’d have talked differently.”

George puffed calmly at his cigar: “At your service, my sultan.”

“Your woman was a bovine creature. But this one you have to see.”

“You will go to her this evening.”

“Yes.”

“An affair with a girl, unworthy of you.”

George followed him that evening and saw what he had expected: an ordinary

female, of small stature, quite buxom, not young, not respectable. Great Conrad

danced around her in bliss. Blood rushed to George’s head when he saw this. “The

shame. This hussy. Should I allow it. She’s using him. I shan’t give him a penny.” And a

wicked thought rose in him for a moment: “I should make advances, take her from

him. And then reveal him to her.” He chewed on the thought, it would teach Conrad a

lesson, shorten the business. But bashfulness lurked and wiggled within George. Our

confirmed man of the world was bashful before this ordinary female, because she was

walking at Conrad’s side!

He lost sight of them. And he had to give free rein to the irritating, even horrid

thought, here it was yet again: Conrad is more than me, he knows more of love than I

do. Will it never ever change? Do I wander the Earth with him, have I forced him

down here only so he can persist in his pride and he still has his palace and his pillars.

It burned within him. He plunged headfirst into his chores. Indeed, what would

Conrad be without his care? A creature of luxury, a parasite.

If only Conrad had emerged from his infatuation, he would have seen how George

wrestled with himself, and the danger for him that threatened from that quarter.

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The author sighs, the readers complain

You idolatrous wretch, you devious caitiff wretch, wicked skew-angled wretch, we can

see you want him to suffer disaster. You will want it. He may be a contemptible

blatherskite, nothing but a toper, a guzzler, a windbag, connoisseur of perfumes,

embracer of women, a heap of lard, yet he can tread on grass, and the grass will not

rebel against him, for he grows like the grass, he can let rain soak him, and the rain

knows who it’s pouring down on, the sun feels itself duly honoured even if he wears a

pith helmet and holds an opened parasol.

But you, George, what will you turn out to be?

(Anyway, as long as that’s how matters stand between them we shall have an

interesting match to watch, if not today then tomorrow.)

Numero two: the competitor

The romantic adventures of per pro Conrad, travelling under the name of the Persian

Khan Ibn Kurmani, acquired a certain scope.

First off, the sweetshop mamselle, to bring her to a conclusion, clung to him for

just a few days. Mamselle was the only one counting the days. They’ll have been the

prescribed five. By then he’d aroused the attention of other women, and all because of

sweetshop mamselle’s own desire for fame.

The excitable creature couldn’t keep her mouth shut, and on top of that allowed

her new gloves, coat, hat, the elegant boa, a gold pocket watch, two rings to reveal

their glory more than was necessary. Around so much light, moths must swarm. Soon

the mighty Khan saw himself besieged by a growing crowd of inquisitive females, and

his experience of love was able to take a great step forward. Hence it happened one

evening, even before he met up with his chosen lady fair, that he fell into the clutches

of a bold young person who – you won’t be expecting this – was interested not so

much in his presents, as in him!

Life has this characteristic: when looked at in prospect it is confused, capricious, so

prophesying is difficult; but viewed in retrospect, as history, it presents a strictly

logical aspect, which alas is no longer of use to the one doing the living. Our little

kiddy was of the prospective sort: capricious and thoughtless. She drew Conrad on

along the trodden path. She’d let sweetshop mamselle tell her all about our prince,

and it was like rind to a mouse: when she heard of an interesting gentleman she had to

head straight for the bacon, and it was only a one-day matter, she had no longer-term

plans. She was very young, had not a whiff of love about her, she danced, played

hardly any sports, man-hunting was her game. You can understand it if you consider

how young she was, for she wanted to unveil the many who had formerly scared her,

now she could take a peep behind their saintly bearded curtain – a mischievous

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pleasure. She latched onto Conrad’s arm. He was an explorer and so, in her way, was

she. And so one evening they started their little game and peeped at each other’s cards.

Step 1: she relished taking him away from her so-called girlfriend. He admitted

quite frankly that he was standing in the street waiting for that other girl. She replied

that she’d often watched him from the window, and his girlfriend wouldn’t be there

for half an hour, she’d been sent (a lie) to the post office. And with that the kiddy

manoeuvred his lordship off the street, and here he was strolling with her.

Step 2: He felt something fidgeting on his arm, an already familiar sensation. But it

was still uncanny: a new scent, a saucy open face, a wonderful slenderness, and how

cheekily she tossed her head, and her rapid steps. Conrad trawled along at her side for

half an hour, time to turn back, he was thinking of his belle who’d been sent to the

post office, and she must be back by now waiting for him.

Step 3: And so he tried to come free of No. 2 and signalled his decision to the girl.

Whereat she just led him further on. And when he took his fair lady’s photo from his

pocket, she replaced it with great firmness, grabbed his arm, and – marched on. He

relished the wonderful natural drama at his side, but had no idea what to do.

Step 4: He was suddenly overwhelmed by gloomy thoughts of the vanished one;

she was standing there now, waiting, and he felt a longing for her, she was so warm.

The kiddy felt his arm go limp, his pace falter.

Step 5: Now she let go his arm, walked away, and placed herself with her back to

him outside the first shop window, which was a butcher’s. When he stepped to her

side, she’d shut up her face, closing time. When he touched her hand she jerked it

away. When she turned about and marched off by herself, she walked so fast he had to

hurry to catch up. When at last he matched steps with her, her shop was still shut.

Step 6: She moderated her pace and managed to squeeze big tears from her eyes.

Step 7: He put an arm around her waist, she allowed herself to like it, he led her

considerately to a show window, which by chance was another butcher’s shop, the

tears, in accordance with physical laws, trailed more slowly down her cheeks, now she

really did look like a little girl. And because the sight of the bloody quarter of mutton

confused him, he led her to a bar that was nearby and completely empty, where they

sat for a solid hour undertaking inward ablutions of brandy.

Thus, in seven steps, did the kiddy prise him away from his belle, who had in no

way been despatched to the post office and was not at all her friend. Not everything in

the process was methodically planned, for example the tears. But success was achieved.

Conrad learns about the torments of love

How the evening went? Swiftly, excitingly, incomprehensibly, like life viewed in

prospect. When she saw he was still there, she lost interest in him. Apart from which

she was under the thumb of an aunt and had to go home. In the bar, as a consequence

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of alcoholic consumption, she became boisterous. He was enchanted, his heart

pounded all the way to his throat. He would gladly have bought her a present. But it

was dark already, the shops were shut. So she took his necktie, stuck it in her handbag,

he had to turn up his coat collar. And ten minutes later, darkness had just fallen, he

found himself alone in the street! Adieu, adieu, we’ll meet again tomorrow noon.

In the empty street stood Khan Ibn Kurmani. She’d gone off with his tie, she’d gone,

agitation seethed in his blood. And was she with his sweetshop mamselle? He had a

rough idea of the direction in which her lodging lay, he steered his steps that way, very

slowly, then had no idea. He had to stop. And finally take a cab to the hotel, to his

room. He was in a tizzy, sleep came reluctantly.

In a glowering mood he set off next morning to see the new young lady. And even

bought her a little bunch of flowers. She’d planned to have lunch with him, but one

glance was enough to tell her the battle was lost. She told herself, the born strategist: a

battle is not the war. She’d have to send him back to the other girl. She managed to

convince him to say nothing to his sweetie about their meeting. And already she was

off, bouquet in her arms, striding jauntily away on slender legs, head held high.

But what Conrad felt that evening with his sweetshop mamselle was, you’ve

guessed it, a longing for the second girl. He was going through the beginner’s course

in love. His lady fair was a silly thing, very warm, simple, she forgave him at once. She

was happy to sit at his side, even though her five days were up. She’d broken the

record. He hurried home, would have liked to see the other one, that minute. But the

night had to run its course, it came to an end, and as dawn broke he told George about

his adventure, George must help him find the second girl’s address.

“Right away, right away,” George laughed, enjoying this new turn, “bestow on me

the gift of clairvoyance, Great One.”

The Great One groaned: “Oh come come, George, I told you about the first one and

now can’t wait to see the second. Really I didn’t sleep a wink, I kept thinking of her,

how she tosses her head, how freely she steps out, the clarity of her gaze, she’s fresh as

a daisy, as open as the sky, she’s boyish, nothing false about her.”

George purred contentedly: “That’s what men like. They all have some attractive

points. You have to chew your way slowly through them. They have different coloured

hair, different complexions, you’ll find out, there’s a whole catalogue, you shouldn’t let

it confuse you, just keep on nicely one at a time, Conrad.”

“No, no, I yearn for this one.”

“Here we go,” said George.

Anyway, it took him the whole day to track down his master’s latest and only

beloved, but the search gave him lots of fun, he found out about her by questioning

the first girl, the sheep, she gave him four names that seemed to fit the description

George provided. He located them one after the other and slipped away. The young

lady he came to last seemed, when he came to the aunt’s house – she wasn’t at home –

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to scent a new adventure. When she realised it was only about the Khan she’d already

put back on the shelf, she was shocked, responded negatively, but felt pride and in the

end allowed herself to be led radiantly to Conrad, not at the hotel, for George didn’t

want that, something to do with the Khan’s credit standing.

Conrad flung his arms around George when he turned up to deliver the girl to him.

How Conrad had dreamed of being alone with her. But she – she wanted to dance, eat,

drink, then flowers and back home. He wasn’t even allowed to sit in the cab with her.

She being tired just at present. She had the victory, and that was enough.

Next day – he’d insisted that she not go to work, she’d pretended it was out of the

question, but she liked to play truant now and then, being lazy – she demanded

presents, but nothing ostentatious because of the aunt. To Conrad, who’d experienced

only good things with the sweet slow mamselle who never implored or begged, this

affair revealed the peculiar tormenting to and fro of love. With the kiddie he was at his

wits’ end. Nothing here of the sweet surrender, the joy in togetherness he’d extolled to

George. So much was annoying, the whole thing really so stupid he dared not mention

any of it to George. When he returned to the hotel after each brief saucy meeting, he

railed at himself, thought himself a dupe. But what to do? He couldn’t leave it alone.

As for the girl, we must report: she was scared. His tender approaches were fun.

Otherwise the gentleman bored her. But at long last she decided to love him after all.

One day she sat at home looking after her aunt’s cats, feeling bored. She thought,

now he’ll come prancing up yet again, a dead city this Constantinople, nothing ever

changes. Her thoughts slid away at this point. She recalled a girl friend who’d made a

great thing of her beau. She mostly turned up in the mornings all puffy, and even

painted shadows under her eyes. Maybe she was having fun. We really should, too.

That afternoon, to his and our delight, she showed more tenderness to our Great

One. He sensed a change in her. She drew him unexpectedly into a dark corner and

kissed him. He was surprised, there was plenty of room. But she’d heard from her

girlfriend that this was where it was done. Their stroll brought them to a coffeehouse,

where unusually she didn’t dance but sat quietly by his side, smoked cigarettes and

played with Conrad’s veiny hand. He was enchanted. Wonderful creature!

Alas, matters went no further that day. For another gentleman she knew from

before was staring at them from a nearby table and at once her old combative mood

came upon her, she danced one dance with Conrad but only so she could hop about

with the other man and had already forgotten her magnificent decision in favour of

love. Next morning he turned up again. She was lying in bed, yes, she’d see the matter

through, yes, she wanted to, and was glad of the day.

The kid makes love, looks out of the window, and cries

Now we should not assume that our flirty creature, despite her youth, was a

beginner.It was just that the right man hadn’t yet come along. Now she wanted to love

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like other girls, she wanted to come behind the puffy eyes, she wanted eyes like that.

Before going to Conrad she experimented with her mascara pencil to see if it would

give her the shadows under the eyes, but the pencil was too dark. When she wiped it

off there was still a trace that pleased her, she left it so as to impress Conrad. He’d

rented a room, it had a gramophone. It was evening, Conrad exuberant. She had

wonderful limbs, enjoyed his flattery. She heard the words he addressed to her hands,

her mouth, her hair, her body, her legs, her loins, her breasts, how he combed her hair,

but what a crazy hairdo, hints of Babylon, dear Conrad, whither are you straying, she

took pride in it all. It seemed to her she loved him, and when she hung her arms

around his neck she told him she loved him and that love was downright lovely.

She freed herself from his arms, stood and paced about as if nothing had happened,

a long look in the mirror, and a look out of the window between the curtains. And still

undressed, a delicious sight for his eyes, she told him what was going on in the street,

a hodja in a snow-white turban was walking by, hands at his chest, a scholar, a holy

man, d’you think he suspects I’m standing here, say no, he doesn’t, now small children

with their governess, what kind of people live across the street, a jeweller, must be

lovely having so many jewels, every tray full of them, that’s him standing outside the

door, pooh, a dirty fellow, I wouldn’t kiss him for any amount of presents.

She turned back, grew tender when she saw him lying there, such a big man, sat

beside him, her heart overflowed, she observed him, her prize, and had to jump across

to the mirror again to see if she had shadows under her eyes. She struck a match. No,

no shadows. Maybe in daylight. Conrad had to sit up and look. No, all fresh and pink.

“Fiddlesticks,” she said, turned round in irritation. “This isn’t proper love,” went

through her head, “really I’m quite cheerful, there’s nothing doing with this one.”

Then her little visage darkened, she thought enviously of her girl friend, and was bitter

and taciturn towards Conrad. Suddenly she had no time, she’d just realised how late it

was, no I can’t stay, always gets a headache if I don’t sleep enough, no, no, I must go,

you can stay. He had no idea of the hatred she now felt for him. Standing there with

the little cap on her head, she forced herself to calm down. If only he would let her go.

But as she stood there, eyes closed, and he adjusted her little cap making comical

remarks, she was overcome by tiredness, and had to sit down at Conrad’s side. He

hugged her, she dropped her head onto his shoulder, yawned: “Oh I’m so tired,” how

nice it would be to lie down, but what am I to do about him, it’s all so pointless, she let

him smother her with kisses, how her face changed, indecipherable, a generation of

women, she smiled a weary smile, gave his hand a smack, picked up her umbrella,

disappeared with no backward glance.

On the stairs – Conrad stretched out in the dark room trying to put himself to

rights – on the stairs as she felt her way to the next landing tears suddenly filled her

eyes. She sobbed and sobbed. Came to a stop and wept quietly, face to the landing wall.

Why, she had no idea. She slipped past the concierge, sat in a tram, made not a sound

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in her little apartment, threw off her clothes in the dark, quick, quick, into bed and

sleep, oh sleep, oh so deep and sweet.

She had a wonderful sleep.

Sweet dreams of a disappointed young lady

For things pass rapidly, some twist and turn as they stride by, some glide past, some

stick out their tongue, a lot go by barking. A woman calls: you must take it from the

first shelf right, quick, customer’s waiting, it’s boots in a box, a pair of lady’s boots, a

pair of gentleman’s boots, shiny shoes, they step lively, twist and turn as they stride by.

Bloody mutton ribs, they scare me, let’s keep on, we’ll go and eat, empty table,

cloth on the table, look at the makeup on her, such red lips, such red claws, unlucky

seven, she hit me once, can’t stop hitting, can’t understand a word you’re saying, what

hairy hands men have, once you’re in their clutches you tear yourself in two, such big,

big hands, let’s have some light, I want to see if I’m just as dark.

I’m pretty, look, a big serious woman sitting in a carriage, the wheels turn beneath

her, turn and glide along, I’m a pretty woman, a pretty, serious woman with a full

bosom, legs crossed, she’s wearing fine white shoes, she is me, is me, is me.

That’s me, oh how pretty it is, oh how sweet it is, brown full head of hair beneath a

little hat, dark warm eyes, soft moist open lips, the calves, see, how curved, ah, she’s

twitching her foot, it’s heavenly, heavenly, heavenly, bliss, bliss. Wheels turn as they

stride along, carriages glide by as well.

Old man Waldemar strolls through Istanbul, with no intention to seek out anything

We tell now of a man we have paid too little attention to, Waldemar. Where all are in

love, Jack cannot hate all alone. Is he too in love? No. He just wants is to be of some

service to his lord in Constantinople, in his own way.

He was lodged in Conrad’s hotel, in the attic. They’d persuaded him to dress

European style, and given his beard a modern trim. Day after day he trailed shyly

through the swarming streets of Istanbul, feeling uneasy. Ah, in our team of fools he

alone is unlucky. And every morning Conrad had to let him come down and pretend

to assign him a task, which blew a ray of light through Waldemar’s earthen ramparts.

In his daily wanderings through Constantinople he

saw much, experienced much. Call to mind the

geometry of Constantinople, with its three triangles

lying side by side pointing their vertices at one

another. At the bottom is the Sea of Marmara (M), at

top left between the triangles are the waters called the

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Golden Horn (H), so Golden Horn is not, as you might believe, one of the triangles of

land jutting like a horn into the sea (as in Berlin a little tongue of land on the

Müggelsee is called the Müggelhorn, you can take a ferry across in summer), rather it

is, curiously, the inlet; clearly the name was bestowed by birds or mountain-dwellers

who gaze down upon everything. The watery bit on the upper right flowing between

two of the triangles is the Bosporus (B), the Turks call it the Istambul Boghazi.

This stretch of water was noted early on by the Ancient Greeks. Geographically it

serves to link the Black Sea, which you must picture off to the top right, with the sea of

Marmara, which occupies the blank spot between the two lower triangles. But this

geographical fact was not enough for the Ancient Greeks, They looked at the word

Bosporus and found it meant Cattle Ford, and so a cow must once have swum across it

and they soon found the cow: the priestess Io. On our little tour of Asia Minor we

mentioned in passing a marriage scandal concerning the Greek overlord Zeus: he hung

his wife Hera, as if putting her out to dry, beneath the clouds. There already we noted

a certain robustness. Now we learn who this Hera was, and much becomes clear. Io

was a beautiful priestess of Hera, i.e. divine kitchen help, and Zeus once had his way

with her. Hera, as soon as she noticed something, without further ado changed Io into

a cow. Zeus no less swiftly parried the blow by changing himself into a bull. Now Hera

shows herself in her whole horrid glory. She captures a horsefly and with it chases the

poor cow across half the world, in so doing passes over Constantinople, and has to

cross the Bosporus. But in the end the two lovers come together again (at which point

Zeus kits himself out for a new adventure), but meanwhile the name has stuck to our

arm of the sea. For all you may have heard, it is not the most attractive arm of the sea

in this region, but it too has, as we see, had contact with love.

Back to geography! On each of our three triangles there’s a city, or possibly several.

On the left: Stamboul, and after our team of three got off the Anatolian Express at

Haidar Pasha, that’s where they landed up. On the right hand triangle: Pera and Galata,

on the big one below: Scutari, this is already the Asian side, beyond it lie Asia Minor,

Bagdad, Babylon.

Pera and Galata, the New and Old Bridges, Stamboul were Waldemar’s stamping

grounds. He wandered there as if at the bottom of the sea observing remarkable algae,

anemones, crabs. For whole long days he was struck deaf.

For here were Galata Street, Tophane Cad, theatres, underground railway, and

Tekkes Street.

For here were Kassim Pasha Boulevard, Marmora Hospital, Dervish monasteries.

For here were barracks, Dolmabahce Palace, Fındıklı Cadesi, Fındıklı Mosque.

On the Fındıklı were clearings, barracks, hospitals and not far off by the water the

School of Art, formerly a Parliament, but because parliaments tend to become

migratory or in some countries disappear entirely, it was no longer a parliament but as

said a School of Art.

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A long way behind the Old Bridge on the Golden Horn are a military dockyard and

a naval arsenal, Divan Hani is the Navy Commissariat, a hospital lies not far off, and

appropriately enough a cemetery directly opposite where dead people are stowed away,

now though they still walk along streets and ride through tunnels or have themselves

taken to hospital. To the west, beyond the hospital and the cemetery, lies the town of

the Jews, Hasköi, as a sign that they are not dead but still alive and utterly incurable.

Across the water on the other side, across from Pera, Galata, from Fındıklı, Agas Pasha,

Tophane, lies Stamboul.

There are patches of open ground within the city, Sari Güzel, Kuçuk Hamam and

Altı Mermer, Selim, Jubalı, Laleli, and Ulanga. There’s nothing to see in them but a

myriad cats, it’s just they’re such an unexpected sight.

Stamboul has many districts and every district has a name and a face.

Knowledgeable people name first the palace, the serai where the Sultan, the Sultana,

used to live, now neither he nor she live there because both no longer exist, but in

Ankara there’s a Kemal Pasha, he ordered the last Sultan to board a ship and leave the

country, and the Sultan didn’t wait to be told twice. The whole thing was done from

Ankara by telephone. Yildiz, where the Sultan used to live, has been turned into a

casino with a gambling hall, to indicate that everything is a game of chance.

On the Asian shore opposite there’s a tower on a rock, Kız Kulesi, the

Maiden’sTower.It’s where the beauty Hero lived, waiting every night for Leander. He

came across from the other shore, he had things to do on the European side, his

beloved lived in Asia. Every evening he jumped into the water and swam, a light

guided him, he headed for it, next morning he went back to work. Arduous love, not

every youth is so passionate. But one evening a storm blew up, and technology being

not so advanced back then, it blew out the light, the youth struggled in darkness, Hero

waited in vain, in the morning the youth arrived no longer living, hence dead. They

say the beauty jumped into the sea too. To mark this dreadful tragedy and show that

modern technology can overcome anything, the government has erected a lighthouse

on this rock, but alas no one these days can be found willing to swim the terrible strait.

Schiller wote a ballad about it, Grillparzer a drama, all in vain, youths stick to dry land,

maidens are kept waiting, the lighthouse is of use only to marine traffic. (See Strache:

Progress in the Lighting Industry, Pintsch: Full-colour Catalogue of Floating and Fixed

Marine Markers.)

The perils of the big city are revealed in a new guise

Waldemar wandered miserably through the historic city. There are people who keep

landing up in the same situation. It was Waldemar’s lot to go about his life in calm and

peace, and become the object of law enforcement measures. Recall what happened in

Baghdad. His little grey was stolen from him, it was sold on, and with that he drew the

attention of the police to himself and was the cause of Conrad and George’s mad rush

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out of Baghdad. They didn’t let him forget it, but they just dressed him in modern

clothes and let him wander off around Constantinople.

A big city can play many tricks (not ‘Turks’). You think you’re watching, and

someone’s watching you. Everywhere in a big city people sit and wait. To do the

waiting they’ve built themselves solid waterproof – hence rain- and storm-proof –

houses with heating too, these are their permanent HQ. From there they cast their

hooks, harpoons, in the district round about they set traps. This happens under the

guise of friendship, humane helpfulness, but one should not overlook that in these

same buildings lawyers dwell, courthouses are constructed, there are jails. Our

Waldemar thought often of Baghdad. That city had suited him so well, and the longer

he stayed in Constantinople the more Baghdad appealed. How nice it was on Maude

Bridge, those comfortable clothes he had, never needed to change since the day he fell

from Heaven. And how he yearned for Baghdad and how grief swelled in him when he

thought of all his heavenly colleagues who’d embarked on this descent into the world.

He remembered every one of them, they’d worked together for so long, and now … No

way to know what had become of them. Maybe some were still drifting among the

stars, this or that one would have made it down, but how to meet up with them.

As he made his idle and abject way in the lamentable dress of a European past the

sea of buildings reaching for the heavens, a Gipsy woman spoke to him, or rather he to

her. She was standing at the exit from big Pera Street, the street of streets, at the end

of the bridge from Galata to Stamboul and from Stamboul to Galata, there’s a

tremendous crush there, our old chap was drawn to it because it reminded him of

Baghdad, where he’d sung. Waldemar stood there thinking of his little horse. The

Gipsy lady noticed him, came up and pulled him by the hand to the balustrade. She

kept hold of his hand, turned it over, looked closely at it and made comments in a

curious singsong. Eventually she let go the hand and seemed to address a question to

Waldemar. He gave a modest smile. She pointed to his coat pocket. He pulled out a

handkerchief. She laughed, stuck her own hand in, and there was his purse. As he

looked on she took from it two silver coins and indicated that he should throw one of

them up in the air. He humoured her. Then she said something with eyes aglow, and

after making a little speech let the coin vanish into her bosom, to Waldemar’s shocked

amazement. Then she held up the second coin and spat on it. Waldemar was outraged.

What sort of customs did these people have. She grabbed again at his hand, wiped the

coin on her skirt and held it against his palm. There was an in-depth comparison,

again in singsong. Finally she held up the coin, which went the way of the first one.

She beamed a smile, her eyes blazing, Waldemar’s too. She felt for her little ukelele.

He was dismissed. She glanced right, glanced left, this business was done, she was on

the lookout for new victims.

He understood none of it (capricious life, viewed in prospect). He stood, listened to

her sing. Since no one approached her and the old man, possibly Syrian or Persian,

was still there at the balustrade, she turned back to him with a certain irritation. For

people of her kind never have a clean conscience. She addressed him in a gentle voice,

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asked him something in the three languages she knew, Turkish, Greek, Romany. To

speak Romany to him was a singular honour, but he didn’t understand. Maybe the old

man’s deaf. But he’d listened to her sing. People of another kind coming across an

obstinate case like Waldemar would have gone back to business as usual, or would

perhaps have wrestled with the notion of throwing the hanger-on, if he kept hanging

on, over the side of the bridge. Nothing of the sort for the Gipsy woman. She was a

person of experience, mother of several children, and thought: this has to do with love.

For cases like this, she and her tribe had a tried and tested approach.

Some interesting facts about gipsies, especially their relationship to the hedgehog

We know from our own observations, from history, encyclopedias, handbooks and

specialist tomes, who Gipsies are. In Berlin they live in Weissensee and do horse-

trading. They travel the world in green caravans and so, in contrast to other folk, do

have a fixed abode. Even early on they were called “a misbegotten, black, ugly and foul

people”. A certain Geo Schäffer from Sulz on the Neckar believed it permissible 120

years ago to speak of them in connection with “scoundrels, footpads, murderers and

other contemptible vagrant rabble”, but the Gipsies avenge themselves by calling

everyone else “gadjo”: stupid fellow and peasant. This despised mobile people that

produces pretty flexible persons – they’re often dirty, but there’s always a refined note

in the features, for King Zin ruled over them in the Far East, he wouldn’t give his

daughter to Tamerlane and so he was killed, this proud people all driven out, scattered,

oh the old descent into Hell, sit up straight on your stools, you who have been swept

away across every land, you seekers, migrants; horrors await you – these noble

wanderers of the Earth have an intimate relationship to the hedgehog. Let us for a

moment leave our Waldemar as he stands at the New Bridge with the sly Gipsy

woman, they won’t grow bored there, and let us examine this remarkable aspect of the

Gipsies. One can never know what use it might be to us.

The hedgehog and the Gipsy

Anyone with some knowledge of Gipsies knows they do not eat human flesh (at least

no more than other people: see reports from wartime, famines, sieges). But what is

probably true: as the English to their roast beef, the Italians to their macaroni, the

Hungarians to their goulash, so the Gipsies to the hedgehog. They devour it with a

passion, and any who can, drink schnapps with it.

To foundering foundered gods, to foundering foundered nations, to foundering

foundered humans this book is dedicated! One eye of ours laughs, the other weeps.

Hence (it’s relevant) our query: why is this foundered people so fond of hedgehog?

Here’s the answer: they eat it out of love and comradeship.

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As they stroll through wood and meadow, settle in hedges and thickets and sing

their laments: When autumn comes the peasant’s glad, the hunter’s in his lair, the

Gipsy’s heart alone is sad, for summer days so fair, and Oh thou whose love is all my life,

what think’st to trust to me? Pledge thy heart to be my wife, then so happy shall I be,

and this is where they’re born and do their courting, there of an evening and at night

they find alongside them a droll little companion. He squeaks and snuffles and runs

about and lets his dribble flow. He has the head of a tiny pig or rat and his little feet

support a prickly body. This is the hedgehog, Mr Pike of Bristlefield.

They came across him in the south and in the north. They learned to play with him.

They saw him in combat with that highwayman, the fox. Who didn’t approach, but the

fox thought: I know this fellow, he doesn’t like water, and stood over the ball of

prickles and sprayed it with his urine, Mr Pike didn’t like this one bit, he poked his

nose out to deplore such naughty behaviour, and with that he was caught. Just as they

hunted in rubbish, he hunted beetles and rainworms, and in summer they saw how he

gathered especially tasty dishes by spearing windfall fruit on his prickles and carrying

it blithely away home.

He slipped on silent pads through the foliage. Night was his friend, and if anyone

came too close he’d show his armour, his masterpiece. Often they sat together in the

tent, Gipsies young and old, men, kings and dukes, women and children, and studied

the armour of the doughty hedgehog. He had arranged it to start right behind the eyes,

and let it run on over back and belly to his little stump

of a tail. And see, now he’s gnawing, now he’s snuffling,

quick, bang on the floor, hard, he’s curling up, you can’t

get near, no policeman would dare try it.

We Gipsies are a myriad times weaker. If we’re

caught we have to put our hands behind our backs. If

we run, a dog bites us in the leg or a bullet hits us in the

kidneys, and off we go to the gallows.

That, dear friend, is the fate of us Gipsies, an exiled folk with no country of their

own, no protection, little hedgehog, dear little hedgehog, good Mr Pike of Bristlefield,

come here, you’re our friend, God gave you to us. You may not be a hog, but you’re our

little piggy. For us you feed on sweet fruit. Step into our pot, you’ll taste so good, and

we bless you. Poor folk all, we help each other out.

Waldemar, the sheep, is allowed to live: they want his wool

There on the New Bridge from Stamboul to Pera, Waldemar stood with the Gipsy

woman, and submitted to an examination. She said “Maleika” and pointed to herself.

Waldemar smiled, because he understood this. It sounded like the Arabic he’d heard

in Baghdad, and meant Angel. Her name was Angel. In Berlin we used to have a

department store called Angel (Engel) in the Landsbergerstrasse, it was much

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favoured by the ladies for the quality and good value of its offerings, it went under,

couldn’t keep going. For all its benevolence, Angel was merely the name of this

enterprise. But she, Maleika, really was an angel, her smile showed it. She was also, as

we have already noted, the mother of several children. When he repeated after her

“Maleika”, she felt that half the battle was won. Agreement on the following points

was then reached between them: “hatim” =ring, “gazuma” =boot, “sad” =happiness,

“semah behile” = pretty girl, and in particular “umle” = money. As well as a pen, a

European carries on his person a watch on a chain, a purse containing some amount of

money, a wallet containing some amount of money. The angel regarded Waldemar

and concluded: he’s not the youngest of the type, he’ll have all the above-named

objects. Her clear goal was to relieve him of them as swiftly as possible.

Their mindset corresponded in its totality to that of the modern economy, which

takes umbrage at nothing so much as value left inert, i.e. so-called stockpiling. A

dangerous hoarding of money in circulation caused the most dreadful economic crisis

the world has seen in the last hundred years. To overcome it, as we write these lines

the best economic and political brains of Europe, Asia, America, Australia, even Africa

are applying themselves. What the wise in their wisdom fail to see, is practised by the

childish mind in all simplicity.10 Maleika, angel on the big bridge, her own little person

a participant in the economic crisis, knew the solution. Here’s a “hoarder” right in

front of me. The obstruction must be removed. The path to it is love.

Yet Waldemar was not in love. He regarded her as befitted his age with a gentle

benignity. But as she pressed herself more closely on him, who can deny that it felt

good in his loneliness. He realised: she’s sad like me, and their encounter was his first

happy experience in this cold cavern Istanbul, formerly Constantinople. Ah, he didn’t

know that Gipsies often gather with companions in sorrow – e.g. the hedgehog.

When she took a couple of steps on the bridge to see if he would follow, it turned

out that – he did: sympathy. He lumbered clumsily along in his tube-garments. She

flashed him a glance and said “warru” = trousers. He understood it as “dressing up”, his

eyes brightened, he nodded, it was true. And she put two and two together: the man’s

an Arab, here on business, he’s made his investments and does what they all do, dress

up in European clothes, but they’re not comfortable on him. When a respectable man

goes along the street with a Gipsy woman, mostly it’s not only the man who feels

awkward, but, as in this case, the woman too. For people see them and attribute

intentions to her, some of which hit the nail on the head. So she avoided the obvious

route, turned aside into narrow alleys. Later they come to other, distant, main streets,

they wander all through Stamboul, they come to a patch of open ground, there’s a

mosque, trees, under broad trees are cabs for hire, boxes of junk, the cabmen smoke

cigarettes. Let’s climb in! And off they go, Waldemar has no clue where to, but we

know, they’re heading for Topkapi or Silivrikapi and farther out to where the ancient

city boundary lies.

10 Schiller: ‘Worte des Glaubens‘ (Words of Faith).

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It’s a quiet gate, the Gate of Silivri, open fields, cemeteries

stretch away to the north where a myriad gravestones announce

“God is eternal”. For we, you see, were once human, but here we

lie now with grass sprouting from our breast. It’s noon already.

Wretched barrows laden with vegetables trundle past, pulled by

little donkeys. They alight, Waldemar the old man and Maleika

the angel. There are black tents. Where has our Waldemar

landed up? In a Gipsy village.

A lost sunken people. A jug lifted in both hands and smashed

onto a stone floor, and now here are fragments of fragments, so

shattered they don’t even notice it. Only an afternote of the

smash and the hum of an ancient memory still ring in their ears.

This people too clings to the skirts of the great World Mother

called ummet utdunya, Constantinople.

Magnificent cypresses soar tall, gloomy and stern in the

graveyards at the Cannon Gate. (Here’s a drawing of these

majestic creatures.)

The vale of Lycus, the meadows, Gipsy village, tents, barracks,

tumbledown buildings, ah, this is where you live, Maleika, and gaze so proudly about

you because you’ve brought old Waldemar along, that woman’s holding her naked

infant out to me, what a brown squirming little body, you think I’m something

because you met me so far away at the bridge coming from elegant Galata wearing this

coat. Ah how I envy you, Maleika, I envy all of you, for what am I, so very far from

home, wretchedly alone, a grain of sand in the wind, sure to die in a strange land.

He was unable to continue on as far as he wanted, our ever-emotional Waldemar,

his companion forestalled it. She introduced him to her family circle and a pack of

dogs. Gipsy Arabic was a very droll lingo. They gnawed unembarrassed at bones,

maybe it was dog bones, but they said “esh-shimleh”. As she chewed she showed off

her silver earrings and her ears, that was “vidu”. Her shoe was crude and falling apart,

but still it was called “merkubaish”. The children cursed each other, quite accurately,

as black robbers, “dumani kalo”. In the tent they offered black coffee in dented metal

cups, as had long ago the Bedouin, but on this occasion it was called “magusvade”. To

the old man, who was very weary, it tasted good as ever.

Languages are nice. You understand, and at times it’s as well not to understand.

The angel debated with the old woman, a thin person with eye trouble, whether they

should give the old man a sleeping draught or love-potion to go with his coffee.

They heard fiddle music. Children, ragged but cheerful and impudent, leapt

around with flowers in their hair. Men sat in groups in the sunshine, some hammered

and tinkered, many did nothing but chew and found existence good, now and then

shouted this feeling out into the air, at which others laughed and nodded, and

everyone puffed away at a pipe.

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Waldemar eluded the tender plan by reason of a simple consideration on the part

of the angel and her confidante: what they might obtain from him they already had.

For the moment there was no prospect of more plunder. A sheep you intend to shear,

you keep alive.

How the sweetshop mamselle is getting along now, a tender chapter

The sweetshop mamselle has not slipped our minds, though possibly Conrad’s. How is

she getting on? Does the youth in knickerbockers have her back again?

Once upon a time there wasn’t, actually once upon a time there was, a rich family

in the city, they hired a girl to be housemaid. Her parents being poor peasants, all she

knew was cattle, dung and hard labour. Now she was at the big house where cars came

driving up. The ladies had put aside the thick çarşaf of black silk and went elegant as

Paris ladies on high heels, faces made up white and pink, and the country girl, alas she

had bony cheeks, and when she walked she plodded like a beast of burden. Often

she’d sat gaping in the gutter when young city girls came by on an jaunt through her

village dressed all in white, black hair down the back, they gazed haughtily down from

the carriage, on either side of the carriage a fat eunuch on horseback.

Now on Thursdays, when she had a free day, she strolled out to the sweet waters of

Europe, to the inner bay of the Golden Horn, or had herself carried across to the sweet

waters of Asia, on a Sunday, to Anatoli Hissar. There she found little streams, boats

floated beneath drooping boughs; meadows and acacias along the banks. Ladies in the

boats smiled, gentlemen in the boats, swiftly or slowly they passed by, the ladies

waved ivory fans, it was a wordless signal, slowly or swiftly they found themselves

beneath a pavilion roof.

After the girl had been for many a stroll along the banks, she found no more joy in

cleaning and carpet-beating. She was a dreamy thing. Her mother had told her stories

in the village about young ladies, daughters of sultans, about errant sons of the

Padishah, the shahzadeh, and how they found one another, her mind was filled with it.

She couldn’t see herself as Cinderella, and why shouldn’t a prince come to her as well,

she having such a yearning, and she felt so refined and of course she’d be true to him

and obey his every whim. Ah, if she were queen she’d sail the Golden Horn in a boat

with long pennants flying, there’d be music, all other boats must make way, or she’d

slip incognito along alleyways, bestow presents in the middle of a working day, and

visit all the poor, and she’d turn up in her village in a gold coach with a hundred riders

up ahead, there’d be music too, and she’d have all the girls summoned to her carriage,

give each one her picture as a token that you mustn’t give up, you can be poor and yet

make it to a king’s throne! Not even her little native village should be forgotten!

One morning, alas still a housemaid, she had to go to the well to fetch water. The

other maids were already on their way back, she was tired, which brought on dreams,

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and finally she just stood there. She’d grown altogether dull and sluggish, and the

other maids whispered that she must have a sweetheart in the city who’d betrayed her.

She put her pitcher down on the well’s rim, there wasn’t a sound in the square, the girl

still hadn’t reached out to turn the handle, but sat on the rim and let her head droop.

Now there was a tamarind by the well, a knotty ancient tree, its leaves so dense

that a fairy had sought it out as a place to sleep. The fairy slept up there until the

maids came along clattering their pitchers, then she waited until the pitchers had been

filled and came down for a drink. Now when the Well Square was quiet again and

birds pecked unconcerned in the grass, the fairy lowered herself from the branches

and gazed into the water. Her hair fell past her cheeks onto the well’s rim. She rejoiced

at her lovely reflection in the water.

At that moment the unhappy girl also happened to look into the water, and saw

the fairy’s fair visage and – a shock ran through her – it was her face! Her very own.

She thought it hers. Who could describe her delight.

The fairy too had a shock when she moved her eyes and saw the girl’s face reflected

next to hers. But she kept quiet, for though the human girl had the coarse features of a

young peasant, at this moment she was so adorable, so yearningly lovely, that the fairy

relished the sight. How I’d love to keep her by me, the fairy thought. But people are

always horrified, and run away from us. How I’d love to play with this one.

And so it happened that when the peasant girl had gazed her fill at the reflection in

the well, such a long blessed dreamy half-sleep, she sat up straight, and found herself

sitting on the well’s rim alone, the pitcher beside her. “What,” she raged, “I’m

supposed to be a housemaid, and haul water for the gentry? I, so pretty, much prettier

than the ladies of the house, and they keep me a menial so I won’t put them in the

shade? I’ll not be a servant another day!” And took the pitcher and smashed it against

the stonework. She straightened her clothing and set out angry and determined, her

steps slow and refined as was befitting.

Now it would have gone badly for her back at the house if she’d returned without

the pitcher and adopted an insolent tone to boot, and raised complaints and accused

the young ladies. She’d have been out on her ear. The fairy suspected this. She felt

sorry for the girl. She had lain eye to eye with the girl. She had looked into her soul.

The fairy took pity and did what she’d never done before. She clambered down from

the edge of the well and stood on the ground. She carefully gathered up the broken

shards, the pitcher became whole again in her hands, and with it she crept along

behind the girl, tapped her on the shoulder. And when the girl turned round there she

was, so lovely and long-haired, and she said: “Here’s your pitcher. Fill it, and spin them

some yarn about why you’re late, they’ll believe you.”

The girl recognised the reflection in the water. The fairy held out the pitcher. The

girl was already reaching to take it from her when she realised all at once what had

happened and was overcome with grief. She dropped to her knees weeping.

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“Why do you weep?” the fairy asked, though she knew. “I don’t know,” said the girl.

The fairy asked: “Maybe you’re weeping because they will beat you?”

“No.”

“Because you won’t know how to answer them?”

“No.”

“Because you –.” She paused a long while, thinking. The girl peered at her through

her tears. “– Do you weep because you’d like to stay with me?”

“Yes,” the girl sobbed, “but I cannot. You’re a fairy and I’m a peasant girl.”

The fairy put the pitcher down and took the girl by the hand back to the well. As

they went along she said, “You must stop weeping.” She went alone into the well, and

came back with a handful of water. “You must drink this.” The girl drank like a little

bird. Down the fairy went again, water in both hands. The girl washed her face with it.

She felt incredibly good. As she stood there so quiet, the fairy kissed her on the brow,

mouth, eyes. She took hold of her hands, and look, the girl was so light. She could fly.

She flew shoulder to shoulder with the fairy, first to the tree, then on into the forest.

How did this tale become known? From the girl herself. When she first came from

her village to the house in the city, she’d brought with her two broken dolls and a pair

of child’s slippers. She couldn’t stand being parted from them. When she came to

fetch them one night, she told the maids in their dormitory all about it. They’d already

assumed she’d drowned herself, being so sad.

*

It didn’t go quite like this with our sweetshop mamselle, of course not, we’re writing

this in nineteen hundred and something. She’d fallen in love with Persian Conrad,

really she had. She grieved when she heard he was going with others. She became

quieter, kept way from the shop. But her sister, the shop owner, grew even fonder of

her. Now the fairy interceded here as well, in the shape of a man, a bark tanner. And a

few months later, Conrad thought only seldom of the one who’d been first to welcome

him to Constantinople, there she was, betrothed to the tanner and soon to be married.

He was a neighbour of the sweetshop owner, lived alone in the little house next door,

the sweetshop needed to expand and the children, those already there and more to

come, needed more space. And so it was.

Mightily the evil billow surged; after on the shore, green grass grew. Adieu, Conrad.

A stroll and a dream in the forest

“Grant me one more week, three days, a day, one full whole day,” begged Conrad,

Khan Ibn Kurmani, the Babylonian, spreader of terror, splendid, still with his

splendour. He was addressing the little creature who sat idle and uncommunicative

with the cats in her aunt’s house. He wasn’t embarrassed to beg like this. The

adventure animated him, for he was tasting everything human for the first time.

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What did he find in her? A careless, drifting creature just awakening, a gazelle

drinking at a spring, but having drunk leaps away and the spring must await her

return. Into such tense expectation had Conrad been thrown. To live in such

trepidation! It was doing his physical condition no good, his guzzling and sleeping

patterns left much to be desired. Gloom had settled over him. George was content to

observe it, he was getting his money’s worth.

But our kiddie kept running away because she, the little deer, couldn’t yet give up

the games and the drawing-on. When she saw someone she fancied, she had to go for

him, and always he misunderstood and thought she was in love with him, when all she

really wanted was to prod a little, to unveil, expose. She was a virginal creature. She’d

have slipped away from Conrad long ago, fluttered off like a butterfly from a flower,

had tedium not drawn her again to him, and he always had free time and was still so

foreign and (ridiculous!) so willing to obey. She could give him an order, countermand

it, he did what she wanted, and so he was dear to her as a cat. She demanded not very

much, but only for fear she’d be in his debt. For all her anxious caution she

nevertheless ended up losing her heart to him! The weeks of transition were stressful

for our Conrad, then appeared to incline towards a happy ending. And the kiddie, who

now came to him and he came to meet her and visited her, made excursions with her

by coach, boat, to the sweet waters of Europe and Asia – she still had something of a

butterfly’s twitching and swerving and the quick sideways glance of a young deer, but

also – a silence, a submissive quiet bowing of the head. This she had attained, and it

brought him renewed calm. A breakwater had risen out of the restless sea inside her.

She herself hardly noticed. She wasn’t exactly proud of having real shadows under

the eyes at last, and sleeping worse than before.

*

Near the city lies the ancient Thracian hunting ground of Hadam Koru, woods and

valleys, rocky cliffs, bright yellow gorse. Once there were Byzantine monasteries, now

only ruins overgrown with brambles. There are hills with beech trees and brooks, with

ash and elder.

Now our great lord the world-wanderer learned what all of us have experienced

with body and soul, heart and senses, and what young humans experience ever anew:

to go as a couple, just Me and Thee, out of the city that brought you together,

weather’s nice today, alight at an unfamiliar station and head off arms linked into the

woods. A wood is no street, and not a room. Street and room brought you together,

the wood brings you together in another way. The wood serves many purposes, birds

sing and bob on branches, beetles crawl on bark, creatures and people slip between

trunks. Spider webs hang from leafless branches, the spider scuttles across the

quivering web, but it was just a little stalk bumping the threads. Sunbeams come

slanting through the branches, all at once you’re dazzled and then back into gloom.

From the shadows, my child, shapes can come creeping, evil shapes, a dragon, here

much is dead and yet does not die. Fear not, we shall hold on tight, and look, you’re

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trembling. And already heads and mouths press together and they stand and hug and

let come what may, we have no fear.

So much stuff on the ground, isn’t it uncanny? Prod with your foot, it’s a branch.

You crouch down to something and take a good look. This thing behind, the round

thing, green-grey – it’s a rock? Keep quite still, I think it moved. It’s moving, it’s a

tortoise, now it just sits there, shall we pick it up, no, let’s go on.

You see, Khan, it’s so nice that you understand me, yes you do understand me, do

you know why I live with my aunt, did I ever tell you? There were six of us kids, six,

my father was still young and had made lots of money, but in the war he was shot in

the shoulder and the wound never healed and we never saw him again, he died in

Baghdad. Do you know Baghdad?

“Yes, it’s a long way from here.” (Camilla, stupid beast.)

“And so I came with my brother to stay with my aunt.”

“What does your brother do?”

“He’s a soldier, wants to avenge Father’s death. He’s big and brave. He threw me

down some stairs once, because I annoyed his friend. Ow, that stings.”

“What?”

“My foot. Are there snakes here?”

“It’ll be a thorn. Show me.”

“Don’t hurt, you, it is a thorn.” Remove the shoe, remove the sock, there’s a bit of

blood, the thorn’s already out, better suck it, yes, suck a little, maybe there’s poison,

but don’t swallow, no stop, it’s burning, I’ll put my hanky over it, but then the sock

will be too thick, never mind, we’ll take a cab later. Where does all your money come

from, you’re hopeless with numbers, I’ve noticed, you’ve been away from Persia so

long they’ll cheat you. Will you take me there? – You wouldn’t like it at all. – Why not.

Do all the men there look like you? – Yes, but slimmer and more handsome than me,

know how to ride. – I’d like to go there. Always the same old aunt. Now we’ll get going

again. Actually I wouldn’t like it at all. – So what would you like? – I’m lazy. You do

something. – Like what. – Whatever you like. Now you don’t have a hanky if you need

to blow your nose. – Why not? – It’s on my foot. –

They sleep away the hot noontime near the ruined monks’ cemetery, there’s no

inscription to show who lies here. And so they lie there too, living beings side by side,

nameless, hand in hand, she half on her face, he ponderous on his back, breathing,

rolled apart in the green. In the stone basin a spring murmured.

Murmuring spring and a dream shared

The spring: It was Sultan Suleiman who understood the language of brooks, trees and

every creature. And there was his Lala, the major-domo, supervisor of his gardens and

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palaces, he wanted a share of the knowledge, and because the Sultan was grateful to

him, Lala having spent his whole life watching out for Suleiman, Suleiman bestowed

on him some of his gift so that Lala understood everything as he did, the language of

brooks, trees and creatures.

Conrad dreams: I wonder what you’d think, George, if I said to you: sit yourself on

my throne; my bonnet, the horned bonnet, the staff, there they are, sit yourself down,

and now you are the Raised One, you are raised, let me go, let come what may, where

it may. – But I want to come with you. – Don’t need anyone on my journey, George, I’ll

find my own way, no problem. And here you see the tortoise under my foot, it’s the

shell on which the world rests. What did you say? Speak up! Why are you singing?

The spring: The house cat Whiskers sits on the windowsill, the yard dog Growler

stands outside. The cat looks across to the stalls, licks its fur and sings: “Today won’t

be a nice day.” “Why not?” “We have sturdy cattle in our stalls. Today our sturdiest

cow will break a leg, out in the lane near a stone.” Lala heard this, he was so glad he’d

been given the gift of understanding animal talk, and could only strive harder in his

master’s service. And he went across to the stalls and the sturdiest cow stayed inside

that day. In the evening Lala laughed and stroked the cat.

The girl dreams: Things rush by so fast, sometimes they spin around from one step

to the next. Come, aunt, pick the grass from your hair, comb it out, you look like a

peasant woman, it must have got there with the threshing. The neighbour’s cock is

crowing, wonder what’s he thinking, he’s thinking, he’s thinking, cockadoodledoo,

he’s proud. Because he can crow like that he thinks he can summon them all, they

must all listen, the prince in his carriage, such a golden prince from Baghdad.

The spring: A bright day, the house cat Whiskers sits on the windowsill, the yard

dog Growler lies below. “Today we shall suffer a sorrow, Growler.” “What kind of

sorrow?” “There are horses in our stalls. The finest one is for the Sultan himself. Quite

soon the outrider will groom the favourite horse and lead it out, behind the stall it will

stumble and die.” It won’t die, thought Lala, it won’t stumble, I shall not let the horse

be led out today. And he went into the stalls, and that evening he was laughing again

as the cat sat in his lap.

Conrad: You believe, Great One, that you ride in a golden carriage, and everything

happens as you will it, roads are made of cotton wool, your carriage travels soft and

light, and when you look up there are many shiny branches spreading, trees heavy

with blossoms and fruit, and if you but lift a hand, in your hand is a fruit. – I believe it,

George, and truly, it is so. And the blossoms have faces, long hair, mouths, and I’m so

uncommonly devoted to them all. – But you must not think it will last forever, Great

One. Did you not stand on the bridge and complain, in the fog, Conrad, and you were

lost and all alone. – And walked a hundred paces, hah, and stood somewhere, and

found her. It was so lovely. –

The spring: But why does the house cat jump from the window down onto the yard

dog? There’s something important they must say to one another. I must hurry. The

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dog’s in the doorway, the cat’s leaping this way and that, “Tell me, Murr,11 why do you

leap about so? Is something bothering you, who’s on your tail?” “Oh Growler, oh

Growler.” “What is it, Murr?” “Before three days are over, Growler, our good Lala will

fall sick , and no physician will be able to help, and he will die.” When Lala heard this

he turned on his heel and ran to the Sultan and lay at his feet. “What shall I do,

Suleiman, how have I transgressed, how can I forestall this disaster?”

“I gifted you, Lala, with understanding of the language of brooks and trees and

animals. But you have sought to challenge fate. My best cow was meant to break its leg,

you kept it in the stall. My personal steed was meant to stumble, you wouldn’t let it

out for a ride. These were minor sacrifices, which you should not have held back from

fate. And now, my dear Lala, you stand under the shadow of death.”

Three days later the Angel of Death drew near, and carried Lala across.

The girl: You’re all such silly geese. Just go into a shop and ask how much it is. A

shawl, a dress, a bracelet. I know exactly. What the man wants he takes, and he won’t

hand it over for less than the price. Four gold coins, lots of bank notes, red briefcase

with a coat of arms. I’m pretty, a serious pretty woman. There, be my servants, you

stupid creatures, both of you, a pair of button boots, tall and black. One can get

whatever one wants. I have slender pretty legs, stop pulling my socks. Don’t press

there, it hurts, a bee sting. Give me some of that cake. What bright eyes he has, the

fellow over there behind the tree. He’s hiding. Stop. Leave it. But I’ll have him anyway.

Return from the forest

There’s Markian’s Column, Halidjiler, dark green elder bushes grow all around it. He

ruled the Eastern Roman Empire for seven whole years. In Africa he fought the

Vandals as a soldier, a little man, then he climbed the ladder, became a Tribune. The

year 450 was his year, the emperor fell off his horse and the widow Pulcheria chose

him for her consort. Markian ruled the Eastern Empire, a tall man with sleek grey hair,

he had gouty feet, he was Pulcheria’s husband in a Josephite marriage.

At the foot of the column is a winged figure, the Virgin Stone, lacking head, arms.

If a maiden steps over the stone and is no maiden and fails to admit it, she’ll be in peril.

Played out

She didn’t stay long with him, nor he with her. She got him out of her hair in the

simplest way. She now kept house for the aunt, since she no longer went out to work

at all. Our Babylonian was glad to give her a hand now and then. (See, suddenly even

you can be of service, great lord!) He said: “I always used to be so lazy, others had to

work for me, I’m going to make up for it now, you.” And he beamed when she came

11 E. T. A. Hoffmann’s satirical tomcat-autobiographer.

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back from her errands and the three rooms were clean as a whistle and she praised

him. Sad to report the situation degenerated, not at all through over-zealousness on

his part – even miracles have their limit – but she began to set a particular time in the

morning or afternoon, and then he found she wasn’t at home, she would come back

some time later, quite jolly. It happened that she’d then quickly take leave of him, a

swift kiss and out the door, my dear sir.

This curious conduct gave even Conrad pause for thought. It troubled him. He was

no longer so zealous. We’re not fabulating when we report that the little toad amused

herself by tying her apron on him before she left (where’s she off to?) and now there

he stood, he liked the apron, ran his hands over it tenderly, but his spirit was gone.

It had to happen: one noontime George appeared at the apartment, ostensibly

keeping an appointment but actually sniffing around, and the Great One himself, fired

up for work with apron, broom and all, opened the door. Conrad’s furious face quickly

sent George scuttling away. For a few days the Great One kept to his room in a sulk.

Then the floozy did something silly. She wrote him a little letter, she was waiting for

him, the aunt, the cat, rooms, apron, broom all had such a longing for their dear

Conrad, so did she, yours sincerely. Now he could laugh again, and invited George and

Waldemar to a big hours-long feast.

Speeches at the feast. A grand and almost total eulogy to Constantinople

On the occasion of this notable feast, which continued far into the night, the

Babylonian, George and Waldemar engaged in several fruitful conversations, now of

greater and now of lesser profundity. To repeat them all here would burst the bounds

of this novel. But we cannot bring ourselves to omit them entirely, and have no wish

to deprive our readers, especially as the conversations, for all their trivialities, touched

on great truths about Istanbul.

They began with a toast by George to the world, the Earth, day, night and all things

connected, altogether so well worth seeing. He was drinking a light dry white.

Conrad remarked that this simple declaration, especially in present company, was

much more pleasing than the overblown pronouncements he’d formerly had to endure.

He cast a grateful look at George, they all drank to it.

The remaining guest, Waldemar, now put his voice into gear, his theme having

been broached. He straightened his cravat, the big bald head rose high out of the

collar, and he spoke: It had been lovely in Heaven, they’d all enjoyed a sappy time up

there. As far as he was concerned, if the supply of nourishment hadn’t stopped, they

could have held out a lot longer. He, at least, had the fondest memories even of those

hymns of praise, anyway compared to some of the offerings in Constantinople. But

this should in no wise keep him from acknowledging that even he had seen progress.

This was due to the freewheeling atmosphere and the lovely environs of Istanbul.

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To both points they all joined in a toast. The conversation then turned to various

localities and outstanding buildings of Istanbul. These they knew from their own

experience, unlike the composer of these lines, who, dependent on piffling book-

knowledge and welded to his chair, must cast his poor bespectacled eyes not over the

wonderful blooming metropolis but only over black lines with always the same 25

letters. Ah, poor eyes, to think you’re not yet dried up! And for this reason I participate

with joy and longing in the proud conversations of these three.

They first praised the city as a whole, disparaging an Englishman who had declared

it enough to regard Constantinople (Istanbul) from the outside, whereat he spent

several days in his boat cruising up and down the Bosporus before rejoining his ship.

Adequate knowledge of the city cannot be gained thus. The attractions of a city you

walk around take no second place to attractions bypassed.

Now the topic arose of the uplifting spectacle offered by a stroll across the New

Bridge. There stands the structure Yenicami, also called Valide Cami because it was

erected in the second half of the 17th century by the mother of Mohammed IV. The

cupolas rise stepwise into the sky, rows of arcades loom airily over the street. Who can

say what purpose this mass of masonry serves. Not these at their dinner, anyway. And

they weren’t strongly inclined to involve themselves too much in the affairs of the

locals but would leave them to their business, respect their customs, and stick to more

immediate matters.

But, for this very reason, all three had grown fond of bazaars, and they allowed

praise to overflow their lips. They knew where to find bazaars.

Walking through the district of Mahmud Pasha you climb a hill crowned by the

Nuru Osmanieh mosque, and there’s the entrance to the Grand Bazaar. There are

covered streets, a whole quarter of little streets, and every trade has its place.

They spoke of honesty in trade. After all that had happened to them, this was now

going better than earlier. But they were inclined to prefer Turks over all other traders,

especially Greeks, Armenians and Jews. The Turk is frugal and undemanding. He is

moderate in his diet. His main meal consists mostly of bread, cheese and fruit.

Now they mentioned a shortcoming of the Turk: his slowness, his indifference, his

inclination to drag out every activity. For which he had his reasons, but these were

hard to pin down. If the Turk lives on almost nothing but bread, cheese and fruit, this

is connected with the fact that he has nothing more. But if he is slow, could he not

also be faster? Of course. But he knows that haste is beneath his dignity, and nothing

much happens in consequence of this. And so the Turk adheres to the theory of

kismet. Kismet means something like allotment, destiny, fate, and teaches that there’s

nothing to be done about it.

“Sensible attitude,” Conrad opined. Waldemar agreed, George too. But the latter,

gazing cosily at his reflection in the wineglass, said many people misused this Turkish

insight, which was something to be resisted. The other two concurred with this as well.

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Now they spoke of a route leading out of the southern gate of the Egyptian Bazaar

into a poorly paved alleyway. (Maybe by the time this book appears it will have been

paved.) Here all three had discovered meat, vegetable and fruit traders, their wares

delectably laid out. Artificers of red pipe-heads with gold chasing also had their shops

here. The many varieties of fruit and vegetables included beans, cucumbers, melons,

cauliflower, tomatoes, artichokes. Notable among the fruit were the big sweet grapes

called chaush. There were some on the table, they regarded them approvingly but

didn’t eat any just now, while they were still at the second round of the combat their

lips and teeth were waging with the onslaught of heaped-up ever-renewed comestibles.

The conversation turned to fish, triggered by the juxtaposition of this class of

cartilaginous fauna with their table. Their eyes rested contentedly on the white-

fleshed exemplar of the water-dweller selected for its beauty and fried in brown fat.

They reminisced with approval on the stamina and courage of fishermen, who set out

in early morning in their little boats, having parted from their families the evening

before to set nets. For many sea creatures keep their distance from the shore. But the

fishermen are undeterred, they row coolly in pursuit in their little vessels, ascertain

the location, and nab them. The Balik Bazaar attests to their deeds. There side by side

on the ground, on boards, in baskets, lie those that breathe through gills, waggle fins

and once sped far from one another through the mighty sea. A stream of silver

emanates from the mackerel, the giant cod gleams dark blue, the Danube salmon

purple. The eel was not allowed to slip away, the seething mass is a comical sight.

Boiled, fried, smoked, they offer pleasant savours to our discriminating tongues. The

Sea of Marmara yields its oysters to us, and this should not be forgotten among all its

other praiseworthy attributes. The tuna comes readily to mind, many salt it down, and

lobsters and crabs, those hosts of black scrabbling shelled creatures that no friend of

nature would do without.

All this led them to consider the wealth of the city of Constantinople. Inequalities

of affluence even in this wonderful patch of the Earth’s surface had not gone

unnoticed. We’ll have more to say about George, who busied himself in his peculiar

fashion with this problem that today occupies all minds. He knew to his own

satisfaction – up till now at least – how to solve it in ways he found thoroughly

satisfactory (the victims less so). Conrad and Waldemar too had strolled through

various parts of the city and knew: the fruits of the Earth are divided unequally. But as

the wise man concerns himself not with death but with life, so they with abundance

rather than want. Conrad would have found it easier to paint the sky green and plant

trees topside down, than feel anguish here. He had rejected with profound repugnance,

even embarrassment, gloomy words brought him by Waldemar from a poor quarter.

They sat around the table, rejoiced in the affluence of the city of Constantinople

that now sheltered them, and recalled that one should show moderation in all things.

This generally known – and never sufficiently known – effect of great wealth on the

customs of a nation stood before their eyes. It was George who first pointed to the

example set by ancient Corinth, where a boom in business and trade had brought with

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it a multitude of religious cults and scientific theories, but also such flamboyant luxury

in life, such immoderate and debauched feasting, that the Greeks themselves labelled

such licentious lifestyles “Corinthian”. When in connection with this George began to

speak of unconstrained Aphroditic lechery, Conrad’s ears pricked up. The Great One

invited his companion to expand on the matter, this was the very time and place. But

all George could do was report contemptuously on the joys of love, and begin by

disparaging the so-called temple slave girls. Within or just outside the shrines they

bestowed their favours on any who might ask and make offerings of gold or valuables

to the goddess. They were called hierodules. Sometimes they numbered more than a

thousand. The state even looked benignly on them, for following happy sea voyages,

perilous naval adventures, it increased their numbers in gratitude.

George’s effort to turn to disgust Conrad’s interest in these earlier conditions was

unsuccessful. The general mood of benevolence reigning over the table was to blame,

along with Conrad’s tender memories.

Now the writer of these lines intercedes, having invisibly taken a seat at the table,

and would like to enrich the conversation with a quotation from the rhetor Aristides,

who lived in Corinth during that luxurious age. Aristides attests that:

In our city of Corinth everyone gathers as with a common Mother. But it is lovelier

and more pleasant with this Mother than elsewhere, for no one provides for her

children such rest, relaxation and pleasure. Through beauty and love she knows

how to captivate everyone most wonderfully, and all are enchanted by her when by

her friendships and the pleasures of love, by enticements and caressings she

quietens the desires of those most filled with desire. With justice she is called the

city of Aphrodite, for she is the magical cincture of the goddess, with which she

powerfully draws everyone to her.

It was Conrad who, sunken in quiet contemplation, yet devoted a few words to the

Turkish sense of smell. The two waiters cleared away, wiped down the table for the

next course. A big yellow bunch of roses in a tall crystal vase that they had shoved

aside spread its strong scent, and the white narcissi.

“Two sayings,” said Conrad, “have stood out especially for me here. First: both

women and nice smells are fleeting, so you should lock them up well. Can you

understand that? I’d have thought you’d be doing no good to the woman or yourself.

It’s exactly because they can run away that you should treasure them as a stroke of

good fortune. The other saying seems to me to have more truth. It praises women,

children and nice smells all at once. What do you think of that? Without dwelling on

children, of whom a few have got on my nerves with their shouting, I’d like to give this

saying my unqualified support. I’ve met only a few women. What feminine charms the

Earth still holds ready for us, what variety in the species is still to be explored – of all

this, I believe, those of us gathered here so festively have but the weakest conception.

But since women are compared to perfumes, we may guess at some of it, we who are

still rowing close to the coast of this enormous sea.”

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“A dangerous sea,” George warned.

“Pah,” Conrad countered, “what are dangers.”

And once the waiters had fulfilled the responsibilities of their office and the laden

table again addressed then with benevolence, they drank and shared memories of the

Grand Bazaar that comprised a labyrinth of overcrowded streets stretching between

the Bayezid and Nuru Osmanieh mosques and several khans, encompassing a

quadrilateral of around 250 square kilometres.12 Its stalls are similar to those of the

Egyptian Market, except that the goods are set out not in niches but on low platforms.

And here we have a market of smells. An entire lane not far from the carpet bazaar is

devoted to perfumeries. All three found: people don’t understand the meaning of

smells. They take them for comforts, like a piece of jewellery you could do without.

But like music and colour, smells are a balm, they nourish, they are indispensable. If

Constantinople had already done them good, each in his own way, and brought them

forward, it had done so in part by placing convincingly before their noses and eyes the

value of smells. Again they congratulated themselves for having fled Baghdad for

Constantinople. They named cedars and orange water, musk perfumes.

It is not easy to ascertain what caused them, as they ate, to dwell so long on musk.

Was it their own knowledge, was it the knowledge of the invisible author sitting

among them; we cannot tell. Anyway, once the muskrat popped up, the conversation

acquired a new animation. They could see the muskrat, also called ondatra or

musquash, moving playfully through its watery element. The tail is flattened vertically,

near to the sexual organs sits a gland the size of a small pear that secretes a white oily

fluid. The muskrat is the source par excellence of animal pelts in North America, and

the bearer of a musky substance, a nice mass-market article processed especially in

Markranstädt near Leipzig; but it does not in the least produce musk!

It’s rather the deer that does this. It has strong long legs, the little male has a

terminal bob on its tail. It’s a gracile ruminant, and between the navel and the sexual

organs there’s the musk sac. This he exposes, the one of which we speak, and it’s about

six centimetres long. When it’s full it holds about thirty grams of our substance. The

creature springs about, so creditworthy men report, freely in the mountain forests of

Asia from Gilgit in the Himalaya to the Chinese province of Gansu, and spreads

everywhere his enchanting, distinctive heartwarming scent that has brought him the

honourable name of Musk Deer, Moschus, Moschidae.

Someone remarked as an aside during the conversation that attempts had been

made to simulate the scent, as people simulate everything. If I may speak frankly, I’m

referring to trichlorobutyloluol. But as always in such cases you can never come close

to the naturally-grown deer. (I mention only in passing that Moschus was the name of

an ancient Greek bucolic poet.)

12 Wild exaggeration! Wiki says 30,000 square meters.

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Also found in the Grand Bazaar is Rose Oil. Mostly it’s adulterated with olive and

almond oil. It’s extracted from blooming roses. How sweet, arousing, inebriating are

these scents, these aethers! Where then is our free will, the logic of our thoughts?

Always love and happiness are close by.

And that is why we also find in the Grand Bazaar, as our world travellers noted

quite correctly, the seraglio paste for kisses, antimony, which they dissolve in spirits,

blend with crushed gall-apples and use as colouring for eyebrows and eyelashes; it

gives the eyes a soulful beguiling look. There’s an Indian colouring, no need to name it,

that makes the eyes glow, and Syrian soaps, ash-grey henna powder.

Hours slipped by. They were filled with good cheer. A jazz band was playing in the

main dining hall. Having such a good time, none of them was tempted to dance.

Who drinks once from the waters of Tophane is forever lost. They reached for

tobacco. Mahmoud Tavfiq, the ancient, already reported of the time of the Ramadan

Nights, the festival in the ninth month of the Mahomedan lunar calendar: “More

pleasant than a burning-pan of ambergris at the time when the fasting begins is a pipe

of tobacco.” They gladly acknowledged tobacco as a pole in the tent of sensuality.

A completely new chapter: money, the rules of its appearance and its inaccessibility

They celebrated this evening with an accurate sense that it was a turning point. The

Babylonian had regained his freedom, and something had happened to George.

Thus far we have thrown little light on the murky ways of this man, who in an

earlier life was a god kept humiliatingly in chains. We can no longer hold off doing so.

When you build a house, and the house is called Conrad – not forgetting the

fundament – the builder is called George. When you show how someone sails proud

and ostentatious over murky waters, you shouldn’t ignore the boat, you know that the

fortune attending the traveller on his journey depends entirely upon it.

These days I, the one who writes these lines, formerly resident in the German city

of Berlin, now on the bird-twittering Zürichberg, himself as flighty as a bird, I have

read with great attention a book that deals with crime. It has the title: What is the 5th

Estate? and was written by a man called Heinrich Berl13. One should not, he says, go

too far in depicting crimes, it’s all too easy to start glorifying them. The good order of

the world is confronted by a dangerous disorder. Our human market looks like this:

Warriors

Priests

Citizens

Criminals

Slaves

13 H. Berl: Die Heraufkunft des fünften Standes zur Soziologie des Verbrechertums. 1931.

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One should take care not to disturb the arrangement, either vertically or horizontally.

These words are righteous and decisive. We who know the wavering these days

between worship of what is sickly and depraved and worship of brutality, not to

mention feigned morality, we are not the target of Berl’s warning. For though our book

deals with a bunch of riff-raff on the lookout for others like them, we shall grant them

no special laws.

In their view human existence can be cast off as easily as some role that makes you

feel good. They flee another role that they were unable to handle. But the Earth is not

a neutral country or Principality of Liechtenstein, my dear sirs. The existence of

comets will put a spoke in your wheel. You will pay your Immigration Tax. The

punishment will be imposed with no sausage on top. The judge will teach you, when

your hour has come, what it means to want to be, or have to be, a human.

And now we come to money.

Money plays a major role on the Earth. We all know that. But anyone cast like a

shipwrecked sailor, a Crusoe, onto the Earth, an unknown island, has to learn it. He

soon knows which mushrooms are good or poisonous, how to construct a rainproof

shelter, how to make fire without matches. He sees too that there’s a human world out

there, pluming itself, quarrelling, causing annoyance; that they eat, drink. And then he

encounters a puzzling object that passes from hand to hand unsmoked and uneaten:

money. It’s not pretty, not heavy, often made of paper, you stick it in a pocket, you

can’t compare it to a roof beam or a brick, or a piece of music, let alone something to

eat or a righteous word. And it’s no natural creation. Yet, the cosmic excursionist sees,

they construct the strongest cupboards to keep this thing more secure than any

beloved being. Clearly there lurks some secret in money.

We have seen George, after his successful landing on Earth, in Babylonian lands.

He encountered eatables living and dead, bread, milk, fresh mutton, he adapted to

them and gave some to his master, great Conrad. (Sometimes he also stole money, but

without thinking.) They wandered on from the Bedouin tents. See, the face of the

Earth has changed! Buildings presented themselves, and whereas with the hospitable

Bedouin they had lodged happily alongside bread, now these things were separated

from them. The city had erected a barrier between them and food. An astonishing

novelty. Incredibly rude, a misanthropic attitude. Who told them food was theirs to

keep? They’d appropriated it and now hid it away, and anyone lacking horse and cart

to carry him from this country could just drop dead.

But George was a long way from doing that. And he had no intention of allowing

the master to whom, despite everything, he was devoted to die of hunger because of

some whim of city folk. He had neither horse nor cart to take him into the countryside

to find the food he and his master needed, and the ingenuity of the obstacles set up

against them was marvellous to behold. Displays along the streets were kept behind

glass windows, or the goods were kept in cupboards fitted with a lock to which no one

else had the key. In the bazaars and markets, produce essential to life was mostly set

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out in the open to attract custom, making you all the more conscious of what you

lacked, but the stallholder himself sat there beside it, so once again you were

prevented from just grabbing. This childishly malevolent behaviour must have already

led to the deaths of many people, and the people in the shops must have looked on

pitilessly as others collapsed in the doorway to be swept away by street cleaners, and

the best trade on Earth, our Crusoe George thought, must be that of carrying away the

dead, if a certain number of people with whom he had come suspiciously quickly into

contact had not already thought up ways to ameliorate human sorrow. They were

called, as he heard from their own mouths, thieves, robbers, burglars, rogues, and

when they were taken they were strung up or put behind bars.

The spur for their actions against shopkeepers and owners of foodstuffs, as

explained to George by his associates in the Baghdad caravanserai, was the simplest

and most obvious in the world: they wanted to live, and so obtained food from others.

When George asked whether under certain favourable circumstances these others

might be persuaded to hand over such foodstuffs as a fellow and his dependants might

need, the foodless responded with headshakes, silence or a smile of contempt. Oh yes,

he heard, course you can get to food without breaking the shop window, course you

can. It’s just not a cushy gig. George should take a look at those fine gentry in the

bazaars sitting there watching their wares, whether its carpets, daggers, jugs, or bread,

saddles of mutton, or milk and cheese. Did these gentry look friendly, philanthropic,

or were they not in fact thoroughly mistrustful natures who wouldn’t lift a finger to

ease a fellow’s plight. In short, these stern gentry who’d come somehow or other into

possession of foodstuffs and valuables demanded of others no more and no less than –

work. But now they all kept silent, or shook their head or broke into horrid laughter.

The people George came into contact with through some mysterious power of

attraction declared: work pays poorly, it’s demanding, makes you old before your time.

Many who work die of exhaustion while still young, some die later. A fellow should be

satisfied with moderate exertions, and then take a good rest. And he should use his

head. People who work hard have little joy from their earnings, for constant toil makes

them unfriendly. Well all right, what they themselves did, having arrived at it after

due consideration, might be called thieving, robbery, housebreaking. But who ever

tripped over a word! A wise man said: a name is noise and smoke! And so it is.

Our George, who had lain so long in chains, and like everyone who had spent time

with the Babylonian was unacquainted with the concept of work – for that’s what

humans were for – readily understood these observations. He too found the officially

constructed route between him and food too daunting. He marvelled at those who

took this route every day, but he dared not do likewise. His nature strove against it, his

entire insides rebelled. He had sighed in sympathy when the goffle-boats appeared

and he saw how the oarsmen wrestled with the waters. He saw himself more as a

driver, insofar as those were lying under trees or sitting on little wagons and smoking,

but they all seemed in a poor state. But George felt horror when he saw how well city

folk, the owners of foodstuffs, guarded their goods. His associates told him cautionary

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tales of the skills you had to develop to storm those castles. They could tell of many a

hero of their guild who had lost his life or freedom on that field of battle. George,

knees knocking, already saw himself and his master slipping into death by starvation.

Already he was pondering how to leave the unfriendly city and return to the lap of the

simple Bedouin. He was in a romantic anti-urban mood, as is so prevalent these days.

Then he discovered money, and took to it consciously and systematically. He saw it

as a veritable gift from Heaven. For he noticed two things about it: it takes up little

space, and most people carry it about with them. All you needed to do was find out

where they were carrying it, and you’d found the route to the foodstuffs. George was

clever, he’d learned to hide his thoughts. A few days in the capital city of Baghdad,

with its 150,000 inhabitants of whom 10,000 were Christians, 50,000 Jews, and its great

affluence, were enough for him to construct a detour to the foodstuffs, through money.

He’d now completely overcome his anti-urban attitude. And whatever road a person

takes once, he takes many times. The human is made of common stuff, and habit is his

midwife. And who issues this warning? Nature herself has in her wisdom attached

certain inhibitions to beginnings, as shown by the saying “every beginning is hard,” to

which we add “and giving up is even harder.”

The case of Sisyphus

Consider the case of Sisyphus. In a technologically backward age, a man felt compelled

to roll a rock, probably for house-building, maybe aiming at a world record, up a big

hill. Because the man was strong and obstinate, he managed it to a particular height.

Then the rock skidded away from him and rolled back down. The man wasn’t

discouraged, he kept going, kept going, in the course of time completely forgot about

the foundation laying or as it may be the world record attempt. He succumbed to a

senseless dumb shoving, at a particular height (he already knew where) the rock

swivelled aside, kismet the workaholic said, he turned about, toddled back down and

started all over again. Rock, hill, man, in the end they were all such good friends they

couldn’t conceive of ever parting. But you can’t say the man’s situation was good, even

if it wasn’t as bad as they say when they make Sisyphus out to be a tormented penitent.

He was a victim of beginnings and keeping-ons.

A case of professional commitment

We append a case of professional commitment. Like the Sisyphus case, it throws light

on George’s career.

One sunny morning after a long period of rain, a body was found in a Potsdam villa.

The daily newspapers reported on it thus: “This evening, in a villa in Potsdam with

three occupants, a man was found dead in suspicious circumstances. The local police

alerted the Berlin Murder Squad, which despatched two officers to the scene. They

also found the town of Potsdam, the villa, the three occupants. A male person was

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dead. It was discovered that the dead man was an accountant, decomposed and

strangled to death by all the difficulties of Potsdam. He was a sub-tenant in the villa.

As a corpse he wore a rope around the neck. Whether this was a case of suicide or

murder was not revealed.”

Subsequent investigations by the Murder Squad revealed: the dead man used to

wear this rope around his neck even when alive. His most recent employment was as

travelling salesman for a rope and cord manufacturer; he was one of the most diligent

of their employees. One of his promotional gimmicks was to demonstrate the strength

of the product by hanging himself from one of the samples. His ropes sold like hot

cakes. Doing such good business, he was able to feed himself better, and he had

recently gained 68 pounds. (A card from a weighing machine was found beside the

body.) The accountant found himself unable to relinquish the profession that now lay

so near to his heart, not to mention his neck, although well-meaning people tried to

persuade, or rather dissuade, him. Now in the villa, when he demonstrated the articles

to his three similarly poverty-stricken fellow residents, fate caught up with him. He

was now very heavy, he sensed the danger, but professional commitment gained the

upper hand. The fellow residents attending the demonstration waited an hour before

cutting down the body, because they were understandably interested to see just how

strong the rope was. So they waited a good hour before reporting to the local police

station, which alerted the Murder Squad, which as we have mentioned above found

the town of Potsdam, the villa and the now finally strangulated accountant. Skilled as

they were, the police wrote it all up and told it to their children and their children’s

children. The rope industry owes a debt of gratitude to the salesman.

The three fellow residents, themselves poor and he already dead, could do nothing

more in his memory than name the villa “Tough Stuff”.

Little incidents in Istanbul

As mentioned in the Baghdad chapter, George managed, in that city founded by Abu

Jafar al Mansur and named City of Peace, to bring things in the ways described to a

state of prosperity that allowed him to accommodate Conrad in the best hotel, arrange

various tutorial sessions in Babylonian, and so on. We know what drove them out of

Baghdad. The police were going to interfere in his personal affairs. They meant to

topple him from the affluent state he had so arduously achieved. But George planned

to prevent any deterioration in his standard of living. He was ready and determined

not to let his principles be shaken.

In the course of its existence since Abu Jafar al Mansur, the city had opportunity to

discover many of the contingencies of human life. It had also created escapes from

most of them. Recall the horrible round boats, the goffles, during floods. For people

who for one reason or another find themselves wearying of the City of Peace, it

constructed a railway. The Baghdad Railway enjoys a fine reputation. It was child’s

play for George and his two friends to find the station and, as we have seen, travel by

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rail to Constantinople. They quit Baghdad with a sense of gratitude towards the

considerate connoisseur of human life who had constructed both city and railway.

Istanbul, Constantinople, was then a different world from Baghdad. It was a city of

ancient traditions. They soon found reason to thank the police for driving them from

that sharp-edged constricted sultry place full of camel drivers to the grand city on the

Bosporus. Once our Great One, lovestruck Persian Khan Ibn Kurmani, and his retinue

had been in residence several weeks, items like these began appearing in the papers:

Drunken chickens: The police have arrested members of a gang of thieves who

specialised in stealing chickens. They gave the fowl feed soaked in an intoxicating drug

and then carried off the drunken birds.

Female smuggler sentenced: The Ninth Special Court yesterday sentenced the 17

year old L., found guilty of trading in smuggled cigarette papers, to six months in

prison and a fine of 117 Turkish pounds. When the sentence was announced, the girl,

half of whose prison term was remitted because of her young age, fell into a faint.

Cocaine smuggling: A lorry driver was arrested here yesterday as he was about to

make his way to Greece. A search of his vehicle brought to light no less than five

kilograms of cocaine which he had planned to smuggle to Greece. According to the

police, R. had not yet paid for the lorry bought in Istanbul.

Serious consequences: A teacher suffering from a nervous ailment, who had been

under treatment for a lengthy period in the state hospital, after his discharge went to

the private clinic of the government doctor, took a revolver from his pocket and shot

at the doctor. As the doctor collapsed with a life-threatening wound to the throat, the

teacher tried to flee. He fell over, and the revolver which he still had in his hand fired a

second time. Hit directly in the heart, the unfortunate man died on the spot.

In between, harmless items like these:

Spring celebrations: According to longstanding Persian tradition, the first day of

spring is a major festival. It provided the occasion yesterday for a reception for the

Persian community at the Persian Consulate General. The first day of spring is also

celebrated in the villages and suburbs around Istanbul as “Earth Day”. Also, in the

Agricultural School at Halkili it provided the occasion for an open air party which,

favoured by wonderful weather, attracted a very numerous crowd.

Sport: DFK–General von Steuben: 4:1. The DFK team, weakened by substitutions,

was able in yesterday’s match at Taksim Stadium to beat the team from the steamer

General von Steuben 4:1.

Museums: Museum of Antiquities: daily except Tues from 10.oo and on Fri from

13.00 – 17.00. Entry 10 piastres.

Old Serail: Fri, Sun, Mon, Tues, Thurs 10.00 – 17.00. Entry 50 piastres.

Military Museum (Hagia Irene): Daily except Mon, from 10.00 and Fri from 12.00 –

16.00. Entry 10 piastres.

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Çinili Kiosk (Tiled Kiosk): As for the Museum of Antiquities. Entry 10 piastres.

We don’t want to blame our shamrock for all that happened there. But it is

suspicious.

With no prerogative of coinage, they begin to mint coins

In every land a debasement of the coinage is felt as unpleasant. It’s done by reducing

the troy weight or raising the face value of a coin. Debasement frequently occurs just

to turn a profit. The Count of Sayn-Wittgenstein, the Swedes in Stettin did so at the

beginning of the 17th century. The minting of the so-called “red sixpence” 14 ,

manipulation by King Sigismund III, caused great damage to the populace. We should

mention the “Kipper- und Wipperzeit”15 of the Thirty Years War. Good coins were

exchanged for big piles of money without awareness that more silver was being giving

away than was received in return. Anyone, lord or knave, looking to come by money in

dangerous and wicked ways succumbs quickly to the notion of coining his own money,

of course from cheap materials. You can’t use sand or flour, obviously, but with just a

small quantity of gold or silver, profit jumps right out and makes it all worthwhile.

It is the state which, by shaping and stamping for the weight and content of a coin,

guarantees the promise of a banknote!

The state alone has the prerogative of coinage and a monopoly thereof. We know

how lazy, evil or desperate individuals are inclined to run headfirst against it or find

back doors around the statutes. But abolishing the state monopoly of coinage would

unleash fraud everywhere.

The prerogative of coinage is a mark of sovereignty. We know from history that in

the later Roman Empire the prerogative rested with the emperor, from the 13th century

it was extended to the pope, and was finally assigned to any ruler of a state. The value

of a coin was entirely a matter for the state, even if now and then a sovereign illicitly

mortgaged the right to private individuals to overcome temporary embarrassments.

This was a disaster for the whole!

Our George – am I right to call him “our”? I think not! He is not “ours”, let us now

finally put an end to it, his ways are not our ways, our ways are not his, we’d best

abandon the old narrator’s usage and in future call him “this George” – this George

followed a developmental logic in his transition from thieving to coining.

Baghdad, city of 100 mosques, 50 synagogues, 6 Christian churches, was for Conrad

the spot where for the first time the chalice of love was lifted to his mouth, he took no

sip but did touch it with his lips. Even George had taken only a quick peep behind the

curtain of money. In Baghdad he was the number two. He’d been initiated by private

14 Copper coins covered in a thin layer of silver which rapidly wore off. 15 The coin debasement of 1620-22 vividly depicted in Chapter 12 of Döblin’s Wallenstein. “Kipper” refers to tipping the scales, “Wipper” to the swift palming of heavier (i.e. more silver-rich) coins.

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connoisseurs of coins into the secrets of the business, and they’d entrusted the

distribution side to him. He was the right man for the job, given both his dexterity and

his master, a spoiled and untouchable great personage who belonged to a foreign state

and was staying at the best hotel in town. The dear friends George encountered were

proud of this asset, because he’d told them in all innocence (?) that his master was in

temporary difficulties, he needed to borrow funds and would quickly repay them. And

so they exploited George’s and Conrad’s promissory notes to the full, causing George

great anguish. They soothed him with malicious words but held him in a vice, they

weren’t about to let him go. So by chance George was able to catch a glimpse in the

back room of a blacksmith’s shop how his friends made money out of – almost nothing.

In little bits of apparatus they smelted and stamped coins, while next door horses were

shod and cars repaired. There seemed to be repair shops front and back, lame horses

and defective cars could be put right in public while at the back criminals secretly

toiled away, their financial nakedness concealed by the innocent noises outside. It

tormented George to be a mere onlooker. But they kept him at bay, said he’d not had

the training, and anyway work cramps the style of a big spending man about town.

A booming business

It was different in Constantinople. Here George set up on his own account, deploying

the capital he’d brought along. He was shameless enough to have twice left Conrad for

short periods to make the long journey from Constantinople back to Baghdad just to

pick up the capital his friends had accumulated. He dared to call them business trips.

From the back room of a blacksmith’s shop George advanced to the front room of a

big printing works. You press a hand to your brow: What? The front room? Alas yes.

We have here an audacious exemplar of the criminal. He turned up in response to a

small ad from the owner of a printing works hard hit by the crisis, who sought a

partner to take a share (in his misfortune). George became the partner. The printing of

measly visiting cards, company envelopes and letterheads, of obscure calendars and

death notices was quietly carried on as normal for a while. Then George said:

Everything comes to him who waits. Then the owner realised there was no future in it.

It’s what George was waiting for. He had a proposal behind his back. He realised:

Fortune smiles on me, meaning the owner’s misfortune. The old man, who belonged

to an earlier epoch, wasn’t bothered in the least by what George and his assistants got

up to in the cellar after close of business. He, meaning the old man, had a large family

to look after, and so was the plaything of every whim of fate. All he said, with menace

in his voice, was: George better not let himself be caught. And then he retired with his

share. He thought that with the threat his civic duty was done. He was wrong. How

harshly the law deals with crimes such as this we shall see with crystal clarity.

Ignorance of the law is no excuse, as we all know. Society demands protection for its

customs and institutions, and to that end stipulates five classes of crime, of which the

fifth is headed: crimes against good faith and trust in business.

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Coining and retribution according to the Swiss Penal Code

Coinage crimes concern money as a medium of exchange in trade, and also our paper

money as expressly legalised, banknotes and paper of equivalent value, debentures,

shares, etc. The law protects both domestic and foreign money. And the penalties

apply not only to those who produce forged money, but also to those who distribute it.

As an example of the penalties for false coining I cite the Swiss Penal Code, which

has been adopted by Turkey – the case in point – as the standard.

The Thurgau (a canton in north-eastern Switzerland covering 988 sq. km.; its

mountains are not high, but a few lines of hills, in part outliers of the Toggenburger

Alps, reach a height of 700 – 1000 metres) provides that:

Whoever without authority forges coins of value in trade or brings such

forgeries into circulation shall be punished by up to 12 years in the workhouse

or jail. All penalties in this section shall include the confiscation of all

equipment and materials used or prepared for the purpose of false coining as

well as any forged or falsified coins found.

Graubünden is the largest Swiss canton in area but the least densely populated. It

has no excessive supply of minerals, but gold is mined on the Kalanda, the Parpaner

Rothorn, near Filisur, and silver is found near Davos and in the Albula valley. This is

Rhaetia, whose saga asserts descent from the Etruscans. It is also the location of the

Rhaetian Railway, which in 1931 achieved a profit of 22,474 Francs, while in 1932 it

showed a loss of 1,237,982 Francs, which fortunately could be covered by drawing on

reserves to restore the share value. Here it has been decreed that:

Whoever unlawfully forges coins that are used as currency in the canton with

the intention of bringing them into circulation and then actually does so shall

be punished for false coining with prison for between one and ten years, taking

into account the content, the denomination and the quality of the forged and

circulated coins and the degree of perfection of the same. This penalty shall be

accompanied, in the case of citizens, by disbarment from public office and from

the vote, or in the case of persons from elsewhere, temporary or lifetime

exclusion from the canton, following completion of the prison sentence.

It is reported of the inhabitants of the western, or proper, Aargau that they are

serious and hard to reach; the population of the Jura is in general more reliable, the

soil of the canton is extremely productive, except in certain little Jura valleys, fruit

cultivation is significant, deer and wild boar occasionally stray across from the Black

Forest, hares and foxes are the Jura’s most frequent wild creatures. Here it is said:

Whoever without leave of higher authority forges passable coins on the pattern

of any state in order to tender them as money, or who diminishes the value of

genuine coins by cutting, filing, hollowing or in any other way or who gives low

value coins the appearance of a higher value in order to pass on such forged

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coins as having full value shall be guilty of false coining (imprisonment for up

to 12 years).

One of the original founders of Switzerland is Unterwalden, with Uri and Schwyz

its confederates. In 1291 the three territories entered into an eternal union.

Unterwalden has altogether a mild and salubrious climate. Pears, apples and damsons

thrive particularly well, and there are fine big nut trees. People here wax freely on the

topic of the crime we have actuated. Please allow me to dispense with a detailed

account. We find prison terms of up to ten years. In especially serious cases the

sentence includes shackles for the entire term.

If here we cite no French or Italian cantons, we mean no disparagement, it’s just

that we’re in no position to list even all the German-speaking cantons and convey their

similarly prohibitive, suppressive, punitive, aggressive sense. Simply to round matters

off, we shall provide the perspective from a French and an Italian canton.

There is no need to describe the city and canton of Geneva. The name alone

provides an adequate picture. Maybe you would be interested to learn that Geneva is

one of the oldest Swiss cities. It was the capital of the Allobroges. It was twice

destroyed by Roman emperors. The city is wonderfully situated, Mont Blanc’s

grandiose icy peak soars in the background. An ancient curiosity of Geneva is that one

may ride a horse to the upper floors of the Council House, via a spiral walkway. I have

no idea if citizens still make use of this facility, or even what they would do with a

horse up there, assuming they have one. Be that as it may, Geneva is split in two by the

river Rhone, but the two parts are reunited by nine bridges. The city leaves us in no

doubt as to its stance regarding coinage crimes:

Quiconque aura contrefait des monnaies d’or ou d’argent ayant cours légal dans

le canton, ou participe sciemment à l’introduction dans le canton de semblables

monnaies contrefaites, sera puni de cinq ans à quinze ans de reclusion.16

And finally lovely Ticino! It’s the most southerly Swiss canton, the only one in

which Italian nature and Italian language predominate. Lemons and pomegranates

thrive in espaliers, splendid trout enliven the rivers, the Tresa overflows with eels. And

what do they say about coinage crimes? Nothing that would surprise us! It’s enough

that they agree with the others:

La contraffizione dolosa di monete svizzere o degli Stati che hanno convenuto

conformità di conio e di titulo, sa d’argento che d’oro, che hanno corso legale

nel Cantone, si punisce col secondo al terzo grado di reclusione.17

When you listen to this you can hardly believe it’s about coinage crimes. But it is.

We hope that the mellifluous melody of the law underlying the verdict can go some

way to help the repentant Ticinese bear the inevitable rigours of his sentence!

16 French in the original. 17 Italian in the original.

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Declaration by the author in his own defence

And with this we abandon George to his appetites, without wishing in any way to share

in his guilt!

No!

We refute any suspicion of connivance, complicity or facilitation. Connivance is a

crime common to every narrator. But just imagine our dreadful situation. We know

what this George, most heartily condemned by every one of us, is doing and will do,

but we can do nothing to stop it! Our hands are tied, while our mouths are wide open!

All we can do is alert the police to what’s happening. Be on the alert! Track them

down! Prevent bigger disasters! Buy a copy of this book for every one of your

colleagues, to keep them up to date.

Here we present tools of the trade the police can use in proceeding against George

and his accomplices:

1-2: Bloodhounds. 3. Long arm of the law.

4. The clutches of the State. 5. Prison

6. Isolation cell. 7-8. Bread and water

9-10. Shackles: Chain for the hands. For the feet.

Pay close attention, my dear officials, to these ten objects, keep them at the ready. We

shall be using them on other characters in this book.

First conversation between Conrad and George on the basis of their existence. Scoffing at money and human stupidity

Conrad’s knowledge of George’s activities emerged from the following discussion.

“No words,” the Great One said, “can adequately express my satisfaction at the

change in our circumstances. We arrived down here as utter nothings, had some not

exactly edifying encounters with Bedouin, our visit to Babylon left only a bad

impression. Now all’s going well with us. We’re living the high life.”

“Yes indeed, Great One.”

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“I do hope that permanence is built into the current situation.”

“For sure.”

“Nothing is more pleasing to my ears, George, for I have grand plans. The

immensity of all the pleasures, diversions and enjoyments has only now become clear

to me. I’m also clear now about the mysterious curse you brought to my attention a

while ago. He wanted, as you said, to go on living. I can’t describe how grateful I am

for that curse, which was actually aiming at righteousness. I assume that what we are

currently engaged in is the atonement demanded of us, meaning: an addendum to our

old life. I begrudge nobody the destruction of our former buildings; we couldn’t have

moved in anyway because of their out-of-the-way location and lack of modern

comforts. Spaciousness, immensity is the defining feature of the new world, and a

gratifying one, as you laid out for me on the way down. In this way the desire is

awakened in us to live forever and never grow weary, or only for short breaks.”

“Quite so, Great One.” Whereat they fell silent and had nothing to say.

“Now, I’ve been asking myself, George, since we’re not here solely for pleasure but

also to deepen our insights, what is the cause of our much-changed state, and I have

found that it’s somehow linked to the assets at our disposal. For we certainly penetrate

deeper into the world the longer we make our base here, but on the other hand such a

frontal assault on the world wouldn’t be possible without financial underpinnings.”

“Quite so,” said George.

“To have assembled this background, and to have done so in silence and without

troubling me, is to your credit. You will now be so good, George, to add to the many

huge pleasures we have enjoyed a further one: by letting on as fully as possible what

you’ve been up to, your methods, and also your conjectures about our future.”

Whereat George began his report on the matters requested. He said: “Between

Heaven and Earth we must differentiate between the visible and the invisible. We have

stars, clouds, buildings, streets, animals, people, mountains, minerals, paper. All these,

Great One, you can see, touch, and if you have the strength you can move them with

your arm and your will. If it amused you, you could roll the stars about like marbles,

and to tell the truth it sometimes seems that at present a young lad is playing at

spinning tops with the planets.”

“We both,” the Great One affirmed, “on our journey through today’s universe, had

the same dismaying impression.”

“With this,” George continued, “we have covered visible things. They have the

qualities of gigantic mass, weight and brainlessness. In the course of my researches,

impelled to gain a clearer grasp of human affairs, I’ve come upon a second defining

feature of things between Heaven and Earth. The invisible.”

Here he made a gesture to secure attention and indicate that he was about to

become expansive, but all he did was tell Conrad what we were obliged to tell our

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readers in the chapter about money. “Back then, at the end of our trip through the

universe, when we’d landed up on a highway, the rain had stopped and we sat with the

dirty Bedouin, we encountered, as you know, bread, water and sheep. We consumed

as many of these things as we came across and could snaffle on the quiet. Later we

encountered them again in Baghdad, but shut off from us. Now with the Bedouin and

the peasants I observed fields, meadows and steppe where people pitch their tents and

where, in short, they tarry.”

“Meaning,” Conrad said, “they live there.”

“One of the reasons they tarry out there among fields, meadows and steppe, is that

they find certain heartwarming items of interest to us, namely various kinds of grain

and livestock. These occur in exactly the same way as they themselves, and

consequently, in the course of time, a certain relationship of trust builds up between

Bedouin and peasants, and the other items I’ve named. Grains and livestock are

planted and cared for by the peasants and Bedouin, and now and then the peasants

and Bedouin strike the grains and livestock dead in order to obtain nourishment from

them. This happens all the time and unsupervised out there on the wide steppelands.

You see, Great One, it’s a true relationship of trust. Everyone lives fraternally together.

Nothing stands between grain, sheep and human.”

Conrad said: “I’m so glad it’s you who paint the relationship between grains, sheep

and humans with such exemplary calm. In earlier times it often troubled me that an

understanding of the same simple situation in relation to me and you - I almost said

legal situation – eluded you, and I was therefore compelled to impose the full force of

my authority, which really shouldn’t have been necessary. I hated having to do it.”

“That admission, Great One, does you enormous honour,” the other affirmed. “But

how did it go,” he continued, “when we came to that city blessed with so many people

of different races, Baghdad on the upper Euphrates, and I noticed, for in line with our

agreed division of labour I was required to notice it, that here the relationship of trust

between human, beast and grain had been thoroughly shredded. For here there were

only people. How, I asked myself, do they plan to feed themselves? I saw myself cast

into an ocean of questions.

“I thought to myself, it must have been much the same for those travellers who

came upon the Sphinx – but you don’t know about that. The Sphinx was at home in

ancient Egypt, a gigantic stone image of a resting lion with the face of a human, or

sometimes a ram. Sphinxes were placed to guard the entrance to a temple, and the

avenue to the temple was lined with sphinxes on both sides. The very ancient Sphinx

of Giza was the most famous and the biggest: fifty metres long, twenty metres high.

The Greeks considered it a homicidal monster, it’s immaterial whether they had

reason or not, so they gave theirs the head of an austere maiden, and even maidenly

breasts. It sat on a rock in Boeotian Thebes, and there it posed dreadful questions.

When we came to Baghdad it was as if a sphinx asked me: What do you propose to live

on? I had no answer. In Greece a traveller called Oedipus answered too hastily. Then

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he got married and sired four children. It was an unhappy marriage, for she was

already a mother, namely his. I thought about it. I asked the sphinx if I could give my

answer later, and then once in the city I acquired knowledge of something that moves

about freely and, as I saw, was relevant to the question. It was money.”

“Oh,” the Great One laughed, “money! Who has human form and yet does not

learn about money? Whether he has any or not, it arouses his interest. I don’t mind

telling you that as I was preparing for this conversation that was one thing I was going

to ask you about. You’re right: the division of labour between us meant that I left it to

you to find out all about this topic.”

“And for this, as for so much else, I owe you gratitude, Great One. And I hope I

have convinced you, and will further convince you, that I didn’t waste the time and

opportunity you so graciously placed at my disposal. What is it about this tangible

thing of metal and paper that they all carry with them and keep in boxes and steel

safes? And I found, Great One, that there’s magic in it! A spell, a conjuration, a

blessing or a curse. You can convince yourself: you’re hungry, you call out, but nothing

comes. That’s the condition of poverty. Few desire that condition. But if I take a gold

coin or two, or several, then along comes bread, meat, raw or cooked as you will. If you

have money, you can do what you want, if you have none, obstacles come in your way.”

Now George began to laugh. He laughed so loud that Conrad felt offended at first,

but then he had to join in, not entirely happy about it, for he had no idea who was

being laughed at. When George was over it, and sat staring ahead, the conversation

should have resumed, but it had to pause for a considerable time because of a renewed

outbreak of laughter from George. An irritated appeal from Conrad, to which we add

ours, brought the unworthy scene to an end.

What caused this laughter? He shall tell us himself.

“I’ve often asked myself: what is this magic? I held many different kinds of coin in

my hands, knocked them, struck them. Such treatment would have had consequences,

if a real power were involved. Believe it or not, Conrad, nothing happened. Nothing.

The money was no better than a piece of tin, or paper. But it still worked. Then I

understood that the money itself has no power whatsoever, I knew what it was about

money, and why you can treat it like that and it still works.”

“Well?” Conrad looked straight at him. But George was already off again: “Because

they’re mad.”

And George’s self-control was no more. He sputtered and laughed and howled and

tittered. His face swelled red as a crab, he couldn’t see out of his eyes. George cried:

“Help me, Great One, help me!” And as he laughed and struggled against the laughter

he stammered: “I can’t help myself, they’re mad, that’s the whole secret! They have a

hole in the head.”

Conrad waited for George to calm down. He asked casually what George based his

view on.

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“Great One, believe me, on their shoulders they have a hole instead of a head, and

they don’t know it. Between Heaven and Earth there are visible and invisible objects,

as I said. Here’s the invisible: the invisible is their madness.”

Conrad looked at him. He didn’t believe it. Didn’t believe. Sitting before him was

an idiot, a slave.

“I proved it when I made my own money! I met some people engaged in that

business. I became their associate. They’re clever people, I helped them. That’s what I

was up to in Baghdad, simply a clever man dealing with those others with the hole in

the head as they deserve. And in Constantinople I discovered that you don’t need to go

to the trouble of smelting your own coins. You can just print money.”

Conrad was angry, but kept it concealed: “Without underestimating your

cleverness, George, I find it amazing that everyone hasn’t already discovered this and

is doing the same as you.”

“There’s a difference between discovering and doing, Great One. It’s a special class

of human that discovers and then applies their knowledge. People call them criminals.”

Conrad reflected. “So you’re a criminal.”

“Yes, both of us are.”

“Why am I?”

“Because I am.”

“You are not me.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Conrad had no desire to prolong the conversation. This George, whom Conrad for

some obscure reason now addressed coldly as “Philip”, did not understand why the

Babylonian suddenly had a hostile look, the radiant expression that normally adhered

to him even without his beard of lapis lazuli was no more. Conrad squinted at George.

See there, my support, my staff, George the staff, now Philip the Independent, or

Conrad the Second. That’s my servant, my only servant, and he interchanges himself

and me. So far have I fallen. He calls me a criminal because I gave him a free hand. So

stupid, so shallow, such a nasty insolent cur, and he thinks to seat himself at my side.

That’s why he pulls me down. A petty cheat, a forger. And he calls it seeing through

the world! The world that has cast me down.

Conrad remained silent. The cur had shaken his majesty to the core.

Second conversation between Conrad and George. A minor correction to the outcome of the first

The first Conrad/George conversation on the basis of their existence had begun so

splendidly. Then the conversation ended in embarrassment.

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But there’s the expression “Forget about it!” and Conrad would not be Conrad if he

didn’t deploy it when it suited his book. And strangely enough it was the word

“criminal” that gave him the hook to forget his feelings.

It happened that in a short second conversation Conrad declared the other man

innocent, being his servant and because the world’s a funny old place, but one where

notoriously every deeper meaning is avoided, so all one can do is make use of things as

suits one’s purpose. As they’d already seen back in the starry heavens, it’s just a system

of material forces. Scruples, in a matter of sustenance and support, are uncalled for.

Conrad felt obliged to correct his subordinate in only one point: humans didn’t

have a hole on top of their shoulders instead of a head, rather they had too much in

their head. Take Camilla, the immortal grey camel: “That, Philip, is what you must see

as the emblem of the world.” And now great Conrad gave a loud laugh, laughed with

all his might, most heartily. His laugh declared total agreement with himself. He said

to Philip: “Whatever’s messed up in the world, people put right again. Whoever’s most

sneaky wins the race. And in this way the world comes not to order, but to a result. All

that’s given is the raw material, this world is not perfected, not complete, and so

people must jump in and muddle along and blunder about. World-creation beneath

the emblem of my Camilla! Oh, I could live here forever.”

And Philip’s eyes lit up, his mouth watered: “But you must understand it.”

Third conversation between Conrad and George: the starting point has long been left behind. Now the talk is of Roman executions

The second conversation was Conrad’s attempt to regain composure. In the third, the

following morning, despite acknowledging the economic achievements of George

(Philip the Independent), he planned to humble him, in order to forget all about those

dark thoughts of his abasement. But conversations are like tyrannies: you can start one,

but can’t guarantee how it will end.

As George was about to set off next morning on some business, Conrad was sat at

the window in abnormally high spirits, watching the street life pass by and ready to

mandate a third conversation. He urged George to take good care, and also allow

himself a treat. “For it seems to me everyone down here has to be on the qui vive. You

never know what’s going to happen to you today, or what will happen tomorrow. I felt

very dull and poorly yesterday, and had to lie down. Now see how full of bounce I am!

It’s nothing new. Our bodies are tricky things, they present us now with this, now with

that. So take care of yourself, my man, Philip, and give yourself a treat while you’re

still fresh. To tell the truth, I don’t trust the shenanigans down here.” But he gave

another mighty laugh. George asked if he might leave now, he had lots to attend to.

“Yes, go ahead,” said Conrad with a sinister hidden motive, “but first I’d like to ask

you something. Tell me, Philip, what is this thing called death? How do people go

about it when they want to despatch someone from life into death?”

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George turned pale. He sat down, took off his hat, rubbed his brow. He whispered:

“Leave it alone, Great One.” He couldn’t bear to speak of death. He heard the other’s

renewed laughter. Philip covered his ears. “Don’t laugh, great One. We don’t know

exactly how we’ll fare in that respect.”

“Well, my little Philip, I was curious, death, learn about death as well. It’s part of

our programme, after all.”

“Stop.”

Conrad shrugged. “What a brave companion I chose. And he goes on strike.”

“Great One, the business here goes on as long as it goes on. Until the water comes

up to our necks. And do you know what comes after?”

“So fly away then! Go fetch our wings, you know where they are, I wonder if they’ve

been stolen.”

Now Conrad experienced something quite unexpected. George stood, came over to

him and whispered to his face: “I would have done so a long time ago. But it’s no use.”

He fell to his knees and pressed his forehead to the carpet. Conrad heard him whimper.

“But why, George?”

“It’s no use. Can’t you see? We’re in up to our necks, over our heads. We shan’t

ever come out.”

“So we shall find out about death.”

“Great One, I beg you.”

Conrad regarded the street life, it was a nice bright day, exactly to his taste. He had

just been read to from the newspaper by a young Turkish lad, a student. He had heard

about Herriot’s security proposal.18 At a breakfast meeting with English and American

journalists in Paris, Herriot had declared that he regarded the security of France as a

guarantee of the security and freedom of other states, and he wanted nothing other

than peace, a genuine peace. Japan declared that it would not be diverted one iota

from its policy in Manchuria, but would soon present a proposal for naval

disarmament. It would be a fantastic plan! For this reason Japan would not make it

public yet, but it could promise that the Japanese plan would be something totally

independent and not based on any previous proposals. Well, these are matters that

arouse one’s curiosity.

From an advertisement he had learned of a price reduction at Toketti Pera, table

d’hôte buffet 75 piastres, with lounge orchestra. The Gloria Cinema encouraged his

attendance at the greatest African film of all time, titled Trader Horn. 19 Great

Aeroplane Lottery top prize 40,000 Turkish pounds. Ocean voyages.

18 Edouard Herriot (1872-1957): French Radical Party politician. 19 1931 Hollywood film, the first non-documentary shot entirely in Africa.

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But it wasn’t this that had raised Conrad’s spirits so, rather a notice in the Court

Circular: the Persian Foreign Minister had arrived in town and had taken up quarters

in the Pera Hotel, just like him! And why did this enliven him so? He’s Khan Ibn

Kurmani, pillar of the Persian government, with his retinue! How about he offer the

minister his hand? What would George think? He guessed his companion, as anxious

as he was arrogant, would be terrified. George was smoothing his trousers, looking

among the chairs for his hat. The Babylonian said: “We’ve strayed off the point. So

what methods do people use if they want to despatch someone from life into death?”

George saw his master sitting there unruffled, and chided himself for his loss of

control. He asked, seemingly off-hand, who exactly Conrad had in mind. And when he

learned that Conrad was not contemplating murder but merely enhancing his

knowledge of the proper authority, he showed he understood. He’d already been busy

with such material.

Of Roman execution techniques

“Do people do lots of putting to death, George?”

“They keep it within moderate limits. Usually only the one affected makes a fuss.”

“Are there many cases?”

“So-so. Recently almost none at all. Many more are killed privately, by doctors and

in fights. Earlier on it was different. There’s no telling how many actions in the course

of a life in the old days could have you put to death. In France for example: 115 crimes.

They must have had to start early in the schools to make kids aware of those 115

actions. England imposed the death penalty in 200 circumstances. In Germany, in just

one town, Nuremberg, a long time ago around 1200 people were executed on orders of

the authorities in a couple of decades. Nowadays there’s hardly any talk of public

executions, But the ancient Romans…”

George shook his head in wonder. Conrad was interested. George explained: “The

Romans were a great nation. They started by wiping out the Etruscans, in order to

establish their foothold in Italy. A people armed to the teeth. What they did, they did

systematically. But they still put great store on live and let live. When I have time,

Great One, I’ll tell you more about them. I believe that of all the nations there ever

were, you’d have loved these best. They executed by gradations. They said many

crimes, many punishments, each to its own. When the authorities in ancient Rome

wanted to execute someone, there was a blast on a horn. The populace is summoned

to attend, the delinquent is led to the place of judgement, the magistrate climbs onto

the stage with his toga inside out as a sign of mourning. Then the beheading with an

axe. Like with a sacrificial beast. They tie the man’s hands behind his back, hitch him

to a post, give him a flogging, then lay him on the ground and cut off his head.

“And then crucifixion, especially of slaves. That’s when they stripped the

condemned man, covered his head, put a yoke on his neck, tied an arm to each end,

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and then hoisted the whole thing with the body up onto a standing pole. He was

flogged as well. The one hanging there took a long time to die. That kind of fellow had

a miserable end, dying of thirst.

“And then the Punishment of the Sack. That was for parricides. They took the man,

thrashed him mightily with canes. Then they wrapped a wolfskin around his head,

shoved his feet into wooden shoes and stuffed him into a leathern sack. For company

they gave him snakes that squeezed and bit, or a dog and a hen that fought in the sack,

or a monkey if they had one. Then they’d throw the convulsing sack onto a cart hauled

by black bulls. They headed down to the river and threw him in.

“Arsonists and traitors in wartime, they were roasted. Such fellows were nailed to a

post, the post was hauled upright, kindling was piled around it, and he burned. To

make the punishment worse, if they were from respectable families they were paraded

on a donkey through the streets before the execution, a herald proclaiming their crime.

Ah, there’s only one death according to nature, but so many ways to get there. The

Romans invented battle-games and beast-baiting. They had their gladiators,

swordfighters. At the circus they liked to present them to the crowd during the

midday rest, especially prisoners of war. And there’d be starving beasts there, they’d

sic them on the men. There was one emperor, Valentinian, who kept two extra bears

in his palace just for this.”

George had spoken. He wiped his brow. He was trembling slightly. Conrad was

gazing down at the street again. It’s Istanbul, her lemonade sellers, her bright tinkling

of many bells. Cars, modern marques, wild tooting, bright sunlight. A lovely day, not

too cool. The Great One asked, without turning around, “Do you have anything else?”

“I shall tell you as well, Great One, how they proceeded against a priestess. These

were never tried in public. They removed the insignia of priestly rank and laid her thus

denuded on a bier. Laments for the dead started up, and now they carried the bier out

to the bonefield. There was an underground passage there, and the tomb. A bed had

been set up, a lamp, water, milk, oil, bread. They let a ladder down, the condemned

woman had to climb down, weeping, crying. Maybe she was paralysed and had to be

carried. Priests prayed up above, the ladder was retracted. Then the chamber was

shuttered. She was buried alive.”

Conrad waved a hand: “Enough.”

There was a long pause.

We come at last to the core of the matter: the Persian Foreign Minister

When Conrad turned around his face was stern, his brow furrowed, his eyes glared

straight ahead. He strode about the room. Once when he came close to George he laid

an arm on him from behind and looked into his face. “Where did you get the notion

I’d have liked these Romans especially?”

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Conrad released him, went over to the table. There were newspapers on it. At first

Conrad brooded at the table. I meant to humble him. But somehow or other we’re

caught in the same trap. A man-trap. Clever story, that, about the immortal camel.

Clever story. Then he picked up a paper, he recognised a picture, and handed it to

George. Who read out: “The Persian Foreign Minister Furugi Khan yesterday at 11.30

a.m. presented himself at the Vilayet in order to pay a call on the Wali.

“Following the meeting with the Wali, Furugi Khan, accompanied by the Persian

Ambassador and staff of the Persian Embassy and Consulate, proceeded to the

Monument of the Republic in Taksim Square, where they laid a wreath.

“The Wali and Mayor Muhiddin Ney hosted a luncheon in the Hotel Pera Palace at

midday, attended in addition to Furugi Khan by the two gentlemen of his entourage,

Musa Isfendiari and Abbas Kulu Khab Garib, Commander of the 3rd Army Corps,

Shukri Naili Pasha, the Persian Ambassador Zadik Khan, staff of the Persian Embassy

and Consulate, the acting Wali of Istanbul, Ali Riza Bey, the Kaymakam of Beyoğlu,

Zedat, Member of Parliament Reshit Zaffet Bey and numerous other personalities.

“The luncheon lasted almost two hours, and was followed by informal

conversations among the guests in the hotel’s salon.”

George read this without understanding the least bit. “So, why did you point this

out to me? The Persian foreign minister?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t know him.”

“Nor do I. I just thought, since I am Khan Ibn Kurmani and we’re staying in the

same hotel, the decent thing would be to pay him a visit.”

Now at last George clapped a hand to his brow. He was thoroughly put out by what

had just happened. He whispered: “An evil day, Conrad, we must leave, at once.”

Conrad smiled: “As I thought. You’re not much of a protector, my son. If I hadn’t

pointed it out to you, he would have come to us.”

“Enough with the jokes. We must pack.”

Thus ended the third conversation.

Conrad’s career path

It’s time to talk of love once more. This sketch depicts Conrad’s

career path. Here you see a funnel with a wide opening. Conrad and

his entourage were poured into it when they quit their Babylonian-

Assyrian-Chaldean heaven. In the clear spaciousness of the upper

funnel it was easy to drift down, it was all about eating, drinking,

looking, hearing, enjoying yourself, here some laughter, there some

annoyance. Down they sank, gravity pulled them on. Things changed,

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for the funnel was not empty. It was the housing for a mill. Inside was the screw of a

milling apparatus always grinding grinding. What it ground was people. Blood trickled

out below. What are they called, the rings, the windings, the screws? Passion, greed,

love, yearning, and – growing old, as well.

The hind of Prinkipo20

Conrad resided in an elegant part of town. He pursued the old life, stuffed full with

George’s fake bank notes. Where there’s money, there’s access to high society. The

Persian nobleman sought it out and found it. An American automobile with an elegant

chauffeur behind the wheel was just the ticket.

But she who rode with him in this automobile was a Levantine lady, a resident of

the lovely island of Prinkipo.

Madame, open your pretty little mouth, tell me: what is your name? – Irene. – A

nom de guerre? – No, sir. – Madame, what do you do in Pera? – Prinkipo is lovely, and

curative. But one must know what it is one is being cured of. – Prinkipo is the isle of

the banished. Now you’re weeping. – My name is not Irene. Once I had a simple name,

Elsa or Greta say, but I’m no longer her. On Prinkipo we have a hill with a monastery.

An Empress Irene is buried there. She was beautiful and passionate. They put her in

prison. Oh, I can’t bear it on Prinkipo. I want to live a grand life like Empress Irene.

“We must scorn nothing,” said Conrad, looking at her. “Whatever is beautiful we

seize and do with it as with Life: we take all the beauty and wrap it in shiny paper and

file it away.”

Grave, virginal, pale as the Moon Goddess she sat with him at dinner that first time.

On this occasion she had papered herself all over, satanically, tragically, in black silks.

Two narcissi grew from the low bosom. Clearly under these circumstances it never

came to conversation with Conrad, imperilled yet jolly chief of the abdicated

Babylonians. All the more so as he tucked in his masterful fashion into his dinner so as

to overcome the sorrows of emigration. Anyone seeing them together would know:

there’s no understanding between those two. But Fate decreed that they should throw

the Hellespont into confusion for several weeks in the search for one another, like

Hero and Leander, but with a happier ending. In the end, of course, she had to yield to

the stronger.

“Be friendly to women,” Conrad told himself when she was still there at his side

after dinner drinking her mocha. “Don’t reach for the axe too soon, don’t shatter her

like a stone pillar. Women are lamentable creatures, sometimes in distress, sometimes

out of money.” By keeping obstinately silent and unyielding, the young person

exercised an enormous attraction. She livened his mood no end. And right you are, as

they sat in his automobile – he wanted to take her to the ferry – she burst into tears.

20 Prinkipo is the island of Büyükada, in the Sea of Marmara.

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All he could do was titter, discreetly of course, because he’d already worked out some

understanding of the human heart. When she gave him a censorious glare, he twisted

his face to an affectionate expression. And she kissed him. Now he laughed out loud

and explained: For joy. She was chilly: why for joy? Well, these narcissi growing out of

your bosom, he said, and the silken drapes, and the not speaking, it’s all – such a joy.

She kissed him again, with passion. He kept his breast pocket closed, for she might

have intentions on his wallet. Maybe you’re surprised to see Conrad so stingy. But that

wasn’t the reason, he simply didn’t want to grant her anything. He despised her as a

silly goose. She dried her tears and said, gazing at the chauffeur’s back, that she was

unhappy. The vehicle bounced about horribly, Conrad begged her pardon, it was the

tires, normally he uses Continentals, but in an exigency you take what you can get. She

saw his point. In complete accord they proceeded hand in hand to the ferry pier. A

deep sorrowful look in her eyes pleased him enormously as they parted. It was late, the

last ferry, he urged her to hurry. Or else, he threatened, she’d have to stay the night.

She didn’t stay. Everything has to be prepared. Everyone knows that, except beginners.

He knew, once she was gone and he was enjoying the greatest satisfaction of all

amorous encounters, namely to go home by yourself, that she was a treasure and too

good for him. He broached this with George. He’d known for a long time that beauty

alone is not enough, foolishness has to be there too. But only a certain amount. Too

much and even the beauty is ruined. George listened with interest. But to Conrad’s

surprise he asserted that foolishness was so rare among certain women and especially

younger ones, that Conrad should be on his guard, the affair seemed a little fishy.

George was so right! The hind, her customs and habits

This next bit will be told in a severely abbreviated form. We reveal at the outset the

following: Conrad had landed up in the city of Constantinople. His papers were in

order, he’d taken up residence in another first class hotel whose name is immaterial,

spent heaps of money. Now there are all kinds of rich Persian. Every nation has its rich

people, and those who fritter their money away abroad. Some are known, and some

not. The ones who are known are left unshorn, the others are pestered. Conrad paid

with good money, but how big is Persia anyway, and anyway there are other Persians

in Constantinople. There was always a possibility his name would be overheard at

dinner or in the vestibule, and the visit by the Persian foreign minister provided such

an occasion. You like to know what other guests are in the hotel, and since you are

Persian you notice first of all: a Persian guest, it’s Khan Ibn Kurmani. Now you stand

there and ponder: what, Khan Ibn Kurmani, how puzzling, I don’t know him. You

confirm that the name is genuine. Khwadju Kirmani was a Persian poet who lived from

1253 t0 1325, and so lived for 72 years and in that time composed a so-called “Fiver”

that comprised two love stories, two mystical-didactic poems, and a panegyric to a

minister. It could hardly be him (why not, lots of things are possible, and who knows

Persian poetry inside out). For a simple modern-day Persian to hear “Kurmani” is

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rather as if one were to encounter in a German hotel the name Paul von der

Vogelweide and be happily reminded of the Walter from your schooldays.21 But before

you settle decisively on a particular plan, the interesting bird has flown, the enquirer’s

interest fades for lack of an object.

What is the profession of ladies who like to go to the cinema? The answer will lead

us rapidly onwards. Who do they latch onto when they have no one and need money?

Solitary ladies play Mata Hari with enthusiasm, swimming in luck, love and money

and twisting the beloved man around their little finger in a life and death struggle. The

matter does not have to end in tragedy. So, be a female spy. But for which martial

power, when there’s no war? This was the knotty problem facing the twenty-five year

old virginally modest Irene, who after a miserable childhood was brought aged seven

to the convent school, which she left aged sixteen with average grades and in

blooming youth became the wife of a worthy old man, pious owner of a textile factory.

He went bankrupt and left her in the lurch, took to his heels. He left her the little

house and its surroundings. She was pretty and well brought up. So well brought up

she’d have died rather than reveal her present plight to the world. She bloomed like a

violet by a mossy stone. There were in the city many good families from the textile and

allied businesses, who took her to their heart. She loved old-fashioned music,

practised piano regularly. She perfected the languages she’d learned at school, English,

French, with the aid of didactic letters printed under the Toussaint-Langenscheidt

label. For months on end she ate raw food, to save money and because some other

ladies did so. This all happened on Prinkipo, where the Empress Irene lay buried.

The influence of artistic and natural objects, antiquities too, on education and

character is often underestimated. Irene, having come into possession of the modest

little house acquired by the speculations of her vanished spouse, fell under the spell of

the Empress Irene. We, with our knowledge of history and access to relevant reference

works, know that there were several empresses called Irene; we quickly find the right

one, and now it all falls into place. History reports of Irene that she was a woman well

adapted to every contemporary possibility of wit and frivolity. She was born to be a

widow. Her marriage had produced a son, who grew up and wanted to join the army.

She had the nuisance blinded in the same Purple Salon where she’d given birth to him.

She ruled five more years in Byzantium, extravagant, vicious, insolent. Objections

were raised from the finance side. Her Chief Treasurer overthrew her, she came to

Lesbos (ah Sappho, singer, your place, for love of a common sailor you threw yourself,

he having scorned you, from the Leucadian Cliff; these days Lesbos exports only oil

and soap), there on Lesbos the empress had to spin wool until she died. This Irene,

surrounded by the glamour of wild behaviour and, now long dead, an untarnishable

object of reverence, was Irene’s idol. Irene loved Irene as her womanly fulfilment. And

when her evening ferry from Constantinople headed towards Prinkipo, it was taking

her, despite all Stamboul’s mishaps, back to her Empress Irene.

21 Walter von der Vogelweide [‘bird-willow’] (1170-1230): Middle High German poet.

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Perilous espionage plans grow around the Empress’ grave

Cinema on the Bosporus is not to be sneezed at. I quote from Artistik: Afterwards one

can visit the Eden Palace (Istiklal Caddesi 322) and at the cabaret show be oriented to

the latest Paris creations. Who could still doubt that the young abandoned Irene must

become a spy? The Mata Hari film showed her the way. So the silly goose placed

herself at Conrad’s side, he the subject of dubious chatter. She told herself, based on

newspaper articles: a lot goes on in Persia, just as much goes on in Turkey, so if a rich

Persian turns up in Istanbul and you’ve no idea who he is, you’d better be on your

guard, to the benefit of one government or the other.

And with these thoughts she felt herself promoted, fit to govern, and closer to her

patron the empress.

The morning after the dinner described above, a young lady barely twenty-five

years old could be seen making her slow and contemplative way up the steep steps to

the old monastery on the island of Prinkipo and then lingering in silence at the top.

Her gaze rested dreamily on the silver-bright sea, the islands, the Gulf of Ismit, the

steep Bithynian mountains and the dense groves of myrtle and terebinth at their feet.

You guessed it: she was the living Irene, drawn here to the other. There she stood,

enlivened, caressing breezes carried a scent of spicy power.

She went a few paces deeper into the wood, sat on a tree stump, and considered

this great turn in her life. “How lovely the world is, how full of joy. One shouldn’t give

it up too soon. I’m making progress in everything. I can already read the fables of La

Fontaine fluently in French, I can play Mozart sonatas pretty well in small gatherings,

of course you don’t invite just anybody. Just now I need a new spring hat, I can alter

the coat and the shoes … No, I’ll buy myself a new pair. One must be bold, and take

the plunge into business. My Max (the outcast) took it too far until nothing was left,

there’s no need to push it to the limit. If all you have left is a thousand Mark, you don’t

have to sink it all in the business and then inflate it with another five hundred. How

the man ever built up his business is a mystery to me. Probably it was his associate,

who’s a bit more cunning than he. I shall proceed with caution. I shall find a secure

place for my earnings, Mr X, a merchant on Prinkipo, can advise me. Above all I have

to make progress with the Persian. Was I clever yesterday? They’re squeaky clean

characters, shrewd young fellows. Him and his car. Is it paid for yet? They give

themselves such airs. And they fall at my feet.” She stood up, strode gaily back down

twirling a myrtle twig.

Irene’s background, and female government

Having reached this point, I need to retouch the image of our Irene. For what happens

next comes as a surprise. She did return home, but then phoned a man who lived on

the island. He turned up at midday, entered the house via the back door, and they

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kissed just like lovers. Yes, Irene had been abandoned by her spouse, but that was two

years ago. She was strict and chaste, as we have reported, but the owner of a grocery

store who knew her situation approached her in her solitude. He caused her much

worry because she was afraid her honour might be besmirched, or already had been, if

it all came out. But after he’d devoted half a year’s tender exertions to shove aside all

that kept them apart, she yielded. She didn’t forgive him. Her ideal was shattered, but

from that day on our dear little hind couldn’t keep away from those tasty leaves –

strange, even though they hurt her – and how marvellous, no matter how often she

nibbled his leaves and thought him destroyed he always grew new ones, and however

much she railed against herself and him and moaned that she would never eat his

leaves, no, nevermore eat his leaves, still she ate them. But now, descended from the

top of the hill, for the first time she didn’t torment him in the least! She sat herself

down at his laden table fresh as a daisy. More passionately than usual, she embraced

him with a hearty appetite. Such was the shadow cast by great Conrad.

Our dear hind spun her web in all stealth. Our Conrad was to be caught in it. We

would be bad people indeed if we allowed Conrad, having developed all these qualities,

to fall into the trap. Conrad and the hind!

Now we have a different example from the ancient and ineradicable race of women,

who had other motives and a different approach when she embarked on a war with a

man. This was Deianira. She presented mighty Hercules with a shirt smeared with

magic blood, the Shirt of Nessus, it was supposed to give her power over him, meaning

be filled with love for her; he was at that time besotted with another. The ruse worked.

The hero suffered torments. It was gruesome, sublime, neither Hercules nor Deiana

could remain in their skin. But what Irene, the hind of Prinkipo, had in mind was

mean and despicable. It happened for a little bit of income and in order to compete

with a dead widow, the Byzantine Empress Irene. We burst out in scornful laughter.

That, and competing with an ancient potion-mixer. If it wouldn’t be too foolish, we’d

feel annoyed. Anyway, we’ll do our best to ensure that this ruse comes to naught.

Conrad, George and Irene become the focal point of major political events

To assess her options, Irene guided her steps to the Persian consulate-general in

Istanbul, where a trade agreement with Turkey was generating huge amounts of

business. The process was already far advanced, Ankara and Teheran were hard at it,

the agreement between Turkey and Persia was to be visibly documented for outside

consumption by a meeting between the State President of Turkey and Shah Pahlavi of

Persia. Press report: “Discussions between the highest ranks of officials. Timing and

location of a meeting still to be decided. H.M. the Shah has long desired such a

meeting. But the question of formalities remains to be determined.”

You can imagine the reaction when our hind reported her carefully concocted story

that she was on the trail of a massive Persian spy operation in Turkey. Because our girl

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was just too cute, she wouldn’t show all her cards, detectives never do that, she came

out with all sorts of insinuations, they sent her from one room to another, sometimes

took notes, headshakings here, headshakings there, the consulate-general initiated

discreet enquiries with the police, information about her trickled in, and so without

her noticing it she was sitting pretty in a major spy-counterspy-counter-counterspy

operation. In every such case the authorities concerned say to themselves: You never

know, keep an eye on it in any case, maybe she’s on the track of a common enemy

hostile to our new agreement, and there’s always some remote, almost private entity

with a bit of loose change to liaise with an informant and keep the person in question

warm. So it was with our Irene. She gained pocket money. A great day when they gave

it her, really for nothing, nothing at all. But the ever-industrious detectives of the two

friendly powers considered they’d better find out who was behind it. If they’d known it

was the Byzantine Irene, they’d have given her nothing. If they’d suspected it was a

Mata Hari film, they’d have clapped a hand to their forehead and cursed themselves.

The closest of friends, where business is concerned, have a fund of mistrust for one

another. Aware of this truism and building on it, Irene, fortified by money from one

side, sauntered over to the other side. The scene there was the mirror image of the

first in surfaces, lines and edges. After furtive mutterings, headshakings, whisperings,

passing on, passing back, sleeping on it, having a smoke, grinning about it, they dug in

a pocket that held a few loose piastres for such purposes, and for the rest, see above.

Who could be happier than Irene. And who more puzzled, but also happy, than the

owner of the grocery store on Prinkipo, who found his hind ever more ready and

willing to have a nibble at his table.

Conrad, the victim, is made ready

There was still Conrad, the Babylonian overlord. He caused her some worry. She may

have had no romantic feelings for him, but it annoyed her that he had none for her.

You can understand her emotion. When a person breaks away from the island of

Prinkipo under the shadow of a Byzantine empress, a proud unapproachable person of

high renown (leaving aside the grocery store owner), one who can read fluently the

fables of La Fontaine and is making good progress at the piano, who appears now in

the humdrum city of Constantinople, that person has good reason to be treasured,

even loved, to some extent à fonds perdu.22 And if this someone, this proud female,

reveals an emotion (regardless of authenticity), lowers herself to that level, it’s frankly

appalling when the other fails to see it. This is all by the by. The main point was: Irene

now had some pocket money, and all real spying must, she knew, be founded on love.

How could she make progress.

She knew what the agencies who had taken her on expected of her, and she

suspected she was under observation left right and centre. (Oh Irene, stern female,

22 With no hope of a return.

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how will it go with you and your love for the grocery store owner?) But she could have

no idea that in the Babylonian and his George alias Philip, noblemen from the land of

the Persians, she had as adversaries two such life-affirming characters. To these

characters, everything they encountered was OK. They were bold and utterly cynical.

Conrad didn’t know what Irene, the hind of Prinkipo, intended with him, and if

George had caught a whiff of that roast he’d have taken to his heels along with Conrad

lickety-split, because he loved everything about life with the exception of encounters

with the police. So, since both knew nothing, fate preserved them from unnecessary

acts and allowed Conrad to continue bumping into said person, who was the sole

reason for his coming to Constantinople in the first place.

The girl proceeded cautiously. The love-stakes are high now, she told herself,

especially as her love for the grocery store owner had reached a passionate stage. He

sometimes caused her to regret. Was she not betraying him? When he went off after a

lovely meal and she was powdering herself and gazing in the mirror, she decided that

she would pursue this question once matters had proceeded so far with Conrad. She

wasn’t betraying him yet. The intent was not the crime. The performance might be

amusing. She smiled at herself in the mirror: No need to be sorry, dear friend, that’s

how life is, not everyone can rot away on Prinkipo.

Because she loved the flicks, Conrad had to take her to every cinema in the city.

There was nothing like illusions, and the lovely shivery feeling they imparted: a drama

is sitting right here in the stalls, clueless by my side. My Conrad, my sacrificial lamb.

They visited the Alhambra: Mata Hari; the Artistic: Son from America in French,

and Storm of Passion in German; Etoile: The Gentleman, the Lady and Bibi in French;

Gloria: Ben Hur in English; Magic: Melody of the Heart in German; Melek: Mata Hari;

Modern: The Singer from Seville in French; Opera: Convict 96 in French; Sürreya: Song

of the Flame; Darülbedayi: Üç Saat.

Irene was in her element, for Conrad it was like being battered about the head. He

knew the tribulations of love, especially while they were germinating. But this was

beyond all bounds. What did Irene get out of all these trips to the cinema? Answer:

she was preparing her sacrificial lamb. She was following in the footsteps of great

Hamlet: the criminal must be led before his crime and thereby softened up for an

onslaught. The shock would open his mouth, and then she would deliver him to her

knife. Love, where applicable, she would suppress effortlessly. At the right time he

should learn how a real professional spy, a general, comports himself just before his

demise. With glowing eyes she tried as she absorbed the film to penetrate the

darkness of the cinema and check his expression. On the first occasion, just as the

denouement was reaching a climax (enormous tension), Conrad, her victim, had the

cheek to be asleep. Of course he was only pretending. It didn’t help. She wouldn’t be

who she was if she couldn’t see through his tactic. And on the second occasion she

clutched his hand tight as she made her suspicious inspection, this time he wasn’t

asleep, he gave her a weary smile, oh it was obvious he was already despondent, he

knew he was caught in a trap. She hurried him out of the cinema to confront him with

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his first admission, his first confession. He yawned several times, and didn’t show

himself for two days. Aha, the clever detective said, triumphant.

Conrad reacts to Irene’s schemes. A stroke of genius

Let’s hear what he has to say. He sat somewhat broken in George’s room and for a long

while said nothing. Only when his assistant insisted did he loosen his tongue.

He said: “Oh George, the realm of the female is so big. When we enjoyed our

celebratory dinner à trois I praised the message that women and aromas blazoned out

together. Even at that time I couldn’t help but discern the hidden meaning behind

that message that belongs also to the beauty of aromas: that they vanish. But whoever

knows the realm of women, knows they have an obstinate nature. Especially society

ladies, they have idiosyncrasies I can’t figure out. And when I consider Irene, the hind

of Prinkipo, I must praise her from a general love of humanity, but on the other hand I

have no idea how such a thing could have been created.”

George’s advice was to rid himself of her. Conrad nodded mournfully: “You told me

recently about the Romans, who carved out space in Italy by eradicating the Etruscans

and later thought up other ways to rid themselves of adversaries. What were those

methods?” George spoke of executions, beheadings by axe in a marketplace after a

horn fanfare; of flayings, of hangings from a wooden gibbet. “Yes,” said Conrad, “you

were right on that occasion to suggest in passing that I’d have liked the Romans a lot.

Probably I’d use a combination of different Roman methods against my adversaries. In

certain cases, my dear George, one cannot proceed resolutely enough! The penal codes

we’ve come across so far are incomplete and too timidly compiled. Certain forms of

female attachment should be met with the death penalty pure and simple. In a case of

female recidivism, every male should be summoned promptly by loudspeaker and

poster to assemble in an orderly fashion in some broad meadow outside the city walls.

There a big canvas tarpaulin should be spread. In the middle of the tarpaulin the

offending female should be made to stand fully dressed in all her warpaint. They

should read out her name, and those she has victimised with her serial unwanted

attachments. Then around a dozen strong men, the strongest of the city, should step

forward, take off their jackets, grab hold of the tarpaulin, and with rhythmic cries of

Ahoi! fling her into the air, so high in the end that she never comes back down.”

George found this worth considering. But he insisted that all Conrad needed to do

was keep out of her way.

“It would also be feasible,” Conrad, infatuated with his idea, continued, “and

desirable too, to make the gathering in the meadow into a popular festival with lots of

free beer, like a Spanish bullfight. It would be a kind of festival of joy, taking place

every year at the beginning of spring, appropriate cases would be saved up for this day,

it would be a great day of human liberation.” George reiterated his suggestion to just

drop the hind. Conrad countered:

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“When we spoke recently of money, you seemed rather despondent. You said our

wings are gone, we’re up to our necks in water, there’s no way back. Maybe so. That

doesn’t absolve us of responsibility to keep our eyes open. I, my dear fellow, without in

the slightest identifying myself with the fantastical camel Camilla, am raising a very

extensive appeal against Unknown. I dispute the actual legality of the case against me.

Now, when this ridiculous case of the hind of Prinkipo comes into view, I’m duty

bound to pursue it in an orderly fashion. I shall not flinch from any unpleasantnesses

that may arise, although of course I shall be mindful to restore my untroubled peace as

quickly as possible and resume my earlier existence, perhaps on a new basis. We must

use the case of this infatuated hind who won’t yield to penetrate into that remarkable

entity we’ve stumbled across in Istanbul: high society. It’s related to major resources of

money. The hind of Prinkipo is one of them. She enjoys a good reputation. The fact

that her husband went bankrupt and left her in the lurch seems to have lent her a

peculiar charm. I can’t walk away from all that; I study it critically but with pleasure.

What’s more: she tires one out, but provides material for amusement. High society

reeks of comedy. I believe we’re on the brink of great discoveries and attacks of

laughter. Being a Persian, much is permitted me. The way she speaks is elegant but

confused, they call it educated, she reads novels and tells me about them, George, stuff

so improbable and useless you’d never believe the narrator earns money by it.”

“Oh!” George smiled a knowing smile, “imagination again! Always the imagination!

They can’t do without it.”

“She plays the piano, a certain sonata, I’ve heard her at a dozen different social

gatherings. She starts off and eventually ends, in between it’s easy on the ears, like

smoking a cigarette. But they all make a ceremony of it, clap like mad at the end, and

my Irene looks around so proudly. Sometimes she speaks a foreign language, French,

and reads a book in that language, La Fontaine. This too raises her self-esteem and the

general regard of the ladies in the company. I admit, George, at the moment I too am

riveted by these oddities. Please look beyond my depressed condition. I shall man up.”

In the end Irene deploys her heavy weapons. First and last hours of an abused love

The moment arrived when Irene realised that her idea of unmasking à la Hamlet in a

cinema was a dud. She’d better bring out her heavy weapons. Since it was a case of

espionage, it would be love. She would have to become his lover.

The empress slept up there on the hill. How often did she linger on the summit

nearer the Byzantine lady’s resting place. Oh, how much easier than a modern person

did the empress have it! Born in a palace, raised in the flow of history, everything fell

into her hands, she was able to intervene in the wheel of History, to kill, to blind. But a

child of the new age, and from the textile trade to boot?

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Irene II read about Monna Vanna.23 For weeks she read with the aid of a dictionary.

Thus did she strive to make herself perfect. Monna Vanna dared slip into the enemy

camp wrapped only in her cloak. It wasn’t inevitable that something might happen.

We must confirm that our hind was not well suited to her task. She led an

anxiously furtive happy life with her grocery store owner. He gave her what she

needed, and even that brought fear. But the wild Persian, this Artaxerxes, Cyrus,

Genghis Khan, however was she to contrive it!

We pass over several half-despairing conversations she had with her friend on

Prinkipo, in which she told of a lady who had landed in just such a dreadful situation.

She wanted to find out what a merchant thought of it. He was quite intrigued, about

the lady especially, and wanted to learn all about her. His reaction troubled her. She

grew jealous, said no more. She was all on her own, just herself and Destiny. One must

love, she told herself, clear as day, reciting the movies.

So she began, throwing her last card onto the table. She committed to all her

feminine wiles, cunningly but with passion. And since she was pretty and lissom and

no longer quite young, the change of repertory was pleasing to the Babylonian.

At first she suffered pangs on account of the grocery store owner. But then, once

she’d paid out a hundred per cent, it seemed to be a happy life she led secretly at

Conrad’s side. Conrad’s manner, she now found, had something of the masterful, the

imperial. She was all set to abandon the simple man on Prinkipo. A lucky stroke

prevented her. For at this very moment he was to prove himself devoted to her.

It should be reported that, under her smouldering passionate love for Conrad, her

espionage plan was put on hold. She knew from the lives of the great female spies that

even they sometimes proceeded thus. Even in this pleasure-filled interlude, fruits

might ripen unremarked. So, having dispensed with her demon, one day when she was

reminded of pocket money, she gave the Turkish side a snippet of false information. It

concerned some irreproachable man who had made a disparaging remark about the

trade treaty. And now Irene was in the trap!

They knew about the irreproachable man, about her, her friend on Prinkipo, his

comings and goings, they knew she was kept by, or at least went out with, a Persian of

the high nobility, a man of the world. They did not know if she was a petty trickster

from high society earning a little on the side, or an agent, but whose, where from. But

even if you don’t know you can still intervene.

The thunderstorm broke over her. To conclude this tale we have new and good

things to say of our Babylonian. We’ve already reported several bracing things about

him. But we’re a little nervous of his crudity (?). For he is a man who with the greatest

naturalness says yes to all pleasures, but to all that may discomfort him never under

any circumstances says yes. And so there could be concern that he will proceed against

23 1902 play by Maurice Maeterlinck, with a strong central female character.

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Irene, the hind of Prinkipo, in accordance with ancient Roman custom. We heard

from his own mouth grave words about the crime of female attachment, we recall with

consternation the draconian measures he suggested, placing the woman on a square

tarpaulin, violent tossing by twelve strong men, the guilty flung so high in the air they

can never come down again. But what happened. How pacified our Conrad is already,

what philanthropy does he exude, what have the sweetshop mamselle and the kiddie

made of him! Ah how slow and unremarked do the mills of life grind, it’s like ageing,

one day after another drips down on us, and one morning we’re pale and withered.

We report on the final evening spent by Conrad and the hind of Prinkipo in the

main hall of the hotel. A contest was in progress to find the Turkish beauty queen. It

was not Irene but Conrad who, to her slight chagrin, chose this entertainment. She

was also annoyed that he offered no word of encouragement to her, the beautiful

though not exactly young hind, to take part in the competition. Strangely enough, no

one else encouraged her either. The game, she decided, as with all these shows, was

rigged. Since I myself, stuck in the library in Zurich, am unable to attend the

magnificent show, I shall let the Turkish newspaper speak; it reads, immediately

before reporting on how to keep food fresh, in the following terms:

Plesire Nasib Crowned Beauty Queen

“Presided over by high officials, the selection committee, of which the poets Hoopoe

and Po-dagra are members, plumped in their second secret conclave for Plesire Nasib,

following a majority vote in the first round for Miss Miao-tzu.

“Since Miss Miao-tzu had attracted the most votes in the previous round, the

announcement that the selection committee had awarded the title of Miss Turkey to

Plesire Nasib aroused loud controversy in the crowded salon. At the very moment

when a megaphone brought down into the hall invited Plesire to step forward as the

Turkish beauty queen, the writer Cocka-too, recently elected to Parliament, leaped

from his seat, climbed on a chair and protested loudly against the unjust decision,

meanwhile encouraging Miao-tzu, seated at the next table to the chosen beauty queen

Plesire Nasib, also to stand on a chair. He said that if anyone in the hall should be

selected as beauty queen, it should be none other than Miao-tzu.

“These words were greeted by applause, causing adherents of Plesire to protest in

their turn.

“Meanwhile the megaphone announced that no one should oppose the decision of

the selection committee to which such famous figures belonged, including Hoopoe

and Po-dagra.

“But Cocka-too would not give up the fight, and asked the guests assembled in the

hall if they wished to set aside the committee’s choice and call on Miao-tzu to accept

the crown. At that moment, as tempers in the hall seemed to be reaching boiling point,

both dance bands struck up at once, and while certain heated persons tried to

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continue their quarrel, the first couples, among them the new beauty queen Plesire

Nasib with the film director Crook-shank, came onto the dance floor. The evening

then passed quietly, apart from a vigorous difference of opinion between two

gentlemen which threatened to degenerate into physicalities but through the

intervention of two ladies was settled peaceably, and social decorum gradually

returned, electoral fanaticism having abated.”

We have nothing to add to this excellent description.

During the election, Conrado Conradini sat in his evening dress with the hind at a

reserved table; they permitted themselves to enjoy it. They observed much but, let the

world grow ever so excited, they were occupied with each other. As they drank wine

while the “vigorous difference of opinion between two gentlemen” was taking place in

the hall and being calmed by the intervention of two ladies, she, one hand on the glass,

the other on his hand, recited to the Great One the verses she had committed to

memory that morning, in a sombre foreboding change of mood, from the book of

poems titled Piyâle by Ahmed Haşim. She whispered to the Great One: “The stairs.

You climb the stairs so wistfully, head lowered in the sun-coloured fall of leaves. And

rest and turn to heaven your tearful gaze. The tears become yellow and your cheeks

pale, see the red clouds, evening falls, roses incline to Earth dripping their redness,

nightingales like flames twitch bloodily on branches. Why has the marble a brazen

glow. Are the waters burning? Secret is this language, it refreshes only the soul. See

the red clouds. Evening falls.”

He, unfamiliar with western poetry, asked what stairs she was talking about. She

was in apprehensive mood: “Ah,” she breathed, “my little Khan, the less accessible to

the understanding a poetic production, the better it is. Even Goethe said that.”

“I don’t know him,” the Babylonian commented amiably. “Where’d you meet him?”

She smiled: “Oh you barbarians! There’s no talking to you. With you one can only

breast by breast –”

She touched his knee with hers. It wasn’t long before they experienced tender

hours, as Irene wanted. For him they were satisfying, but hardly overwhelming.

Politics takes a great step and a certain somebody falls by the wayside, another marvels, but not for long

When she landed next morning on Prinkipo, still in sweet ecstasy, grateful to her

Byzantine lady for granting her the courage to pursue a life if not spine-chilling then at

least pleasant, the house search had already been completed. The myrmidons were

waiting for her in the little house, but an emissary of the grocery store owner met her

at the pier and led Irene to his house. Early in the evening an insignificant youngish

man stood before Conrad at the hotel. He was angry. It was the grocer, at whose

cabbage the hind had so eagerly nibbled. “Irene told me she knows you. I’ve hidden

her away on Prinkipo. She said she’s done something bad.”

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“But she’s done nothing bad.”

“I’ve left her with friends. She insists she’s a spy. Did you put her up to it? Please

tell the truth, have you been misusing her for some purpose?”

“Dry your eyes, man. The woman must be sick. Maybe she’s taken drugs. She’s

done nothing bad. I’ll vouch for it.”

“But the police are after her. She cries that she’s a spy and she’ll be shot. I won’t

beat about the bush. You must come to her.”

“I’ll come.”

“We need money to flee. I’m mixed up in it as well. She’s my betrothed. You’re rich.”

Conrad went to the door. George had heard everything, and stuck a hand in his

pocket. The man said “Thanks”, and was off. George closed the door, began to work up

peals of laughter. “Now you’re rid of her!”

Conrad made long strides across the room. He’d had a taste of her yesterday. It

wasn’t overwhelming, but then things with women usually took a boring, not to say

stupid, course. The hind had dragged him through cinemas, then through her love,

fallen Hector behind Achilles’ chariot. But the police involvement was a shock.

He was in a tizzy, what was she doing to him. She’d duped him. She wasn’t boring.

Suddenly he desired her. His eyes sparkled, he roared at George: “I will have her.”

“Such wonderful optimism. It might bounce back on us. I’m glad she’s gone.”

“Where’s she hiding? She never told me about that man.”

George grinned: “Nor me. Women are discreet in such matters.”

“Why’s he so upset?”

“He’s the fiancé, he told you. She had him by day, and you by night.”

“Villainous girl. Cheat. But I find her interesting. I will have her again, believe me.”

“I can’t bring her to you, master. I’m having enough trouble with the counterfeiting.

Waldemar, let’s be blunt, is a drunk. As for you, all that’s left is revels and love affairs.

That’s all we have. We have no authority here, either from the state or the police. All

that’s left is judicial action.”

“What do you mean?”

“You can sit on that chair, or on the sofa, and pronounce judgement over the state,

the police, and their actions.”

Conrad stared at him: “You’re mocking me. They treat us like nobodies. We are

nobodies. I’m ashamed to let her hunted by the police and not lift a finger.”

“Seems to me her plan was to turn you in for a reward.”

“She was nothing special, in terms of beauty or character. Makes no difference to

me. And if she’s a cheat I won’t put up with it. I can’t just sit quietly. I can’t bear it.”

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“So!” George pulled his hand away. “The chief of all the gods falls in a rage. It’s all

he can do. The old song. You never learn.”

Conrad paced slowly about the room. He was straying into unknown territory.

Lightning had struck. The world was not simply a shoddy wretched piece of work, it

had policemen too, who took away all he had and disregarded him. The palace was

crumbling, his lightning was made of tin. He growled: “They must hand her over, she’s

mine. No one shall take her from me. They’ve no right to grab hold of her so

shamelessly. They should have a bit of respect, at least.”

“Be quiet! The whole hotel can hear you, they’ll send someone up.”

“It’s not your place to contradict me, dog. Have I sunk so low? I am abandoned. I’m

no better than the slaves.”

George dared say no more. He saw the Great One in a state never before seen: mad

staring eyes, lips quivering. And suddenly the Great One fell with a cry onto the floor.

He drummed his heels on the carpet. George saw a beast in human form. It was a

beserker lying there, no dagger in his teeth, no swords or chariots available and so,

frustrated, his fingers pulled tufts from the carpet.

George watched smugly: sunken, wonderfully sunken, the beast frustrated. It

moaned and scrabbled. The thing down there still filled him with horror: with every

hand movement it squeezed in its thoughts human throats, human brains, its breath

blew fire over villages and towns. But you’re bemoaning your impotence, dear fellow,

it was a bit stronger than you, took you by the ears. But it won’t cast you any farther

down. It would be no shame to put you in prison, or better a cage, here’s Conrad the

old madman, see his teeth, he tore whole peoples to bits with them, today he’s begging

for biscuit crumbs, his innards aren’t well. Roll up, roll up, ladies and gentlemen.

The evening was unexpectedly pleasant for George. Having a Conrad was worth all

the bother.

Conrad stopped tearing at the carpet, dragged himself along it. He lumbered to his

feet, angry, a wounded boar, and dropped into a chair.

“Someone should be at my side, George. It’s your duty,” he snarled. George said

nothing. Now Conrad regarded him from under his bushy eyebrows. He knew this

fellow: “Damned rascal, I’ll stand up and throttle you.”

“So tasteless, Conrad. Leave it! Go and curse Waldemar!”

By chance, old true Waldemar happened to be in the hotel that evening. We have

made no mention of him for a long while now, let’s revert to him, he’s been ill. George

had put him in an attic room of the hotel, as the old man had said he’d recover quicker

with the Great One nearby.

The Babylonian sat in an armchair at the window, head buried in his hands. As

they entered he looked up without expression. Waldemar came crawling from the

door, lay some distance from him on the carpet. Then he got to his knees and bowed.

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Waldemar was crying. For reasons we cannot explain he was in a slightly sozzled

condition. He managed to take note of his master’s situation, and whispered across:

“Father, lord, Great One, chief of all the gods! Who stridest in full majesty. Oh strong

young bull with strong horns, complete in every limb with full beard, splendour.”

George at the door relished the scene. Conrad had let his hands drop to his knees,

his head drooped on his chest. Waldemar was alarmed at his expression, which was

angry and bitter. He kept up his hymn: “Creator of the land, merciful one in whose

hands the life of the whole world rests, creator of entire nations, bestower of their

names, thou who art vigorous, whose knees never shake.”

Conrad’s right arm extended sideways into air. It was seeking the poplar staff. The

hand returned to the knee. George waited expectantly for Conrad to let rip with that

enormous howl he’d emitted in the cave near Babylon. But the hand movement was all

he had.

For almost half an hour they left him to his rage and lethargy. Now and then a

sound came from old Waldemar, perhaps an alcoholic burp. It grew dark. A harsh

beam of street light lay diagonally across the room, over Waldemar’s back and legs.

When Conrad eventually sat up in his armchair, he did so for two reasons:

Firstly, in general everything must come to an end. Wise Galileo expressed as

much in his Law of Inertia, whereby a body remains in a state of rest or of constant

motion for only as long as no external force acts upon it to alter that state. Such a law

cannot be repealed by the most strenuous mental agitation, rather that agitation itself

is subject to the law. In Conrad’s case there was also the fact that the edge of the

armchair, in particular a cord ending in a tassel, was pressing into his back. He could

stand it no longer.

Secondly, a motor horn from the street below was tooting ever more insistently.

Even Waldemar in his grief realised what it meant. It was Conrad’s car, booked for this

hour. Conrad debated with himself for ten minutes how he should stand up. Then,

when the tooting stopped, Waldemar started up again: “Great lord, lord, whose royal

dominion is complete.” It was intolerable. Things couldn’t go on forever like this. And

the car might drive off.

Conrad sat up, stood, eased his spine, tested his legs and said grumpily, “You can

stop that now, old man. More than enough is too much.” And as the others looked up

in surprise Conrad told George, “Well, he should be in his bed.” He stared out of the

window. “Isn’t that my car?” George hurried over, stretched out his neck: “Which one?”

“The second one. With the man standing beside it.”

“Yes, that’s it.”

“Well then. I recognised the horn.”

Smiling George helped Waldemar to his feet, turned on the light. Conrad blinked

and clapped his hands: “He’s come down in his dressing gown! Waldemar!”

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“I was in bed.”

The Great One turned to George: “And you allow this? Down the cold staircase? He

could catch his death, at his age. Apart from which” – Conrad wrinkled his nose – “he

doesn’t seem quite sober.”

George gave a soothing smile, assured: “”I’ll see him back up,” took the old man

under his arm and pushed off.

Neat conclusion to the love story, philosophical consolation is declined

Hardly had they left the room when Conrad lifted the window sash, whistled and

waved madly: “Wait! Yes! Wait!” The chauffeur waved in acknowledgement.

When Gorge returned, Conrad was whipping up a storm of water and foam. As he

scrubbed he told George (after rebuking him for the malicious smile, it was unseemly)

to read to him from the newspaper, what was happening today. For we have to note

that while Conrad had a passable gift of the gab, his ineradicable aversion towards

novelties such as work, activity, occupation meant he’d never learned to read or write.

Right to the end he remained a complete illiterate, and if we’ve ever suggested

otherwise then we were wrong.

At the dressing table, George remarked as he fixed his pince-nez (he was slightly

long-sighted): “He’s lying down, I had tea and rum sent up to him.”

“Why rum?”

“He wanted it. He’s recently been taking more than he can handle.”

“Just what I said. An unserious fellow, you should watch out. But what’s the news?”

“Vote of confidence for Daladier, in Paris. The colonial question, Balkan conference

breaks up, the third Balkan conference in Bucharest has ended. Bucharest is not far

from here. Autonomy for Yugoslavian regions, quotas on American imports. Maybe

you’d find Bucharest interesting. I’ve never been.”

“What about here?”

“Local news, OK. 1933 fashions, new lines, new colours, new fabrics, new fashions.”

“What is that?”

“A tailoring workshop.”

“Note the address.”

“Sport, competition in Athens, regulars meet-up Wednesday, play at the City

Theatre. I can’t stand plays. Plesire Nasib to visit Berlin.”

“Who?”

“Plesire Nasib, that’s her name. The beauty queen, Miss Turkey and Miss World.”

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“I say, George, that’s where we were yesterday! Really. Read it out.”

“The beauty queen Miss Turkey and Miss World, Plesire Nasib, accompanied by

her father, will leave Istanbul next Thursday, once all formalities are completed, for a

visit to Berlin. From Berlin she will travel on to Alexandria and spend around a month

in Egypt with Mr Nasib. In the spring they will undertake a planned trip to the USA.

“Plesire will take along Turkish industrial and agricultural products such as hazel

nuts, raisins, figs, Meerschaum products, as well as cigarettes and spirits from the

Tobacco and Alcohol Monopoly, and distribute them at every opportunity.”

Conrad was towelling himself down. “That’s a nice thought. A very good thought. I

was there yesterday with the hind, George. They came to blows. A splendid evening.

She recited a poem to me.” And he smiled, his face discreet. “Shame she’s gone.

Interesting person. Excellent figure. But she smelled a rat. I’d like to know how much

she suspected. I really haven’t a clue.”

“I guess she was looking to worm her way in behind my back.”

“Could you perhaps track down her address, I’ll pop over and see her.”!

“Well now: quotas on American imports. What do you say to Bucharest, actually?”

The evening passed calmly and reflectively, but the hind was not forgotten. They

wouldn’t be Conrad and George if it had ended differently.

Of consolations, ancient and modern

Anicius Manlius Severinus Boëthius was a man of the most prominent Roman noble

lineage who suffered much misfortune in life, was honest and incorruptible in office,

and ended up in prison. The death sentence was executed. The righteous man left

behind a book, The Consolations of Philosophy; enmeshed in sorrows, philosophy

should come to his aid. The book had enormous impact, in particular swept the

Middle Ages off their feet. This work of a tormented man came into the hands of great

Dante, who saw philosophy as a noble lady most merciful. Let’s take a peek at the

book. Boëthius’ words are wonderful and authentic, for example the verse: “Grant him

to see the fount of good; grant him also to find the true light, so that he fix his

steadfast eyes on thee alone. Disperse the heavy mists of earth, the onerous burdens.

Shine in thine own splendour. For thou art light.” He meant the figure of the Good.

We see our Conrad take another road. Maybe it’s a question of constitution.

Waldemar too, the homesick old man, as we’ve already hinted, is heading in a

different direction from the ancient Roman. See: rum with tea.

But how Conrad, lacking philosophy, will overcome his miseries as they continue

to pile up, this we do not know. What is certain is that one or other must yield, either

the misery, or the man. Frankly speaking we don’t see Conrad’s future as dark. We

have confidence in him overall. On several occasions (visit to Babylon) he conducted

himself uncommonly well. Whether his methods will be as noble and spiritual as those

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of Boëthius is open to doubt. But in the end our main concern is to bring the man

through it all.

The author peeps into Conrad’s future. He has faith in the funnel and the screw

From what we have already seen, we may draw certain conclusions about the progress

of our narrative. It must retain some stability. Anyone who believes we shall convert

Conrad is mistaken. We shall tamper with none of those in our tale. Our principle is:

live and let live. And anyway I’d like to see the illusionist who could make any

headway with Conrad. He himself shut the well-meaning off from any such possibility

the moment he let rip with his unfrozen mouth parts for the first time.

So for our part, we must simply stay with him and as far as possible moderate the

monotony of his character through changing circumstances. We have plans for

changes of location etc. We place particular confidence in the funnel and the screw.

We promise ourselves all kinds of complications.

o 0 o