The Dedalus Meyrink Reader Read online

  ‘In the name of my client I hereby raise an objection to the proceedings that have already been initiated, on the grounds that my client is of the Protestant religion and that therefore the section of the Penal Code concerning “Purgatory” does not apply to him, in consequence of which I demand that he be released forthwith, failing which we will be compelled, if necessary, to take our appeal right up to the Imperial Salt Office, the third and last court of appeal. The costs of the appeal …’ etcetera, etcetera. Upon which Dr Seidenberger bowed and disappeared.

  The teaching staff retired in order to confer, returned immediately, put on their mortar boards and announced my release.

  Vaulting over the desks, I was out of the room in no time at all and in the open countryside, that realm of the green veil of Persephone, of which Ovid sings, and which is a true reflection of our earthly meads and glades.

  With zephyrs murmuring all around, I took a deep breath and set off for the Elysian Fields.

  At a bend in the path, half hidden by drifts of jasmine, the figure of a bent old man appeared. I could hardly believe my eyes. Was that not Solomon Galitzenstein, my dear old business associate from my long-forgotten days at the Vienna stock exchange?

  He immediately recognised me as well. ‘Hello, Meyrinkleben, what’s doin’ with the bank shares?’ were his words of greeting, and before I could reply, he had taken my arm and invited me to join him in a game of Kalabriasz in the Café Gehinnom.

  Gehinnom? Gehinnom? I vaguely remembered that Gehenna is a kind of Israelite subdivision of hell. I deduced that my friend had lost his way and ended up in Hades.

  ‘How’s tricks, then?’ I asked sympathetically. At once Galitzenstein became extremely agitated and grabbed me by the waistcoat button. ‘Tricks? Tricks!! Tricks don’t come into it. ’stead of the stock market operatin’ in perpetuity, people spend all the time here wailing and gnashing their teeth. Of course, that’s not good for business.’ In explanation he turned his pockets inside out. ‘I tell you, it was almost better back there in Vienna.’

  ‘But now and then you can get out and enjoy nature, a breath of fresh air — as now, for example,’ I said in an attempt to cheer him up.

  ‘That’s just a special punishment for me,’ Galitzenstein retorted bitterly. ‘I only have to see one o’ them acracias’ (he pointed angrily at a fir tree as he talked himself more and more into a fury) ‘what don’t belong to me and what’s attached to the ground at the bottom, and it fairly makes my blood boil.’

  Although short, my stay in Purgatory had purified me. I could clearly tell that from my rising revulsion at such a materialist attitude.

  ‘Wait, wait a moment,’ Solomon Galitzenstein said, grabbing me insistently. ‘You want to go to Heaven, I can tell, fine, I know you always had these fancy ideas, but if you should happen to meet a couple of archangels there — that kind’s bound to have ready cash lying around — you tell ’em they should let me play the market for ’em, in railway shares or with a few hundred sacks of sugar if they prefer. If the deal goes through, I’ll pass the whole fee on to you and a half cut of the profits.’

  Outraged, I exclaimed, ‘Get thee behind me, accursed wretch!’ girded up my loins and strode off.

  The orb of the sun was already declining as I continued to wander through the meadows when the sight of a wondrous fata Morgana swept away the rest of my disgruntlement. It was the precise reflection of an earthly occurrence, only even more uplifting, if that were possible: Dr Schmuser,4 the incorrigible prophet-in-ordinary and founder of the theosophical-anthroposophical-rosicruci-pneumatotherapeutic society was taking his constitutional in the clouds, correcting with the one hand the galley proofs of the Akashic records the foreman of the cosmic works had entrusted to him, whilst tirelessly waving the other in greeting to the gods. Behind him was his guard of honour: twelve exquisitely affluent old ladies. Once more, I realised, he was leading the faithful; presumably he was escorting them to nirvana, which, as is well known, he had definitively transferred from Munich to Basel.

  In the last rays of the setting sun I finally reached my longed-for goal. My heart was at peace and celestial refreshment flooded through my weary limbs.

  I was greeted by loud chants of ‘Hosannah, hosannah’: a procession of pilgrims from Florence on the Elbe5 had just arrived. There was no doubt at all, I had reached the Protestant Elysian Fields.

  A maiden — designed by Fidus6 — came skipping towards me and asked, ‘Won’t you tend the little lamb? The little lamb so meek and mild?’7 When I declined with thanks, she took my hand and led me to the little entrance gate.

  At the desk was a woman with her hair in a tight bun, dressed entirely according to the principles of the Rational Dress Reform Society, wearing little boots in elasticated prunello with patent-leather toe-caps (to go by the scar on her neck, she may well have suffered mildly from rickets during her time on earth, but otherwise she exuded an indescribably chaste charm). She handed me a crocheted purse with ‘For our dear Gustav’ embroidered on it in glass beads.

  ‘The nickel coins,’ she told me, ‘are for the pleasure-machines. Not everyone can be perfect right away,’ she added with a roguish grin. She had, I realised, a fiendish sense of humour.

  To my surprise I saw that she had sleeve-protectors over her wings. When I asked why, for God’s sake, she wore them, she pointed out that other feathered angels even wore capes to stop them catching cold, especially as it was the time of the moult just then.

  As you can see, dear readers, everything here in the Elysian Fields is quite, quite different from the way citizens who are still embroiled in the world of the senses would imagine. Everything is so simple, so plain and clear! So refreshing! You see, our realm is not a place, but a state built up from the sum total of the repressed longings of the entire German petty bourgeoisie which, once the shackles of the flesh have been broken, quite naturally and irresistibly reveal themselves in their full splendour to the eye of the participant.

  I went straight to the machines, my curiosity having been aroused by the woman at the desk.

  There was so much to see!

  And everything uncommonly cheap.

  Here a bowl of sterilised manna, there a glass of ersatz nectar, a mouthful of alcohol-free ambrosia, then a few drops of soul oil — as recommended by Prof. Dr Jaeger — on my handkerchief. And all for just one nickel!

  The gramophone with the trumpet fanfare and the triple hallelujah delivered by Caruso — is free, since it is only for those in a more advanced stage of purification.

  It really does your heart good.

  But there was one device that particularly attracted me and will, I am sure, also be of interest to you: the sensual-thrill machine. (Only for the older, more mature gentleman, who is still somewhat behind in purification.)

  A man who had passed away peacefully a good while ago, a managing director with pink wing stubs already showing through, explained it to me.

  ‘You see this hole here?’ he asked with an ethereal smile. ‘To the uninitiated it looks quite innocent. You just have to put your finger in, the machine does the rest.’

  ‘Well?’ he enquired with a sly wink once I had done that. I was too overcome to reply. I was about to put in another nickel but the commercial gentleman gently pushed my hand back, saying that was enough to be going on with. ‘Let’s go and have some locust and wild honey in the Happy Reformer Café.’

  We hurried off, hand in hand.

  Although I appreciated his kindness and felt attracted to him, I have to admit that, to my shame, I soon forgot him. I was distracted by the overwhelming impressions and the warmth with which I was welcomed everywhere as one of the family, the good souls tactfully passing over the fact that in my former life I had devoted myself to producing modern literature.

  In its solidly respectable opulence the café, furnished in the familiar German Renaissance style, recalled the best middle-class ambience: Japanese paper parasols in the corners, raffia mats hanging below th
em, richly adorned with photographs, bouquets of dried flowers in elaborate papier-mâché vases, or a delightful Nibelung coat rack with imitation bison horns, ditto boar tusks and Teutonic spears artistically arranged and stigmatised — er, sorry signalised as objects of practical use by tiny coloured lights.

  The only thing that reminded me now and then that I was in Heaven and not in some city of art was the way that whenever the door opened to admit another customer, the hinges emitted the delightful notes of the shawm.

  Every detail revealed the attentive work of a woman’s hand: the sweets and chocolates were set out on charming little velvet cushions, the glass covers had little crocheted caps, even the plaster bust of Alois the Simpleminded had a blue ribbon round its neck.

  Is it not touching, dear readers, that here, after death, we still hold to the traditional customs of the good old days?

  Once my eyes had become used to the splendour, I saw, sitting on the sofa, an ancient greybeard who was wearing a green cardboard eyeshade to protect him from the light. It was, I was told, good old Torquemada, who had come from the neighbouring section of paradise to visit us Protestants for a little chat. Although, as was well known, he had been blind on earth, my informant went on, his eyesight was now quite acceptable, which gave me great satisfaction to hear.

  From time to time, perhaps to show that he had entirely abandoned his former fanatical way of thinking, he played all sorts of sweet Spanish airs on a — if you’ll forgive the expression — Jew’s harp and we listened breathlessly to the soft, mellifluous tones, while Lucrecia Borgia, his constant companion, who is devoted to him, danced an extremely discreet fandango, naturally in a dress buttoned up to the neck.

  I could go on for hours, dear readers, telling you about all the glittering entertainments here that come one after the other, from the fancy-dress ball to the tombola, where every winner can steal a kiss from the managing director’s wife, but above all I must hasten to assure you that we do not spend all our time indulging in such amusements. No, we are ever mindful of our charitable duty towards the poor damned souls down in hell; once a year — at Christmas — a chest is sent down to Hades full of unwanted clothes, worn-out shoes, tinfoil bottle-tops and such things that give pleasure to the famished souls.

  I would have loved to describe our fields to you in detail, but unfortunately there is not enough time — the spiritualist table-rapping machine can only be used in exceptional circumstances — and, moreover, I have to confess that I would not like my telepathic communication with the newspaper to become public knowledge in paradisal society.

  To sum up, then. Nature here does not for one minute leave the pilgrim without some edifying message. Hardly has your eye rested on a green leaf than you become aware of a pithy saying engraved on it which uplifts you and supports you on the path of righteousness. Anything and everything has its moral message. The violet says, ‘I am modesty, won’t you copy me?’ To cut a long story short, nature and education are united in harmony. The stems of the rose bushes have velvet wrapped round them, so that the thorns will not hurt you, and there are reformed vultures sitting in the treetops singing joyfully with the starlings and warbling their song, ‘Loyal and honest for ever we’ll be.’

  Yes, even the sloth has turned over a new leaf and knits and sews from morning to night.

  All this is actually the field of Lilli Kraut, who now resides among us and has become my bosom friend. She has finally got the authorities to agree that in purgatory every cow gets a cup of chocolate in the morning.

  She has mastered the language of the birds wonderfully and when we wander out into the countryside at break of day, she keeps calling, ‘Tweet, tweet,’ and that has cut the cuckoo to the heart so that already most of them no longer lay their eggs in other birds’ nests, but only in their own.

  So to conclude … er, what was I going to say? Er … oh yes, I almost forgot the most important thing. Listen carefully now. A new, unknown play by Schönherr8 that far outshadows Faith and Homeland is to be put on here in the near future.

  You simply have to be there! I’m sure you realise that. So quick, follow my example, string yourselves up, gentlemen, string yourselves up.

  Before it’s too late.

  With a hurried hosannah

  Yours most deceasedly

  Gustav Meyrink

  Notes

  1 Meyrink’s classmates in the purgatorial school-room are well-known figures from German literature: Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729-81), Enlightenment playwright and thinker; Nikolaus Lenau (1802-1850), poet; Friedrich Hölderlin (1770-1843), poet; Else Lasker Schüler (1869-1945), Expressionist poet; Otto Erich Hartleben (1864-1905), dramatist; Sassafrass, the headmaster, is a figure from Georg Weerth’s (1822-1856) Humoristische Skizzen aus dem deutschen Handelsleben.

  2 ‘Das Lied vom braven Mann’ by Gottfried August Bürger (1747-94), a popular poem of 21 8-line stanzas; the ‘Sioux Lament for the Dead’ is by Schiller.

  3 Ernst von Possart (1841-1921), actor, most famous for roles such as Richard III, Mephisto, Shylock, Iago; he was actor/director at the Munich Court Theatre while Meyrink’s mother was engaged there (1869-1880).

  4 A satire on Rudolf Steiner.

  5 Dresden; the ‘hosannas’ have a touch of Saxon dialect.

  6 Fidus = Hugo Höppener (1868-1948), an art nouveau artist and illustrator; he was also a Theosophist and worked for the magazine Simplicissimus at the same time as Meyrink.

  7 The opening lines of Schiller’s poem ‘The Alpine Huntsman’.

  8  Karl Schönherr (1867-1943), Austrian dramatist.

  Herr Kuno Hinrichsen, Businessman, and the Penitent, Lala Lajpat-Rai

  Dark clouds were gathering on the distant horizon. With correspondingly agitated steps, Herr Kuno Hinrichsen, managing director of the firm: General Charitable Works, ‘Wholesalers of fat, lard and oils’, paced up and down his princely study. His right hand, richly adorned with splendid rings, casually crumpled up a brochure he had been sent in his capacity of newly elected honorary president of the ‘non-profit-making philosophical association’ The Light of the East, which he had recently founded. He had quickly leafed through the brochure, while he was being driven home from the factory, in order to prepare himself for the banquet with a few catchwords and a clear opinion of his own about the view of life created by the ancient Indian philosophers, which he could casually drop into the conversation with the other guests at appropriate points. He seldom failed, whenever the opportunity presented itself, to expound his high-minded ideals, on the other hand he was unwilling to let slip any opportunity of emphasising his own firmly held convictions on all important questions, not to mention ones of a scientific, or even philosophical, nature, in order, as he put it, to remain ‘master of the situation’.

  At times as he read the pamphlet, written by a specialist in the field, a superior smile had played about the managing director’s forceful lips and at the persistently repeated assertion that the world was not actually real but merely a delusion of the senses, sarcastic exclamations could be heard, such as, ‘Oh, come on,’ or ‘Nice chaps, those Indians, but no get-up-and-go.’ Finally, after his hand had automatically patted his wallet, he murmured, ‘Well, a bank account, that’s definitely real,’ thus freeing himself from the spell of theoretical ruminations and with one energetic gesture he made himself ‘master of the situation’ again by thrusting the brochure into his pocket.

  Herr Hinrichsen had merely deigned to note — with a glassy eye, so to speak — the appendix to the leaflet, a story about an Indian penitent, or, as one might say, had graciously allowed it access to his subconscious, for a variety of more pleasant reflections had come to occupy his mind.

  His eldest son, Fritz, had sent a telegram from Africa: ‘Shot my fiftieth pachyderm today,’ and, if that were not enough good news, a business communication from the South Australian branch of the General Charitable Works had arrived to say that they had succeeded in setting up a gigantic vat which
could take 10,000 penguins at once and transform them into superb lubricating grease in a few hours.

  This put the Honorary President in a most contented mood and, after he had regaled himself with a lavish dinner in his country retreat, he took out the pamphlet once more to read the comic passage about the unreality of the visible world to his lady wife, when he was suddenly called to the telephone and given the horrendous news that a junior clerk by the name of Meier had taken the sum of 3,50 marks from the petty cash, without providing sufficient documentation as to its use.

  What incensed him even more than the fact itself was the outrageous attempt by the managing clerk to put in a good word for the embezzler by alluding to his desperate personal difficulties.

  There was nothing that infuriated Herr Hinrichsen more — especially as he was on the committee of the Association for the Improvement of National Morality — as theft in any form. In this respect his conscience had become an objective symbol of unbesmirchability throughout the land.

  No wonder, then, that when he heard the telephonic bad tidings he literally went pale and could scarcely utter the words, ‘The police! Meier must be locked up right away.’

  Fiery snakes flashed across the black sky, the thunder was already rumbling menacingly and, with a correspondingly dark expression, the Honorary President emptied the fizzy drink his wife had prepared with her own hands and cajoled him into drinking, saying, ‘Please, please, Charitable Works,’ — tenderly addressing him by her pet name for him — ‘a little sip, just for my sake.’When this had calmed his tattered nerves, she gently pushed him down in the armchair, carefully closed the windows and lowered the richly embroidered blinds, so the lightning could not strike in the room, and tiptoed out.

  Gradually the soothing drink had its effect and Morpheus took Herr Hinrichsen’s wounded heart in his arms.

  Already the first heavy drops were falling and the harbingers of the approaching storm were howling and rattling at the costly rococo shutters, but the sleeper did not hear them.