I still consider it a good idea to exorcise the dead and to create a site for them before progress wipes us out — and besides: such a place would make sense despite, indeed precisely because of, that destruction.
I was irked by the business that kept thriving more and more, to the delight of Jersson and Uncle Fridolin, while prompting Sigi to crack macabre jokes. He had read somewhere — in the Talmud, I believe — that on Judgment Day, the believers will awaken in their graves and head toward Zion, and he pictured the march of the dead from Terrestra. From there, it was not far to the Temple.
My complaint must have also had physical causes or affected my body. I suffered from insomnia, but daydreamed constantly at home and at the office. When I had bad headaches, I found food repugnant; I drank all the more. I felt as if I had stepped outside my own body; it was only at night, when, holding a candle in my left hand as I drunkenly gazed at my image in the mirror, that I recognized my identity. I would then feel as if I were becoming too powerful for myself.
I seldom visited Bertha; I was afraid she would hear my soliloquies. She wanted me to consult a doctor — a psychiatrist, of course. I would have been fair game for him, he would have sent me from one colleague to another all the way to the madhouse. But for that, I have no need of a Holy Helper.
So far, my story is a statistical matter, under the subheading: Personal success after difficulties in war and civil war. These ascents occur not only in business, but also in art and science. Like a winning lottery ticket, they presuppose an enormous number of losers.
Nor do I consider unusual that stage of nihilism in which I abide as in a waiting room, half bored, half expecting the warning bell. Individuals become passengers, and it is surprising that the waiter still takes their order? Given the sinister way in which our world is changing, almost everybody ought to be familiar with this mood, in which one begins to doubt rationality. Perhaps the whole thing is a ghostly dream.
Fear only intensifies the confusion. The individual person has always experienced that; but we are not yet familiar with titanic dimensions. When an illness becomes serious, and destruction looms, we fall prey to despair. This applies even more to mental disorders than to physical ones. What, in contrast with that, are wealth and success, such as I have gained at Terrestra? They are actually burdensome, and so is society — one seeks a hole to creep into.
Frederick III, German Emperor, King of Prussia, ruled for ninety days before succumbing to his cancer of the larynx. I can picture Bismarck going to the monarch's bed and submitting documents for him to sign. What are provinces, the Black Eagle, unrest in the Silesian mining districts, compared with the small knot in the throat — the kaiser no longer listens to the chancellor, he pays heed only to clearing his throat, torturously forcing the mucus through the tube. Man is alone.
However: madness is only part of my problem. It would be an ordinary case. As such, it would again be a statistical matter, and I would have to put up with it for better or worse. I am mulling over another possibility. It is: "Madness or more?" Bertha thinks I have to overtrump — this is in keeping with my character. Fate has set up a hurdle for me. Behind it, the abyss; perhaps I can leap across both.
I have to make sure that my notes do not crisscross, for I am traveling on two tracks: along the curves of my feverish dreams and also in reality. Collisions threaten, but perhaps the convergence will work out. After all, parallel lines supposedly meet at infinity. Could this be also possible in time — that is, in life, even if only in echoes? The dream vanquishes reality; it transforms it into poetry, into an artwork. I believe that this is how every great turning point has been reached. It was preceded by madness. Mohammed strikes me as a good example.
A loss of individuality may be an additional factor. Doctors have a special term for that. I have not yet mentioned my grandmother, who died long ago, but who visits me in dreams. It is chiefly to her that I owe my intimate knowledge of our family history, which goes back all the way to legendary times, and whose figures are so fully merged with mine that I sometimes sense as awake: that was not I, that was my father or grandfather, perhaps even an anonymous forebear.
Something wishes to alight — an eagle, a nutcracker, a wren, a jester? Why me of all people? Perhaps a vulture — I have liver problems now too.
There are transitions in which dream and reality fuse — as a rule, shortly before one falls asleep, and also before one awakens.
Now I have to keep a cool head like a captain whose ship has gone offcourse. The ship is my world. The control room is still safe even if water has penetrated one of the watertight compartments or fire has broken out in it. I can still make decisions, which, as in a will, are valid and effective even after death.
My complaint is not housed in my brain. It is lodged in my body and, beyond that, in society — the cause of my illness. I can do something about it only when I have isolated myself from society. Perhaps society itself will help by casting me out. Perhaps I will soon be interned. I am still cautious, even with Bertha. I also have to pay heed to my soliloquies — when I recently said, "But I want to enter a prison, not a sanatorium," she was momentarily taken aback.
In a cell, I could keep elaborating, working on the material without disruptions from the outside. Whether or not this effort will produce results is beside the point; I watch over and preserve the treasure in the cave, in solitude — all by myself. Then I could step forth like an anchorite from his fantastic world. However, my reclusion would be closer to fiction, to poetry, and stronger than actual events.
Let the world go under; it is mine, I destroy it in myself. As the skipper, I could steer the ship into the reef — this would not mean awakening, it would mean sinking to a new depth of dreaming. The cargo would then be all mine. Even Alexander was more powerful in his dreams than at Issus — India was not enough for him.
Something flies up, riches pour in. I have to decide how to cope with them. But it shall not be in Aladdin's manner.
Headaches, seizures, visions, strange voices, unexpected encounters, voluntary or forced isolation. Madhouses are the monasteries of our world. Whatever happens in laboratories is the work of the lay brothers and nothing more.
The lay brothers carry out orders; they know not what they do. Even in the realm of great politics, where millions of lives are at stake, the wretchedness of the actors is obvious. By what principles are they selected?
Aladdin was the son of a tailor in one of the countless cities of China, a playful boy — but only he could dig out the treasure. How was it that the Mauretanian, a man of profound knowledge, could hit upon this dreamer? He employed magical writings, the sandbox, mantic and astrological skills.
I do not regard Phares as a magus. I am unsettled by him, but I do not feel damaged. Naturally, we become suspicious when someone walks in and offers us a blank check. This is a major theme in fairy tales, legends, and religion. The issue is the decision between mental and physical, between spiritual and concrete power — in a word, the issue is salvation.
Perhaps it was an ordeal for which Phares led me into his grotto. It bordered on the Terrestra territory; the walk or the vision must have occurred at the time that the business with the dead left me extremely dissatisfied. Incidentally, our treasure chambers cannot be compared to Aladdin's — they are bursting with energy. Aladdin's lamp was made ofpewter or copper, perhaps merely clay. Galland's text reports nothing about this matter — all we learn is that the lamp hung from a grotto ceiling. It was not lit, but rubbed, to make the genie appear. He could put up palaces or wipe out cities overnight, whatever the master of the lamp commanded. The lamp guaranteed dominion as far as the frontiers of the traveled world from China to Mauritania. Aladdin preferred the life of a minor despot. Our lamp is made ofuranium. It establishes the same problem: power streaming toward us titanically.