When we were somewhat beneath the peak, we crawled out of a narrow crevice. The sun pierced my eyes and blinded me momentarily, and when I opened them again, my knees shook with dread, for I saw that I was standing free and without support on a steep ridge.
All around me was the infinite space of the sky and scary blue depths. Only the narrow peak towered above us like a ladder. But the sky and sun were there once again, and so we climbed up the last frightening steep path, step by step, with lips pressed together and our brows furrowed. And finally we stood on top, slender figures on glowing rock in sharp, biting, thin air.
It was a strange mountain and a strange peak! We had reached this peak by climbing over endless bare stone walls. A tree grew out of the stone, a small sturdy tree with some short, strong branches. There it stood, incredibly lonely and odd, hard and stiff in the rock, the cool blue of the sky between its branches. And at the very top of the tree sat a black bird that sang a harsh song.
Silent dream of a brief rest high above the world: The sun was ablaze; the rock glowed; the air stiffened; the bird sang harshly. And its harsh song meant, Eternity, eternity! The black bird sang, and its blank hard eye gazed at us like a black crystal. It was hard to bear its gaze. It was hard to bear its song, and most dreadful of all was the loneliness and emptiness of this place — the staggering expanse of the arid sky. To die was inconceivable joy. To stay here was unspeakable pain. Something had to happen, immediately, right away. Otherwise we and the world would turn to stone out of dread. I felt the event rise and blow toward us like a gust of wind before a storm. I felt it flicker like a burning fever over my body and soul. It threatened. It came. It was there.
All of a sudden the bird whirled from the branch and plunged into space.
Then my guide took a running leap into the blue and fell into the palpitating sky and flew away.
Now the wave of destiny had peaked. Now it ripped out my heart which broke quietly apart.
And already I was falling. I jumped, plunged. I flew. Tied up in the cold vortex, I shot blissfully through the air and felt ecstatic pain as I soared downward, quivering through infinity to the mother’s breast.
If the War Continues
(1917)
Ever since I was young, I used to disappear from time to time to reinvigorate myself, and I would lose myself in other worlds. People would search for me, and when they could not find me, they would report me as missing. Then after I returned, it was always a pleasure for me to hear the conclusions that so-called scientists would invent to explain who I was and the conditions of my absence or twilight existence. While I did nothing but what came naturally to me and what most people will be able to do sooner or later, I was regarded as a kind of phenomenon by these peculiar men — as a possessed person by one of them, and as a blessed person with miraculous powers by others.
To be brief, I had been away again for a while. After two years of war, the present had lost much of its charm for me, and I disappeared for a while in order to breathe some other air. In my customary way I left the realm in which we live and was a guest in distant parts for a long time, speeding through people and eras, and I became unhappy because I saw nothing but the usual tribulations, trade, progress, and improvements on the earth. Then I withdrew into the cosmic spheres for some time.
When I returned, it was 1920, and I was disappointed to find that people were still at war with each other all over the globe, and that there was still the same senselessness and obstinance. Some of the borders of countries had shifted; some select regions with ancient high cultures had been carefully destroyed, but all in all nothing much had changed on the surface of things.
Of course, great progress had indeed been made in the cause of equality in the world. At least in Europe, so I heard, the prospects were the same for everyone in all countries. Even the differences between the belligerent nations and the neutral ones had almost completely vanished. Ever since they began shooting the civilian population mechanically from air balloons that were fifteen to twenty thousand meters high in the sky and let their shots fall as they moved, ever since this time the borders of countries, although sharply guarded as before, had become somewhat illusory. The scattering of these random shots from the air was so great that the dispatchers of these balloons were satisfied if they could just keep the bombs from hitting their own territory. They no longer cared how many of their bombs fell on neutral countries or ultimately even on the territory of their allies.
This was actually the only progress that the institution of war itself had made. To a certain degree, the meaning of the war had finally been given its clearest expression by this random bombing. The world had been divided into two parts that sought to annihilate each other because they both desired the same thing, namely the liberation of the oppressed, the elimination of violence, and the establishment of permanent peace. Everyone was prejudiced against a peace that could not possibly last eternally — if eternal peace could not be obtained, then one certainly preferred eternal war, and the negligent manner in which the balloons with explosives let their blessings fall on just and unjust people from enormous heights fit the meaning of this war exactly. Aside from this, the war continued to be waged in the old way with significant but inadequate means. The limited imagination of the generals and the technicians had led to the invention of a few more weapons of annihilation. However, the visionary who had conceived the mechanical balloon that sprayed bombs had been the last of his kind. Since then, the intellectuals, the visionaries, the poets, and the dreamers had gradually lost interest in the war. The war was left up to the generals and the technicians and thus made little progress. The armies were to be found everywhere and confronted each other with tremendous perseverance, and although the lack of materials had long since led to awarding military medals that were made only out of paper, there was no sign anywhere that the bravery of the soldiers had abated.
I found my apartment partially destroyed by bombs from some planes, but I was able to sleep there even though it was cold and uncomfortable. Later the rubble on the floor and the damp mold on the walls disturbed me, and I left to take a walk.
I went through some streets of the city that had changed a great deal from the way they were before. I was struck most by the fact that there were no shops to be seen. The streets were without life. I had walked but a short time when I met a man with a tin number on his hat, and he asked me what I was doing. I told him I was taking a walk.
His response: “Do you have permission?”
I did not understand him. We exchanged words, and he demanded that I follow him to the nearest precinct.
We came to a street lined with buildings that all had white door plates hanging on them, designating the offices with numbers and letters.
“Unemployed Civilians” was stamped on a door plate, and the number 2487B4. That was where we entered. The usual offices, waiting rooms, and corridors smelled of paper, damp clothes, and stuffy air. After some questioning, I was taken to room 72D and interrogated there.
An official stood before me and examined me. “Can’t you stand straight?” he asked severely. I said no. He asked: “Why not?” “I never learned how to do it,” I responded coyly.
“So then, you were arrested as you were taking a walk without a certificate of permission. Do you admit this?”
“Yes,” I said. “That’s correct. I didn’t know it was necessary. You see, I had been sick for a long time—”