“And this one?”
“In this, there are two short tracts bound together. They are priceless. This is a first edition, printed in Kassel. One of them, the Allgemeine Reformation, is without doubt a lampoon: the writer thoroughly ridicules the Rosicrucians and their like. But there’s the second, the Fama Fraternitatis R C—that is, Rosae Crucis—‘The Fame of the Brotherhood of Rosicrucians’. These people were in earnest, but who exactly were they? And then there’s this third tract here, the Confessio Fraternitatis R C. This was also supposed to be a serious text, but it’s all nonsense.”
“Tell me, Doctor, who was this Rosencreutz—‘Rose Cross’? Or have you already told me?”
“He was a miraculous healer and alchemist who, according to the Fama Fraternitatis, brought the hidden wisdom from Arabia, from the Hidden City, where the Arab scholars lived. But it’s just a legend. We don’t even know when he was alive, or if he really lived at all. Then he died, and was buried, and that’s where the story starts to become interesting.”
“Do tell me! You know I love legends.”
“But this isn’t a folk tale. It has a rather strange atmosphere — it makes me altogether uneasy, I can’t explain why. Listen to this: after his death, his followers took over the House of the Holy Ghost that he’d built. Several years later, the then Grand Master needed to complete some repairs to the building … But I tell you what, I’ll translate this bit of the text for you from the German:
‘… then he came upon the memorial tablets, which were of brass and bore the names of the entire fraternity and sundry others. These tablets he desired to take into another, more fitting, room. Where and when Brother Rose Cross had perished, and in what country he was interred, was not revealed to the ancients, nor did we know either. From one of the tablets there protruded a stout nail, and when with much strength we drew it forth it brought after it a great stone, or incrustation, in the narrow wall, over a hidden door, which it revealed to our amazement and surprise, whereupon we, with happy expectation, broke into the wall and caused the door to move. It bore the inscription, in letters of great size:
POST CXX ANNOS PATEBO
(After one hundred and twenty years, I shall open).
Beneath this was the date of its construction. We did no more that night … and in the morning we opened the door. We found a large chamber, which had seven sides and seven corners; each side was the length of five feet and the height of eight feet. And though the sun was never seen in that room, it was lit from a second sun, which had learnt its radiance from the real one and which hung in the centre over a tombstone bearing a round altar covered with a copper slab, which bore the inscription:
A C R C HOC UNIVERSI COMPENDIUM
VIVUS MIHI SEPULCHRUM FECI
(Living, I built this tomb for myself in the likeness of the universe.)’”
“What does that mean?”
“The floor was divided up to represent the empires of the earth, while the ceiling represented the celestial spheres. In the chamber they found the secret books containing the ultimate wisdom of the Rosicrucians, and the instruments used in their occult trade.”
“And?”
“At this point the narrative breaks off and starts to talk about other things. It suggests that it could well go on to say a great deal more, but these things are not for the ears of the uninitiated … However the non-authentic Rosicrucian writings insist that they opened the tomb and found their master — he was extremely old, and immensely tall — but his body showed no sign of ageing. He was lying there as if alive and merely sleeping.”
“I believe I understand why this story has such a hold on you … It’s one I seem to have heard before. Don’t laugh, but it has such a Welsh flavour. The Welsh could never accept the fact that one of their great men might really be dead. There are so many stories of people living on in their graves, waiting to rise up when the destined hour comes. It’s King Arthur biding his time on the isle of Avalon, and Merlin sleeping enchanted under a bush, and Bloody-handed Owain waiting, fully armed, for the great battle … ”
“My God,” I interrupted, “it isn’t just the Welsh … it’s hard for anyone to believe that a person simply dies.”
“Tell me, Doctor, has it never occurred to you that, shall we say, death … or being dead … is just a transitory state, like sleep, or sickness, or youth … that if the body could be preserved, death itself might come to an end, quite naturally? Think of the clavellina.”
“That I cannot.”
“Why ever not?”
“I’ve no idea what it is.”
“The clavellina is a tiny, transparent water creature, not unlike the sea-lily. When conditions around it are unfavourable to life its organs become progressively atrophied. Its head, its heart, its stomach all regress, until nothing is left of it but a little heap. And when its surroundings improve again, it starts to regenerate its organs once more.”
“That’s really interesting,” I said. “Fludd’s metaphysics have a lot in common with this little heap-creature. According to him, from time to time the soul, or life, withdraws from matter. Matter itself came about when God, who in the beginning filled the whole of space, withdrew into himself, and the emptiness left behind is matter.”
“Really? Then isn’t it possible that life can withdraw into one part of the body while the rest lies dead … until it wakes again? You know our family motto: ‘I believe in the resurrection of the body’. But I can see you don’t enjoy this subject. I’m too much of a Celt. They say the Celts are in eternal revolt against the tyranny of facts … Tell me, instead: what were these Rosicrucians really after?”
“Well, from their books it’s actually quite hard to say. They promise all sorts of good things to those who join them. They were particularly proud of four of their branches of knowledge: changing base metals into gold, deliberately prolonging the life of the body, the ability to see things at a distance, and a cabbalistic system for solving all mysteries.
“Apart from that, it can’t be said they were very much liked,” I continued. “In 1623, for example, fear of them spread through Paris like a wave of mental illness. Customers would appear in the restaurants and bars of the time, and when it came to paying the bill, they simply vanished; or, if they did pay, the gold turned to mud as soon as they’d gone. Innocent French citizens would wake at night to find a mysterious stranger sitting beside them on the bed, who promptly disappeared. The people of Paris responded in the usual way to these terrors: they blamed the foreigners. I’m afraid that in many places they beat them terribly.”
“Were you ever in France, Doctor?”
“Of course, many times.”
“Do you speak French as well as you speak English?”
“About the same.”
It was already getting dark, but I could see that Cynthia was looking at me with growing interest.
“Doctor, you’re like the Encyclopaedia Britannica. You know everything.”
“I do know rather a lot,” I replied nervously.
“I believe you even speak Sanskrit.”
“Fluently,” I replied. But she believed that too.
“And you must surely know the Russian novelists. Tell me something about Dostoevsky or Béla Bartók. I’ve a friend who never stops talking about them.”
“I never met Bartók,” I said, untruthfully, shocked at her ignorance. “But I knew old Dostoevsky really well. He and my father were at primary school together, and he often came for supper. He had a beard like Pierce Gwyn Mawr’s.”