Joseph Roth - The Antichrist

Sceptics claim that the new owners were only planning a stock-exchange manoeuvre, their purpose being simply to sell the shares at a higher price and not actually operate the wells.

The workmen head home with the same certainty that is only seen in peasants returning from work in the fields, and it is as though they carry the same scythes upon their shoulders that their grandfathers had carried before them. A few poor people stand at muddy pools of water and collect stray oil in cans. They are the lesser colleagues of the great Parisian Dreyfuss. They have no shares, only buckets. They sell their findings of oil in very small quantities and light with it their provisional wooden cabins. This is the entire share that they receive from bountiful Nature. Their shacks stand crooked, brown and resigned in the golden rays of the sun. They appear to be huddling ever closer to one another, trying to become smaller and eventually to vanish altogether. And tomorrow, perhaps, they will no longer exist.

I hope that I have given you an idea of the atmosphere of this eastern California. I have described it to you to demonstrate that it is not my intention to send only idyllic reports from this country.

Meanwhile, I remain

Your obedient servant

J.R.

I then came to a region where they manufacture poisons. These poisons can kill. But since everything on earth contains within it two sides, it is true that the poisons can also nourish. One of the poisons is called ammonia. Using this, they fertilize the earth and kill the enemies of the fatherland.

One of the others is called potash.

In this region there was a village that was visited one day by skilled engineers. They examined the fields and meadows and found that great quantities of potash could be obtained from the earth of this village.

They returned to the poison factory and reported to the Masters of a Thousand Poisons that there was potash in this village.

So the Masters of a Thousand Poisons sent clever agents to the village. These agents told the owners of the fields and meadows nothing about the potash. They simply offered them money, great quantities of money, for their fields and meadows.

The farmers loved their fields and meadows, but they loved money even more.

And thus they sold the fields and the meadows to the Masters of a Thousand Poisons but asked if they could live in their homes and on their land for ten more years.

This took place, however, a year before the great war that is known as the World War.

But once the war broke out there was a need for potash and also ammonia, not only to make the soil rich but also to bury the enemies of the fatherland under the earth and transform these enemies into rich manure. So the fields and meadows were taken from the farmers, although the ten years were not yet up — for what validity do the laws of peace have over those of war? — and with them was taken that which lay beneath, the potash.

A giant machine came, what is called an ‘excavator’. This is a hellish machine that rips up mouthfuls of earth and destroys everything that grows or lives on the surface. And this machine destroyed the houses and farms, the barns, stables, ploughed fields and meadows.

In this village there also stood a church, in the middle of a cemetery. The peasants said they would not hand over their dead or the church, however much potash there might be alongside the bones of the dead. For they had not sold the churchyard to the Masters of a Thousand Poisons.

But the Masters of a Thousand Poisons paid money, more money. The dead were exhumed, one grave at a time, and they were transported to the next village where there was no potash under the earth’s surface.

On a certain day the villagers gathered in the church so as to take their final leave.

While they were praying and saying farewell, outside, the excavator began to shake the ground. And the roof of the church collapsed, along with the bells, on top of four hundred people, and the cross was sent flying into the open potash pit. The bells were made into cannon and the four hundred dead were turned into ammonia. And with this ammonia the enemy could be poisoned.

I came to this village. It is no longer a village, it is one great wide pit of potash and ammonia.

A stench of pestilence and putrefaction dominates the air.

An old man, the caretaker, who had known the place when it was a thriving village and whose face was already marked by death, said to me: ‘I often think of the old village. But the fact that it has died wouldn’t trouble me so much if its constant heavenly guests were still here. When it began to stink of ammonia here, the birds vanished. Under this sky the larks trill no more. The swallows no longer build their nests in these parts. To say nothing of the storks. Even the ravens and crows avoid our area in winter. Yes, the sparrows have also left. For twenty years I haven’t heard the song of a bird. If I had money, I would go far away so that I could hear the song of a bird once more before my death.’

So spoke the old man. And in the air the stench of plague and chemicals reigned.

In this region a poison called nitroglycerine is also manufactured. With this, houses, cities and mountains can be blown skywards. If any of this nitroglycerine is left over it is sent to a neighbouring factory where artificial silk and goods made from artificial silk are produced. There they make stockings for women, and from there came the stockings that the doppelgänger of her beautiful shadow wore when she made nineteen attempts at dying in Hollywood and showed her calves as she died. Her calves were clad in nitroglycerine.

Then the mighty Master of a Thousand Tongues told me: ‘Go and look at the battle pictures that people paint so that war is not forgotten in peacetime.’

And I wrote to him:

Mighty Master of a Thousand Tongues

The old battle pictures aren’t terrifying; rather, they are touching. The bloody red that may once have predominated has become brick-red, even a bit carroty-red. The tattered flags flutter at the front of the battle. Indeed, they have been sliced by sabres, ripped by swords, pierced by bullets. But the very fact that these delicate fabrics of cloth or silk can meet deadly weapons and still survive many battles confirms the impression that wars in the old days were actually more harmless than they are portrayed in the history books. The presence of many fallen soldiers is undeniable. Their deaths don’t appear to have been final. They still have time to let a curse escape from their lips before they die or to bless the cause for which they have fought. It is obviously clear to them, at the moment of death, that they will awaken by some miracle to a further cheerful life of war, or they already see the military part of Heaven that is waiting to receive them.

No wonder! The enemy is usually non-believers — Turks, janissaries, Tatars, whose religion is at its base monotheistic but which contains a fundamental misunderstanding. This is evident in their curved swords. Those who fight on our side — the Christian side — have straight swords (symbolic of the character of the warriors) with a handle that can at any time be used as a cross. While the janissaries, Tatars and Saracens prefer small, nimble, reddish horses, the heroes of the Occident ride on white horses reminiscent of the doves of the Grail. Ordinary men rescue the prominent heroes at the last moment. In general, the saviour is fatally wounded. But one already surmises that his descendants will receive a fief as soon as the hero’s wounds are healed.

The battle usually takes place on a plain, the character of which is emphasized by the surrounding heights. On these hills stand the high commanders, those in whose name the battle is being fought. Behind them and out of sight most likely stand their white tents, in which the black-haired courtesans lie and keep their fingers crossed. If the battle goes unfavourably, those in whose name it is being waged are the first to turn around and go to their tents. They must be broken down in great haste. But the vanquished leader still has time for a fleeting embrace from his mistress.