Albert Thelen - The Island of Second Sight

Count Keyserling spoke Spanish fluently, but a certain agitation in his audience told him that people were not following his words. How about English? No? Then let’s try French. He was willing to obey the wishes of his esteemed listeners. Applause from all present except Vigoleis and Don Sacramento. Although both of us were in full command of the French language, we lacked the conversational practice that would allow us to play our trick on the celebrated philosopher. With Spanish we could have pulled it off. Keyserling could tote up his first two victims.

His circus act went along as planned. The mental acrobat in his pink shirt and dashing white beard invited the audience to present him with the evening’s subject for discussion. “And please, don’t hold back. This is a master class, so is anyone brave enough? No one? Nobody at all? Is this so difficult? No one from the green table, either? What’s the matter?” The Conde wrung his hands as if conjuring a genie. I noticed how he now winked toward Harry Kessler, and how the latter, the anti-clown, glanced off into the corner where we were sitting. If he didn’t stand up right away, Hermann would lose, for someone in the first row was clearing his throat — presumably it was somebody’s Adam’s apple being rolled up and then back down. There was deathly silence, and everyone gazed forward toward the man with the breathing problem. At this moment, Count Kessler arose from his seat at the green table.

I cannot offer a historically accurate portrait of Harry Kessler, for I neither believe in historical exactitude, nor have I ever kept written notes. But this much I recall of that evening’s gala philosophical spectacular: Count Kessler had on his natty Bauzá suit, which I could describe down to the last button — not because my client Silberstern was so interested in the Count’s wardrobe, but because I myself had, by coincidence, asked the haberdasher at Bauzá to make me a suit from the very same fabric and with the very same cut. It was on this very same gala evening that the Count and I discovered that we shared the same tailor, the same taste in clothing, and the same trust in the potential sales value of his book Peoples and Fatherlands .

Kessler, who had given a thousand speeches in front of more hostile audiences than this one, spoke slowly, with almost touching modesty and with a firm voice. No one besides us two and Keyserling could have interpreted the faint rosy flecks on his cheeks as a sign of trepidation. As a phony he was playing his role quite convincingly. He began by saying that it was not easy to offer a topic to a philosopher of Keyserling’s standing. It would be necessary to reach, or at least to approach, the Count’s level of competency. “Well now, mon cher Keyserling, how about this: ‘ La machine comme parvenue de notre siècle ’?”

There it was! Drumroll and crack of the whip! The clown leaps into the ring and pulls a bunny from his nose. Count Kessler sat down. If now he just wouldn’t look over to the place where Thälmann is sitting — if he could just go on with his thoughts about “ Times and Faces ”—his private faces, his private times — while the other Count clears his throat.

An electric fan sent a breeze across the green table. The artificial palms started rustling, and the philosopher’s beard, caught by the puffs of air, blew out horizontally. Don Quixote in person!

Hermann played his role better than Harry, for he was everything at once: philosopher, tippler, diplomat, Don Quixote, Sancho Panza, magician. And because his published works legitimized him for decades into the future, unlike Harry he didn’t need to keep his mind focused on the past. Well now: “The Machine As Upstart”? Hermann squinted and surveyed his mixed audience. Then he tested the ropes that would lift him up to his trapeze. Were all the rings and hooks secure? Taking the measure of this Upstart would be child’s play for Hermann. Drumbeat! Crack of whip! The pink shirt takes a bow, the green necktie shimmers menacingly. “ Mesdames et messieurs, la machine comme parvenue…nous verrons .”

Hermann had obviously not wasted his time with the bottle. He had prepared everything exactly to his taste, and his performance earned him a summa cum laude . The way he attacked the topic was simply ingenious. He immediately went for the depths — Harry hadn’t tossed him a coffee pot. Hermann didn’t just go foraging on the surface, he plunged to the very bottom and revealed the ocean’s darkest secrets: fish with rear-end lights, lanceolate eyes, phosphorescent jellyfish, high-voltage sea monsters — these were the precursors, an entire aquarium full, of all of Nature’s “upstarts” that were eventually to reach terra firma . Hermann then ascended slowly to the surface, and slithered ahead as Wisdom’s amphibian. He ended his oration with an even more ingenious conclusion — the nature of which I can’t remember. After an hour, both the subject and the lecturer were obviously exhausted.

There was loud applause, honestly proffered and well deserved. Dr. Sureda Blanes thanked the speaker in the name of Lullian Science and all of its devotees in attendance, for the great German philosopher’s brilliant impromptu discourse on such an extraordinary subject. An exhaustive discourse, he went on, again speaking for all those present. Surely there was nothing to add to the Count’s explanations — or perhaps there was? If not, then if the audience so desired, we could proceed to the general discussion, for Conde de Keyserling would surely give us the pleasure of taking up some of the more obscure points… Hermann nodded, mais naturellement —just ask away! Darmstadt was ready to provide all the answers.

No one budged. Someone had turned the electric fan back on, and it blew the pearl fisher’s beard out toward the audience. His green tie glistened, the palms swayed. The gentlemen at the green table were also swaying, and Harry too, who looked as if he wanted to say something. A few words of thanks? He stood up, and the custom tailoring of his Bauzá suit presented a distingué contrast to his would-be schoolmate’s pink shirt. The latter gestured to him as if to say, “Well, I’ll let you speak a few nice words, Harry, but keep it brief. If the audience likes what you say, we’ll take that as a recommendation for a repeat performance sometime, and then we can take off and enjoy a bottle together. I’ve got it all prepared.”

Harry did express his thanks — oh yes, indeed. His old friend, he said, had made some interesting points concerning the proposed topic. But — a thousand pardons — although Count Keyserling certainly had profound things to say about the subject at hand, he hadn’t truly plumbed the depths — a thousand pardons. Would he be permitted to add a few comments of his own? He had made some notes. Ten minutes, and no more?

There was commotion in the hall, commotion at the green table, commotion beneath the pink shirt. Don Francisco spoke up: “Go ahead, Señor Conde !” There were echoes of “Go ahead!” from the audience in many languages. Then Hermann, circus M.C. and clown in one and the same person, said, “Fine!” and clapped his hands smartly. No one followed his example, so now Harry, his head bent ever so slightly forward, commenced his act of revenge on the louche impostor and his phony story about their schooldays together. One by one, Harry hauled up to the surface all of Hermann’s deep-sea monsters, luminescent animals, medusas, and jellyfish, and burst them apart. When the aquarium was totally empty, Hermann was done for, stripped down to his dawn-colored shirt. The one Count had no need to administer the coup de grâce to the other Count. The entire audience took over this task. They gave Conde Harry de Kessler a thunderous ovation, a tribute that Conde de Keyserling couldn’t out-clap with his gigantic paws. As a self-defined Sage, he clearly knew when the jig was up.