H. Adler - Panorama

Man wants to experience a great deal, and yet at eighteen what has Josef not already encountered that only someone who is seventy or eighty has, for Josef is taken aback by the speed of life, sensing that the end is already near, since he feels full to the brim already. How then can he believe that he’ll live a long life? He has decided to keep a diary, having thought of a motto and written it at the top of the first page: “Don’t be afraid of words!” In light of this saying Josef writes down his experiences, but not just the day-to-day ones, no, just the important ones, those he perceives, for he cannot leave the world without having done something worthwhile, future men needing to know something of him, since meaningful thoughts flow through his head, he not having wasted his time but instead having tried to make the most of every minute. Perhaps the true consciousness requires that one’s spirit remain awake at all times by not frittering away each day, or chasing skirts like a drunk, or forgetting yourself and allowing yourself to be numbed by any means at hand, whether it be through hanging around in bars, dealing cards, chasing after dance partners, obsessing about sports, rather than continuing to try to think, read books, listen to music, make good friends, and seek replenishment in nature. Above all, it’s important to handle yourself independently in all matters, rather than echoing others, empty repeated words being nothing but hypocrisy.

Josef writes in his diary and looks forward to Wednesday with Johannes, where he will remain quiet and observe the others, how they talk and what they have to say, as well as Johannes’s playing of the gong. The days rush by, and the evening has arrived, Thomas showing up right on time, the two not saying a word after they first greet each other, though usually their time together is full of talk, neither able to say enough about what he has been doing, each having always been so unsettled by all that’s gone on since they last met, it being a flood of dreams and nightmares, puzzling incidents that they can’t help but divulge. Both are full of passion and hardly let the other get in a single word, feeling an inexhaustible pouring forth from within that they can barely keep up with in speech, the two also having experienced many symbolic events that strain the normal definitions of words, though the friends understand each other through hints and suggestions for which they have developed their own style. They spend long evenings together, either at Thomas’s or Josef’s place, playing piano for each other, their own tunes, which sometimes sound a bit off, Josef striking a tone with different emphasis in a rhythmic chain, loud or soft, again and again, heightening the effect with the pedal and the dampening of various keys in order to arrive at effects that from the distance remind one of Johannes playing the gong. What, indeed, would he say about Josef’s piano playing? After many hours in the room together the two friends walk around at night for some hours more, heading out through the city outskirts and onto paths that rise into the hills, where they hardly ever encounter anyone else, here and there a farm or brickyard standing on its own, as Thomas thinks that all brickyards look almost like a place where evil spirits gather, one reminding him of the legend of Rabbi Löw and the golem he made of clay, it still seeming possible here even today, though Josef loves the feel of brickyards, and both love the many lights that stretch out like chains through the streets and that shine from the clusters of houses on the outskirts, as well as the murky shimmer whose lofty cloud of light floods the distance where the middle of the city lies hidden, it being somewhat unreal what they love, if in fact they believe it to be unchanging and constant, since they value only the eternal, rather than the everyday life in which one must scrape along in order to survive. Their back-and-forth does not spring from frivolity, there is nothing superficial about them. Since he was a boy Thomas has had to work hard to get by, Josef having it a bit better, though he, too, must count his pennies, both having learned not even to think about spending money on unnecessary things, for what good is the eternally temporal versus the temporary eternal which they continually aspire to so diligently.

But tonight the friends walk along without saying a word, moving as fast as the tumultuous streets surrounding the tower building will allow, themselves almost at the door, as below the sound of a tango whispers as it snakes its way upward as they enter through the sliding door, neither again having the right coins for the elevator, as they slowly climb up six floors and Thomas knocks three times. This time they don’t have to wait very long, Frieda already there to open the door, all the doors of the apartment standing open, lights turned on everywhere, some voices audible, the door to the left leading into the kitchen, something that Josef didn’t notice last time, though today Thomas takes his somewhat wary friend by the hand and heads in, Johannes there with two men and two women as he greets him heartily and says a couple of friendly words, to which Josef responds, “I’m so happy, Herr Tvrdil, that I could come again.” But Johannes laughs and says, “What? My friends never speak to me so formally. To you I am Johannes and to me you are Josef.” Josef wants to protest, but Thomas grabs him hard by the arm so that Josef knows that he shouldn’t say anything.

One of the men in the kitchen is Herr Haschke, who quickly asks Josef, “Are you also interested in the true path? If so, you have found the right place here with Johannes. You have no idea how much I owe to him!” Josef is somewhat embarrassed, but he is spared from having to reply, for Herr Haschke rushes on about the incredible experiences he has had, though one should not think that it’s that easy to remain on the true path, you must be careful not to lose hold of it and concentrate every moment in order to make sure that you are not led astray by false thoughts, people being so easy to seduce, such that you have to resist, for afterward you are disburdened and can float like an angel above the thorny way of everyday life. As he speaks, Herr Haschke’s face goes all misty, and then he asks Josef gravely, “How long have you been on the true path?” Josef doesn’t understand right away, and looks questioningly at Herr Haschke. “I mean, how long have you concentrated on it?” Josef replies to the query with a vague answer, though it doesn’t satisfy Herr Haschke, who announces, “You have to devote yourself to the path, and that indeed requires concentration. That’s most important in the morning when you first wake up, and in the evening before going to sleep. For then it functions all through the night. You sink inside yourself and think of nothing but the highest self that slumbers inside you and that through concentration will awaken. When you wake up, your aimless wandering is over. Oh, how lost I have been, but now I am somewhat enlightened! Oh, it’s wonderful, it’s so wonderful, such that I cannot describe it to you. Worldly matters disappear, and only the pure spirit is there. You must search for it! But it is incredibly hard, for evil spirits wish to distract you at first. Try reading the mystical writings of Kerning and Eckartshausen in order to be inspired!” Herr Haschke closes his eyes blissfully, his mouth open with rapture, his tongue licking a corner of it.

Josef doesn’t know whether to laugh or be appalled, but then an old woman named Yolanda turns to him and says, “You really should know that Herr Haschke is the biggest fanatic among us. For a long while he had lost his way, but now he lives in bliss. I’ve not experienced it like him, for I was always God-fearing, but in a more churchly sense. I believed in the holy sacraments and in the grace of God. Then I had an epiphany. It was a genuine vision in which a white hand appeared to me, around which there was a soft light. The hand touched my forehead in order to bless me, and a voice said to me, ‘Yolanda, you must not sleep any longer! My daughter, wake up!’ Then I knew it was God’s voice. But belief is not enough, you must also act within the world and engage yourself. Thus I devoted myself to the path. I always keep at it, and then it simply occurs. I am at it when I do housework, when I make batter for a cake, when I shop in the market, when I cook, iron, even set the table and relax on the settee, even then I am still on the path and at it. Then all my thoughts are with God, who gives me the strength for my work and his blessing.” Herr Haschke looks up and takes Yolanda’s hands. “Yolanda, Yolanda, it’s all so wonderful. Your life is like the sun. I envy your husband and your son, Schorschl, who get to live within the circle of your light. With you at home, everyone must be on the true path. What a blessing! But no one at my house is on the true path. I have tried to lead my parents and my brother to it. But my brother is a total extrovert and loves going to the movies most of all. And my father says he just wants to rest after work. I have often wanted to explain to him that real and true relaxation comes through concentration, which sparks godliness. But my father doesn’t believe it and doesn’t understand me. Eckartshausen’s Mystical Nights , which I gave him, he didn’t read. He only reads the newspaper, and Johannes says I should leave my father in peace. But I suffer as a result. My mother has said that she has nothing against my being on the true path, yet she has no path at all, and so, end of story. Oh, Yolanda, your family enjoys God’s true blessing!”