Nicholas Mosley - Hopeful Monsters

After a time Franz, still watching me, raised the barrel of the gun so that it was in his mouth and pulled the trigger. I leaped into the air with my arms and legs flying out like those of a puppet. I thought — Oh it is I who have been shot, and am flying off round the universe!

Then — But this has got me moving.

I began walking towards Franz. The pistol had not gone off. I thought — He put only one bullet in it?

Franz watched me as I walked towards him. He held the pistol in his lap. The pistol was of the revolver type with which you can put as many bullets as you like into the cylinder and spin it.

I said Tve come here before. I often come here.* I do not know why I said this. I suppose I was offering some sort of explanation.

He said 'You often come here.'

I said* Yes.'

He said as if quoting ' — and must we not return and run down the lane in front of us, that long and terrible lane, must we not return, you and I, eternally — '

I said 'Oh yes, who said that?'

He said 'Nietzsche.'

I said 'Oh yes, Nietzsche.'

I had moved to the wall at the side of the cave which was opposite him. I leaned with my back to the wall. He still had his feet underneath him as if he were a mermaid.

I said 'And what happens then?'

He said 'What happens when?'

'At the turning. Doesn't he, Zarathustra, bite off the head of a snake, or something?'

'He comes across someone else who has a snake halfway down his throat, so he tells him to bite the head off.'

'And does he?'

'Yes.'

I said 'And then what?'

He said 'He is free. He is laughing.'

I said 'Can't you do that?'

After a time Franz raised the revolver and pointed it into the cave. Then he pulled the trigger. There was an explosion in which it seemed that my eardrums were going in and out together with the roof and walls of the cave; then hundreds of bats were flying around me like bits of black glass, like broken shadows, they bumped into walls, they almost bumped into me, I put my arms over my head. I thought — God damn you! Then — Oh well, have the shadows gone from the walls of the cave?

After a time I could see between my fingers that Franz was untying the rope from around his feet. When the bats had all gone I

looked up. I said 'Had you got just one bullet in it? You could have known where the bullet was!'

He said 'Oh yes, I might have known where the bullet was.'

I said 'I mean, that would have been sensible.'

He said 'You think it right to be sensible?'

I said'Yes.'

He said 'In this game?'

I said 'What game?'

He was still untying the rope from his feet. Then he said 'Why did you come here?'

I said 'I was following you.'

'Why?'

'I wanted to ask you about the connections between philosophy and physics.'

'You wanted to ask me about the connections between philosophy and physics.'

'Yes.'

He stretched his feet out in front of him. He leaned fowards and rubbed his ankle, which seemed to be hurting him.

He said 'In philosophy you are stuck within your own brains. In physics you are stuck within your own brains. So why not give your brains an airing.'

I said 'That's what Kleist thought.'

He said 'Yes, that's what Kleist thought.'

I said 'Why is it like that in physics?'

He leaned back and rested his head against the wall of the cave.

He said 'In physics what you observe is dependent on the fact that you observe: there is no way of observing anything apart from you as observer. You shine a light on an object and you alter it by the fact that you shine a light: you do not shine a light and then you cannot observe it. In some experiments light appears to be waves: in other experiments it appears to be particles. You can tell a particle's exact velocity, or location, but you can't tell both at the same time. There is no way of saying what anything is, apart from the way in which you are observing it.'

I said 'And you don't like that.'

'No.'

'Why not?'

He said 'There are such terrible things that go on in these heads in which we are trapped. They will destroy us. Why should we not destroy them.'

I said 'Yes, but once you know that — '

He said 'What?'

I said 'Let me see your ankle.'

I went across the floor of the cave to him: I looked down at his ankle, where the rope had chafed him. I said 'You let them out, you let them out, all those bats.'

He said 'Where?'

I said 'From the cave. From the mind.'

He said 'Yes, but where do they go to?' He banged his head gently against the wall of the cave.

I said 'That is not your business.'

He said 'What is my business?'

I said 'Where does it hurt you?'

He said 'You want to save me, do you?'

I said 'Yes.'

He said 'Why?'

I said 'That would be one of the things I'd like if I have to be going on doing it for ever.'

One of the ways in which members of fraternities maintained their senses of belonging and identity was in the matter of duelling. Boys seemed always to be on the look-out for an insult and for the opportunity to avenge it: in what simpler way could solidarity be demonstrated? Serious duelling occurred when a challenge was made and accepted between individuals. But when there was not much of this sort of duelling, a number of members of two fraternities came together for a ritual fight called a Mensur. In both events there were safeguards by which a fighter could achieve his sense of belonging with only a ritual wounding.

In a Mensur the boys from the two fraternities met in a gymnasium; they lined up opposite each other in pairs. (This was still happening, yes, in the late 1920s.) They carried swords with long thin blades. Their hands and arms and bodies were bandaged; only their heads were unprotected. (I would think — Dear God it is, indeed, as if they want to be hit just on their own heads!) At a signal, each boy put a hand behind his back and in the other raised his sword to a level slightly above his head. The fight consisted of queer flicking movements of the wrist with the forearm held straight: these were the rules: the idea was, in fact, that the boys should become cut about the face and head. And the aim was less that one should cut one's opponent's face than that oneself should

be cut: once one's cuts were deep enough, clear enough, then the fight was over. One had received one's accolade — one's mark of loyalty to the tribe.

I had once said to my father 'But if this sort of thing is a ritual, is it more sophisticated or more silly than just to be decorated by tribal witch-doctors with knives?'

He had said 'What would be sophisticated, I suppose, would be to be able to look at why one wanted to be cut by knives.'

Shortly after the time when I had come across Franz in the cave in the mountain, there was one of these fights in Freiburg in which Franz's fraternity, The Corps, was involved. Franz was one of those chosen to represent The Corps. I wondered if they had chosen him because he was good at duelling; or because, since he was so aloof, they wanted to involve him as an active member of The Corps.

Franz had half tried to avoid me since our time on the mountain. I imagined — But perhaps he likes to know that I am here.

Minna and I and some other girls watched this ritual Mensur through the windows of the gymnasium. Franz in fact fought quite well: he seemed both bored and yet purposeful; even sometimes alarmed. He flicked at the other boy's face; then when he had cut it — once, lightly — he lowered his sword and stood still. The other boy pointed his sword at him but Franz did not move. Then after a time he turned his back and went to the chairs at the side of the gymnasium and put down his sword and picked up his clothes and went out. This was against the conventions, because he himself had not yet been cut on the face.