Nicholas Mosley - Hopeful Monsters

Bruno said 'I say "Come on up! Do as I say or I'll punish you!"'

Minna said 'And does it?'

Bruno said 'If it wants to.'

Franz sat on a log beside the fire and smoked his pipe. I thought — Here, now, we know what we are: is this called nothing!

Franz took his pipe out of his mouth and said to Bruno 'Well, what did you make of Heidegger?'

Bruno said 'Ah, a direct question!'

I said 'You are allowed to answer it.'

Bruno put his hand on his heart and said 'But perhaps that is what I made of Heidegger!'

Franz and Bruno began a discussion about whether or not Heidegger, when he talked about nothing, was talking about God: but if he was, then why did he not call it God? Franz said 'It has always been correct, of course, not to mention the name of God.'

Minna took off her clothes and sat cross-legged by the fire.

Bruno said 'Minna! I am frightened!'

Minna said 'What are you frightened of?'

Bruno said 'Wolves.'

Minna said 'But there are no wolves.'

Bruno said 'I am the wolf!' Then — 'Will you sleep with me tonight?'

I said to Franz 'Do you think it would be possible to live like this? I mean not talking, but at the same time talking, about what we know.'

Franz said 'What do we know?'

I said 'Oh, nothing.'

Franz said 'In art. In poetry.'

I said 'We could live as if we were this — '

Bruno said 'Help! Minna!'

So that night Minna slept with Bruno and I lay with Franz: Franz remained stretched on his back with his hands folded across his

chest; he was like the effigy of a dead crusader. Sometime in the night I awoke and there was a new moon with its single star beside it; Minna and Bruno were making love; they were like something with too short arms and legs trying to crawl across the floor of the forest.

Franz did not seem to be sleeping. I wondered if he still sometimes thought of killing himself. I thought — Things do go round and round: it is by your knowing this that you sometimes get out of the forest.

In the morning we went on in our small procession with Franz in front and myself following and Bruno and Minna behind. Bruno prodded and tickled Minna: Minna pretended not to like it and liked it. I wondered — Perhaps after all it is sad that I am not jealous?

There were clouds in the sky and sometimes gaps in the clouds where the sun shone through. I thought — Perhaps there are gods reclining on those clouds and they catch a glimpse of us every now and then and wonder if we are the sort of things that they would like to put into a painting.

Occasionally we came across other groups of Wandervogel\ we greeted each other with cries and waves; we could hear them singing their songs before and after we could see them jn the forest.

Once or twice at night round the fire we did have discussions in which words did seem to struggle to express directly what they might be meaning.

Franz told us of a conference of physicists there had been in Brussels a year ago in which questions had been raised concerning recent changes in our understanding of what could be known, or described, about the smallest particles of so-called 'matter* — about what went on inside an atom. Such questions were: Did matter in fact consist of particles or waves; were there laws to explain all occurrences or did certain phenomena happen by chance; if so, what was meant by 'chance'; did an observer inevitably influence that which he observed; was it really impossible, because of this effect of observation, to tell at the same time a particle's exact velocity and location? Each day, Franz said, Einstein would appear with the plan for an experiment which would prove the 'objective' view — which would demonstrate an occurrence which could be described apart from the observer's unavoidable manipulation. Then each evening Bohr and Heisenberg — the two other most notable physicists of the day — would retire with the outline of Einstein's experiment and by morning they would have shown that, on the

contrary, the outcome of the experiment would indeed be affected by the fact of observation: it was one's choice of observation that determined, for instance, whether what one was observing was a particle or a wave. Reality remained — this was their phrase — 'a function of the experimental condition'. And all this could be demonstrated by means of the theories that Einstein himself had proposed years ago and which had since been so often vindicated. It was as a result of all this that Einstein, defeated in words but not in his present conviction, had made his famous remark — 'God does not play dice.' Franz told this story of Einstein and Bohr as if it were of some epic encounter like that between Hector and Achilles: even between good and evil. But it was not clear (of course!) just what was good and what was evil.

Minna said 'Why on earth should not God play dice?'

Bruno said Then why call him God, darling.'

Franz said 'You think you can tell God what he can and cannot do?'

Bruno said 'For me, I can tell God what he cannot logically do.'

Franz said Then for me he is not God.'

After a time Minna would turn away from these conversations and embark on her strange observances to the sun or moon. I would think — She imagines by her observances that she is influencing the sun and moon?

Then — If God plays dice, perhaps I can tonight sleep with Bruno.

Franz said to Bruno 'But you, you are someone who thinks that you can manipulate things as if you were a god.'

Bruno said 'Do you think I could manipulate things if I did not believe that there was a God?'

I said to Bruno 'Do you believe in God?'

Bruno said 'Oh Nellie, Nellie, there are very good reasons why one cannot answer direct questions about God!'

Minna said 'Pray then.'

Franz said To me, if God is not dead, there is no reason why he should not kill himself.'

I thought — But what might they be up to, the sun and moon, round some corner?

On about the third day of our walk we came across a group of Nazi boys: we could tell they were Nazis before we saw them because they were singing their sad song — the one about blood and doom and sacrifice and death. When we did see them they were walking in a line with their thumbs behind the buckles of their belts;

they turned to us all at the same time. I thought — They are not like birds, they are like fishes: they have managed to get back from dry land into the sea. They did their salute and called 'Heil Hitler!' I thought — There is the immediate impression that one is about to be attacked. When they saw Minna they became silent: Minna was walking without her blouse. I thought — They will not know whether to worship her or to destroy her: with luck, in their indecision, she might as a siren lure them to their doom.

I had not come across Nazis much at this time. Hitler's first attempt to get power in 1923 in Munich had failed: he had gone to jail. Afterwards not much was heard of him till the first Nazi Party rally at Nuremberg in 1927. Then I had said to my father 'But what is it that makes them different from other right-wing groups?'

My father had said 'They are the only political party who are honest about what they want.'

I had said 'What do they want?'

He had said 'To kill everyone who is not like them.'

I had said 'But what are they like?'

He had said 'They are like people who want to kill everyone who is not like them.'

I had said 'But then surely other people will kill them first.'

My father had said 'No, because they are politicians and no one believes them.'

That evening on the mountains we could hear the group of Nazis at their camp some distance away. They were playing some recording of a speech on a gramophone. There was a tiny cracked voice of someone shouting as if he were that man trapped in a cage.