Gregor von Rezzori - An Ermine in Czernopol

He was conspicuously silent for a few seconds. Of course we hadn’t understood a word he was saying, but we had no doubt that his last words and his silence were directed at us. We could clearly feel the effort it cost him not to look in our direction, and Fräulein Iliuţ seemed to sense it as well, because she, too, had glanced up to him instinctively, and her beautiful eyes reflected the exertion present in his own.

What he was saying was disconcerting to us in many ways — primarily because we couldn’t make any overriding sense out of all the strange words and unfamiliar concepts, and whenever we thought we understood what he was getting at, we soon discovered that we were on the wrong track. Now, however, when there was no doubt that he was alluding to us, Herr Alexianu’s statements were excruciating. Because we then assumed that everything else was directed toward us, and so the strain on our concentration was exacerbated by the embarrassment of our inability to understand — that bitter combination that so irritates us as children, and grinds down our beautiful curiosity.

Just as we suffered, for example, because we couldn’t understand how the streetcar’s bow collector could pass through the branching of the electrical wires without getting caught — we had seen it with our own eyes during our walks! — because our imagination wasn’t developed enough to convince us that it didn’t run above the overhead wires but rather glided along their undersides, held up by a flexible spring pressure, so we were also bothered by Herr Alexianu’s inconsiderate monologues, which we couldn’t understand, and which left us feeling that behind the visible and tangible phenomena of the world were hidden secrets to which we had no key, and perhaps never would. Today I’m positive that this scornful cheating of our curiosity was exactly what Herr Alexianu was after, a malicious revenge, because for children curiosity is both hunger and nourishment for life all in one, and to pique it like that and then refuse to satisfy it is tantamount to committing a psychological crime.

But Herr Alexianu seemed to actually savor his tempered-steel disdain. He went on expounding rigorously, but now with greater confidence, more commandingly:

“When I say forms , I mean the spiritual patterns and designs that make up the basis of how we think and perceive, of everything we undertake. But what is passed down to us no longer fits the modern human being. Năstase, however, perceives things in a truly modern way. His thesis is that modern man is far more cerebrally determined than his predecessors. Take careful note of this, because it is enormously significant. It describes in a nutshell how our existence is becoming progressively more abstract. Bear in mind the fact that man no longer has free control over his own instincts, which automatically enabled him to do whatever was necessary to maintain his existence in accord with the demands of nature. Instead he has become dependent on experience that has been handed down — in other words, on education. Until now we have relied on religions to deliver the basic substance of our life feeling. As institutions of convention, constructs that housed the oldest traditions, they were able to impart a certain body of knowledge, which, while perhaps no longer pure, did address a wealth of psychological states that human beings must experience for their well-being on earth. In other words, we are talking about plain and simple mental hygiene. Our ongoing alienation from nature, from a life filled with natural — i.e., violent — situations, causes certain mental functions to wither away. And the entire organism suffers along with the mind. The entire organism. To take a specific example: the way you sit at your work, day in, day out, means that your lungs are never sufficiently oxygenated. Consequently your psyche, too, can only atrophy due to insufficient exercise. Even if you walked upright it wouldn’t help much. You need to work your lungs to the limits of their capacity, precisely what this organ experiences in the wild — during a dangerous hunt, fleeing and pursuing. You need to run, to jump, to box. You also need to be able to hold your breath, three minutes at least, though if you train correctly you can hold it for much longer. Only then — and this requires a daily regimen of gymnastics — would your body reach the natural condition it would have if you had to hunt down all your sustenance.”

We tried to imagine Fräulein Iliuţ hunting down her sustenance in the form of deer, hares, and all manner of wildfowl, like a hunchbacked Artemis — and it didn’t strike us as outlandish at all. Despite all its gentle kindness, her face had a trace of slyness, though this was trumped by her soft eyes. But the skillfulness of her hands suggested she would be very capable at setting snares and laying traps; we also believed her legs were capable of greater speed than the shape of her back suggested. So we went on listening, full of excitement.

“To put this in medical terms,” said Herr Alexianu, “you would have supplied your body with enough oxygen to truly feel well. And this applies to your mind in exactly the same way. It’s not enough to simply perceive things. Now and then you have to fall into a state of rapture, of ecstasy, to force the organ of your soul to function at its highest capacity. But you also have to be capable of contemplation, of trance, of completely shutting down all mental activity. Only then will you feel yourself pulsing with the full current of those substances that place you in harmony with the world and life. But here, too, ongoing exercise is essential.”

Herr Alexianu made a small, highly effective pause, during which he raised his head and closed his lips tightly. He breathed deeply through his flared nostrils, in long harmonious breaths. We could see his jaw muscles chewing away.

“Up to now, according to Năstase,” he went on, “these mental gymnastics have been the province of the religious institutions. Religious exercises were devised to shape and form the soul: from the prayer mouthed without thinking but still fervently felt, to the raging self-flagellation of the fanatic. The saint, according to Năstase, was the soul’s champion athlete, while the regular believer merely played in the neighborhood league. This formulation is compelling. If such a healthy, demystified concept as to the true nature of religious instruction were to take hold, the churches would fill up again right away. But the religions fail to achieve this. And why? Năstase believes it is because the soul has yielded to the brain its place as the central organ of life. It’s not our souls: it’s our brains that are in need of purification. Just try to imagine the consequences.”

Fräulein Iliuţ looked up at him with her clear gaze and an expression of soulful courage that promised she would give it her best try. The absurd growth of her hump stood around her angelic head like a halo of earthly burden.

Herr Alexianu, however, refused to be convinced and made a dismissive gesture.

“In any case, you see,” he said, not without a hint of bitter sarcasm, “that we are not simply a bunch of banal rationalists. Far from denying the irrational, we accord it its place in life. Take love, for example. Something utterly irrational. In fact, Năstase calls it the paragon of irrationality. But only in its origin. Its course can be ascertained empirically; it may be observed to follow certain natural laws. And its implementation, too, may be determined rationally. Năstase’s thoughts on this subject are both persuasive and very deep. He says: theoreticians of love from all times have wasted far too much time on metaphysics. True metaphysics is to be found in what is palpably obvious. Whatever the transcendental goal of love may be, we may see that it has two completely different, or actually contradictory, objectives — one to love, and the other to be loved. Not only are those two different aims, each of which requires a special theoretical treatment and, in practice, a separate implementation — in other words, its own strategy and tactics — but they are, above all, the products of two completely different emotional states, which in turn produce other mental conditions. Imagine what a clean separation of these two opposing tendencies would do for our entire mental climate. Năstase’s amazing insight is that Western civilization’s underlying dilemma is rooted in the fact that these two distinct motives are constantly mingled and confused. And that, he suggests, is the fundamental difference between Christianity and heathendom.”