In Search of the Miraculous

the state of their preparation and their powers," as he expressed it. Each

member of these groups paid a thousand roubles a year, and was able to

work with him while pursuing his ordinary activities in life.

I said that in my opinion a thousand roubles a year might be too large a

payment for many people without private means.

G. replied that no other arrangement was possible, because, owing to the

very nature of the work, he could not have many pupils. At the same time,

he did not desire and ought not—he emphasized this—to spend his own

money on the organization of the work. His work was not, and could not be,

of a charitable nature and his pupils themselves ought to find the means for

the hire of apartments where they could meet; for carrying out experiments;

and so on. Besides this, he added that observation showed that people who

were weak in life proved themselves weak in the work.

"There are several aspects of this idea," said G. "The work of each person may involve expenses, traveling, and so on. If his life is so badly organized

that a thousand roubles embarrasses him it would be better for him not to

undertake this work. Suppose that, in the course of the year, his work

requires him to go to Cairo or some other place. He must have the means to

do so. Through our demand we find out whether he is able to work with us

or not.

"Besides," G. continued, "I have far too little spare time to be able to

sacrifice it on others without being certain even that it will do them good. I

value my time very much because I need it for my own work and because I

cannot and, as I said before, do not want to spend it unproductively. There is

also another side to this," said G. "People do not value a thing if they do not pay for it."

I listened to this with a strange feeling. On the one hand I was pleased

with everything that G. said. I was attracted by the absence of any

element of sentimentality, of conventional talk about "altruism," of words

about "working for the good of humanity" and so forth. On the other hand I

was surprised at G.'s apparent desire to convince me of something in

connection with the question of money when I needed no convincing.

If there was anything I did not agree with it was simply that G. would be

able to collect enough money in the way he described. I realized that none of

those pupils whom I had seen would be able to pay a thousand roubles a

year. If he had really found in the East visible and tangible traces of hidden

knowledge and was continuing investigations in this direction, then it was

clear that this work needed funds, like any other scientific enterprise, like an

expedition into some unknown part of the world, the excavation of an

ancient city, or an investigation requiring elaborate and numerous physical or

chemical experiments. It was quite unnecessary to convince me of this. On

the contrary, the thought was already in my mind that if G. gave me the

possibility of a closer acquaintance with his activities, I should probably be

able to find the funds necessary for him to place his work on a proper footing

and also bring him more prepared people. But, of course, I still had only a

very vague idea in what this work might consist.

Without saying it plainly, G. gave me to understand that he would accept

me as one of his pupils if I expressed the wish. I told him that the chief

obstacle on my side was that, at the moment, I could not stay in Moscow

because I had made an arrangement with a publisher in Petersburg and was

preparing several books for publication. G. told me that he sometimes went

to Petersburg and he promised to come there soon and let me know of his

arrival.

"But if I Joined your group," I said to G., "I should be faced with a very difficult problem. I do not know whether you exact a promise from your

pupils to keep secret what they learn from you, but I could give no such

promise. There have been two occasions in my life when I had the possibility

of joining groups engaged in work which appears to be similar to yours, at

any rate by description, and which interested me very much at the time. But

in both cases to join would have meant consenting or promising to keep

secret everything that I might learn there. And I refused in both cases,

because, before everything else, I am a writer, and I desire to be absolutely

free and to decide for myself what I shall write and what I shall not write. If I

promise to keep secret something I am told, it would be very difficult

afterwards to separate what had been told me from what came to my own

mind either in connection with it or even with no connection. For instance, I

know very little about your ideas yet, but I do know that when we begin to

talk we shall very soon come to questions of time and space, of higher

dimensions, and so on. These are questions on which I have already been

working for many

years. I have no doubt whatever that they roust occupy a large place in your

system." G. nodded. "Well, you see, if we were now to talk under a pledge of