Journey by Moonlight

“Think about it. In civilised society death is the most absolute of all taboo-subjects. It isn’t done to mention it. We use circumlocutions to name it in writing, as if it were some sort of ridiculous solecism, so that the dead person, the corpse, becomes the ‘deceased’, the ‘dear departed’, the ‘late’, in the same way as we euphemise the acts of digestion. And what you don’t talk about, it isn’t done to think about either. This is civilisation’s defence against the potential danger of a contrary instinct working in man against the instinct for life, an instinct which is really cunning, calling man towards annihilation with a sweet and strong enticement. To the civilised mind this instinct is all the more dangerous because in civilised man the raw appetite for life is so much weaker. Which is why it has to suppress the other instinct with every weapon available. But this suppression isn’t always successful. The counter-instinct breaks surface in times of decadence, and manages to overrun the territory of the mind to a surprising degree. Sometimes whole classes of society almost consciously dig their own graves, like the French aristocracy before the Revolution. And, I’m afraid, the most current example today are the Hungarians of Transdanubia …

“I don’t know if you’re still following me? People usually get me spectacularly wrong whenever I talk on this subject. But I can do a little test. Do you recognise this feeling? A man is walking on a wet pavement and slips. His one leg collapses under him, and he starts to fall backwards. At the precise moment when I lose my balance, I am filled with a sudden ecstasy. Of course it lasts only a second, then I automatically jerk back my leg, recover my balance, and rejoice in the fact that I didn’t fall. But that one moment! For just one moment I was suddenly released from the oppressive laws of equilibrium. I was free. I began to fly off into annihilating freedom … Do you recognise this feeling?”

“I know rather more about this whole business than you think,” Mihály said quietly.

Waldheim suddenly looked at him in surprise.

“Eh, you say that in a strange voice, old chap! And you’ve gone so pale! What’s wrong with you? Come out on to the balcony.”

Out on the balcony Mihály recovered himself in an instant.

“What is this, damn you?” said Waldheim. “Are you hot? Or hysterical? You should consider that if you were to commit suicide under the influence of what I’ve said I shall deny that I ever knew you. What I am saying is of a completely theoretical significance. I really detest those people who like to draw practical conclusions from scholarly truths, who ‘apply learning to real life’, like engineers who turn the propositions of chemistry into insecticides for bedbugs. It translates, in Goethe’s words, as: ‘life is grey, but the golden tree of theory is always green’. Especially when the theory itself is still as green as this is. Now I hope I’ve restored your equilibrium. Here’s a general rule … don’t try to live the life of the soul. I think that’s your problem. An intelligent person doesn’t have a spiritual life. And tomorrow you must come with me to the garden party at the American Institute of Archaeology. You’ll have a bit of fun. Now go to hell, I’ve still got work to do.”

XVI

THE AMERICAN ARCHAEOLOGICAL INSTITUTE occupied a resplendent building set in a large garden on the Gianicolo hill. Its annual garden party was a major event in the social calendar of Rome’s Anglo-Saxon community. Its organisers were not just the American Archaeologists, but more importantly the American painters and sculptors living in Rome, and the guests all those closely or loosely connected with them. It was always a particularly varied and particularly interesting group of people who assembled on the night.

But Mihály experienced little of the variety and interest of the company. He was again in that state of mind in which everything seemed to reach him through a veil of fog — the scented enchantment of the summer night, blending with the dance-music, the drinks and the women he chatted to, he had no idea about what. His Pierrot costume and his domino mask and cape completely distanced him. It wasn’t himself there, but someone else, a dream-locked domino mask.

The hours passed in a pleasant daze. The night was now much advanced, and he stood once more on top of the grassy hillock under the umbrella pine, listening to those strange inexplicable voices which had troubled him again and again in the course of the evening.