The Other Side Read online

  More and more I felt the common bond uniting everything. Colours, scents, sounds and tastes were interchangeable. I came to see that behind the world was the power of the imagination: imagination is power. Wherever I went and whatever I did, I made every effort to intensify my joys and my sorrows while secretly laughing at both, knowing, as I did, that it is by swinging to and fro that the pendulum creates balance. And it is at the farthest, most violent swings that it makes itself most clearly felt.

  Once I saw the world as a kind of carpet, a riot of colour in which the most surprising contrasts merged into a greater harmony. Another time I was looking down onto an immeasurable filigree of shapes and forms. In the darkness I was engulfed in a sonorous symphony in which natural sounds, from the gentlest to the most grandiloquent, combined in clearly intelligible chords. Even quite new sensations I grasped with instinctive assurance. I remember one morning when I felt as if I were the centre of an elementary numerical system. I felt abstract, as if I were a fluctuating point of equilibrium, a feeling I have never experienced again.

  Now I understood Patera, the Lord, the colossal Master. Now I was one of those who laughed loudest at the great farce, without losing my ability to tremble with the tormented victims. I was a tribunal that observed everything, and I realised that basically nothing happened. Patera was everywhere, I saw him in the eyes of friend and foe alike, in animals, plants and stones. His imagination, the pulse of the Dream Realm, throbbed in everything that was. And yet I still found things foreign within me. To my horror I found that my ‘self was composed of countless ‘selves’, each one lurking behind the other, each one seeming bigger and more taciturn than the one in front. The last ones disappeared in the shadows, beyond my comprehension. Each of these selves had ideas of its own. From the point of view of organic life, for example, the concept of death as the end was correct, but on a higher plane of understanding the individual did not exist, so that there was nothing to come to an end.

  The rhythmic throb of Patera’s pulse was everywhere. Insatiable in his imaginative power, he wanted everything at once: the thing and its opposite, the world and the void. That was why his creatures swung to and fro as they did. The world they created by their imagination had to be wrested from the void and then serve as a base from which to conquer the void. The void was unyielding and resisted, but the imagination started to hum and buzz, shapes, sounds, colours, smells emerged in all their variety and the world was there. But the void returned to eat up all creation, the world turned dull and pale, life fell silent, rusted away, disintegrated, was dead once more, a lifeless void. Then it all started from the beginning again. That explained how everything fitted together, how a cosmos was possible. It was all terribly shot through with pain. The higher one grew, the deeper the roots one had to have. If I want joy, that means I want sorrow too. Nothing, or everything.

  The primal source must lie in the imagination and in the void; perhaps they are one. Once you have grasped its rhythm, you can work out more or less how long your torment or sorrow might last. Unreason and contradiction have to be accepted as part of life. When my house burns down it is both flame and calamity. The victim can comfort himself with the thought that both are imagined. It was the same for Patera, who won on both sides.

  Through their related pulse I also came to understand lower forms of life. I could tell: this cat has had a poor night’s sleep, that goldfinch is thinking nasty thoughts. Now these reflections within me governed everything I did. The noise of the outside world had kept on lashing my nerves until they were sensitised and ripe for my experiences in the Dream Realm.

  At the end of this development man as an individual disappears, is no longer needed. This path leads to the stars.

  III: The Confusion of the Dream

  That night I went to sleep with momentous thoughts in my mind. Rather less momentous was the dream I had, but it was so strange I feel I must recount it here. I saw myself standing by the great river, looking across longingly at the Outer Settlement, which appeared more extensive and picturesque than it was in reality. As far as the eye could see was a confusion of bridges, towers, windmills, jagged peaks, all interspersed and interconnected, as in a mirage. Large and small, fat and thin figures were moving around in the chaos. As I looked across, I could sense the miller standing behind my back. ‘I killed him’, he whispered and tried to push me into the water. To my astonishment my left leg lengthened until I could step into the seething throng on the other side with no trouble at all. Now I heard ticking all round me and saw a large number of flat clocks of all sizes, from a clock for a tower, to a kitchen clock and right down to the tiniest pocket-watch. They had short, stumpy legs and were crawling all over each other in the meadow like tortoises, ticking excitedly. A man dressed in soft green leather and wearing a cap like a white sausage was sitting in a tree bare of leaves, catching fish in the air. Those he caught he hung on the branches and they dried in an instant. An old fellow with an abnormally large trunk and short legs approached; apart from a pair of grubby drill workman’s trousers, he was naked. He had two long vertical rows of nipples; I counted eighteen. With a great deal of huffing and puffing he filled his lungs full of air, now the left side of his breast swelling up, now the right, and then, with his fingers running up and down the eighteen nipples, he played the most delightful accordion pieces. At the same time he moved in time with the rhythm like a dancing bear as he let the air out. Finally he stopped, blew his nose on his hands and threw them away. Then he grew an enormous beard and disappeared in the tangle of hair. In a thicket nearby I disturbed some fat pigs. They ran away from me in single file, getting smaller and tinier until, with loud squeals, they disappeared in a mouse-hole by the road.

  Behind me”- it made me feel uncomfortable–the miller was sitting by the river studying a huge sheet of newspaper. After he had read it and eaten it up, smoke came pouring out of his ears. He turned the colour of copper, stood up and clutched his sagging paunch with both hands, all the time tearing up and down the bank, sending fierce looks in all directions and emitting shrill whistles. Finally he fell in a heap on the ground, turned pale, his body growing light and transparent so that one could clearly see two little railway trains whizzing round his entrails. Each seemed to be trying to catch the other as they shot like lightning round one loop of his gut after another. With a shake of the head and somewhat taken aback, I was about to offer to help the miller when my words were cut off by a chimpanzee planting out a circular garden round me at top speed from which thick clusters of fat, apple-green steins like giant asparagus shot up out of the damp ground. I was afraid I was going to be trapped within this living fence, but before I really knew what was happening, I was liberated. In his convulsions, the dead miller, now no longer transparent, had laid a ring of hundreds of thousands of little milky white eggs, from which legions of slugs emerged and at once devoured their procreator. A pungent smell of smoked meat spread, causing the fleshy stalks to decay and collapse. In the distance the Outer Settlement disappeared in a web of shimmering violet threads.

  I noticed a huge shell lying conveniently by the bank of the river, like a rocky reef, and jumped onto it. Another disaster! Straining with the motion, the shell opened and the business became precarious. Inside I could see quivering heaps of gelatinous matter and … I woke up.

  Part Three: The Decline

  and Fall of the Dream Realm

  Chapter 1: The Adversary

  I

  Everyone was talking about Hercules Bell from Philadelphia. A millionaire and liberal with his wealth, he almost literally flooded the Dream Realm with gold. He must have been horrified at the ramshackle state of our currency. He came to an understanding with Alfred Blumenstich and we soon realised that the country’s finances had been put on a new footing. No one would accept paper money any more and it was no use trying to pay with the old copper coins covered in verdigris, they were no longer legal tender, either. The immediate result of this reform was an increase in lavish ex
penditure; Pearl was gripped by a frenzy of mindless extravagance. Day after day the rich put on luxurious banquets and the common people crammed together in the bars, a boozing, sweaty mass. And everywhere they drank to the ‘American’, as he was known, toasting his open-handed generosity.

  Autumn was approaching. Happy at the spiritual clarity I had achieved, I allowed myself some time off for relaxation. The American had set up his headquarters in the Blue Goose where, for an enormous sum, he had rented the whole of the first floor. One evening, in order to see him, I put on my best bib and tucker and went to the hotel restaurant. There I found Castringius already present, with Hector von Brendel. I was to see my fellow artist from a new side.

  In the many months during which I had not seen him, Castringius had made the acquaintance of Baron von Brendel. The artist rolled his eyes as he recognised me but, to my surprise, behaved in a very reserved, aloof manner. He gave a curt and somewhat chilly response to my greeting, as if he only had a vague idea who I was, and immediately turned away.

  ‘What’s got into him?’ I wondered. ‘I’ve never insulted him and up to now he’s usually been the one forcing his company on me. We can’t have seen each other for almost … what? Four months it must be. Odd.’

  I was genuinely pleased to find Brendel there. He was studying the menu and didn’t see me come in, but when he did notice me he jumped up and warmly invited me to join him at his table. At first Castringius raised his eyebrows in surprise but quickly realised what the situation was. His arrogance vanished and he held out his ship’s propeller to me. The fact of the matter was that Castringius had no idea I had long been intimate with Brendel and he wanted to keep dear Hector for himself. Since that had turned out to be impossible, he accepted things as they were; he was a genius at adaptation. When he left the table for a short while Brendel immediately started to moan about this new friend who kept a jealous eye on his every step. He would accompany him to all his rendezvous and then insist, ‘That was fine, he could always wait somewhere in the vicinity’. Now and then Brendel employed the artist as go-between in his affairs of the heart but even there he had an idiosyncratic way of carrying out his commissions. ‘I’ll be stuck with him for ever’, he sighed. ‘And he’s so incredibly hail-fellow-well-met! Ah well, you live and learn.’

  ‘Yes, there you have a true artist’, I said with a laugh.

  Things got quite merry that evening. Brendel ordered champagne, at which Castringius gave me a patronising pat on the thigh and said, ‘How about that, then?’ little knowing that alcohol was a matter of complete indifference to me, in whatever shape or form.

  It was noisy in the hall next door. We could hear speeches and applause; the American had called a meeting. ‘I’m going to sort out this Dream Realm once and for all’, he was said to have vowed. Later I saw him as he went out through the restaurant. I will never forget my first sight of him. In the doorway there appeared a man in his early forties, short and with massive shoulders. His features seemed to be a combination of bull and eagle, and everything was just slightly asymmetrical: a hook nose pushed to one side, a pronounced chin and a high, narrow, very angular forehead gave his head a kind of twisted recklessness. His black hair was thinning on top. He was wearing tails. He passed our table with short, springy steps. Castringius gave him a deferential, ‘Good evening’, and was rewarded with a curt nod. The American had attracted the attention of the whole restaurant.

  ‘Now that man’, Nicholas Castringius mused as he watched him leave. ‘If one could only get at him, money to burn. And Patera’s sworn enemy, our editor told me that.’ As he spoke he was refilling his glass. With a sceptical laugh Brendel clinked glasses with him, saying, ‘Well, here’s to him then, and to you.’

  With every glass Castringius became more expansive. When the gypsy band with the cimbalom turned up he cracked nuts with his teeth, slapped himself on his woolly negro curls and called out to the leader, ‘Look, here’s the man with lion’s teeth.’ At Brendel’s look of astonishment he said, ‘A good friend of mine. Shall I invite him over?’ Brendel said I should decide, seeing that I was there too, but I thought the gypsy violinist was dreadful. Then we heard the hubbub of the meeting again, drowned out by the American’s stentorian voice.

  Looking round, I saw an old friend, Professor Korntheuer. Splendidly attired in a light-coloured silk waistcoat and a cravat that enveloped his chin, the old gentleman was sitting in an alcove with a bottle of burgundy in front of him. I got up and went over to say hello. He looked as if he had something to celebrate and offered me a seat. ‘Just for a moment’, I said. ‘Have you had some good news?’

  ‘Oh, my dear sir, you have no idea. Today is a great day. I’ve got her, she’s mine!’ There was an ecstatic gleam in his honest eyes. ‘It’s ten years now I’ve been looking for her and at last I’ve found her. You’ve no idea what that means to an old man like me. It’s like an elixir of youth! It’s put life back into these weary old limbs! Now Acarina Felicitas will never leave my side.’

  I congratulated him. (‘One last fling?’ I wondered. ‘Well well, I’d never have believed it of such a dignified old gentleman. A chorus girl from the music hall, I suppose? There might well be one or two quite nice ones among them.’)

  ‘Why didn’t you bring her along, then?’ I asked, feeling sorry for the old man. (‘She’ll squeeze every last penny out of him’, I thought.)

  ‘But I have, I have!’ he exclaimed, taking a little box covered in silver paper out of his jacket pocket.

  ‘A photograph? A locket? May I have a look?’

  ‘No. My darling Acarina Felicitas herself. There she is, sitting in the corner.’

  Now I understood. Crouched there in the box was a tiny, dirty grey insect, the blasted dust-louse.

  In my Father’s house are many mansions.

  As we were leaving I asked the hotel-owner if he knew what it was that had been decided next door with such noisy acclamation.

  ‘Yes, I can tell you that’, he said with a mysterious air. ‘This evening a Lucifer Club was founded.’

  Castringius, lit up almost to the gills, tried to drag us round to Mine Adrienne’s, but we declined. ‘Then one will just have to put on a solo performance’, he said, turned his coat inside out and swaggered off in stately fashion, the lining on the outside. His last words were, ‘Good night, little boys, make sure you get home before bedtime.’

  II

  The rich American became more and more the centre of attention. Every afternoon he galloped down Long Street on a black stallion. From the café we could see the sneer of contempt on his face as the pale Dreamlanders scuttled into nooks and doorways to get out of the way of this ruthless horseman. At the bathing pool he dismounted, undressed, then plunged into the water on horseback. The beast shied and reared, but the athletic American mastered it with ease. After one such dip he came to our coffee house and ordered several drinks, none of which was obtainable here. He swore at this, but finally calmed down a little over a glass of grog. His satanic profile was right in front of me, giving me the opportunity of observing him from close to. ‘An extremely dangerous individual’, was the conclusion that imposed itself on me. A short pipe seemed to be plumbed into his mouth, but he also had two huge cases with fat cigars in them. ‘Propaganda cheroots’ he called them himself. He offered them to everybody; if you took one you were already half-way to belonging to him. Then he would start on about his theories and his association. He was trying to recruit supporters in the coffee house too. The Lucifer Club, the association for social and political questions he had founded, had been given due welcome in the Voice; the official Gazette ignored it. He addressed us all and said a lot about what was happening in the world outside, constantly looking round, as if trying to gauge the impression he was making. I can still remember some of the things he said. ‘You need the sun, that’s what’s wrong with you, you fools! It serves you right if you waste your whole lives. Why don’t you do something about it? Look at me, that’s what
I think of your Patera’, and he spat on the floor then thumped the table with a scornful laugh. His audience cowered, presumably afraid a thunderbolt would immediately strike to punish such blasphemy. They lowered their eyes in embarrassment. Mine host hastily crossed himself several times, patted himself on the chest and muttered a few quick prayers. Anton crouched down by the stove, whispering, ‘Lord preserve us, Lord preserve us.’ The chess players were the only ones unmoved.

  The American, observing the effect of his speech, spat on the floor again, tossed a gold coin on the counter and strode out with an expression of contempt on his face.

  Even if he didn’t manage to get everyone on his side, he did stimulate political activity among the Dreamlanders and in this he probably did more damage than he intended. Groups and organisations started springing up like mushrooms, and they all had different aims: free elections, communism, the introduction of slavery, free love, direct contact with outside countries, stricter isolation, the abolition of border controls. The most disparate movements appeared and religious factions formed as Catholics, Jews, Mohammedans and freethinkers each banded together. The inhabitants of Pearl split up into societies, often with no more than three members, based on a wide variety of political, commercial and intellectual points of view.

  This seething ant-hill of clubbery was not the kind of activity the American had expected to stir up. ‘You’re useless’, he was heard to say on several occasions, ‘you’re nothing but shadows with no common sense or backbone, and what little brain you have has been completely taken in by all that humbug.’