Meetings With Remarkable Men Page 4

  ‘But while, in this “faithful wife of a European husband”, morality continued to triumph, there was nourished in this loathsome contemporary type, in proportion to the non-satisfaction of his lust, the desire for vengeance usual in such people; and by all sorts of intrigues he succeeded in getting her dismissed from her employment for no reason whatsoever. Then, when her husband, my young friend, had finished his book and published it, this specific ulcer of our times, because of his resentment, began to write in the newspaper to which he contributed, and also in other newspapers and periodicals, a whole series of articles containing all sorts of false statements, which discredited the book so completely that it was a total failure—that is to say, no one became interested in it or bought it.

  ‘And so, thanks to one of these unconscionable representatives of this unprincipled literature, things came to such a pass that this honest worker and his beloved wife, having spent their last resources and not having even the wherewithal to buy bread, by mutual pact; hanged themselves.

  ‘From my point of view, these literary critics, owing to the influence of their authority as writers on the general mass of naive and easily suggestible people, are a thousand times more pernicious than all the slobbering boy-reporters.

  ‘I myself knew a music critic who had never once in his life touched a musical instrument, and therefore had no practical understanding of music: he did not even know what sound was in general, or the difference between the notes “do” and “re” But, owing to the established abnormalities of contemporary civilization, he somehow occupied the responsible post of music critic, and thus became an authority for all the readers of a well-established and widely circulated newspaper. And it was, of course, according to his quite illiterate indications that unshakeable opinions were formed in all his readers on the question of music—that question which should in reality be like a beacon light for the correct understanding of one of the aspects of truth.

  ‘The public never knows who is writing; it knows only the newspaper itself, which belongs to a group of experienced business men.

  ‘What the person writing in these papers really knows, or what is going on behind the scenes in the newspaper office, the readers never know, but take everything written in the papers at its face value.

  ‘According to my conviction, which has finally become as fir. as a rock—and anyone thinking more or less impartially will come to the same conclusion—it is chiefly owing to this journalistic literature that any man who tries to develop by the means available in contemporary civilization acquires a thinking faculty adequate, at the very most, for “the first invention of Edison”, and in respect of emotionality develops in himself, as Mullah Nassr Eddin would say, “the fineness of feeling of a cow”.

  ‘The leaders of contemporary civilization themselves, standing on a very low level of moral and psychic development, are incapable, like children playing with fire, of knowing the force and significance of the effect of such literature on the mass of the people.

  ‘According to my impression obtained from the study of ancient history, the leaders of former civilizations would never have allowed such an abnormality to continue for so long.

  ‘This opinion of mine may be confirmed by authentic information which has come down to us about the serious attitude towards daily literature taken by the rulers of our country not so long ago, in the period when it was considered one of the greatest nations, namely, when Great Babylon belonged to us and was the sole centre of culture recognized by everyone on earth.

  ‘According to this information, a daily press also existed there, in the form of what are called printed papyri, although of course in an incomparably smaller quantity than now. But at that time those who participated in such literary organs were only elderly and qualified persons, known to all for their serious merits and honourable lives; and there was even an established rule for appointing such men to these positions under oath, and they were therefore called sworn collaborators, just as now there are sworn juries, sworn experts and so on.

  ‘But nowadays any whipper-snapper can be a journalist, so long as he knows how to express himself prettily and, as is said, literarily.

  ‘I became particularly well acquainted with the psyche, and could in general evaluate the being, of these products of contemporary civilization who fill the newspapers and periodicals with their various wiseacrings, when for three or four months, in that same town of Baku, I happened to be present every day at their gatherings and to exchange opinions with them.

  ‘This occurred in the following circumstances:

  ‘Once, when I had gone to Baku with the intention of staying all winter with my nephew, several young persons came to him and asked his permission for their “New Society of Literati and Journalists” to hold meetings in one of the large rooms on the ground floor of his house, in which he had originally intended to establish a restaurant. My nephew at once gave his consent, and from the next day on these young people assembled, chiefly in the evenings, for their, as they called them, general meetings and learned debates.

  ‘Outsiders were admitted to these meetings and I often went to listen to their discussions, as I was quite free in the evenings and my quarters were very near the room where they assembled. Soon several of them began to converse with me and friendly relations were gradually established between us.

  ‘Most of them were still quite young, weak and effeminate, and the faces of some showed clearly that their parents must have been drunkards or had suffered from other passions through will-lessness, or that the possessors themselves of these faces had various bad habits concealed from others.

  ‘Although Baku is only a small town in comparison with most of the large cities of today, and although the contemporary types who were assembled there represented, at the most, “low-flying birds”, I have no hesitation in generalizing about all their colleagues everywhere. And I feel I have the right to do this, because later, when travelling in Europe, I often happened to come in contact with the representatives of this modern literature, and they all made the same impression on me, resembling one another like peas in a pod.

  ‘The only difference between them was in the degree of their importance, depending upon which literary organs they contributed to, that is, depending upon the reputation and circulation of the newspaper or periodical in which their wiseacrings found a place, or upon the soundness of the commercial firm which owned both the given organ and all of them—the literary workmen.

  ‘Many of them, for some reason or other, are called poets. At the present time anywhere in Europe anyone who writes even a short piece of nonsense—of the order ofGreen roses

  Purple mimosas

  Divine are her poses

  Like hanging memories

  and so on—is awarded the appellation of poet by those around him; and some of them even engrave this title on their visiting-cards.

  ‘Among these contemporary journalists and writers, esprit de corps is somehow highly developed, and they strongly support and immoderately extol one another on all occasions.

  ‘It seems to me that this feature of theirs is the chief cause of their spreading sphere of influence and of their false authority over the masses, and also of the unconscious and servile adulation with which the crowd bows down before these nullities, as with a clear conscience one can call them.

  ‘At the meetings in Baku which I have mentioned, one of them would go on to the platform and begin to read something of the order of the verses I have just quoted, or speak about why the minister of some nation had expressed himself during a banquet concerning some question or other in such a way and not otherwise; and then the lecturer would in most cases finish his speech by making an announcement more or less as follows:

  ‘ “I now yield the platform to an incomparable luminary of the learning of our time, Mr. So-and-so, who by chance has come to our city on particularly important business and has been so kind as not to refuse to come to our meeting today. We will now have the
privilege of listening to his enchanting voice with our own ears.”

  ‘And when this celebrity would appear on the platform he would begin his speech with these words:

  ‘ “My dear ladies and gentlemen, my colleague has been so modest as to call me a celebrity.” (It must be said here that he could not have heard what his colleague had said, since he had come in from another room to which the door had been closed, and he had opened it himself when he came in, and I knew very well the accoustics in that house and the solidity of the doors.)

  ‘Then he would continue:

  ‘ “As a matter of fact, in comparison with him I am not worthy even to sit in his presence.

  ‘ “The celebrity is not I, but he—he is known not only everywhere in all our great Russia, but throughout the whole civilized world. Posterity will pronounce his name with palpitation, and no one will ever forget what he has done for learning and the future welfare of mankind.

  ‘ “This god of truth is at present in this insignificant town not by chance, as it may appear to us, but doubtless for very important reasons known only to himself.

  ‘ “In reality his place is not among us but beside the ancient gods of Olympus”, and so on and so forth.

  ‘And only after such a preamble would this new celebrity pronounce several absurdities, as for example on the theme: Why the Sirikitsi Made War on the Parnakalpi.

  ‘After these learned sessions, suppers were always served, with two bottles of cheap wine; and many hid in their pockets some bit of hors-d’œuvre, either a piece of sausage or a herring with a piece of bread, and if by chance anyone else noticed this they would usually say: “This is for my dog—the rascal already has the habit—always expects something when I return home late.”

  ‘On the day after these suppers an account of the meeting always appeared in all the local papers, written in an incredibly pompous style; and the speeches were more or less accurately quoted, but of course no mention was made of the modesty of the supper or of the making-off with a piece of sausage for the dog.

  ‘Such are the people who write in the papers about all sorts of “truths” and scientific discoveries, and the naive reader, who does not see them or know their lives, draws his conclusions about events and ideas from the empty words of these writers, who are neither more nor less than ill, inexperienced and “illiterate”, as far as human life is concerned.

  ‘In all the cities of Europe, with very few exceptions, the writers of books or newspaper articles are just such immature scatter-brains, who have become what they are owing chiefly to their heredity and their specific weaknesses.

  ‘From my point of view there can be no doubt whatsoever that of all the causes of the many abnormalities of contemporary civilization, the principal and most obvious one is this same journalistic literature, owing to its demoralizing and pernicious effect on the psyche of people. It astonishes me extremely that not a single government, among all the peoples of contemporary civilization, has ever become aware of this, and that not one of them, although expending more than half of what are called the government revenues on the maintenance of police, prisons, judicial establishments, churches, hospitals, etc., and on paying numerous civil employees, such as priests, physicians, agents of the secret police, public prosecutors, propagandists, and the like, for the sole purpose of maintaining the fidelity and morality of its citizens, spends a single cent on undertaking something or other in order to destroy at its root this obvious cause of many crimes and misunderstandings.’

  Thus ended the speech of this elderly, intelligent Persian.

  And so, my brave reader, who is perhaps already standing with one foot in galoshes, as I have finished with this speech—which I tacked on here only because, from my point of view, the ideas expressed in it could be very instructive and useful, especially for those adorers of contemporary civilization who naively consider it immeasurably higher than former civilizations in respect of the perfecting of human reason—I can now conclude this introduction and pass on to the reworking of the material intended for this series of my writings.

  In beginning to rewrite this material with the intention of giving it a form as understandable as possible and accessible to all, the thought has arisen in me that this work of mine should also be carried out in accordance with a very sensible counsel for living often employed by our great Mullah Nassr Eddin and expressed by him thus: ‘Always and in everything strive to attain at the same time what is useful for others and what is pleasant for oneself.’

  As regards carrying out the first half of this very sensible counsel of our wise teacher, I have nothing to be concerned about, since the ideas I intend to introduce in this series will themselves abundantly fulfil it. But as regards what is pleasant for myself, this I wish to attain by giving to the pre-designated material a form of exposition which, from now on, will make my existence in some respects more bearable among the people who meet me than the one I had before my activity as a writer.

  In order that you may understand what I wish to convey by the expression ‘bearable existence’, it must be said that, after all my travels in those countries of the continents of Asia and Africa which for some reason or other in the last fifty years have come to interest many people, I have long been reputed to be a sorcerer and an expert in ‘questions of the beyond’.

  And in consequence of this, everyone who met me considered that he had the right to disturb me for the satisfaction of his idle curiosity concerning these questions of the beyond, or to compel me to relate something or other of my personal life or some incident of my travels.

  And no matter how tired I might be, I was obliged to answer something, as otherwise people became offended, and feeling ill-disposed towards me, would always, whenever my name was mentioned, say something to harm my activities and belittle my significance.

  That is why, in revising the material destined for this series, I have decided to present it in the form of separate independent tales, and to insert in them various ideas which can serve as answers to all the questions often put to me, so that if I should again have to deal with these shameless idlers, I may simply refer them to this or that chapter, whereby they can satisfy their automatic curiosity. And this, at the same time, will give me the possibility of conversing with some of them merely by the flow of associations, as is habitual to them, and will also sometimes provide a necessary breathing-space for my active thinking which is inevitably required in the conscious and conscientious fulfilment of my life obligations.

  Of the questions often put to me by people of various classes and different degrees of ‘informedness’, the following, as I recall, recurred most frequently:What remarkable men have I met?

  What marvels have I seen in the East?

  Has man a soul and is it immortal?

  Is the will of man free?

  What is life, and why does suffering exist?

  Do I believe in the occult and spiritualistic sciences?

  What are hypnotism, magnetism, and telepathy?

  How did I become interested in these questions?

  What led me to my system, practised in the Institute bearing

  my name?

  So I shall now arrange this series in separate chapters, serving as answers to the first of the enumerated questions, namely, ‘What remarkable men have I met?’ I will distribute in the separate tales about these meetings, according to a principle of logical sequence, all the ideas and thoughts that I intend to make known in this series in order that they may serve as preparatory constructive material, and at the same time I will answer all the other questions often asked me. Furthermore, I shall arrange these separate tales in such an order that, among other things, there may stand out distinctly the outline of my, as it were, autobiography.

  Before going further, I consider it necessary to explain exactly the expression ‘a remarkable man’, since like all expressions for definite notions it is always understood among contemporary people in a relative, that is a purely subjective, sen
se.

  For example, a man who does tricks is for many people a remarkable man, but even for them he ceases to be remarkable as soon as they learn the secret of his tricks.

  As a definition of who may be considered and called remarkable, I will simply say, for the present, to cut a long story short, to what men I personally apply this expression.

  From my point of view, he can be called a remarkable man who stands out from those around him by the resourcefulness of his mind, and who knows how to be restrained in the manifestations which proceed from his nature, at the same time conducting himself justly and tolerantly towards the weaknesses of others.

  Since the first such man I knew—whose influence left its trace on the whole of my life—was my father, I shall begin with him.

  II

  MY FATHER

  MY FATHER WAS WIDELY KNOWN, during the final decades of the last century and the beginning of this one, as an ashokh, that is, a poet and narrator, under the nickname of ‘Adash’; and although he was not a professional ashokh but only an amateur, he was in his day very popular among the inhabitants of many countries of Transcaucasia and Asia Minor.

  Ashokh was the name given everywhere in Asia and the Balkan peninsula to the local bards, who composed, recited or sang poems, songs, legends, folk-tales, and all sorts of stories.

  In spite of the fact that these people of the past who devoted themselves to such a career were in most cases illiterate, having not even been to an elementary school in their childhood, they possessed such a memory and such alertness of mind as would now be considered remarkable and even phenomenal.

  They not only knew by heart innumerable and often very lengthy narratives and poems, and sang from memory all their various melodies, but when improvising in their own, so to say, subjective way, they hit upon the appropriate rhymes and changes of rhythm for their verses with astounding rapidity.