ink. But when you died, when the early mornings and late evenings became especially unbearable, then,
with a pitiful, feverish eagerness, the awareness of which would bring tears to my own eyes, I would
continue the work for which I knew no one would come, and for that very reason that task seemed to
me appropriate—its spectral, intangible nature, the lack of aim or reward would lead me away to a
realm akin to the one in which, for me, you exist, my ghostly goal, my darling, such a darling earthly
creation, for which no one will ever come anywhere; and since everything kept distracting me, fobbing
upon me the paint of temporality instead of the graphic design of eternity, tormenting me with your
tracks on the beach, with the stones on the beach, with your blue shadow on the loathsome bright
beach, I decided to return to our lodging in Paris and settle down to work seriously. Ultima Thule, that
island born in the desolate, gray sea of my heartache for you, now attracted me as the home of my least
expressible thoughts.
However/ before leaving the Riviera, I absolutely had to see Falter. This was the second solace I
had invented for myself. I managed to convince myself that he was not simply a lunatic after all, that not
only did he believe in the discovery he had made, but that this very discovery was the source of his
madness, and not vice versa. I learned that he had moved to an apartment next to my pension. I also
learned that his health was flagging; that when the flame of life had gone out in him it had left his body
without supervision and without incentive; that he would probably die soon. I learned, finally, and this
was especially important to me, that lately, in spite of his failing strength, he had grown unusually
talkative and for days on end would treat his visitors (and alas, a different kind of curiosity-seeker than I
got through to him) to speeches in which he caviled at the mechanics of human thought, oddly
meandering speeches, exposing nothing, but almost Socratic in rhythm and sting. I offered to visit him,
but his brother-in-law replied that the poor fellow enjoyed any diversion, and had the strength to reach
my house.
And so they arrived—that is, the brother-in-law in his inevitable shabby black suit, his wife
Eleonora (a tall, taciturn woman, whose clear-cut sturdiness recalled the former frame of her brother,
and now served as a kind of living lesson to him, an adjacent moralistic picture), and Falter himself,
whose appearance shocked me, even though I was prepared to see him changed. How can I express it?
Mr. L. had said that he looked as if his bones had been removed; I, on the other hand, had the
impression that his soul had been extracted but his mind intensified tenfold in recompense. By this I
mean that one look at Falter was sufficient to understand that one need not expect from him any of the
human feelings common in everyday life, that Falter had utterly lost the knack of loving anyone, of
feeling pity, if only for himself, of experiencing kindness and, on occasion, compassion for the soul of
another, of habitually serving, as best he could, the cause of good, if only that of his own standard, just
as he had lost the knack of shaking hands or using his handkerchief. And yet he did not strike one as a
madman—oh, no, quite the contrary! In his oddly bloated features, in his unpleasant, satiated gaze,
even in his flat feet, shod no longer in fashionable Oxfords but in cheap espadrilles, one could sense
some concentrated power, and this power was not in the least interested in the flabbiness and
inevitable decay of the flesh that it squeamishly controlled.
His attitude toward me now was not that of our last brief encounter, but that which I
remembered from the days of our youth, when he would come to coach me. No doubt he was perfectly
aware that, chronologically, a quarter of a century had passed since those days, and yet as though along
with his soul he had lost his sense of time (without which the soul cannot live), he obviously regarded
me—a matter not so much of words, but of his whole manner—as if it had all been yester day; yet he
had no sympathy, no warmth whatever for me—nothing, not even a speck of it.
They seated him in an armchair, and he spread his limbs strangely, as a chimpanzee might do
when his keeper makes him parody a Syb arite in a recumbent position. His sister settled down to her
knitting, and during the whole course of the conversation did not once raise her short-haired gray head.
Her husband took two newspapers—a local one, and one from Marseilles—out of his pocket, and was
also silent. Only when Falter, noticing a large photograph of you that happened to be standing right in
his line of sight, asked where were you hiding did Mr. L. say, in the loud, artificial voice people use to
address the deaf, and without looking up from his newspaper: «Come, you know perfectly well she is
dead.»
«Ah, yes,» remarked Falter with inhuman unconcern, and, address ing me, added, «Oh well, may
the kingdom of heaven be hers—isn’t that what one is supposed to say in society?»
Then the following conversation began between us; total recall, rather than shorthand notes,
now allows me to transcribe it exactly.
«I wanted to see you, Falter,» I said (actually addressing him by first name and patronymic, but,
in narration, his timeless image does not tolerate any conjunction of the man with a definite country
and a genetic past), «I wanted to see you in order to have a frank talk with you. I wonder if you would
consider it possible to ask your relatives to leave us alone.»
«They do not count,» abruptly observed Falter. «When I say ‘frank,’ » I went on, «I presuppose
the reciprocal possibility of asking no matter what questions, and the readiness to answer them. But
since it is I who shall ask the questions, and expect answers from you, everything depends upon your
consent to be straightforward; you do not need that assurance from me.»
«To a straightforward question I shall give a straightforward an- swer,» said Falter.
«In that case allow me to come right to the point. We shall ask Mr. and Mrs. L. to step outside
for a moment, and you will tell me verba- tim what you told the Italian doctor.» «Well, I’ll be damned,»
said Falter.
«You cannot refuse me this. In the first place, the information won’t kill me—this I guarantee
you; I may look tired and seedy but don’t you worry, I still have enough strength left. In the second
place, I promise to keep your secret to myself, and even to shoot myself, if you like, immediately after
learning it. You see, I allow that my loquac- ity may bother you even more than my death. Well, do you
agree?» «I refuse absolutely,» replied Falter, and swept away a book from the table next to him to make
room for his elbow. «For the sake of somehow starting our talk, I shall temporarily ac-cept your refusal.
Let us proceed ab ovo. Now then, Falter, I under-stand that the essence of things has been revealed to
you.» «Yes, period,» said Falter.
«Agreed—you will not tell me about it; nevertheless, I draw two important deductions: things do
have an essence, and this essence can be revealed to the mind.»
Falter smiled. «Only do not call them deductions, mister. They are but flag stops. Logical
reasoning may be a most convenient means of mental communication for covering short distances, but
the curvature of the earth, alas, is reflected even in logic: an ideally rational progres-sion of thought will
finally bring you back to the point of departure where you return aware of the simplicity of genius, with
a delightful sensation that you have embraced truth, while actually you have merely embraced your own
self. Why set out on that journey, then? Be content with the formula: the essence of things has been
revealed— wherein, incidentally, a blunder of yours is already present; I cannot explain it to you, since
the least hint at an explanation would be a lethal glimpse. As long as the proposition remains static, one
does not notice the blunder. But anything you might term a deduction already exposes the flaw: logical
development inexorably becomes an envelopment.»
«All right, for the present I shall be content with that much. Now allow me a question. When a
hypothesis enters a scientist’s mind, he checks it by calculation and experiment, that is, by the mimicry
and the pantomime of truth. Its plausibility infects others, and the hypothesis is accepted as the true
explanation for the given phenomenon, until someone finds its faults. I believe the whole of science
consists of such exiled or retired ideas: and yet at one time each of them boasted high rank; now only a
name or a pension is left. But in your case, Falter, I suspect that you have found some different method
of discovery and test. May I call it ‘revelation’ in the theological sense?»
«You may not,» said Falter.
«Wait a minute. Right now I am interested not so much in the method of discovery as in your
conviction that the result is true. In other words, either you have a method of checking the result, or the
awareness of its truth is inherent in it.»
«You see,» answered Falter, «in Indochina, at the lottery drawings, the numbers are extracted by
a monkey. I happen to be that monkey. Another metaphor: in a country of honest men a yawl was
moored at the shore, and it did not belong to anyone; but no one knew that it did not belong to anyone;
and its assumed appurtenance to someone rendered it invisible to all. I happened to get into it.
