The Riddle of Monte Verita Read online

  ‘“Let us admire the great masters, but let us not imitate them”,’ announced Lippi pompously, and paused to allow Pierre to identify the quotation.

  ‘Victor Hugo,’ said Pierre, calmly. ‘But all he did was to adopt an idea from Horace: “Virum magnum praecipio honore habemus, sed non imitamur”.’

  ‘Book II of the Epistles, correct?’

  Pierre nodded his head in approval.

  Lippi seemed impressed and Solange shot him a look of victory. They were in the little omnibus which was taking them to Ascona and the Italian, sitting in front of them, was half turned towards them in an elegant pose, his hand dangling elegantly across the adjacent seat.

  ‘Signora, I knew your husband to be an expert in Anglo-Saxon literature, but now I see he has conserved the tradition of the humanities.’

  He smiled broadly and bowed slightly. He expressed himself in perfect French, fluently but with a slightly pedantic hesitation: as if he constructed the more complicated sentences in Italian before carefully translating them.

  ‘I must confess, alas,’ he continued, ‘that I know far less about Edgar Allan Poe than you do about the Latin poets, and I am dying to hear what you have to say about the ingenious author of “Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque.” À-propos extraordinary tales…’ Here he adopted a sibylline air so as to arouse their interest. ‘… I don’t know if you are aware of the one about the strange place we’re going to, which bears the bizarre name of Monte Verita. Which means, dear lady, for those that do not speak Italian – .’

  ‘— The Mountain of Truth,’ snapped Solange, annoyed that anyone would doubt her linguistic capability.

  ‘My humble excuses. I should have realised it was self-evident.’

  Pierre intervened, mischievously.

  ‘“No truths are self-evident.”’

  Lippi raised a puzzled eyebrow.

  ‘Pascal?’ he offered.

  ‘Poe,’ replied Pierre, a note of reproach in his voice. The Italian shrugged his shoulders in a sign of helplessness and continued:

  ‘Well, anyway, getting back to the name Monte Verita, I wanted to add that it’s an anti-phrase, that is to say one containing a word in the opposite sense, given the mystery that surrounds this place. Since you know Poe better than I, you will readily realise that it’s a sort of Domain of Arnheim, even though the Albergo, thank goodness, is more comfortable than the house of Usher. There couldn’t be a better spot for us amateurs of puzzles and strange events.... ’

  ‘Here we go,’ thought Pierre. ‘This is what public speakers call the exordium, the enticing introduction. Next, he’ll dangle the fabula, the raw elements of the story. Once he’s got us hooked, unless I’m much mistaken, we’re supposed to implore him to tell us the whole tale.’

  ‘But I imagine,’ continued the professor with a perfect note of disdain, ‘that you didn’t come here to listen to the old wives’ tales of the region. In any case,’ he announced, looking out of the window, ‘it seems we’re nearly there, so….’

  ‘Oh, no, Professor!’ exclaimed Solange, stepping into the trap with both feet. ‘Please, be an angel and tell us the story.’

  Lippi put on an air of surprise and made them wait a few seconds in order for them to appreciate the favour he was about to bestow.

  ‘I warn you,’ he said after a suitable pause, ‘that it’s a very strange business that has never been properly explained and where it has proved impossible to determine what’s true and what’s false.

  ‘At the turn of this century these mountains, which at the time were deserted, attracted a small group of men from the north who were seeking a place where a new and happier society could blossom, based on an understanding of nature and a return to paganism. They established a small colony on a sunny outcrop situated between the black of the lake and the dark green of the pine forests and they called it Monte Verita. The men wore long hair, loose-fitting tunics and sandals; the women were draped in white fabric undulating freely in the manner of Isadora Duncan. They were vegetarians and lived in cabins, the better to remain in contact with the natural elements and they took air, sun and water baths. Innocuous stuff which represented little danger save that of ridicule which, unfortunately, is rarely fatal.

  ‘The leader of these gentle cranks was a sort of wise man named Henri Oedenkoven, a native of Anvers, a woolly-minded philosopher, self-taught, who had stuffed his head with esoteric theories. Well, this little man, who was one of life’s perpetual failures, called himself Rosenkreutz.”

  He paused a moment to allow the dramatic effect of the name to sink in. Needless to say Solange asked, in a tone rather more passionate than was necessary, who exactly was Rosenkreutz.

  ‘You’ve never heard of him?’ replied the professor, feigning astonishment. ‘Ask your husband.’

  ‘To the best of my knowledge,’ replied Pierre, ‘the chevalier Rosenkreutz was an imaginary figure dating from the turn of the seventeenth century in what is now Germany, and to whom we attribute the founding of the secret Order of Rosicrucians.’

  ‘Quite so,’ sneered Lippi. ‘So secret indeed that that nobody has ever been able to prove their existence. No follower has ever stepped forward to admit his membership in the brotherhood, because it is secret and real Rosicrucians must swear they do not, in fact, belong to the order. That means, ipso facto, that the one thing we can be certain about is that anyone who claims to be a member is almost certainly not. Consequently, not only is there no historical proof of the existence of the Rosicrucians, there can, by definition, never be one.’

  ‘Well, just imagine that!’ gasped Solange who, when it suited her, could play the nitwit to perfection.

  Lippi shot her a suspicious look but, reassured, continued:

  ‘Oedenkoven succeeded in persuading his followers that he was the reincarnation of Rosenkreutz, if not Rosenkreutz himself, and that they were the true inheritors of the original Rosicrucians. Immediately following the war, new disciples started to arrive: mystics, theosophists, followers of the traditional sciences and German visionaries who would later found the mysterious Thule Society that, we are told, played an occult yet decisive role in bringing Hitler to power.

  ‘They borrowed a number of rituals and signs from classical magic (perpetual flames, nocturnal ceremonies by torchlight, the symbol of the red rose at the centre of the swastika) and they developed a sort of theosophical doctrine that announced the coming of an Unknown Superior who would decide the destiny of the world. It goes without saying that none of their sacred texts could be divulged to the outside world. As far as we can make out from the little we know, they promised their members – those of pure blood and preferably German – that, once they reached the ultimate stage of their initiation, they would acquire supernatural powers, such as the ability to transform matter, to travel instantly in space, to make objects move at a distance and to pass through walls.’

  Pierre shrugged.

  ‘Typical rants to keep the sect happy.’

  ‘Yes, and that’s why I became interested in the matter. It goes with their existence just as with other human activities. They all conform to a model that one could characterise as fictional, or, to put it more crudely, they reproduce incessantly a story established in advance. They all feature blind obedience, initiation rituals and secret evocations. Each secret society decrees protocols that form the basis of worldwide revolution. In view of their prophetic nature and their extraordinary resemblance to secret societies of the past, one is led to conclude that they are the work of people with a full understanding of the traditions of past societies and who know how to reproduce their ideas and their styles. Most of the time there’s not much of note and they’re simply following the same narrative formula that determines the fate of sects, always being persecuted and always being reborn. All of which led me, in an article I’ve just written, to analyse their history and each of their episodes just as one would analyse a fictional text; in other words, by applying the same method that the s
pecialists of the narrative form apply to literature.’

  That was Professor Lippi’s big idea, which he had developed at great length in his works: that the world and the life of each individual had to be read the way novels were read; that reality and fiction obeyed the same narrative laws, so that from an analyst’s point of view it was practically impossible to distinguish one from the other. Pierre had a sneaking suspicion that he was in fact rehearsing his speech for the following day. He glanced at his wife, who was trying to suppress a yawn, and was about to suggest to the professor that they continue another time, when the other picked up the thread of his story.

  ‘Let us go back to Christian Rosenkreutz who was, as my excellent colleague has correctly observed, an imaginary figure, invented by a Protestant theologian who made him the hero of a novel written with the aim of ridiculing all sects. Here we have the opposite case: not reality read as fiction, but as fiction read as reality. This has given place to the well-known phenomenon, namely that of projecting the fictional world upon the real, in other words believing in the existence of fictional characters. The most famous examples of this phenomenon are the good people who believe that Edmond Dantes or Sherlock Holmes really lived and who visit the Chateau d’If or 221B Baker Street in the expectation of seeing some trace of their presence there. Well, good old Rosenkreutz, a fictional character who became an escapee into the real world, was reincarnated in poor Oedenkoven, who decided – or rather who was compelled by narrative necessity – to follow his destiny to the letter. The imaginary Rosenkreutz had ended his days entombed in a grotto; the real Rosenkreutz, or rather the one who saw himself thus, shut himself away in a natural cave that one can visit, not a hundred metres from the Albergo.

  ‘Those are the facts, as recorded in the police report; as the sect faced a growing hostility from the citizens of Ascona, the authorities in the canton resolved to put an end to the disturbances and ordered the members of the sect to leave the region without further delay. The Grand Master gathered his flock and announced that he would henceforth seal himself in the grotto, which served as the site of their underground ceremonies, to meditate and to pray to the telluric powers to help him find a solution. The faithful formed a cortege to the grotto’s entrance and saw him enter. Then, on a signal from him, they sealed the entrance with boulders. For three days and three nights they took turns standing guard outside. On the morning of the fourth day, having seen no sign of the Grand Master, several of the more audacious followers broke the seal and slipped into the grotto. They emerged in shock, shouting that they had found no one there. Others carefully combed the grotto which, as you will have already guessed, contained no other issue. I say “as you will have already guessed”, because you cannot have failed to notice that this true story reproduces in a quite remarkable way another celebrated fabula, even though, unlike the Saint Sepulchre, there was no angel inside the tomb to announce the Resurrection. It has always surprised me, incidentally, that no writer of detective fiction has ever thought to cite the account of the Evangelists as the very first example, eighteen centuries before Edgar Allan Poe, of an impossible disappearance from a hermetically sealed chamber.’

  He stopped after throwing that thinly-veiled barb and looked at each of them in turn, a malicious gleam in his eye. Pierre, who knew the professor to be an agnostic, felt he had gone rather too far with his allusion to the Evangelists, but he contented himself with a tight-lipped smile. Solange, feigning indifference, turned to look out of the window. The omnibus’s gearbox emitted a series of screeching protests as the driver navigated a series of hairpin bends in almost total darkness. Despite her attempts to appear relaxed, Pierre sensed that his wife was feeling a great deal of nervous tension, which in turn made him ill at ease. By the side of the road, under the overhanging trees, menacing shadows seemed to move. Lippi chuckled.

  ‘So sorry to have unnerved you. The end of the story is not quite so disturbing: the investigators’ verdict, naturally, found collective hallucination, or false testimony, or both; the community was dispersed and the affair was quietly buried, so to speak. Nobody ever saw the alleged Rosenkreutz again and he was assumed, until the next reincarnation at least, to have departed the land of the living. In 1925, Baron von der Heidt bought the land and built a modern hotel, with rooms and exhibition galleries, designed by a Bauhaus architect. His idea was to attract writers and artists. He retained the cabins of the cult members and transformed them into luxury bungalows equipped with every modern convenience. You’ll see what I mean. They’re scattered around the grounds of the hotel and that’s where most of our symposium colleagues are staying. That’s where we would have been as well, had we not judiciously chosen the more modern conveniences of the Grand Hotel. They’re actually quite disconcerting places to stay, particularly at night. Not that they’re haunted, despite the rumours, but they are isolated in the midst of the trees and they’re not for someone who fears being alone.

  ‘I think we’ve arrived!’ exclaimed Solange, a note of relief in her voice. Through the tops of the fir trees above them they could see twinkling lights and hear the sound of an orchestra playing Stompin’ at the Savoy. It was as if Solange had awakened from a bad dream. She fluttered her eyelashes, pressed herself against her husband, and whispered in his ear:

  ‘That story gave me the creeps. Will you dance with me, my darling?’

  ***

  The cocktail party took place on the terrace of the Albergo which stood more than a thousand feet above the oily black mass of the lake. Constellations of light from the streetlamps of nearby villages formed an arc like a scattering of pearls, and a light breeze from the lake floated up to the warmer heights, bringing an odour of stale water.

  Solange pressed herself harder against her husband. The orchestra was playing September Song, one of Pierre’s favourites, and he felt as if time were standing still. Many years later, when he tried to describe it, he would be unable to capture the colour of that evening – the vibrant nocturnal sounds and the moonlight in which everything would forever be bathed in his memory. He would have to turn to Poe for that: the atmosphere of fragile happiness hiding fears and premonitions – an oasis in arid times:

  Twas night in the lonesome September

  Of my most immemorial year…

  The trumpet sounded its last notes; he was vaguely aware of snatches of conversation and the occasional laugh above the tide of conversations. Already Professor Lippi was leaning over Solange and leading her towards an energetic jitterbug. Pierre was overcome by a wave of solitude and felt ridiculous standing there on the dance floor. He looked around. On the terrace, surrounded by palm trees, the waiters were circulating, carrying trays loaded with multicoloured drinks. Small tables lit with candles were scattered in the shadows and here and there the red tip of a cigarette could be seen. Some guests, seated in front of the long low line of the white concrete hotel, benefited from the light emanating from the salons and bars; he noticed, seated in a circle and obviously set apart from the rest, a group of men distinguished by their three-piece suits, whom he identified immediately as French academics. He recognised a few of them. They were the same faces that were to be seen at all the conferences – or at least those where the daily expenses were included in the invitation.

  He approached their table, greeted them and sat down without being asked. Since the little group consisted entirely of academics, most of whom were professors, Pierre could reasonably have anticipated an interesting discussion in agreeable surroundings. On the contrary, he was obliged to listen to conversations that had nothing to do with literary matters. In the place of gems of erudition and critical insight, all he heard were complaints about government grants and guesses about who would be elected to which academic post.

  After several years of purgatory in a provincial school, following his graduation from Normale Supérieure, Pierre Garnier had taken a university post, imagining life at the Sorbonne to consist of intellectual controversies and lengthy hair-splitti
ng discussions beneath the ancient school’s vaulted ceilings. But, their magnificent lectures aside, most of his colleagues could have been replaced by cost accountants or millinery salesmen without anyone noticing. Apart from the rare occasions when any of them turned up in the flesh for a class, they spent most of their time in interminable meetings where they decided complicated strategies for getting more assistants, or worked out subtle alliances for council votes, or sharpened old rivalries, or tried to find out what the dean of one faculty had said to the rector of another.

  Since his presence at the table had aroused very little interest, which did hurt him a little, there was nothing to prevent him slipping away to find the table where Lippi had taken Solange. He found, seated with them, two individuals he had never seen before. One was an Oxford academic whom one could have easily mistaken for a major in the Indian Army – with his solid frame, clipped blond moustache and plump rosy cheeks – were it not for his exhaustive and sometimes exhausting knowledge of the labyrinthine detective novels of Conan Doyle and Wilkie Collins. He was in the middle of a somewhat disdainful discussion with a small person with a round head and bulging eyes seated in front of him, back hunched and eyes blinking nervously. Lippi presented the former to Pierre as Professor George Harvey, and the latter as Professor Mikhaïl Mikhaïlovitch Prokosch, a Russian scholar exiled in Switzerland, disciple of Vladimir Propp and analyst of fairy tales. The man exuded poverty, with his sparse grey hair seemingly covered in dust and his threadbare suit obviously several sizes too large for him.