I know you agree with them, but still, I’d be grateful if . . .’
‘Yes, all right, I won’t tell them. But I’m warning you in advance, I’ll do my best to make sure Freddy puts you off the idea. That won’t be difficult, anyway: he’ll do it himself without any prompting from me. He has a very low opinion of the whole enterprise.’
‘I’ll listen carefully to what he has to say, and I’ll take it to heart. I’d especially like to hear anything he has to say about his own student days – that would be important in making up my mind, more than anything else, I think. In fact, it might be crucial. So – when and where?’
‘Freddy’s coming over for lunch next Sunday. Why don’t you come around at about five? He’ll be all yours.’
‘Thank you. See you then.’ I put down the receiver and fell exhausted onto my bed.
Over the next few days, like a chess player preparing for an important match, I practised over and over in my mind every possible variant of every conceivable strategy I could use in the conversation that awaited me, so that I would never be at a loss for the next move. There was no doubt that the subject that interested me would come up sooner or later: at some point he was bound to ask who my French teacher was, indeed it seemed quite likely that he’d start off with that very question. But even if it didn’t arise, it would be easy enough to provoke it. The problem was, what then? What if Madame’s name evoked no reaction at all? If Frederick Monten, for whatever reason, just ignored it, as if he had never heard of her? Of course, I could always throw out a casual question like ‘I don’t suppose you know her, by any chance?’ But that would be a last resort. The main thing was not to expose my design; he mustn’t have the slightest suspicion of what I was after. The thought that someone might find me out, might discover that I was in thrall to Madame, was terrifying.
It was shame – shame, the enemy of experience. That was the tyrant that held me in its grip, forcing me to act undercover, always pretending, always in disguise.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the very sound of the name overwhelmed Dr Monten with an uncontrollable flood of memories, so that he fell into a sort of narrative trance and began, unprompted, to recount tale after tale from the life of the young Madame? And I would sit there and listen to him with feigned indifference, interjecting the occasional ‘Well, well,’ or ‘Really? How extraordinary!’ This, however, seemed highly improbable.
The Song of Virgo and Aquarius
As I waited for Sunday, I was also waging an inner battle, for I was tempted to make some use of the things I had already learnt, and while I tried to resist the temptation, I also spent much time reflecting on how this might best be done.
At the next French lesson, the time usually devoted to conversation was given over to reading aloud from an article in a glossy magazine devoted to popular science about the structure of the universe. Madame would write some of the basic concepts up on the blackboard – ‘Solar System’, ‘Milky Way’, ‘Big Dipper’ – and we were supposed to copy them down into our notebooks. We ended up with some dozen new phrases to learn and, to extend our vocabulary in this domain, were set an essay on any subject connected with the universe or the celestial dome.
This time the nature of the assignment accorded well with my aims. The idea came to me during the lesson, and by the time I got home, all I had to do was put it into good French. This is what I wrote (I give it here in translation, for the convenience of the reader):
When we talk about the sky, the stars and the planets, we are naturally led to think also of astrology – the older sister of the Queen of Sciences, as the study of the universe was once known. Astrology is based on the assumption that the celestial bodies in our stellar and planetary system have an influence on the earth, and in particular that they influence us – our character and our destiny.
The basic concepts of astrology are the horoscope and the Zodiac. The Zodiac is a stellar ring on the celestial sphere, consisting of twelve constellations, along which our sun wanders in the course of a year. Each of these constellations has its own name and sign. Their origins are lost in the mists of time, in the myths and strange legends of the ancient world.
In the light of modern science the domain of astrology tends to be dismissed as poetry or childish fantasy. However, there are still people – and by no means only the uneducated – for whom it is a genuine area of knowledge. For astrology represents a sort of challenge for modern science. It is synonymous with mystery; it is a different path toward knowledge.
The best and most famous expression of scepticism about the value of science, and of fascination with Magic, is to be found in Goethe’s Faust. At the very beginning Faust talks about how, despite all his learning, he is no further forward than when he began:
To Magic therefore have I turned
To try the spirits’ power and gain
The knowledge they alone bestow;
No longer will I have to strain
To speak of things I do not know.
A moment later, on picking up a volume of the predictions of the sixteenth-century doctor Nostradamus (a Frenchman, incidentally), considered to be the greatest astrologer of the modern era, he says:
What secrets lurk in this old book
In Nostradamus’s own hand?
Perhaps it’s here I need to look
To grasp the stars’ mysterious flight;
I’ll learn what Nature has to teach;
I’ll hear, endowed with magic’s might,
The spirits whisper, each to each.
My own attitude towards astrology and horoscopes was always extremely sceptical until one day I, too, like Faust, picked up the ‘mysterious book of Nostradamus’ – his Centuries Astrologiques, written in 1555 – and began to read. I studied it thoroughly; in particular, I checked my own horoscope very carefully to see how accurate it was. I was astonished at the result: everything fitted, everything was confirmed.
I was born in September. On the tenth of September, to be precise. Which makes me a Virgo.
Virgo – the Virgin – is an earth element, and earth represents certainty and stability. People of this element have a clear aim in life and are unwavering in their progress towards it. They are logical and rational, precise and industrious. They never give up before they find a solution to a problem; they think everything through and approach it methodically. Their love of order can be excessive, even pathological; in such cases Virgos become slaves to their own principles. Finally, Virgos have excellent memories and are good at music and chess.
Is this not the perfect portrait of me? Let those who know me well be the judge.
I know, I know: you’ll say a portrait like this is easily coloured to suit. All right. But what if there is more than just this vague portrait – what if there are other things that fit, traces of deeper connections?
What I am about to tell you shook me profoundly when I first came upon it.
Up to now the thing more
