Pascali's Island

'It is such a spiritual landscape, so infused with spirit,' Mrs Marchant said. 'Anyone who lives here, as you do, must be touched with spirit, you ca

'Spirit,' Herr Gesing said, before I could reply, 'Yes, meine Dame, but what is this spirit, I ask you, this word that people talk about so…'

'Freely?' I suggested, back to my old game of completing Herr Gesing's thoughts for him.

'Freely, ja'

His voice was thickened with the wine he had been drinking. Before Mrs Marchant could reply, Lydia looked up and said, 'Ah here you are, Anthony.' The tall figure of the Englishman was standing silently before us. First name terms, Excellency. We had not seen him approach. He must have come from above, by way of the steps. In those first few moments I looked at Lydia 's face, rather than at him, and saw on it a look of vivid expectation. There was something vulnerable, exposed, about her expression. I was reminded of her devotional look in the studio. In spite of her worldliness, she trusts people with her feelings, trusts their good will, as children do. Very dangerous.

'Sorry I'm late,' Mister Bowles said. They had arranged to meet, then. He sat down on the other side of Lydia.

'By spirit I was referring to the higher feelings,' Mrs Marchant said. 'AH that is not material. Our moral sense. Our sense of beauty for example…'

Herr Gesing said brusquely, 'Spirit is Geist, no? It is not feeling, it is movement. Through all history it is working. Like a turbine. Not the machine, you understand, the energy principle. Hegel, it was Hegel, who -'

'Energy principle?' Lydia broke in. 'What does that mean? You're as bad as Basil, the other day, defending free experimentation. That's another kind of energy principle, I suppose. None of you will look at what is before your eyes. I believe in things. You talk as if the world was empty. All these energy principles and swirling movements in history. It is simply opening the floodgates.'

'Floodgates to what?' Doctor Hogan said.

'To the irrational.'

'Floodgates?' Herr Gesing said.

I could not recall the German for this, so attempted to convey the idea by gesture and explanation.

'Ah, die Schleusen,' Herr Gesing said. 'Do you know Stefan George?

Auf die Schleusen

Und aus Rusen

Regnen Rosen

Güsse Flüsse

Die begraben'

'Good God,' Mister Bowles said, presumably in some sort of reproof or embarrassment at this public display.

'The irrational isn't outside somewhere, waiting to flood in,' Doctor Hogan said. 'You are doing the same thing as our friend here, creating abstractions.'

'That is true,' Monsieur Chaudan said, inclining his head politely. 'It is not separated. The rational and the irrational, ils habitent le même corps.'

'The same body,' Doctor Hogan said. 'That is somehow a frightening idea. Like ru

Mister Bowles cleared his throat. 'Was it a profitable practice?' he said suddenly. 'The one you gave up, I mean.' The question came oddly, at this juncture. At first I interpreted its severely practical tone as a protest against the general nature of the conversation, which he was perhaps finding uncomfortably literary; but I realised almost at once that in fact it marked the degree to which Mister Bowles had been impressed by the sacrifice of material interest the doctor had made by settling here all those years ago.

It took Doctor Hogan, engaged as he was in the conversation with Chaudan, several moments to understand what Mister Bowles was driving at. Then he said, 'Yes, reasonably so. Why do you ask?'

'Well, I am a practical man,' Mister Bowles said. 'These things have to be taken into account when we are making decisions. We can't just throw everything overboard.'

'That depends on the nature of the cargo and the state of the weather.' The doctor looked away from Mister Bowles towards his wife, who was sitting opposite. They smiled at each other.

'Yes, but just a minute,' Mister Bowles said. He was obviously intending to press the matter further, but at this point, quite audibly, though distant, we heard the sound of male voices chanting. It came from somewhere above us, in the main part of the town.

'Now what is that?' Mrs Marchant said.

'Tomorrow is Saint Alexei's Day,' I explained to her. 'He is the Patron Saint of the island. A local saint, you know. They don't bother about him anywhere else. They have the custom here of bearing him in effigy around the town, on the evening before. Then he is left in the church all night.'

'That sounds mighty interesting,' Mrs Marchant said.

With a very unattractive disregard for the present trend of the conversation, and in particular for Mrs Marchant, who was waiting to hear more of Saint Alexei, Herr Gesing now abruptly returned to his former topic. 'No, no,' he said loudly, 'Geist is to Gischt related, the white of the sea. Always moving. Perhaps also it is to Gäscht related, that is in the bread, to make it rise up. Again, you see, the movement, the fermending. Verstehen Sie?'

'Fermenting,' I said.

'The French word does not signify anything of that kind,' Monsieur Chaudan said, looking at Herr Gesing coldly.

The German raised his face of a plump hawk. 'Not surprise,' he said. 'Your language is poor in many ways. Wiedergeburt, for example, you have no word for Wiedergeburt.'

'Rebirth,' I said.

'Rebirth, ja. In French there is not this idea. So, there is not this possibility.'

'What I mean is,' Mister Bowles said to the doctor, totally ignoring Herr Gesing, 'we must keep a firm hold on reality. You know, both feet on the ground. I suppose a lot depends on nationality, really.'

There was a certain crassness in this that made me look quickly at Lydia, but her face reflected no consciousness of it. The doctor smiled at Mister Bowles, but not with great warmth. 'You do not have the look of a realist,' he said, 'if you will forgive my saying so. And I don't think, myself, that the English are such a realistic people as all that. Not like the French, for example.'

'I can't agree with you,' Mister Bowles said stiffly.

'We have no words for stupid abstractions, ca c'est vrai,' Monsieur Chaudan said to Herr Gesing in a tone of anger. 'Stupid and dangerous also. On n'en a pas besoin. We don't need them.'

I heard the chanting again, this time much nearer. Herr Gesing looked down at his plate. He did not reply to the Frenchman. When he looked up again it was on Mister Bowles that he fixed his eyes.

'The researches,' he said. 'They are going well?'

Mister Bowles looked briefly at me. Then he transferred his gaze back to the German. 'Yes,' he said. 'Very well.' His hands, as they lay on the table, and one side of his face, were tinted pale crimson from the lantern over his head. Small moths fluttered against the panes of the lanterns, clung there, or fell back dazed among the vine leaves. 'How did you know about it?' Mister Bowles said.

Herr Gesing made a small gesture with one hand. 'Somebody was speaking about it,' he said. 'You go there often,' he said. 'Every day. It is interesting for you, yes?' he said.

'Very interesting,' Mister Bowles said. Deliberately he looked away from Herr Gesing, back to Doctor Hogan. 'We have always been known as a practical people,' he said.

'Practical is not the same as realistic,' the doctor said. 'You have ideas of things, always formed beforehand somehow. So you don't look closely. As if you had dreamed it. Then you try to shape things in accordance with the dream. It's all right when it fits, but if the matter proves recalcitrant, you become unreasonable. Very unreasonable.' The doctor paused, looking across at Mister Bowles with his habitual expression, cheerful, sly rather-but without real malice. 'The Irish know that to their cost,' he said. 'Cromwell was a great dreamer.'