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XVI
JANE HEAP HAD
returned to France at the same time as
Gurdjieff, and had, of course, been to the Prieure to see us.
With her return, and to my regret, the visits to Paris to see
Gertrude Stein and Alice Toklas had come to an end. I was
very surprised when I was sent for one afternoon by the
concierge, and told that I had a visitor. I was very pleased to
learn that it was Gertrude and was very happy to see her, but
my happiness was dispelled almost at once. Gertrude took a
short walk with me in the grounds of the school, gave me a
box of candy which she told me was a "farewell" gift for both
of us from herself and Alice. She did not give me any oppor-
tunity to remonstrate with her, and said that she had made the
trip to Fontainebleau especially to see us (I do not remember
now whether she actually saw Tom or not) because she did
not want to part from us by simply writing a letter.
When I asked her what she meant, she said that because of
some difficulty she was having with Jane, and also because she
still thought that we were not being properly brought up, she
had decided that she could no longer go on seeing us. Any
relationship with her, because of her disagreement with Jane --
and, I gathered, with Gurdjieff as well -- would inevitably only
make trouble for us. There was nothing that I could say to
this. Gertrude cut my protests short, said that she was very
sorry to have to do what she was doing, but that there was no
other way out.
I was shocked and saddened by this sudden, unexpected end
to what had been a very happy, exciting and rewarding
relationship, and, perhaps mistakenly, I think I blamed Jane
for it. I cannot remember whether I ever mentioned it to Jane,
or whether she explained it to me, but I do remember feeling,
perhaps mistakenly, that she -- not Gurdjieff -- was the cause.
Whatever the cause, my relationship with Jane deteriorated
steadily from that time on, and while she was still my legal
guardian, I rarely saw her. Looking back on my behaviour at
that time, it now seems to me that I was being uncivilized to a
high degree -- I don't know about Jane. Jane made her usual
periodic visits to the Prieure on weekends but while I actually
did see her -- that is, I saw her with my eyes from a distance -- we
hardly spoke to each other for a period of about two years. She
did, of course, see Tom and Gurdjieff, and I knew from the
general gossip at the school and from Tom that the "problem of
Fritz" was frequently discussed and also that Gurdjieff had been
brought into these discussions; however, during that entire
time, when I was still in very close contact with Gurdjieff be-
cause of my room-cleaning duties, he never mentioned Jane to
me, and his behaviour towards me never altered. Not only did
it not alter, but, partly because of the break with Jane, my
feelings of respect and love for him only increased.
***
When Gurdjieff returned from his first trip to Paris after
the "Rachmilevitch affair", to our surprise, he brought
Rachmilevitch back with him. In the short period that he had
been absent from the Prieure he seemed to have changed
a great deal. He now appeared to be resigned instead of
contentious and quarrelsome, and in the course of time we
even began to feel a certain affection for him. I was very
curious about his return and while I did not have the temerity
to bring up the subject directly when I was with Gurdjieff, he
brought it up himself. He simply asked me, unexpectedly, if
I were not surprised to see Rachmilevitch back at the Prieure,
and I told him that I was very surprised and admitted that I
was, also, curious as to how it had happened; his resolve to
leave for ever had been very definite.
Gurdjieff then told me the story of Rachmilevitch. According
to this tale, Rachmilevitch had been a Russian refugee who
had located in Paris after the Russian revolution and had
become a prosperous merchant dealing in such merchandise
as teas, caviar, and various other products for which there was,
primarily, a demand among displaced Russian persons.
Gurdjieff had apparently known him for a long time -- he may
have been one of the people who came to France with Gurdjieff
from Russia some years before -- and had decided that his
personality was an essential element in the school.
"You remember," he said, "how I tell you that you make
trouble? This true, but you only child. Rachmilevitch grown
man and not mischievous, like you, but have such personality
that he constantly cause friction whatever he do, wherever he
live. He not make serious trouble, but he make friction on
surface of life, all the time. He cannot help this -- he too old to
change now.
"When I tell you that though Rachmilevitch is already rich
merchant I pay him to stay here, you are surprised, but this
so. He very old friend and very important for my purposes.
I cannot pay him what he can already make, all by self, in
tea business in Paris; so when I go to see him I humble self,
have to beg him to make sacrifice for my sake. He agree to do
this, and I now have obligation to him for life. Without Rach-
milevitch, Prieure is not same; I know no one person like him,
no person who just by existence, without conscious effort, pro-
duce friction in all people around him."
I had by this time acquired the habit of always assuming that
in anything that Gurdjieff did there was always "more than
meets the eye" ; I was also familiar with his theory that friction
produced conflicts which, in turn, agitated people and, as it
were, shocked them out of their habitual, routine behaviour;
also I could not help but wonder what rewards were in this
for Rachmilevitch, besides money, that is. Gurdjieff's only
answer to this was to say that it was also a privilege for
Rachmilevitch to be at the Prieure. "Nowhere else can his
personality perform such useful work." I was not particularly
impressed by this answer, but I did have a picture in my mind
of Rachmilevitch's every move being of great importance. It
seemed, at best, a curious destiny -- he must, I assumed, live
in a constant state of cataclysm, creating havoc incessantly.
There was no question that his presence not only created
trouble, but also seemed to attract it. Very shortly after his
return, he and I were again the focal points in another
"incident".
It was my day on kitchen duty. As was customary for the
"kitchen-boy" I got up at four-thirty in the morning. Since I
was lazy by nature and also at that age, the only way I could
be sure of awakening on time for kitchen duty was to drink as
many glasses of water as I could before I went to bed at about
eleven the night before. Alarm clocks were unheard of at the
Prieure, and this recipe for early rising (which someone had
suggested to me) never failed to work. As the nearest toilet
was at a considerable distance from my room, there was no
doubt of my actual waking up and I did not fall asleep again.
The only difficulty was in regulating the amount of water.
Too often I awakened at three, instead of four-thirty. Even on
those mornings I did not dare to go back to bed again, and
could not face drinking another quantity of water sufficient to
waken me in another hour or so.
The kitchen boy's first duties were to build the fires in the
coke stoves, fill the coal scuttles, make the coffee and heat the
milk, slice and toast the bread. The water for the coffee took
a long time to come to a boil as it was heated in twenty-five
litre enamelware pots, which were also used to make the soup
for the midday meal. The cook -- there was usually a different
cook every day, but the menus were written down, with
recipes, in advance for each day of the week -- normally was
not required to appear in the kitchen until breakfast was over.
On this particular day, the cook had not appeared by nine-
thirty and I began to worry. I looked at the menu, and the
recipe for the soup of the day, and since I had often seen the
various cooks prepare the meal that was scheduled for that day,
I made the necessary preliminary preparations.
When the cook had still not appeared by about ten o'clock
I sent some child to find out what had happened to her and
was told that she was sick and would not be able to come to
the kitchen. I took my dilemma to Gurdjieff, and he said that
since I had already started the meal I might as well return to
the kitchen and finish it. "You be cook today," he said grandly.
I was very nervous about the responsibility, as well as
rather proud of being entrusted with it. My greatest difficulty
was in having to move the enormous soup kettles around the
top of the large coal stove when I had to add coal to the fire,
which was frequently necessary in order to keep the soup
cooking. I worked hard all the morning and was reasonably
proud of myself when I managed to finish the meal and
deliver it, intact, to the serving table. The cook being absent,
it was also necessary for me to serve it.
Habitually, the students formed a line, each person with
his soup plate, silver, etc., in his hands, and as they passed by
the serving table the cook would serve them one piece .of meat
and a ladleful of soup. Everything went well for a time. It was
not until Rachmilevitch appeared -- among the last to be
served -- that my difficulties began. The soup pot was almost
empty by the time he reached me and I had to tilt it in order
to fill the ladle. When I served him -- it seemed to me that it
was decreed by our mutual fates -- the ladle also brought up
a fair-sized lump of coke. It was a thick soup and I did not see
the coke until it was deposited, with a hard, clanking sound,
in his soup plate.
Judging by Rachmilevitch's reaction, his world came to an
end at that instant. He started in on a tirade against me that
I thought would never end. Everything that all of the children
had done to him during the past winter was brought up,
hashed over in detail; and as he cursed and raged I stood help-
lessly behind the soup kettle, silent. The tirade came to an end
with Gurdjieff's appearance. He did not usually appear at
lunch -- he did not eat lunch -- and he explained his appearance
by saying that we were making so much noise that he was
unable to work.
Rachmilevitch turned on him immediately, beginning his
recital of woes and wrongs all over again from the beginning.
Gurdjieff watched him steadily, unblinking, and this seemed to
have a calming effect. Rachmilevitch's voice gradually lowered
in tone, and he seemed to run down. Without saying anything
to him, Gurdjieff picked the lump of coke out of Rachmile-
vitch's soup plate, threw it on the ground, and asked for a
plate of soup himself. He said that since there was a new cook
today, he felt that it was his responsibility to taste his cooking.
Someone went for a soup plate for him, I served him what
remained in the soup pot and he ate it, silently. When he had
finished, he came over to me, congratulated me loudly, and
said that the soup -- this particular soup -- was a favourite of his
and was better than he had ever tasted.
He then turned to the assembled students and said that he
had great experience and training in many things, and that in
the course of his life he had learned a great deal about food,
chemistry, and proper cooking, which included, of course, the
taste of things. He said that while this particular soup was one
that he had, personally, invented and which he liked very
much, he now realized that it had always lacked one element
to make it perfect. With a sort of obeisance in my direction,
he praised me saying that I, by a fortunate accident, had
found the perfect thing -- the one thing that this soup needed.
Carbon. He ended this speech by saying that he would instruct
his secretary to change the recipe to include one piece of coke --
not to be eaten, but to be added for flavour only. He then
invited Rachmilevitch to have after-dinner coffee with him,
and they left the dining area together.
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