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XXVIII
My QUESTIONS AND
doubts about the Prieure and Mr. Gurd-
jieff, obsessive as they had been for a short time, subsided
rapidly. I was not concerned about this, but relieved to slip
back into the day-to-day working routine, as if a great load
had been removed from my shoulders.
The only obvious changes in the general life at the Prieure
after Madame Ostrovsky's death were that Gurdjieff began to
take frequent trips for periods of several days or even as much
as two weeks at a time; and that when he was in residence
there were usually a great many more guests on weekends.
When he would go on a trip, he would often take as many as
five or six people with him, and almost everyone anticipated
the possibility of being selected to accompany him. It became
a kind of cachet to have been on a journey to Vichy or Evian
or any of the popular resorts that he liked to visit. Gurdjieff's
given reason for these trips was that he needed to travel and
to see more people because of his writing, which he usually did
now in cafes and restaurants, often sitting in the centre of
a group of people, drinking coffee and writing interminably.
Many of the people who went with him were actively engaged
in the translation of his writings into various languages; in
addition, he liked to travel with an entourage.
I saw less of him at this time, mostly because of his more
frequent absences, but even when he was at the Prieure I did
not have as much private contact with him as I had had in
the past. On the whole, I was glad of this, for although my
questions had subsided in the sense that they were no longer
at the forefront of my mind, my fear of him and a general
lurking suspicion of his motives had at least partially replaced
my personal and, up to then, rather complete devotion to him.
I continued, however, to have either an accidental or perhaps
in some way purposeful series of experiences with him.
One day when he was expected to return from one of his
journeys, I was working in the kitchen, helping in the prepar-
ation of one of the usual, elaborate dinners which were always
served on the days he returned. As I was moving a large kettle
full of boiling water in order to stoke the fires, I somehow
spilled it on myself, mainly on my entire right arm. I dropped
the kettle, howling with pain, and Madame Schernvall, the
cook of the day, screamed for help and sent someone for the
doctor. Instead of the doctor, Gurdjieff appeared, completely
unexpectedly, in the kitchen. He had arrived much earlier than
we had anticipated. Without a word, and not even seeming to
listen to Madame Schernvall's almost hysterical explanation
of what had happened, he strode over to me, pulled me over
to the stove, removed the iron rings and exposed the red-hot
fire. He then seized my burned arm and held it, with all his
force, over the open fire -- probably not for more than a few
seconds, although it seemed an eternity to me. When he
released me, he said very seriously and calmly that the proper
way to fight fire was with fire. "This way," he said, "you not
have scar on arm. Burn already gone."
I was amazed and very much impressed
-- not only with the
painful treatment, but also because of his completely unex-
pected appearance at just that moment. Inevitably, it did
seem to be one of those fateful occurrences which I could not
simply charge off to coincidence. Madame Schernvall told me,
after he had left, that she had had a similar experience with him
several years before, and knew that what he had done to me
was the proper treatment for a burn, but that she would never
have had the force or the courage to do it. We both remained
overawed for the rest of the day and Madame Schernvall
certainly encouraged my temptation to feel that his appearance
at that time had been in some way supernatural. We continued
to talk about it for several days, mostly because, as he had
predicted, there was not only no scar, there was no pain and
no physical evidence of any burn at all.
Gurdjieff's treatment of me from then on took a different
form, and, in spite of the lack of private, personal contact with
him, it did seem to me that he often singled me out for no
obvious reasons.
A few weeks after the "burn cure" we were again preparing
a large dinner as there were to be a great many guests that
evening. The principal guest was the gendarme who had
discovered Gurdjieff after his automobile accident a few
summers before. When he arrived, he was installed in one of
the sumptuous guest rooms on the same floor as Gurdjieff's
room, and was then introduced to all of us. Gurdjieff praised
him and told us how much he, and all of us, owed to this man.
If it had not been for him, he, Gurdjieff, might easily be dead,
and so on. The gendarme, in turn, told his version of the story;
and he was greatly impressed with Gurdjieff as a person because
of two specific things that had happened. The first was his
discovery of Gurdjieff. He had been riding home at night,
going off duty, when he had come upon the wrecked auto-
mobile, and had of course stopped to investigate the accident.
The amazing thing about it was that, although seriously
injured, Gurdjieff had somehow managed, apparently in a
state of shock, to get out of the car, take a pillow and blanket
from the car and lie down at the side of the road -- the pillow
under his head, and well covered with the blanket. Considering
his injuries, the gendarme could not -- to this day -- bring him-
self to believe that Gurdjieff had done all this without
assistance.
The second thing that had amazed him was that, although
it had taken him almost two years after his recovery , Gurdjieff
had managed to search him out, find him, and finally persuade
him to come to the Prieure as his guest for the weekend. There
was, apparently, some reason for astonishment in this connec-
cion, although I never fully understood it; the records did not
give the gendarme's name or something of the sort. Whatever
it was, it had taken a great deal of effort and persistence in this
case, and the gendarme was almost unable to accept the fact
that someone had gone to that much trouble to thank him
for what was, after all, only the normal performance of his
duty.
The gendarme was seated at a place of honour at the table
and Gurdjieff, as the meal began, poured the usual glasses of
Armagnac for everyone (customarily, it was necessary -- it was
one of his rules -- to drink a great number of toasts during a
meal, and he always filled the glasses himself), including the
gendarme. But the gendarme balked. His respect and friend-
ship for Mr. Gurdjieff were boundless, as he said, but he was
totally unable to drink such strong liquor -- the most he ever
drank was an occasional glass of wine.
Gurdjieff was always persistent when people objected to
drinking these strong toasts with him, but in this case he was
adamant. He argued, pleaded, even begged the gendarme
to drink with him, and the gendarme categorically, and as
politely as possible, refused. Finally, Gurdjieff said that the
dinner could not proceed without the participation of the
gendarme in these toasts, and, as if trying another tack with
him, said that any man worth his salt had not only to be able
to drink such toasts, but must actually drink them. He waved
away the man's protests and said that he would show him
that the liquor would not have any bad effects. "This not
usual place," he said, meaning the Prieure, "here is such good-
will that anyone can drink without bad effects. Even children
can drink here." To prove this point, he called me over to
him -- I was serving at the table that night.
When I was standing next to him, he poured a water glass
full of Armagnac, and told me in Russian to drink it down at
one gulp. I did, although I had never tasted such strong liquor
before. When I had swallowed it, the tears came to my eyes,
and my throat was burning, but I managed to get to the
kitchen where the horrified cook told me to eat bread rapidly
to ease my throat. The cook was his sister-in-law and was
often highly critical of him. She told me firmly that only a
mad man would force a child to drink "that stuff" and then
sent me back to my duties as waiter. The liquor had such an
immediate effect on me that, while I did continue to pass
various dishes to the assembled guests, I only did so by
staggering around the table and shoving the platters at them,
feeling giddy and completely unconcerned. I had never exper-
ienced such a sense of carefree well-being in my life. I thought
it was particularly comical when Gurdjieff, each time I arrived
near him, would direct attention to me and my complete
sobriety. I remember having a strange feeling of separateness
as if I had actually departed from the confines of my own body
and was able to watch myself, as if from a distance, tottering
gaily around the table with the heavy platters in my hands.
I was especially pleased when the gendarme, apparently
thanks to me, gave in and drank several toasts with Mr. Gurd-
jieff and the other guests. I felt that it was all thanks to me
and congratulated myself on some great, but not very well
defined, accomplishment.
Even so, and in spite of my high spirits, the dinner seemed
interminable, and I was greatly relieved when I was able to
stagger off to my bed at a very late hour. It seemed to me
that I had only been asleep for a few minutes when I heard
the insistent ring of my buzzer. I was amazed to see that it
was daylight, and managed to get into my clothes and answer
the inevitable coffee summons. Gurdjieff laughed at me when
I appeared in his room, and asked me how I felt. I said that I
supposed that I was still drunk and described to him the way
I had felt the night before. He nodded sagely, and told me that
the liquor had produced a very interesting state in me, and
that if I could achieve that kind of self-awareness when sober,
it could be a very important accomplishment. Then he thanked
me for my part in his experiment with the gendarme and added
that he had picked me, especially, because it was very impor-
tant that I should learn how to drink, and to learn at my age
what the effects of liquor could be. "In future, when drunk,"
he said, "try to see self this same way as you saw last night.
This can be very good exercise for you, will also help to not
get drunk."
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