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XXXV
MY NEXT TEMPORARY
job on a project was the repair of the
study-house roof. The construction of the roof was a simple
affair of beams placed in such a way that they formed a
peaked roof, with about eight feet of air-space at the centre
between the peak of the roof and the ceiling. The beams were
at intervals of about one yard -- lengthwise and crosswise --
and were covered with tar-paper which had begun to leak in
various places. The job turned out to be exciting and rather
perilous. We mounted the roof on ladders and from then on it
was necessary to walk only on the beams, of course. It was also
necessary to bring rolls of tar paper and pails or buckets of
hot tar with us up the ladders. After a few days of walking on
four or six-inch beams we became reasonably proficient at
this work and even made a sort of test of skills out of racing along
the beams carrying a bucket of hot tar, or balancing a roll of
tar paper on our shoulders.
One young American who was making his first visit to the
Prieure, and who was not only aggressive and very competitive
but who also thought that everything at the Prieure was, as
he put it, "a bunch of nonsense", was determined to be more
daring, more skilful and more foolhardy than anyone else.
After about one week, he had manifested his superior agility
to the point where none of us even attempted to compete with
him. Even so, he seemed unable to stop showing off and
continued to demonstrate his superiority over all the rest of us.
His performance began to irritate all of us and to make us
nervous; we did not go so far as to hope that he would have an
accident -- any accident could have been very serious as it was
a high roof -- but we did begin to long for something to happen
that would bring an end to this exhibition of bravado.
The end did come, sooner than we had anticipated, and in
a much more spectacular way. Later, it seemed inevitable
that he would, of course, have been carrying a pail of boiling
tar when he did make a false step on to the unsupported tar
paper and fall through the roof. The only thing that saved him
from very serious injury was that he had fallen just over the
small balcony so that he did not actually fall more than about
fifteen feet. However, what made the fall a brutal and painful
one was that he did not let go of the bucket of tar and was not
wearing a shirt at the time. One whole side of his body was
very badly burned and covered with hot tar.
As the boiling tar had also flowed down inside his trousers,
it was almost impossible for him to walk, so we moved him
to a place in the shade while someone raced for Gurdjieff and
the doctor. The only remedy -- or, in any case, the remedy that
was used -- was to remove the tar from his body with gasoline,
which took more than an hour, and which must have been
almost unimaginably painful. The young man appeared to
have tremendous endurance and courage, and submitted to this
ordeal without flinching, but when it was over and he had been
properly bandaged, Gurdjieff lashed into him in a great fury for
his stupidity. He defended himself valiantly but without making
much sense; the argument turned into a stream of invective
against Gurdjieff and his ridiculous school, and ended with
Gurdjieff ordering him to leave as soon as he was well enough.
While I could not help but feel great sympathy for the
American, I did feel that Gurdjieff was completely right,
although to revile the young man at that particular time had
seemed unnecessarily cruel. I was very surprised when Gurd-
jieff, the following day, unexpectedly called to me when I was
returning from work in the evening and, unpredictable as
always, complimented me on my good work on the roof and
gave me a large sum of money. I said that I had to admit, in
all honesty, that since I was the only person working on the
roof who was not a full-grown man, I had done considerably
less work than anyone else and did not feel that I should be
rewarded.
He gave me an odd smile, insisted that I take the money,
and said that he was rewarding me for not having fallen
through the roof or otherwise injured myself while I worked
on it. He then said that he was giving me the money on the
condition that I think of something to do with it for all the
rest of the children -- something that would be valuable for
all of them. I left him, pleased with all the money I had in
my pockets, but extremely puzzled as to what I could do with
the money that would be valuable for all the other children.
After thinking about the problem for two days, I finally
decided to share it with them, although not quite equally.
I kept a larger share for myself since I was the one who had,
for whatever odd reasons, "earned" it.
Gurdjieff did not wait for me to tell him about what I had
done, but sent for me and asked me, as if he was especially
interested. When I told him, he was furious with me. He
shouted at me, told me that I had not used my imagination,
that I had not thought about it, and that I had not finally
done anything valuable for them; also why had I kept a
larger share for myself?
I said, calmly enough, that I had come to realize that
nothing at the Prieure was predictable and that he had made
it clear to me often enough that things were never "what they
seemed" to be. I maintained firmly that I had only emulated
him. By giving me this totally unexpected large sum of money,
he had, along with it, given me a condition and a problem
concerning its disposition. Since I had been unable to think
of anything "valuable" to do with the money, all I could
do was to pass the problem along to the other children -- my
injunction to them being that they had to do something
valuable with it for themselves. As to why I had kept a larger
sum for myself, I said that I felt I deserved the larger sum
because it was thanks to me that they had the opportunity to
make this important decision about the value of money.
Although he had listened to me without interruption, his
anger had not abated and he said that I was behaving like a
"big-shot" and that he was extremely disappointed in me ;
that I had failed him.
To my own surprise, I stood my ground and said that if I
was behaving like a "big-shot" it was because I had many
examples of such behaviour to emulate, and that if he was
disappointed in me he should remember that it was he who
had told me, repeatedly, that one should learn never to be
disappointed in anyone, and that, again, I was only following
his advice and his example.
Although he told me then that I was, as usual, "sinning
against my God" by talking to him in this way, he asked me
what I was going to do with the money that I had kept for
myself. I said that it was only possible either to spend money
or to save it. That, for the time being, I was going to save it
since I was clothed, fed and housed and did not need to spend
it, but that I would spend it when I found something that I
needed -- or wanted -- to buy.
He looked at me in
disgust, remarking that what I had said
indicated that I had typical middle-class morals and that I had
not learned anything at all from him during the time that
I had been at the Prieure. I replied, rather hotly, that I was
fully aware of those possibilities and that, as to learning, when
I looked around me at his other students, I was not convinced
that anyone else was learning anything either; that, in fact,
I was not sure that there was anything to learn there.
Quite calm by this time, he said that I failed to realize that
the value of the Prieure was not necessarily obvious, and that
time would tell whether anyone learned anything by being
there. Then, for the second time, he said that it was useless
to continue talking to me and added that I was not to continue
my work on the roof of the study-house but that I would be
assigned to other work.
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