|
XV
GURDJIEFF'S TRIP
TO the United States had been made,
according to him, for various reasons -- one of the most impor-
tant ones being to make enough money to keep the Institute
going at the Prieure. Mr. Gurdjieff did not own the property,
but rented it on a long-term lease, and since very few of the
students were "paying guests", money was needed to make the
various rental payments as well as to provide the food that we
were unable to grow or produce on the land; to pay the light
and gas and coal bills. And Mr. Gurdjieff's own expenses were
also heavy at that time: he maintained an apartment in Paris,
and had had to pay for the passage of all the students he had
taken to America with him -- enough, for instance, to be able
to put on a demonstration of his gymnastics while he was there.
On his return, he frequently regaled us with stories about
his adventures in America, about the American habit of
embracing with open arms any new "movement", "theory",
or "philosophy", simply in order to divert themselves, and
about their gullibility in general. He would tell us how it was
almost impossible for them not to give him money -- the very
act of giving him money made them feel important, and he
called this "extortion" of them "shearing sheep". He said that
most of them had pockets that were so full of green folding
"stuff" that it gave them itchy fingers and they could not
wait to part with it. Nevertheless, in spite of his stories about
them and the way he made fun of them, he genuinely liked
the Americans and, on occasions when he was not making fun
of them, he would point out that, of all the peoples of the
Western World, they were distinguished by various charac-
teristics: their energy, ingenuity and their real generosity.
Also, though gullible, they were good-hearted and eager to
learn. Whatever their attributes or their faults, he had managed,
during his stay in America, to collect a very large sum of
money. I doubt that anyone of us knew exactly how much,
but it was generally believed to be in excess of $100,000,000.
The first obvious show of spending after his return to France
was the sudden and unexpected delivery of literally scores of
bicycles to the Prieure. They arrived by the truckload, and
Gurdjieff personally distributed them to everyone there, with
only a very few exceptions: himself, his wife, and one or two
of the smallest children. We were all amazed, and a great many
of the Americans were appalled at this seeming waste of the
money which many of them had helped to contribute to his
"cause". Whatever his reasons for the acquisition of bicycles,
the results were shatteringly colourful.
There were incredibly few people, considering the number
of students living at the Prieure at the time, who could actually
ride a bicycle. But they had not been purchased idly -- they
were to be ridden. The entire grounds became a sort of enor-
mous training-ground for bicycle riders. For days, and in the
case of many of us, weeks, the grounds rang with the sound of
bicycle bells, crashes, shouts of laughter and pain. In large
groups we rode, teetering and collapsing to our assigned work
on projects in the gardens and the woodlands. Anyone who
had some valid reason or excuse for walking soon learned to
beware of what had formerly been footpaths; for like as not,
a bicycle would come careering at them, its rider frozen in
horror and totally out of control, as he or she crashed into
the unfortunate pedestrian or another equally helpless rider .
I suppose that most of us learned to ride quickly enough,
although I seem to remember having bruised knees and elbows
most of the summer. However long the process actually took,
it seemed a very long time before it was safe to either ride or
walk in the Prieure grounds without genuine danger from
almost any angle in the form of some novice bicyclist.
Another project that was initiated that same summer was
equally colourful, although it did not involve the spending of
any great sums of money. Everyone, with the sole exception of
a skeleton group who had to work in the kitchen or on duty at
the concierge, was put to work on the re-making of the lawns --
the same lawns that I had mowed so arduously that first
summer. No one escaped this duty, not even those so-called
"distinguished" guests: persons who came for short visits,
presumably to discuss Mr. Gurdjieff's theories with him, and
who, up to that time, had not participated in work projects.
Every available tool was put to use and the lawns were littered
with people digging up the grass, raking, re-seeding, and rolling
the new seed into the ground with heavy iron rollers. People
worked so closely together that it sometimes seemed as if there
was barely room for them all. During this activity, Gurdjieff
would march up and down among all the workers, criticizing
them individually, goading them on, and helping to contri-
bute a feeling of furious, senseless activity to the whole pro-
ceedings. As one of the more recent American students
remarked, surveying this ant-like activity, it was as if the
entire student body, and perhaps particularly Gurdjieff, had
at least temporarily taken leave of their senses.
At intervals, and sometimes for several hours at a time,
Gurdjieff would suddenly cease his supervision of us, and go
to sit at his small table from which he could watch all of us,
and write steadily on his books. This only added to the comical
aspect of the whole project.
It was on the second or third day that one voice rose in
protest against the whole project. It was Rachmilevitch. In a
towering rage, he laid down whatever implement he had been
using, marched straight up to Gurdjieff and told him that what
we were doing was insane. There were so many people working
on the lawns, according to him, that the new grass-seed might
better be thrown away than sown under our feet. People were
digging and raking aimlessly, wherever they could find a
vacant spot, paying no attention to what they were doing.
In what seemed to be equal fury, Gurdjieff protested against
this uncalled for criticism -- he knew better than anyone in the
world how to "rebuild" lawns, he was an expert, he was not to
be criticized, and so on, ad infinitum. After several minutes
of this raging argument, Rachmilevitch turned on his heels
and strode away. Everyone -- we had all been impressed with
his standing up to the "master" in this way -- stopped their
work and watched him until he disappeared into the woods
beyond the furthest lawns.
It was not until an hour or so later, when we were about to
pause for our usual afternoon tea, that Mr. Gurdjieff called me
over to him. At some length he told me that it was essential
that Mr. Rachmilevitch be found and brought back. He said
that in order to save Rachmilevitch's face it was necessary to
send for him, that he would never return of his own accord,
and he instructed me to harness the horse and go and find him.
When I protested that I did not even know where to begin to
look, he said that he was sure that if I followed my own
instincts I would locate him without difficulty and that,
perhaps, even the horse would help.
In an attempt to put myself in Rachmilevitch's place, when
I had harnessed the horse to the wagon, I set off towards the
woods beyond the main, formal gardens. It seemed to me that
he could only have gone to one of the distant vegetable
gardens -- a walk of at least a mile, and I headed for the furthest
one, at the very end of the property. On the way I was troubled
about what I would do if and when I did find him, particu-
larly since I had been the chief culprit in the conspiracy
against him during the winter. Nothing had ever been said
about that to me -- at least not by Gurdjieff -- and I felt that
I had been selected only because I was in charge of the horse,
and that Gurdjieff could not have picked any less suitable
candidate for this errand.
I was not very surprised when my hunch proved to be right.
He was in the garden, as I had hoped he might be. But, as if to
lend a dreamlike quality to the affair, he was not in what I
would have thought a normal, usual place. He was, of all
things, sitting up in an apple tree. Concealing my astonish-
ment -- I really did think he was mad -- I drove the horse and
wagon directly underneath the tree and stated my errand. He
looked at me distantly and refused to go back. I did not know
of any arguments -- I could not think of any good reasons --
with which to persuade him to come back, so I said that I
would wait there as long as he did; that I could not return
without him. After a long silence, during which he occasionally
glared at me, he suddenly, without a word, dropped quietly
into the wagon from the tree and then sat on the seat next to
me as I drove back to the main house. Tea had been saved for
us and we sat across from each other at the table as we drank
our tea, while Gurdjieff watched us from a distant table.
Everyone else had gone back to work.
When we had finished, Gurdjieff told me to unl1arness the
horse, thanked me for finding Rachmilevitch, and said that he
would see me later.
Gurdjieff came to the stable before I was through with the
horse and asked me to tell him exactly where I had found
Mr. Rachmilevitch. When I told him that I had found him
sitting in a tree in the "far garden" he looked at me, incre-
dulous, made me repeat this -- asked me if I was absolutely
sure -- and I assured him that he had been in a tree and that
I had had to sit there for a long time, under the tree, before
he had consented to come back with me. He asked me what
arguments I had used and I confessed that I had not been able
to think of anything except to say that he had to come back.
and that I had said I would wait there for as long as he would.
Gurdjieff seemed to find this whole story very amusing and
thanked me profusely for telling it to him.
Poor Mr. Rachmilevitch. When everyone was assembled in
the salon that evening, he was still an object of interest to us
all. It was the first time that any of us could remember one
single individual defying Gurdjieff in the presence of everyone
else. But the incident was not over. After the customary
playing of music on the piano by M. de Hartmann, Mr. Gurd-
jieff told us that he had a very amusing story to tell us, and
proceeded to reconstruct, in elaborate details, and with a
great many new embellishments of his own, the story of
Rachmilevitch's defiance of the afternoon, his disappearance,
and my "capture" of him. Not only was the story highly
embellished, but he also acted out all the parts -- himself,
Rachmilevitch, the interested spectators, myself, even the
horse. Amusing as it was to all of us, it was more than Rach-
rnilevitch could bear. For the second time that day, he strode
away from Gurdjieff after a furious outburst, vowing that he
would leave the Prieure for ever; he had, finally, had enough.
I do not believe that anyone took him seriously at the time,
but, to our surprise and consternation, he actually did leave
the following day for Paris. He had been so much a part of
the place, so conspicuous because of his never-ending com-
plaints, that it was like the end of an era -- as if some essential
property of the school had suddenly vanished.
Go to Next Page
|