Read Online Memoir From Antproof Case by Mark Helprin - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Mark Helprin
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didn't see any."
"How long were you there?"
"Two days."
"
Voilà .
Anyway, the infestation doesn't start until the latter part of May and early June. Miss Mayevska lived there all year 'round, and every year at the beginning of summer she suffered great emotional distress."
"Should you be telling me this?"
"Everyone here knows about it. In August, she and her family used to go to the South of France, and when she was fourteen it was the year of the locusts, which is why she is here. All Provence erupted with a plague that, to her, was absolutely overwhelming."
"Is she French? What kind of name is Mayevska?"
"She is a Polish Jewess, but yes, she is French, although if one listens hard one can detect the traces of an accent."
"I see."
"Not yet you don't."
Although I continued the practice in the Second World War, I learned at Château Parfilage (and associate most strongly with the years of my confinement and freedom there) the nomadic technique of using a blanket. Marlise hardly knows what a blanket is, but up there where the air was thin and blizzards could strike close upon the heels of a brilliant summer sun, you needed to wear your blanket.
One blanket of thick virgin wool in a tight weave, long enough to be doubled or even quadrupled and hung from the shoulders as a wrap, was enough for winter or summer. We had no fires in our rooms, and of course no modern heating system, but it was a delight to sit within the folds of the blanket, studying or, as in the case of Miss Mayevska, playing the piano.
I did not see Miss Mayevska, but was almost always able to hear her at the piano, even if at times just faintly. I had thought that I would encounter her during the first meal, but because we were in an insane asylum we took our meals on the monastic pattern, savoring them in our rooms, in the cold, as we obsessed.
My first task, dictated by Father Bromeus for reasons that he would not disclose but that later appeared quite obvious, was to memorize the telephone directory of Zurich. To this day I can recall names and numbers that are no longer associated and that are forever lost, but that once made the hearts of boys and girls race as they saw on the page a code that would bring them, by voice and ear, to the houses of their beloveds.
The object of Father Bromeus was to train my mind to take in information. This was the French half of the education I received at Château Parfilage. I can still tell you that the atomic weight of cobalt is 58.93, that the altitude of the railroad station at Neuchatel is 482 meters, that Shakespeare used the word
glory
94 times, that the Italian word for
diphthong
is
dittongo,
that (though I cannot tell you who invented the pickle) Johann Georg Pickel invented the gas lamp in 1786, and that Roberts captured Bloemfontein on March 13, 1900, though Bloemfontein was never able to capture Roberts.
Father Bromeus presented me with so many tables, lists, texts, photographs, paintings, and musical compositions to memorize that I spent hours and hours a day at it. Soon I had mastered rapid apprehension and assimilation of virtually any material, never to be forgotten unless I deliberately banished it. Only later would the next test come, which was just as shocking as suddenly being presented with the Zurich telephone book. This was the task of analysis, which, with Jesuitical discipline, Father Bromeus divided up into interpolation, extrapolation, induction, reduction, and deduction.
When I had started upon these things, I was examined. "I have learned from Father Bromeus," the rector said, "that you have at your command the information necessary to tell me how you would, from this location, kill all the grasshoppers in Paris."
"I beg your pardon, sir?" I asked, never having been forced to this kind of thought.
Because I was not allowed to employ anyone in Paris or use the railroads to ship tens of thousands of birds and bats to the City of Light, I had to design and manufacture a huge
"How long were you there?"
"Two days."
"
Voilà .
Anyway, the infestation doesn't start until the latter part of May and early June. Miss Mayevska lived there all year 'round, and every year at the beginning of summer she suffered great emotional distress."
"Should you be telling me this?"
"Everyone here knows about it. In August, she and her family used to go to the South of France, and when she was fourteen it was the year of the locusts, which is why she is here. All Provence erupted with a plague that, to her, was absolutely overwhelming."
"Is she French? What kind of name is Mayevska?"
"She is a Polish Jewess, but yes, she is French, although if one listens hard one can detect the traces of an accent."
"I see."
"Not yet you don't."
Although I continued the practice in the Second World War, I learned at Château Parfilage (and associate most strongly with the years of my confinement and freedom there) the nomadic technique of using a blanket. Marlise hardly knows what a blanket is, but up there where the air was thin and blizzards could strike close upon the heels of a brilliant summer sun, you needed to wear your blanket.
One blanket of thick virgin wool in a tight weave, long enough to be doubled or even quadrupled and hung from the shoulders as a wrap, was enough for winter or summer. We had no fires in our rooms, and of course no modern heating system, but it was a delight to sit within the folds of the blanket, studying or, as in the case of Miss Mayevska, playing the piano.
I did not see Miss Mayevska, but was almost always able to hear her at the piano, even if at times just faintly. I had thought that I would encounter her during the first meal, but because we were in an insane asylum we took our meals on the monastic pattern, savoring them in our rooms, in the cold, as we obsessed.
My first task, dictated by Father Bromeus for reasons that he would not disclose but that later appeared quite obvious, was to memorize the telephone directory of Zurich. To this day I can recall names and numbers that are no longer associated and that are forever lost, but that once made the hearts of boys and girls race as they saw on the page a code that would bring them, by voice and ear, to the houses of their beloveds.
The object of Father Bromeus was to train my mind to take in information. This was the French half of the education I received at Château Parfilage. I can still tell you that the atomic weight of cobalt is 58.93, that the altitude of the railroad station at Neuchatel is 482 meters, that Shakespeare used the word
glory
94 times, that the Italian word for
diphthong
is
dittongo,
that (though I cannot tell you who invented the pickle) Johann Georg Pickel invented the gas lamp in 1786, and that Roberts captured Bloemfontein on March 13, 1900, though Bloemfontein was never able to capture Roberts.
Father Bromeus presented me with so many tables, lists, texts, photographs, paintings, and musical compositions to memorize that I spent hours and hours a day at it. Soon I had mastered rapid apprehension and assimilation of virtually any material, never to be forgotten unless I deliberately banished it. Only later would the next test come, which was just as shocking as suddenly being presented with the Zurich telephone book. This was the task of analysis, which, with Jesuitical discipline, Father Bromeus divided up into interpolation, extrapolation, induction, reduction, and deduction.
When I had started upon these things, I was examined. "I have learned from Father Bromeus," the rector said, "that you have at your command the information necessary to tell me how you would, from this location, kill all the grasshoppers in Paris."
"I beg your pardon, sir?" I asked, never having been forced to this kind of thought.
Because I was not allowed to employ anyone in Paris or use the railroads to ship tens of thousands of birds and bats to the City of Light, I had to design and manufacture a huge
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