“I have so often listened to your playing, there in the church,” I
said. “But I don’t want to bother you. I thought perhaps I should
discover something in you, something special, I don’t know exactly
what. But please don’t mind me. I can listen to you in the church.”
“Why, I always lock the door!”
“Just lately you forgot, and I sat inside. Otherwise I stand outside or
sit on the curb-stone.”
“Is that so? Another time you can come inside, it’s warmer. You’ve
simply got to knock on the door. But loudly, and not while I’m playing.
Now--what did you want to say? But you’re quite young, apparently a
schoolboy or student. Are you a musician?”
“No. I like music, but only the kind you play, absolute music, where
one feels that someone is trying to fathom heaven and hell. I like
music so much, I think, because it is not concerned with morals.
Everything else is a question of morals, and I am looking for something
different. Whatever has been concerned with morals has caused me only
suffering. I don’t express myself properly. Do you know that there must
be a god who is at the same time god and devil? There must have been
one, I have heard so.”
The organist pushed back his broad hat and shook the dark hair from
his forehead. He looked at me penetratingly and bent forward his face
towards me over the table.
Softly and tensely he questioned:
“What’s the name of the god of whom you are talking?”
“Unfortunately I know practically nothing about him really, only his
name. His name’s Abraxas.”
The musician looked distrustfully around, as if someone might be
eavesdropping. Then he bent towards me and said in a whisper: “I
thought so. Who are you?”
“I’m a student from the school.”
“How do you know about Abraxas?”
“By chance.”
He thumped on the table, so that his wine spilled over.
“Chance! Don’t talk nonsense, young man! One doesn’t know of Abraxas
by chance, mark you. I will tell you something more of him. I know a
little about him!”
He ceased talking and pushed back his chair. I looked at him
expectantly, and he made a grimace.
“Not here! another time. There, take these!”
He dug his hand into the pocket of his overcoat, which he had not taken
off, and pulled out a couple of roasted chestnuts, which he threw to me.