RETURN OF THE STEPPENWOLF
by Geoff Ward
THE telephone rang, breaking into my reverie at the writing desk. “You have rooms to let?” came the polite inquiry. I’d advertised for a lodger who might like to take a couple of rooms upstairs. The house was too big for one person and, belatedly, I’d come to realise it was in need of repair. The rent would help with upkeep of the place and, literally - in particular - the roof over my head.
“Yes,” I replied, somewhat distracted, my mind still attached to the ponderings 
over the first draft of my new book’s early chapters, the book I’d had bottled up inside me for years, but had been unable to get out. Lately, the urge to write this, the real work, the one of significance, had been inflating inside me, like an expanding balloon. My imagination had been turning into a kind of pressure cooker where ideas were bubbling away with abandon. Grappling with these ideas, I’d been living a hermit’s life in the old house in recent weeks, shored up against eternity.
“Could I call to view the rooms this afternoon?” was the man’s next question. There was something foreign in his tone, a faint accent which I couldn’t quite put my finger on. “Er, yes,” I said, cradling the phone against my shoulder and scrabbling about for my diary among the books, papers and various other objects scattered across the desk. “That should be OK. What time?”
“Three o’clock, thank-you. My name is Haller.”
Perhaps the name should have struck me right away, but it didn’t - I was preoccupied. I gave him my address and replaced the receiver, turning back to my meditations, surveying for a moment the paraphernalia on the desk: a small bust of Socrates stood among the empty coffee cups and assorted reference volumes bristling with bookmarks; a card with a picture of Marian Evans and her quote “It is never too late to be what you might have been” was propped up prominently, reminding me that there was always latent potential to be tapped, the chance to reinvent oneself. Existence is potentiality.
For me, no question was more important than the existential one. Not only why are we here, but where are we going. All values were connected with the problem of human existence. Surely, I thought, all art asked the question “what is the meaning of human life?” - yet why were the answers so often unsatisfactory, why were there sometimes no answers at all? For me, the greatest literature was a linguistic mirror in which we saw reflected our own souls, a means of freeing the imagination and letting it take flight towards a renewed humanity, a higher turn on the evolutionary spiral - an avenue towards our deepest, truest selves. These were the ideas that, with a passion, I wanted to absorb into my new work; otherwise, I felt, I would be producing little more that was actually meaningful. Clearly, therefore, my new project was to be on my own terms, a bulwark against a world I saw as increasingly dominated by crassness and absurdity, by image over substance, by mediocrity and malevolence. I had been guilty of all these things, in my life and in my work. Now, I felt, it was time for change, to start over. Writers had to get back to the fundamentals. Such was my manifesto . . .
There was a sharp knock. It was three o’clock exactly. How very punctual, I thought, going out into the hall. I opened the door to look straight into a pair of dark eyes that glittered strangely in the afternoon sun and which held me momentarily motionless.
It was a few seconds before I was able to utter: “Hello, you must be Mr Haller. Come in.” “Yes. Thank-you.”
I shook hands with my visitor. Crossing the threshold was a man of late middle age, of medium height and build with grey, cropped hair, and smartly dressed in what looked like a new suit of clothes slightly too large for him. He carried a small briefcase. There was definitely a cosmopolitan air about him.
I led him to the staircase and as we passed the door to my study, he paused and peered inside, but did not say anything. I noticed he had a slight limp. Upstairs, he paced about the rooms, going over to each window and looking out, fractionally pulling aside the curtains. Oddly, he seemed to sniff the air. “I’m afraid the rooms are not very well furnished,” I apologised. “There’s room to bring in some of your own furniture if you want.”
“The rooms are excellent for my purposes - I would like to take them,” said Haller, fixing me with a curious, knowing look. “A month’s rent in advance will be no problem, and I have the references. With your permission, I would like to move in tonight. I do have a few things to bring.”
“That’s fine with me,” I said. And indeed it was. The sooner I found a lodger, the better. Haller had immediately impressed me as a man of culture, of intellect. He had an air of refinement, but also of sadness and vulnerability. He was surely not of English ancestry; there was something of Old Europe in his voice and bearing. And that name, Haller . . . Haller . . . it sounded German, Swiss perhaps, and not unfamiliar. I knew I’d heard it before somewhere, but, there and then, I couldn’t place it. Maybe it would come to me later, I said to myself, heading back to my desk and what I thought were more important matters to mull over.
A few hours later, Haller was back. From a taxi he carried into the house two expensive-looking leather suitcases, some boxes full of books, and a large old cabin trunk covered with hotel and travel agent stickers. He told me that he had arranged for a van to deliver some items of furniture the next day. As he went back for the cabin trunk, temporarily leaving the suitcases and boxes in the hall, I noticed that the books seemed to be mostly of poetry, in English as well as other European languages, and of all periods, from what I could see at a glance.
“You seem to have travelled a lot,” I said to him, gesturing towards the trunk as he began taking his effects upstairs. The reply was cryptic. “It seems that I am condemned to wander,” he said, in a tone of resignation.
I heard Haller moving about in his rooms for a while, and then things were quiet. An hour or so later, I thought it would be friendly to knock on his door and ask him if he would like to join me for a coffee, or perhaps a cognac. downstairs. To this, he readily agreed. “I would be delighted to join you,” he said. “My first name is Harry.”
I took him into the living room and opened the drinks cabinet, motioning him into an armchair. I poured the drinks and sat down myself. He sat quietly opposite me, taking the first sip of his cognac. Then, inquiringly, he turned his gaze fully on me. His eyes glittered in the lamplight, and I became overwhelmed by a sensation that I recognised him, a feeling that here was a man who had been suffering in loneliness, who had been ailing spiritually, whose malaise of the soul was indeed the malaise of our times. Harry Haller. Quite suddenly, realisation dawned.
“I’ve read about you,” I said, taken aback. I heard myself sounding foolish. “I didn’t think you were real. You’re the . . . ”
“Yes, I visited Mr Hesse. He wrote about me and published the Treatise which I left behind for him. Mr Hesse, you see, had joined the quest. You are a writer also.”
“I’m still trying to be,” I said.
“You too could write about me,” he suggested. “You are receptive. I know the man that must hear me.”
“But this is incredible,” I protested. “You can’t be Haller. He was a character in a novel written in the 1920s. This must be some sort of practical joke. Who sent you?”
“I can assure you this is not a joke. No one sent me. I am Harry Haller, the one who is called the Steppenwolf. You must trust me, please”
I slumped back in my chair, thoroughly perplexed. For a while, I was lost for words. Then, I said: “Look, if you’re Harry Haller, and Haller was a real person, Hesse’s book came out in Germany in 1929 - you’d be more than 120 years old by now!”
“I am not bound by time and reality in the same way as you are. In a way, I have always existed and will go on existing.”
I had read and re-read Steppenwolf over the years. Hesse was among my most favourite authors. More was coming back to me. The Steppenwolf, Harry Haller, was the wolf of the steppes, a being of two natures, human and wolf, restless, astray in an alien world, our world, where he was unable to find contentment, fulfillment, a world which he had continually to revisit on a never-ending sentence of suffering, where he was made time and again to travel the hell of his hidden inner nature, yet a world where there was promise that he would be finally healed.
“If that’s the case, why were you planning to commit suicide at the age of 50?” I asked in response to his last statement, perhaps trying to catch him out, perhaps still thinking - hoping - that this was all someone’s idea of an elaborate joke. “It wouldn’t have been possible, would it?”
“Contemplating suicide is a perfect means of confronting your own existence,” said Haller. “Obviously, I didn’t kill myself. I moved on. I had new lessons to learn.”
There was another short silence. Should I be laughing this off, treating it as a game? How could I really take this seriously? Yet there was something other-worldly about this man, some force or aura that emanated from him and enveloped me. I let my intuition take over. I asked him about the poetry.
He said: “Mr Wilson, who has also written a great deal about me, described a poem, or a book or a symphony for that matter, as not just another experience but a mystery, ‘a wind blowing from the future’. That is exactly how I see it. We must let that fresh breeze invigorate our consciousness. Dr Donne said: ‘Be more than a man, or thou’rt less than an ant . . .’ Men and women are not yet fully human. You must be more than a man to become fully human. A secret lies within your innermost self, your deepest soul, but it is a long and dangerous journey to find it out. The role of the poets is not to point out ways, but to arouse a longing. They are symbols of what the future can bring. That is why I read them, and why you do too. You’re very well read, it’s well known.”
My mind was racing. It seemed I had only more questions: “But why are you here? Why me?”
“I am interested in visiting your libraries and museums, and the ancient places near your city,” Haller replied with a casual air, then adding with a glint in his eye: “But you interest me as well.”
He finished his cognac and put down the glass on a side table. “If you will forgive me,” he said. “It has been a long and tiring day for me, and I should like to rest now. We shall speak again. Goodnight.”
With that, Haller had put an end to my questions. I couldn’t concentrate on any work that night. I went to my desk but simply sat there, turning over myriad thoughts in my mind. My rationality was at war with my intuition.
Neither side would allow the other to offer an explanation of what was happening. It was incomprehensible. I didn’t write a word. I made coffee. When at last I dragged myself to bed in the small hours, I couldn’t sleep for a long time, though my weariness was extreme. I was worn out. When I did at last sleep, I dreamed of following Harry Haller through endless subterranean tunnels, lit by fiery torches, and leading into an ever-deepening, ever-embracing mystery.
Next day, the van arrived with pieces of furniture which Haller seemed to have bought from a second-hand store: they included an armchair, a capacious bookcase, a small desk and table, a footstool, all of which had seen better days. Haller asked the men to carry the things up to his rooms. When the van had gone, he locked his door with his key and went out, without saying a word.
I didn’t see him again until the following day. It was late on Sunday afternoon. I was in my study when he suddenly appeared in the doorway and asked if he could come in. “Of course,” I said, beckoning him to a chair. Before sitting down, Haller stood for a minute or two scanning the bookcases, as if looking for a particular work. He seemed to be particularly satisfied at seeing several volumes of Nietzsche on the shelves, and nodded to himself. Then, as his dark eyes settled on me, the feeling of familiarity, of deep empathy, washed over me again.
“There is a particular experience I once had which I would like to mention to you, and which I described in my records,” he began. “In a little old tavern, after drinking wine on one occasion, I was suddenly immersed in a moment of pure joy, in a kind of vision. I was reminded of the eternal, of Mozart, of the stars, and, briefly, I was able to face existence again. I think you know what I’m talking about.”
“Yes. You mean the peak experience, or ecstasy as some people call it, when you get a feeling like a huge bubble about to burst in your chest, and a tremendous surge of optimism. You seem to soar above the world and your normal everyday consciousness is suddenly expanded. I’ve had those feelings, sometimes, and I’ve cherished them.”
“It is your unconscious pushing itself into your conscious mind, gloriously enlarging it. Something happens in the outside world which unexpectedly triggers an inner release. The problem, of course, is how to sustain that feeling once it is triggered. If we could sustain it we would be truly with the gods.”
“Maybe. The trouble is, you never know what’s going to trigger it, and you can’t seem to create the experience at will.”
“You need to be on better terms with your unconscious.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, my credulity again coming under severe strain.
“If you have a little spare time today,” said Haller, seeming to ignore my question, “There is something I would like to show you, if you would care to accompany me into town. It’s not for everybody, but I think you will find it interesting. It’s not far. It’s a pleasant evening and we could walk.”
The fact that I assented readily to his request was a measure of the extent to which I had fallen under Haller’s spell. The strangeness of the world from which he came, that world of infinite loneliness and pain, was impinging on the triviality of mine with such piquancy, such implacable force, that I felt myself being drawn irresistibly by a terrible fascination into an unexplored dimension of existence.
We went out together into the gathering dusk. Soon, we had left my own neighbourhood and entered another locality, nearer the city centre, where I had not ventured before. The street lamps were coming on, burning sulphurous against the darkening sky. Haller turned me first this way, and then that, through side streets, until eventually we paused before a large, gaunt building, tall, with dark, vacant windows. Above its shadowy doorway was an ancient, faded sign on which I could just make out two words in the dwindling twilight: “Magic Theatre”.
“This is our destination,” said Haller, guiding me up a short flight of steps towards the imposing portal. “Let us go in.” Silently, the heavy double doors swung open before us. I stepped inside, both curious and cautious, knowing that this was the point of no return. We stood in what indeed appeared to be the thickly-carpeted foyer of an old theatre. It was deserted. The air was warm and the light soft. To the left and right were staircases, and in front of us, velvet-curtained entranceways into what I supposed was the auditorium. Haller pointed towards the staircase to our right, and we ascended. At the top, we were confronted by our reflections in a mirror of gargantuan size covering the walls from floor to ceiling; and as we followed the balustrade around we passed the entrances to two long galleries curving away into infinity and studded with a vast number of narrow doors which evidently opened into boxes.
Haller, checking my progress with a slight touch of my arm, said: “Tonight, I am your host at the Magic Theatre, as my friend Pablo once was for me. He told me that it was the world of my own soul that I was seeking, and I can say that it is the same for you. In the Magic Theatre, you can find that world. But no two people’s experiences in the Magic Theatre are alike. For me, it was no delight - you know that I found a hell inside its doors. Who knows what you will find . . . I shall leave you to explore.”
Before I could collect my thoughts to say anything in reply, Haller had disappeared into the gallery opposite, leaving me gazing at my lone image in the huge mirror. After a moment, I turned and directed my steps into the nearest of the two galleries where I could now see that each door had a small sign on it. The first one had a sign which read: “Sapentia - wisdom unlimited.” With some trepidation, I opened the door and went in.
At once, I found myself in a sunny landscape of ruddy Mediterranean hues, with craggy mountains and blue lakes in the far distance, and a serpentine road leading across a plain towards them. As my eyes adjusted to this bright but puzzling vista, following the subdued lighting of the theatre, I noticed I was looking out from a balcony, and I became conscious of a female figure seated to my right, on the edge of my vision. Turning, I saw that a young woman was watching me with a steady gaze; she was in calm repose, still, with her hands crossed in front of her. I sensed the door closing behind me as our eyes met, her lips gently curved in the enigmatic Sophia smile of the eternal feminine which radiated love as wisdom.
Almost immediately, I knew who she was. My heart beat faster. As I moved towards her, she stood up and gracefully held out her hand, which I took and was able to hold for a moment, transfixed, before she withdrew it. She was sphinx-like, with an equivocal, elusive air, yet full of promise, both young and old, daughter and mother, childlike yet unchaste, ancient and contemporary.
“Yes, I am Isabella, of the court of Aragon, Duchess of Milan,” she said. “Leonardo painted me many times. He lived in the palace, but he was not my lover, you should know. He was beneath me.” Then, pointing to the countryside beyond, towards the road which snaked across the plain, she added, in her soft voice: “You must take the road to enlightenment. You will go this way.”
To one side of the balcony there was a low gate leading to a downward flight of stone steps. I moved towards the gate as if hypnotised, but pushing it open to pass through, I suddenly found myself back in the gallery of doors. I had just stepped out of a Renaissance painting! In a state of baffled wonderment I began to look at the signs on some of the adjacent doors: “Meet your favourite philosopher - all questions answered”; “How to be a celebrity in three easy lessons”; “Commit the perfect crime - again and again”; “Make any woman yours - satisfaction guaranteed”; “Clone yourself for a day - fun unlimited”; “Freedom is the greatest burden of all”.
I paused for a moment at this last sign, took a deep breath, and turned the door handle. Had I not taken that breath, it would have been snatched away by the panorama that now confronted me - a scene on an even grander scale than before. I stood on the edge of a great expanse of languid, sun-dried savannah which stretched before me to a far-off range of vermilion mountains. I saw immediately that the tallest peak had a huge cavity in its side, giving it the appearance of being hollow, and that on its lower slopes two gigantic faces, one male, one female, were carved in the rock at an angle, so that it was as if they were watching the skies. Off to my left, I noticed a small settlement of some kind, perhaps a native village, or camp, with makeshift shelters or cabins.
As I neared the village, there came a rumbling sound, and the ground began to shake. Across the plain, and heading towards the village, there appeared a massive herd of stampeding elephants. I watched in horror as the unstoppable beasts thundered through the village, crushing people underfoot and demolishing houses left and right. And yet they were not all elephants! In the rampage were many other strange and huge creatures resembling dinosaurs or dragons. I was only yards from their scaly flanks, their fetid breath was upon me, and clouds of dust swirled violently about me. Awestruck, my eyes and throat burning, I staggered backwards, groping for the handle of the door. Seizing it, I flung myself into the corridor outside where I lay gasping, uncomprehending.
As my eyes cleared, I found my shoulder was against a door which was ajar and bore a sign saying: “The Steppenwolf sends his regards - enter at once.” The door swung slowly open, and I heard a voice say: “Come in, young man, calm yourself and rest awhile.” Getting shakily to my feet, I found myself greeted by a frail-looking elderly man, perhaps eighty years old, in round-rimmed spectacles and wearing a suit and tie with matching waistcoat. His long neck emerging from a loose white shirt collar supported a head held in a birdlike attitude. He stood by a large antique desk in a room full of books which lined shelves covering the walls. He was smiling, his blue eyes bright, but there was a sadness in the expression. I detected the aroma of sandalwood incense. It was Hesse.
“Leonardo was a universal genius because his painting was magical,” he said. “Most people only understand what they feel with their senses; they know nothing of what lies behind them. Only magic can express that which is unattainable in any other way. Our soul has in it a magic we can trust. It seeks wholeness and strives to compensate for every gap, every deficiency. To transform the outside world by magic without going mad - that is our aim. In the Magic Theatre you have come into contact with the tremendous forces of the unconscious, and you are unscathed. The way is open now for you to continue your quest, and you have a guide - Isabella.”
Hesse went to the desk, picked up a small object lying there, and handed it to me. It was a ring with the number eight set in a stone of violet amethyst. “I have been keeping it for you,” he said. “It is an Egyptian ring. The number eight is the symbol of the infinite, of the labyrinth, and the journey into the unconscious.” I knew he was speaking in German but I understood him perfectly, even though I had never learned the language.
“The things we see are the things that are in us. There is no reality except for the reality we have within. What makes the lives of most men so unreal is that they mistake the images outside them for reality and never let their own world speak. It is possible to be happy in this way. But once a man knows the other way, he is no longer free to go the way of the many. But it is time for you to return now. The Steppenwolf is waiting for you.”
I was unable to utter any token of response. I struggled to find even coherent thoughts. My whole being was immersed in a transcendent tranquillity which obviated anything as imprecise as words, words which seemed no more than masks, masks that hid true meaning. Graciously, Hesse held the door for me, bowing slightly as I passed. Like a sleepwalker, I went out, and the door was closed behind me. I stood as if frozen, at odds with time and space. I could conceive of nothing except the present moment in which my past and future were irrevocably fused. The silent, empty gallery with its countless doors held me suspended with no purpose of direction. I felt strangely, uniquely, alone.
Divisions of time had become meaningless. Moments passed, perhaps minutes, or even hours, before, as if upon a reflex, my muscles suddenly propelled me forward. I began to walk in the direction of the landing where the immense mirror drew me relentlessly towards my approaching image. It was my normal self confronting me, looking remarkably composed, serene even, but I scarcely had time to register surprise or consternation at my appearance before, within a fleeting moment, the reflection split and multiplied into a thousand teeming aspects. Each step I slowly took, my feet weighted as if mired, engendered flickering images of a figure transformed from childhood to adulthood to old age, and back again, a farrago of selves merging and separating, cast off and reconstituted, like shoals of mad, lost spirits in a void, filling the mirror and seeming about to burst free from the glass and smother me.
Breathless, my heart pounding, it was with acute relief that I reached the top of the staircase and was able to turn myself away from that seething vision. As I went down the stairs, I could see that Haller was standing in the foyer, his manner casual. “What’s happening to me? I can’t believe all this is real,” I blurted out as I came up to him, gesticulating at the surroundings.
“We could spend an eternity discussing what is real and what is not,” Haller replied, “And not come to any conclusion. What each person finds in the Magic Theatre is peculiarly his own. He must make up his own mind about it, as I did, as you will.”
In avuncular fashion, Haller ushered me out of the building. Silently, we retraced our steps through the dark, deserted streets, absorbed into our own inner voices which the night brought close to our hearts. Upon reaching the house I realised that I had lost all track of time. I hardly knew what day it was. Again, I was enveloped by that amazing weariness which had followed my first conversation with Haller. I sank into sleep like a stone sinking to the bed of the ocean.
I don’t know how long I slept, nor if I dreamed, but it was well into the next day when I awoke to a feeling of unfamiliarity, of displacement, in my own otherwise familiar surroundings. Things had changed. I was different. I felt wiser, and sadder, certainly, but also as if I had been the subject of someone else’s imaginings, as if all my memories, hopes, fears, convictions and, yes, illusions too, had been given a subtle shift of emphasis. Something, someone, had invaded my innermost soul, made a profound alteration to the course of my life. It was not Haller himself, man or spectre, whatever he was, or his personal tale, but rather something he represented, something for which he was an emissary. It was to that subtle power that I had paid the price of admission to the Magic Theatre, a price which had indeed been my mind. I sensed that the quality of my existence had been transfigured, its meaning widened, deepened, by traversing that inner world. I was disturbed, disquieted, yes, but crucially, I felt more alive, revitalised. I was a like a limbeck ready to boil with alchemical activity.
I knew then that the Steppenwolf would be with me for a long time to come. He was beginning the game anew, testing the world’s fortunes once more. He was prepared to abase and castigate himself for centuries yet, if need be, before the game could be mastered. This time, I would be the one to share in his wisdom, but I would not share in his guilt, nor in his alienation. I had a growing affection for him. But not for me the life of the steppes. I would seize that “one life within us and abroad” which had eluded him but which now seemed within my grasp.
Life would not be easier as a result of my metamorphosis - no, I did not expect that - but its potential enlarged, its rewards revalued. The need was now to re-write my novel. The quest was to find out just who was re-writing me.
* Return of the Steppenwolf was shortlisted for the 2001/2002 Fish Short Story Prize (Republic of Ireland)