Translated · Show originalShow translation
Magical Ink
Yesterday was the absolute low point of a project rich in low points. My book resisted being written with all tricks and meanness. It was an important book. Time was pressing.
I had buried myself in the topic for months, reading, researching, discussing late into the night with my publisher. My study was overrun with piles of books, folders with copies, memory cards from interviews, cables, empty coffee cups, a PC and a laptop in the middle, plus crumbs and pizza boxes. I had been holed up here for weeks and yet - no silver lining on the horizon.
And now I was sitting in my car in front of the gate of a monastery. Another author from my publisher had found peace and focus here and overcome his writer's block in just a few days - for me, it was the famous grasp at straws.
I was told to bring as little as possible, so I had only the essential clothing and the laptop with the most important sources. One bag, nothing more, at least that felt good.
I drove through the gate, parked the car to the right under old chestnut trees in the courtyard. In front of me rose a Gothic church made of light sandstone, next to it the Baroque abbey and adjoining economic buildings with elements from a thousand years of architectural history. I walked down the gravel path lined with low boxwood hedges towards the abbey, work, silence…
After a spartan but restful night and a shockingly healthy breakfast, a friendly but taciturn monk came to fetch me - I was to come along without my laptop.
At the end of a narrow, bare corridor, we stepped through a narrow door into a splendid library.
My companion instructed me to wait here, so I had time to look around. Marble columns with golden capitals supported a high vault. Between the columns, powerful bookshelves alternated with narrow windows. At a height of four to five meters, there was a gallery walkway supported by richly decorated wooden columns, providing access to the next floor full of shelves. Above, the walls were adorned with frescoes, and the vault was painted: groups of people and angels in billowing garments among clouds and painted architecture. It was a very famous fresco, a masterpiece of the Baroque, but I was more drawn to the books. Nothing here seemed younger than two or three hundred years; many names and titles were familiar to me, not because I had read them - which physicist reads Newton in the original today - but because they were the great thinkers and researchers that scientists have referred to for centuries.
Suddenly, I felt tiny.
Another monk with an ageless face and wise eyes silently gestured for me to follow him. We walked through a large, heavy wooden door at the end of the hall. Behind it was a bright corridor with Gothic windows and ribbed vaulting, leading to the reading room with magnificent Gothic windows. The opposite side was similarly high, covered with books, but here with two, albeit shorter, galleries, allowing access to the books without a ladder. In the middle of the room stood tables in several rows, surely more than half occupied - readers deeply engrossed in their books.
My companion pointed me to a table and then brought me an old, simply leather-bound book without a title. When I opened it, my breath caught - it was handwritten - the correspondence between Newton, Sir Isaac Newton, the epitome of the classical physicist, and Robert Hooke, who contributed to the further development of the microscope and the foundation of cell biology, among other things. However, it was "merely" a very old copy, not the originals, but not in private scrawl either, rather in masterfully beautiful English cursive, thus easily readable after a short adjustment period. I sank into the letters, as everyone around me had already done, and read myself into the exchange of thoughts between these two great researchers. I lingered on a famous passage from Newton: “If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.”
I looked out the window; behind the old, irregular, and not entirely clear panes, I could glimpse the Baroque herb garden. My companion suddenly stood next to me again, told me to leave the book behind and follow him.
He led me from the reading room through a low corridor to a narrow, worn sandstone spiral staircase. At the top was another plain corridor, from which he opened a very old, very rough wooden door. The small room behind it had a window with greenish leaded glass, and on the wall, roughly paneled with softwood, stood a solid, dark, visibly old table and a heavy, intricately carved chair, with a green tiled stove in the corner. On the table were some sheets of heavy handmade paper, a cube-shaped inkwell, and a quill.
“Write,” the monk smiled, and left me standing.
Torn between frustration - what am I supposed to do here without my materials? - and inspired creativity, I sat down at the table. It bore the marks of centuries of use, partly worn, partly polished. What to write now? Ink and quill beckoned, but the expensive handmade paper forbade trivial scribbling. I could write down the title of the book, at least that.
When I opened the inkwell, streaks rose from it. The smell of the ink spread and hit me with almost physical energy. For a moment, I felt dizzy, then everything was clear again; the light had changed, no longer warm and somewhat hazy, but clear like a clearing on a spring morning.
I dipped the quill and set it to the paper. In doing so, a better formulation for the title came to mind. The unfamiliar quill moved somewhat awkwardly over the paper; it demanded control. I liked the title. Why was I writing this book? I explained it in a few simple, clear sentences. The ink was surprisingly pale gray, but the quill glided better now, even though the interruptions for re-dipping were still unfamiliar. Then I laid out my central thoughts and lines of argument beneath it. At the very edge, I noticed someone bringing me a pitcher of water and a glass. I continued writing, the outline of the book. Then I gathered the most important thoughts again - this could be what the conclusion looks like.
In the meantime, the ink had turned deep black.
When I looked up, the sun had already passed its zenith and warmed the writing room. The monk stood next to me and suggested I take a walk in the monastery garden; he would bring the papers to my chamber. I followed him outside, walked among flowers and herbs to an ancient boxwood, lay down beside it in the soft grass, and enjoyed the warmth of the sun. The book was almost finished. I just had to incorporate my sources and materials. The scent of the strange ink still lingered lightly around me…
