The Musical Brain: And Other Stories

Acts of Charity

WHEN A PRIEST IS SENT to exercise his ministry in an economically depressed area, his first duty is to alleviate the poverty of his flock through acts of charity. Those acts will earn the gratitude of his beneficiaries, and, in due course, open the gates of heaven for him. He should remember, however, that poverty will not (alas!) be eradicated by the donations that his conscience, his vocation, and the directives of his superiors oblige him to make. Although charity may effectively address a temporary crisis or a specific case of need, it is not a long-term solution. Its provisional nature means that it has to be renewed over time, in the form of a continuous flow of material goods, for which a source must be found. The clergy, backed up by an institution that has, over the course of its millenary history, accumulated ample resources, is more than capable of meeting the demands of charity. But it should also be kept in mind that the minister of divine consolation has to live as well, with the dignity appropriate to his office, and the comforts that his upbringing and habits have rendered indispensable. These arrangements cost money, money that could, and really should, be used for charity. There has to be a balance, and common sense, combined with the priest’s good judgment and sense of propriety, will find that balance and maintain it. And yet it remains the case that the less a priest spends on himself and his relatives, the greater the means at his disposal for helping the needy, and the closer he will be to obtaining the corresponding heavenly reward. And this, on reflection, may prompt a suspicion: isn’t the exercise of charity shadowed by self-interest, pride, and vanity? Aren’t the poor being used as stepping-stones to sainthood? The suspicion is justified, and easy to confirm, but dangerously corrosive like all doubts, and finally paralyzing, because the alternative would be an egotistical indifference to the suffering of others. Here again, prudence, tempered in this case with trust in divine providence, will determine the right course of action.

The aforementioned problems — how to balance personal expenses against charity, and how to avoid the vanity of the self-admiring benefactor — can be avoided by following the example set out below.

The priest begins by recognizing that he is a visitor passing through a world in which poverty and need are permanent fixtures. He will be replaced by another priest, who will be faced with the same dilemmas. And he realizes that a good way to practice charity is to ensure that it will not be discontinued in the future. This is not only a precaution but an act of humility as well, if the person acting charitably in the present deliberately gives up piety points in favor of his successor. In other words, and to be more specific, it’s a matter of taking the money that might have been given to the poor today and investing it in amenities that will be enjoyed by the next priest assigned to the parish, so that he will be able to use his whole budget to protect the needy against hunger and cold.

Motivated by this reasoning, which might seem rather unusual, but has a solid logical base, the priest arranges for a house to be built as soon as he arrives to take up his new position. The existing house, which is his to live in, is old, small, uncomfortable, and dark. The roof leaks, the floors are bare gray cement, and there are no shutters on the little windows. It’s surrounded by a patio full of weeds, a ruined chicken coop, and swampy scrubland. For him, it would be fine. He doesn’t need luxuries, not even modest ones. His vow of poverty implicitly or explicitly enjoins him to share life’s hardships with the least fortunate of his fellow men. And the money at his disposal would make a difference to many of those who live nearby: doing his initial rounds, getting to know the flock that has fallen to his care, he can see for himself the terrible poverty afflicting those helpless families, victims of unemployment, ignorance, and distance from major cities. It would be easy for him to play the role of benefactor, beginning, for example, with the most desperate situation (although it would be hard to choose among so many pitiful cases) and providing a remedy that would seem nothing short of miraculous. So acute is the deprivation that what he and his relatives would consider a trifle — literally: the price of a dessert — might keep those poor people in food for weeks. Then he could move on to other families, and others, his action spreading like a drop of oil, finally earning the love and respect of everyone in the area. . But he would leave a minefield for his successor, who’d be tempted to look after himself rather than his neighbors, especially since he’d be able to say: My predecessor did so much for others, he was so self-abnegating; he left the priest’s house in such a ruinous state, it’s only reasonable for me to do something for myself, and for my successor. The poor, meanwhile, as well as having been spoiled by the largesse of the first priest, would find themselves without food, shelter, or medication.

So, although his heart is bleeding for the pitiful condition of his flock, he pays no heed, but hires architects and builders, buys bricks, cement, marble, and wood. And he embarks on the construction of a large modern house, equipped with all the latest conveniences, built to last, with the finest materials.

Under the innocent, admiring gazes of barefoot children, teams of builders brought in by a developer work in shifts to erect a worthy abode. The priest has discussed the plans at length with the architect. Every step of the way he thinks of his faceless, nameless successor, who may still be unborn, but is already foremost in his thoughts. The house is for that future priest, after all; it has been designed so that he will find it splendid and welcoming, so well suited to his taste that there will be nothing for him to do, besides devoting his days to the exercise of charity. But with a stranger, there’s a lot to cover, if you’re trying to cover it all; where there’s a choice between two possibilities, you have to allow for both rather than choosing one. So the priest finds himself obliged to opt for a magnificence to which he is not accustomed, and yet he forges on without fear of excess, regardless of the cost.

In matters of taste, of course. . And alterations are costly, sometimes even more costly than building. So he has to figure it out as carefully as possible at every step. But tastes don’t differ all that much, and in this case the differences are limited because he’s designing the house for a priest like him, a pious man, devoted to his pastoral duties. So all he has to do is identify with his successor, imagine a version of himself transported into the future, for whom the previous incumbent has smoothed the way by leaving him a fully prepared and furnished dwelling, so that he won’t have to worry about setting up house and will be able to focus entirely on spiritual matters and helping his neighbors. He is guided by his own taste, stretching it here and there to accommodate any unexpected idiosyncrasies. When in doubt, he opts for a Solomonic solution, but instead of dividing, he duplicates. With the bathrooms, for example: he knows that some owners prefer en suites, while others find them repugnant and hold that bathrooms should give on to a hallway. So he decides to have two main bedrooms, one with an en suite bathroom, the other with the bathroom next door, but opening off a hall. This problem solves itself as the plans are worked out and the bedrooms and bathrooms multiply: they can be disposed in a variety of ways to satisfy not only the eventual owner of the house but all his guests and visitors as well. When it comes to the kitchen, however, there’s a choice that can’t be avoided by multiplication: should it be an “open” kitchen, giving on to the everyday dining room, or a “closed” one, with a separating wall? It’s hard to know, because, really, it’s up to the woman of the house, who will be the main user of the kitchen, so all the priest can do is speculate. Some women, he thinks, might want more privacy, less interference when they’re cooking, while others would prefer not to be cut off from the other members of the family, who might be chatting or enjoying some game at the table in the dining room. A sliding door would seem to be the synthesis that overcomes this problem, but, on due reflection, there’s no need for a synthesis: all one has to do is make the kitchen large enough to include a dining area, should one be required, and have a separate dining room as well.

The house has two floors, three including the attic rooms. Or four, including the basement, where the laundry is, and which is only half underground because the ground floor, the piano nobile, is elevated. That’s where the salons are, arranged in a kind of circuit, so that, whatever the time of day, the ample windows of one, at least, can capture the sunlight. Having climbed the twelve steps of the grand stairway to enter the house and walked down a long hallway, one reaches a central lobby, which is the only large space on the ground floor that does not give on to the outside. Yet it is not deprived of daylight, because a spacious arcade connects it with another lobby, of the same dimensions, which opens on to the rear gallery and receives the rays of the sun. These twin spaces cater to different tastes: for light or shade, for gatherings (or solitary meditation) in the cool of the back lobby during summer, with the doors open to the gallery, or in the snug warmth of the central lobby with its fireplace in winter time. The design also allows for choice between large and small spaces, between the majestic and the intimate. To the right of the lobbies, a maze of little rooms, arranged in an arc around the lateral façade, satisfies the taste for intimacy. They could be used as studies or waiting rooms, for storing documents or accommodating extra guests and residents who might prefer to be away from the main bedrooms on the first floor. A large bathroom and two smaller ones service this area. Tucked away among these little rooms are two without any windows, which offer the possibility of complete isolation, should anyone need to withdraw in order to concentrate, or for any another reason. Preferences for large or small spaces are not mutually exclusive: the same person might opt for one or the other in different circumstances and at different hours or moments of the day.

On the other side, to the left of the lobbies, is the grand dining room, twenty yards long, then a little octagonal Chinese room for smaller but still formal meals, and a third dining room, for daily use, with a dumbwaiter going down to the kitchens; but another kitchen is planned for the ground floor, to allow the future owner to choose between two domestic arrangements: one that would suit the relaxed style of a lady who likes to do the cooking herself, and another for the mistress of the house who is happy to let her qualified staff take care of everything. In the first case, the downstairs kitchens could be adapted for some other use, and joined up with the rest of the basement, accessed by a larger staircase: that’s where the billiard room is, along with spaces that could be used as recording studios, darkrooms, or workshops for various hobbies.

The main library, in a prime location — one of the corners on the ground floor — is complemented by a smaller one upstairs, which provides a store of reading material handy to the bedrooms. These range in size from large to small, have views in all directions, and among them, as well as the library, are little salons, galleries, and two small dining rooms, one at either end. There are bedrooms with and without dressing rooms, private sitting rooms, and connecting doors, but each one has a balcony, and those at the ends of each wing have terraces as well.

On the next floor up, a long row of small but comfortable bedrooms, with good ventilation and natural light, for the staff, should they be required to live in, plus little sitting rooms, hallways, bathrooms, and ample storage space. The house is crowned by a circular cupola with a dome and glass walls. The various levels, from the basement to the cupola, are connected by stairways, the grander of which are made of marble with wrought iron and bronze railings, while the humbler are of timber or granite, but all are elaborately designed. Disabilities and weariness must be taken into account, so the priest reserves an empty space for an elevator shaft going right to the top of the building. He wouldn’t hesitate to foot the bill for a state-of-the-art model, but he has second thoughts: the newer the mechanism, the greater the likelihood that a specialized technician would have to be called in if it broke down, which, in a remote region like that, would take time and cost a considerable amount of money. So he opts for an old design, so old it’s almost anachronistic to call it an elevator at all, with a hydraulic mechanism (just like the ones built for Frederick the Great’s palaces in Potsdam in the eighteenth century): it’s primitive but, precisely because of that, ingenious and perfectly functional. The degree of mechanical skill that might be expected of any gardener or chauffeur is quite sufficient to puzzle out its system of pulleys, sheaves, and counterweights. Since it has to be built specially, it turns out to be far more expensive — five times more, in fact — than the latest model; but like all the other expenses, this one is balanced by a future saving.

There’s no need to go into more detail. But that’s what the priest does, plunging into the depths of detail, spending long days in research, reflection, and conversations with the architects. In those sessions, a doubt begins to surface, or not so much a doubt as the intimation of a danger: that of creating a monster. Reality consists of beings and things in which all possibilities but one have already been set aside. In reality, alternatives do not coexist. And what is he doing if not attempting to bring them into coexistence? There are many ways of defining monstrosity, he thinks, but their common feature is the coexistence of possibilities among which a choice should have been made. And the house that he is building conforms to that description frighteningly well. Or it will if he gets his way, if he realizes his project to its full extent and depth, and makes a house that is at once big and small, grand and modest, melancholic and joyful, eastern and western, this and that. . The supposedly ideal house could end up inspiring horror, like some diabolical invention. Satan employs the same weapons, after all, subtly introducing possibilities into the real. .

After a few sleepless nights of fretting over this problem, the priest reassures himself. His doubt becomes transparent and dissolves, like the memory of a nightmare yielding to the onslaught of day. After all, the house will be real, very real (that’s the idea), it will manifest the possibilities he has chosen, and be beautiful and harmonious, insofar as his good taste allows. His doubts will be buried, or rather walled up, by the obduracy of matter.

So the construction of the house begins, and its reality shines like an authentic wonder, or the promise of a wonder, in that poor district where nine out of ten families live crammed in one-room tin shacks, shared not only by the numerous offspring of promiscuity and ignorance, but also by dogs, chickens, and pigs. The locals come to admire, although they don’t really understand, nor do they criticize. Criticism would exceed their intellectual capacities, which have atrophied through lack of use, like their understanding. But even if the purely intellectual distance were overcome, understanding would still be beyond their reach because the project is an act of charity performed for their benefit (although with a delayed effect), so it includes them, it’s a part of them, and understanding it would mean understanding themselves, and, in a way, ceasing to be poor.

The teams of builders, technicians, and craftsmen come from the city. The priest refrains from employing local workers, even though it would be beneficial for the region, because he’s worried about the delays and imperfections that might result from their lack of expertise. Although he’s working for the future, and, in a sense, for eternity, there is a certain urgency. It’s a paradox worthy of Oscar Wilde (and worthier still of Thomas Aquinas): eternity has to be secured not in the short term but immediately. And the job has to be done well.

It’s a lightning operation, reminiscent of prestidigitation or magic. But, of course, that’s not how it actually works, because walls don’t go up by themselves or by the power of a spell; they are subject to the step-by-step progression of reality. So, between the morning’s discussions of logistical problems and the evening’s review and forward planning, in the middle of the day the priest has quite a lot of time on his hands, which he spends exploring the town and its environs, an activity in which he has hardly engaged until now, what with the hectic demands of planning and supervising the early stages of the building. The task of getting to know his flock and assessing their material and spiritual condition is an essential part of his ministry, which he has been relinquishing for the sake of the future. He only takes it up now because he has time to spare; he wouldn’t have done so otherwise, secure in the knowledge that he is working to ensure that his successor (indeed the whole series of his successors, since the house is intended to serve for a long time) will not have to defer that task.

He’s saddened by what he sees: at close quarters, the poverty is more shocking than he’d imagined. Perhaps, he thinks at first, it’s because of the contrast between the visions that have occupied his mind these last weeks — architectural visions of beauty and comfort — and the incredible deprivation in which those poor people live. But it’s not just that, although the difference may have heightened the impression. What it means to live without a bathroom, without furniture, crammed into a tiny space, sleeping on bug-infested straw mattresses, under roofs of damp thatch that smell of rot is something that can be grasped without recourse to any kind of contrast. Hunger, malnutrition, and illness are the currency of the exchange between children and adults, young and old, men and women. As the priest approaches the doorways of the dark shacks, nauseating odors check his steps; in a paroxysm of horror and pity, his fantasy fills in what he can’t see. The visible is barely half the problem. The other half is ignorance, resulting from an intricate knot of causes and effects: innocent, animal vice; the lack of long-term prospects; the stunned incapacity to see beyond day-by-day survival; the death of hope. His heart bleeds. The domain of charity opens out before him, a wasteland bathed by the angelic light of religion. He’s ready and waiting for the sharp plowshare of compassion to open a deep furrow in him.

But that furrow will not be opened for some time yet, so much time that he will not be the one to receive the wound. At the mere thought of this, he is seized by a doubt. He knows that the reasoning on which he has based his enterprise is sound, and not only sound but just, and yet the heart has its reasons. . His heart bled to see the distressing deprivation that surrounds him, and, bloodless now, it contracts in a spasm of anxiety as he realizes that with the money he is spending on the building of the house he could relieve much of that suffering. He could, for example, build a complex of small houses equipped with all the basic amenities necessary for a hygienic, civilized existence; half the population of the area, or more, would be well housed, and there’d be money left over for a school, a clinic. . But then the priest’s house would remain a depressing, dilapidated pile; at best, he’d be able to do a few repairs, with scraps of money pilfered from charity.

And in that case (here the priest, like someone who has reached the top of a slope and begun the easier descent, resumes his well-rehearsed argument), in that case, his successor might come to shirk the holy duties of charity, invoking the satanic proverb: “Charity begins at home.” Or, even if he wasn’t quite so bold, he could still consider the complex of neat little houses built by his predecessor and say: “It’s all done.” That would be a prodigious error, because the work of charity is never all done, not to mention the fact that to satisfy the housing needs of so many people with a fixed budget, one would have to use cheap materials and unskilled workers, and as a result the little houses in question would already be starting to need repairs by then. No, it certainly wouldn’t be all done; those ignorant people, raised amid filth and neglect, without a sense of civic virtue, would actively contribute to the deterioration of their homes. So it is essential to ensure that the charitable work of supporting, educating, and civilizing will continue. And the best way to do that is to leave a perfectly appointed residence for many priests to come. Once that task is accomplished, the priest will be able to give away all that he has, because he won’t need anything for himself. And the only reason he can’t do it straightaway is that he’s already giving — in secret, which is the best way to give.

This self-granted consolation allows him to return to work on the splendid house, the house of the future, with fresh energy. And in the days that follow, he has no time to fret over the conditions of the needy, because, as the structure nears completion, his tasks have multiplied; in a sense, they’re just beginning, because the walls and the roof are barely a skeleton and must be covered with all the things that make a house habitable. He has already decided which rooms will have marble floors (all those on the piano nobile except the main library and the rooms in the western wing), and where the floors will be wooden or tiled. Bluish-gray tiles of nonslip volcanic rock for the service areas, the kitchens, and the laundries; Slavonian oak, in boards of various widths and parquetry, for the first floor and the attic rooms. For the grand ceremonial staircase, pink Iranian marble, which will also cover the columns in the salons. White Carrara marble for the steps up to the main entrance and down from the rear gallery. The use of marble requires a certain sensitivity and tact: it’s a material that can have an inhibiting effect because of its associations with solemnity or courtly grandeur, but that is precisely why some people like it: because it makes them feel important, as if they’d entered a world in which momentous decisions are being made. The priest attempts to reconcile these opposite reactions by choosing restful forms for the bases of the columns and the sweep of the staircase, in order to impress without intimidating.

For the private bathrooms he has towel racks made to measure from a light, warm wood. The shared bathrooms, which are scattered around the house, away from the bedrooms, are floored with black and white tiles, which create an atmosphere of childlike innocence. He supervises the polishing, tests the waxes, and already he’s considering carpets.

The next step, although it has been under way for some time, is finishing the walls, in one of the three classic fashions: wood paneling, wallpaper (or hangings), and paint. In choosing the woods for the paneling from catalogs and samples, he runs the gamut from humble peteribi to precious cedar. The carvings of flowers, vegetables, animals, fish, scrolls, and capricious geometrical figures, which correspond over large distances so that instead of clearly echoing one another they seem vaguely, unplaceably familiar, are copied from old models and produced by craftsmen in various cities. They begin to arrive along with the wallpaper and hangings, some of which have been ordered from catalogs, while others have been custom-made. The salon walls begin to take on color as they are hung with damasks, brocades, and silks; the hexagonal coffers of the ceilings are covered with old gold leaf so as to hold the light. For the walls of certain bedrooms, floral wallpapers are suitable, while for others a uniform color is best: the pinkish bister of parchment or the midnight blue of Bengal cotton. On the rare occasions when the effect of the wallpaper (not in isolation but in conjunction and contrast with the other papers) is deemed unsatisfactory, it is removed and replaced. Harmony and variety must be reconciled, and monotony avoided without yielding to distracting excesses. The difference that the pictures and furniture will make must also be borne in mind. For the walls of the ancillary spaces, the paint selected is a creamy latex blend in neutral tones, but not so neutral as to exclude the hint of a metallic or watery sheen.

From a certain point on, once the boring installation of the plumbing, heating, wiring, and sewage is completed to the priest’s satisfaction, and the floors, ceilings, walls, doors, and windows have been duly covered and adorned, he feels that one phase is finished, and he can now begin to concentrate on the next. His focus has always been, and always will be, his successor in the parish, in accordance with the plan that moved him to act in the first place. Not for an instant does he lose sight of his objective: to build a house that will satisfy all the needs of its inhabitant, who as a result will not have to spare a moment or a thought for himself, and will be able to dedicate his energies entirely to the welfare of others. In a way, he is building a monument to Charity. But he is also building a house, and must, unavoidably, apply himself to the practical questions that keep arising. For the moment, he is moderately satisfied to have finished what might be called the “shell”; now he can move on to the contents. What he has achieved is no mean feat, because that “shell” has two surfaces: the outer surface made up of façades, roofs, slates, awnings, balconies, shutters, cornices, chimneys, window frames, and moldings; and the inner surface: paintings, paneling, coffered ceilings, floors. . Inside the shell, there will be further layers, each with its inner and outer surface, even if he considers all the spaces as forming a whole, which is what he plans to do; layers that will gradually bring him closer (while also taking him farther away), closer to a center that still seems very remote. And that center — it strikes him now with the force of a revelation — is Charity, devotion to others. That’s why any approach to it will also be a distancing: because what he has staked on this enterprise, with supreme generosity, is his own death.

In any case, the phase that is now beginning comprises innumerable complications and seems, at the outset, infinite. Since he’s intending to have the house fully furnished and equipped, with every last teacup and towel in place, ready to be lived in as soon as it’s finished (although he’s not actually preparing it for himself but for an unknown successor, who won’t arrive until some time after his death, possibly years later), he will have to get the whole thing finished and attend to every part, great or small, of that whole. It would be an exaggeration to speak of “infinity,” because there’s a limit to what can fit in a house; the house itself is that limit. But, in accordance with his previous reasoning, the asymptotic approach to the center, to the smallest and most central item (the coffee spoon, the adaptor plug), seems never-ending. The furniture in each of the many rooms, the decoration, the useful objects provided for every occasion in daily life. . And yet that proliferation has an advantage over the design and building of the structure: it facilitates more flexible variations with which to satisfy the needs of the future inhabitant who is the constant focus of his thoughts.

Now is the time to pat himself on the back for having multiplied the interior spaces: their number allows for the satisfaction of different, even incompatible, tastes and proclivities: thus a penchant for modern, comfortable design, and even for avant-garde experiments (in moderation), need not preclude stateliness in the French or English manner, or medieval austerity, or the rustic simplicity of straw-seated chairs and camp beds. . All this is easier to say than to do, of course; but it’s a spur to ingenuity and inventiveness in furnishing.

The catalogs of the finest suppliers pile up on the priest’s desk, but he is not satisfied. Thonet, Chippendale, Jean-Michel Frank, and Boulle, launched on their elliptical orbits, converge and coincide, pursuing harmony in diversity. Antique dealers on three continents pack and dispatch their treasures. From the far end of a room, an Empire bed with golden lion’s feet responds to a heavy curtain of green velvet with crimson tassels. Wreathed in his tiny aura, a decorative, almost comic Ganesh in an Indian plaster relief presides over a large rug with blue djinns against a cream ground. The little Louis XV chairs and pedestal tables, so fragile, as if held up by a puppeteer’s invisible threads, welcome the florid morning light pouring in through the picture windows. . Gradually the house fills up, like a puzzle patiently assembled. There is a danger of ending up with something like a bazaar or a showroom. The priest is aware that he is subject to forces pulling in opposite directions: one toward diversity, to ensure that the future occupant, of whom nothing can be known since he doesn’t yet exist, will find some point or line to his taste; the other toward coherence, which is what will make the house an attractive whole. His best efforts are devoted to reconciling these demands, which is why he adopts a timeless design frame, somewhere between Victorian and art deco, within which striking or exotic touches will function as details: noticeable, pleasing, but also discreet.

Although he directs and oversees all of the work, and has the last word, he listens to his many helpers and takes their advice into account. Throughout the long days, he is accompanied by architects and designers, who stay on into the evening, chatting after dinner. He confides particularly in the cabinet-makers: rough tradesmen, and clearly very strong, but capable of an almost feminine delicacy and attention to detail in the exercise of their skills. He feels a secret affinity with them because, in his way, he too is creating a work, which although invisible for the moment will one day be as real and tangible as theirs: a man, a priest like himself, the long-anticipated one whose sanctity he is fashioning. He has come to love that man, almost to regard him as the son he will never have. He prefers not to think about the personal sacrifice he’s making for him, declining to do the good works required by his ministry, which would be such a balm to his soul: in a way he is doing them, although the effects are displaced and delayed.

The priest is disheartened to discover that the tradesmen and professionals working on the house have little regard for charity (although this opposition also spurs him on and reaffirms his convictions). For them it’s normal, and indeed entirely just, that he should build a luxurious mansion while neglecting to come to the aid of the needy. The way they see it, the poor deserve the conditions they live in, because they’re lazy or don’t even want to improve themselves; whatever you give them will only prolong their poverty. They’ve never known anything else, and they’re satisfied with what they know. In merely practical terms, without having to go into moral, historical, or sociological considerations, it’s obvious that poverty, especially in its extreme forms, is a phase that societies have to go through, and can’t simply be eliminated. Why even try? The poor live happily with their lacks, and don’t even see them as such.

The priest is strongly opposed to such an attitude: not only because of church policy, but also out of deep personal conviction. It’s his duty, he says, and the duty of all the fortunate, to do something to improve the lot of the dispossessed. They have to be saved from destitution in order to develop a sense of dignity and decency, which will serve as a basis on which to build the other virtues. His defense of this position is implacable; he’s not trying to impress his interlocutors, but he does, or at least reduces them to silence. Far from being a flight or a distraction from charity, his house is a monument to that queen and crown of divine virtues. It is designed to make charity perfect. In a way, it’s a practical, active monument, a silent, efficient machine for producing charity.

But these theoretical reflections become less frequent as the work of filling the house intensifies. As the pieces of furniture arrive, they occupy a provisional place before being shifted to another; their arrangements keep altering in a game of trial and error that resembles the evolution of species. The interior landscape is gradually stabilized. When the curtains are hung, it is as if light were being installed as well, in the form of weightless receptacles of air. Now the work continues into the night, with the hanging of chandeliers, the placement of candlesticks and lamps, the dance of the shadows renewing and transforming the beauties of the day.

The priest feels that the voyage to the center is accelerating when the household items, which he refers to humorously as the “party decorations,” begin to arrive in crates and containers, piling up like new pharaonic pyramids. Vases, tablecloths, paintings, tableware, ornaments. The systematic provision of wide variety continues. China and crystal alternate with rustic crockery, silver cutlery with dark bronze. There is a suitable cup or glass on a shelf somewhere for every conceivable hot or cold drink; there is a vase, Ming or other, to show every kind of flower to its best effect. Ostentation is, of course, to be avoided. But that’s tricky, because concealing it only magnifies the effect. The money spent so far, though it comes to a very large sum, is a trifle compared to what is yet to be spent on works of art: paintings by old masters, hung in elegant isolation, given places of honor, or almost hidden, as if the visitor were being invited to search them out; watercolors in certain bedrooms, delicate representations of plants, or seascapes, or mountains, or little household scenes from days gone by; old engravings; and the silent presence of sculptures, half hidden behind armchairs, illuminating a corner or setting off a view through open doors. The folding panels of the decorative screens, their movement stilled, burst with flowers, stags, or flying bodhisattvas.

The aesthetic aspect is no more than that: an aspect. And there are others to attend to: mattresses, bedclothes, heaters, cleaning equipment, supplies for the kitchens and the bathrooms. When the priest takes possession of a consignment of Brazilian soap, and runs his fingers along the edge of a cake, appreciating its verdant Amazonian smoothness, he feels that he is very close to that center where life is happening already. And he comes even closer when he puts bouquets of fresh flowers in the vases, and food in the pantry. . And closer still, or so he feels, when he begins to fill the library shelves. He doesn’t want his successor to subtract, for the purchase of books, so much as a peso from the funds to be used in fulfilling his sacred duty to assist the poor, so he buys enough reading material to last a lifetime. Choosing isn’t difficult: classics, encyclopedias, novels, poetry, history, science. Arranging the thousands of volumes, he loses himself in daydreams about the future reader, and as he anticipates his tastes, his interests, his progression from one book to another, his reactions to this or that novel, to a line from a favorite poet or a philosopher’s argument, he forms a clearer picture of the man for whom he is working, and feels that he can see him already, wearing the halo of sanctity prepared by his predecessor, adored by his parishioners upon whom he showers gifts of the purest, most abundant charity, keeping nothing back for himself (because all his needs have been met).

But the future has not arrived, not by a long way. Well before the completion of the house, the priest began work on its surroundings, which are at least as important, in his eyes, as the edifice itself. The planting of the gardens, under the supervision of expert landscape architects, began at the same time as the digging of the foundations. And now that the house is furnished and ready, he turns his attention to the outside. From the splendid curved staircases at the rear of the building, a formal French garden will stretch away for two hundred yards: carefully clipped pyramidal box plants, paths of fragrant herbs, flower beds, little round-topped trees alternating with statues, and, in the middle of the central roundabout, an imposing fountain with a profusion of crisscrossing jets and a large group of sculpted figures visible through the spray and the rainbows. Two long arbors open their arches like wings, giving onto the grounds proper, with their hectares of lawn, copses of exotic trees, bamboo thickets, flower-lined paths that wind among knolls made from earth dug up for the artificial lake, rocks transported from faraway places to create picturesque crags, and densely wooded tracts with undergrowth. Birds gladden these wild corners, and the priest populates the lake with carp, pike, and silvery trout.

Busy with these open-air tasks, he finds that he has more time, not because there is less work, but because the time of the plant kingdom, to which he attunes himself, is bountiful. Daylong walks on the thousand paths of the grounds compensate him now for the reclusion he imposed on himself while attending to the needs of the house. He stops here and there to admire a flower or a mushroom, to hear the trilling of a bird or meditate on the example of the laborious ant. And he is delighted to catch glimpses of the dream palace he has built, displaying its various aspects when seen from different angles, or modestly veiled and revealed by foliage.

But walkers naturally tend to range farther afield, and one day he reaches the outer edges of the grounds and continues until he comes to the houses (so to speak) of his parishioners. He is horrified by what he sees. He has been isolated for a long time, absorbed in his work, and although he has kept these poor people in mind as an objective or a mission, their concrete reality has become hazy. Now, with a shudder of surprise, he realizes that time has been passing for the poor as well, with devastating effects. Suspicious gazes, as dark as the shadows they inhabit, emerge from the black holes of the huts, along with the stench of human and animal cohabitation. Women aged by deprivation, physical abuse, and constant childbearing run away to hide their ragged clothing and their bare feet, gnarled by cold. Naked children with bulging bellies and fearful wide-open eyes watch him pass. The old (which, here, means people over forty) display the signs of their decrepitude: paralysis, blindness, dementia of various kinds. Sickness reigns, and those it doesn’t kill are not strengthened by the ordeal, quite the contrary. Full of shame, the men avoid his gaze. Groans of suffering, tubercular coughs, and wails of mourning are the only music in these places of affliction. It seems to him that the conditions have worsened abysmally, although an exact comparison is impossible because so much time has passed since his last assessment and he has been so preoccupied with other problems in the meantime that his memories are rather confused. Reasonably, he reflects that, however it is measured, poverty is always poverty.

The shock caused by this vision, in contrast with the recent experience of seeing his work (the house) visibly there in a concrete, realized form, if not completely finished, makes him stop and think. It’s true that for the price of just one of the expensive pieces of furniture in the house, one of the Bokhara rugs, a single painting or statue, even a single fork crafted by a Florentine silversmith, a whole neighborhood of decent little dwellings could be built, with sewage and heating. In his heart of hearts, he knows that he is doing the right thing, but he wonders if in the eyes of the world he might appear to be egotistical. . Egotistical, him? Everything he’s done has been for someone else. His bowels writhe at the thought of that monstrous accusation. And an evil or mischievous inner spirit tempts him to even greater self-mortification, for fear that, of all people, his successor, the beneficiary of all his efforts, might reprove him on precisely those grounds. . And yet, in the depths of the anxiety provoked by this speculation, he finds the way out: he has never intended to explain himself, for example by leaving a message for his successor; the true nature of his work is not to be disclosed; all its merit shall remain a secret between himself and God. What does imperfect human justice matter? But he backs away from these thoughts, not wanting to fall into the trap of sanctimonious pride or the temptation of martyrdom.

He also backs away from the vision of those harsh realities whose contemplation posed a threat to his equanimity. He returns to his house, where there is still quite a lot to do, and the wretched of the earth will be hidden from his sight.

There really is something missing from the house: that lived-in feel. He doesn’t want his successor to move into an impersonal, purely material structure. Lived-in houses, full of things that have been used and loved, have a warmth that can’t be faked. And that’s what he decides to work on now; it’s a restful way of passing the time, a reward for the long, exhausting tasks that went before.

As he lives his own life there, the priest discovers that certain things required for the future incumbent to be fully at home are still missing from the house, or perhaps from life itself. Small things, which become apparent only when the need arises. And supplying them, lovingly, one by one, occupies the rest of the earthly sojourn granted him by Providence. Every day he feels he is a little closer to that intuited center, a point in time, not space, which both encloses and reveals the mystery of Charity. He has come to identify that center with a man, the man he has created by thinking of him constantly, and, in a sense, obeying him. The house is full of that beloved, long-awaited stranger: it has all been done for him, so it’s hardly surprising that his absence informs every nook and cranny of the house. Although he is a single man, he is many men in one, all men, in a way. Which is why nothing can be alien to him, a priori. Anything that happens to cross the priest’s mind might be relevant. One day, for instance, a chance association of ideas leads him to chess. . What if his successor likes chess? Why not? And immediately he orders a board and a set of pieces and a little table, and even a timer in case the next priest is a serious player (why not?), and another portable, magnetic board, for traveling or taking on walks in the grounds, and a small but comprehensive set of chess books. . And since he wants it all to have been experienced already, he refreshes his knowledge of the game and starts playing. .

Death surprises him in the midst of another such task (although it’s not really a surprise, because with the passing years he has gone into decline, the maladies of age arriving along with the inner peace that comes from having achieved one’s goal). Ill now, confined to his room and his bed, he remembers that briefly, as a child, he was a passionate stamp collector. And since it has become second nature to turn every thought to the future incumbent, he thinks of what a joy it would be for that priest to find a fine stamp collection on arriving at the house, and how it would free him to spend more time bringing material and spiritual succor to the faithful. He contacts specialist dealers and acquires sets of stamps, collections from various countries, albums, tweezers, catalogs. With loving care, he files away those tiny squares of paper with their perforated edges, marveling at the colors, the figures, the way they evoke distant lands and, at the same time, recall his childhood. The final purchase: a Chinese chest with many drawers and compartments in which to keep the albums and boxes.

By the time the news of his death reaches the relevant diocesan authorities, his successor has already been chosen. Given the old priest’s advanced age and the state of his health, known to be delicate for some time, preparations have been made. So the new priest arrives without delay. He is a young man, as young as his predecessor was when he arrived in the area. And he begins by doing the same things: observing the state of destitution in which his parishioners are living, imagining the effects of charitable action, like bounteous rain in a drought-stricken land. One thing, however, is not repeated: his own living arrangements have been taken care of, splendidly.

Except that they are rather more than “living arrangements” and they have been more than “taken care of.” He realizes this as he visits the house, admires it, discovers its comforts and refinements. It’s as if he had been there already, as if someone had examined his person with a microscope made of days and nights, of sleep and waking, in order to get to know him and communicate with him. You can get to know someone who’s present simply by speaking and looking, but to get to know someone who isn’t there, and may not exist (he estimates that the construction of the house began before he was born), a great deal more is required, as this enormous mansion shows, with its endless grounds and multitudinous riches.

Attending to his duties, he visits the neighboring village and is duly horrified by the poverty and neglect. Initially he is surprised and intrigued by the contrast between that wretchedness and the luxury of the house. Little by little, as the days go by, he begins to understand: he wasn’t mistaken in feeling when he first entered the house that it was trying to tell him something. The house is a message, so is the garden, and every object they contain, a message personally addressed to him, addressed to that which lies deepest within him and participates in the divine being.

And the syntax of that message is so perfect that he finally succeeds in understanding it completely. He’d already realized, though without expressing it in words, that the house had been conceived and built for him. The words, once found and articulated, supply the motive: his predecessor, of whom he knew nothing before but is now, via the motive, coming to know a great deal, wanted him to have everything, so he wouldn’t have to keep anything aside for himself and would be able to give it all to the poor. It’s pretty obvious, really. It’s self-explanatory. He feels a deep and growing admiration for the sacrifice made by his forerunner, who renounced the possibility of fulfilling his mission and thereby opening the gates of heaven, in order that the priest to come might do so. It’s like one of those oriental fables, he thinks: unfathomably mystical and ingeniously constructed. Exploring the house and its treasures feels like entering the fable: a palace of déjà vu in which every step has already been taken and every movement made.

He is grateful, of course. How could he not be? How could he not feel beholden to that kindly genius who dedicated his life to smoothing the way for his successor? But he senses that there is something more. That he can do “something else.” Accepting the gift just like that, as if he had earned it, would be unworthy of a man in whom such great hopes had been placed.

Gradually he clarifies his mission, with a certain number of hesitations, which are observed by the local poor who, ill clad and hungry, are enduring a cruel winter. He has plenty of money and no need to spend a peso on himself. . It’s a great temptation to shower his wealth on those who are silently beseeching him. But that’s just what it is: a temptation. His determination to resist it, and the example set by his predecessor, prove to be stronger. What the dead priest did was so heroic, so saintly in its way, that it demands to be imitated. Also, simply to harvest the fruits of his action would be an injustice to him. These reasons, all of which are valid, are strengthened by an irresistible force, to which the new priest attributes a higher cause.

So he, too, decides to prepare the way for his successor’s action, choosing self-sacrifice, forbidding himself to use the money at his disposal for charity, and spending it on the house instead. . He is excited by the prospect of working for a man he hasn’t met and will never know, guessing his tastes, his habits, even his little quirks, and responding to them in advance. It’s like having company, one of those “invisible friends” that children entertain, but without the fantasy. And bequeathing a matchless legacy to that friend: the unmatchable gift of being able to give.

It’s not an easy decision to make. In his excursions beyond the limits of the property, he can see for himself the extremes of suffering produced by child malnutrition, inadequate housing, and untreated illness, where poverty rules. What if he put aside a part of the money? No. Again he is tempted. But he realizes that it’s all or nothing. He cannot serve two masters.

Another and more serious objection is that the house is there already, and the needs of its inhabitant have been provided for. But it’s very easy for him to brush this objection aside. In spite of the supposed exhaustiveness to which his predecessor dedicated his life, and all the love he put into his work, it’s all too obvious that a great deal is missing. . At least it’s obvious to him, for two reasons: First, as time goes by, and people have access to more information and therefore have more opportunities for consumption, needs increase and diversify, as do the ways of satisfying them. The touching attempt to prepare a response to each of his desires in advance has turned out to be woefully inadequate. The second and more important reason is that he can benefit from his own experience as a receiver of the gift and act in consequence, whereas his predecessor had to rely almost entirely on intuition and guessing.

So he wastes no time in getting to work. The first task, imposed by a particularly cold winter, is to replace the now obsolete heating system with a more modern one, equipped with temperature controls. This provokes the first of a very long series of reflections concerning his successor. Will he be someone who feels the cold? The mere supposition is enough to give the priest the sense that he is in touch with the man who will take his place, and has already begun to accompany him, mute and inexistent but eloquent nonetheless; and he sees himself reflected in this situation, an imagined, inexistent figure accompanying the priest who originally built the house. . The whole edifice, down to its most hidden corners, is affected by the installation of the new thermostat-controlled boilers and the system of pipes. As the work proceeds, the priest takes note of various improvements and additions that are either necessary straightaway or logical steps in the process of perfecting the house for its future resident. The general theme of heating suggests the idea of supplementing the comforts of the house with a conservatory. Like a new Janus, the priest looks back at his predecessor (“How could he have overlooked this?”—a question he will ask again and again) and forward to his successor (“He might be a flower enthusiast”). He fills the conservatory with orchids, dwarf palms, and bromeliads, creating a tropical enclave: colors, scents, and forms that open and close in a tableau of unfamiliar beauties.

Since the new system of boilers is more than powerful enough to heat the house, he decides to exploit its excess capacity by putting a heated swimming pool in one of the basement rooms. To complement the pool, he builds a glass solarium. Maybe the next priest won’t want to swim, or sun himself; but maybe he will. .

As time goes by, and the priest identifies a possible interest here, and another there, the figure of his successor becomes more clearly defined. When he thinks that he was once the successor himself, he is overtaken by a strange dizziness, which compels him to continue. Everything he can see in the house, and the house itself, was conceived and made in accordance with a hypothesis about him, and now he is repeating that process, completing it, perfecting it.

Internal walls are torn down and expanses of masonry replaced with large windows to convert a whole string of attic rooms — the ones with the best exposure — into a studio that could be used for painting, or sculpture, or any other art or craft. . To keep all the options open, the priest fills that ample space with easels, drawing boards, clay-firing ovens, stretchers, paper, brushes, and chisels. Persisting in the artistic vein, he sets up a space for music downstairs, on the piano nobile, with a soundproof acoustic chamber, for which he orders a Bösendorfer piano, an Érard harp, violins and cellos made by the finest luthiers, and various exotic instruments — stringed, wind, and percussion — including a beautiful samisen. Next to this space, made by joining two interior rooms that he judged to be superfluous, is a little theater, opened up in the same way, with thirty seats (upholstered in wine-colored Venetian velvet), rococo decoration, and a stage equipped with the latest systems for changes of scenery and lighting.

At a certain point, before these renovations are completed, he begins work on the grounds, for which he has grand plans. The first is the construction of a tea pavilion, to which he commits himself heart and soul, determined to make it an epitome of refinement and comfort. He decides on a light, ethereal structure, a little house of dragonfly wings, continuous with its natural environment, as a contrast to the house’s majestic solidity. He approaches this task with the deepest seriousness; the pavilion is to be the alternative to the house in every respect. He rejects the designs submitted by a series of well-known architects until one set of plans, produced and modified according to his instructions, finally meets with his approval, and then the building begins. Bricks and mortar are ruled out; the whole thing is made from bamboo and rare timbers, fabric, glass, and paper. It’s a fairy-tale retreat, its spaciousness dissembled by the surrounding vegetation, the flowering vines that appear to be extensions of the structure, and the various hidden levels within. Although it has a studied austerity, the interior contains many little salons looking out onto different parts of the grounds, and an abundance of sliding panels, raffia mats, and rugs. The visitor enters via a broad, elevated veranda, suggestive of tropical colonies.

As one season gives way to another, the grounds begin to preoccupy the priest, and he spends a lot of time on them, without neglecting the house, in which there is always something to be done. In addition to replanting copses, laying out avenues of statues, introducing topiary, fountains, arbors, and a grotto, he undertakes more ambitious projects. He populates the gardens with deer, of a delicate and decorative breed, like the pheasants and peacocks that he also imports, which provide fleeting, sumptuous flashes of color among the plants. Specially trained staff are employed for the care and breeding of these creatures.

Neglecting the category of animals was, he thinks, a major oversight on the part of his predecessor. When considering an unknown future man, and trying to cover all his needs, animals to live with might be a priority. Or not. You never know. But since those humble, quiet companions have been a consolation and a joy to so many people, they cannot be ignored. For his successor they might be especially important, and the cost of acquiring them and providing an adequate habitat would reduce what he could give in aid to the poor. So the priest sets about building stables and kennels amusingly designed to resemble medieval castles, Hindu temples, and Mayan pyramids, all to scale, and fills them with handsome Arab steeds, greyhounds and mastiffs, Pomeranians and lapdogs. A tall columbarium on the top of an artificial hill beyond the lake is filled with doves imported from distant lands. And inside the house there are various aquariums of different sizes, to soothe the eye with mobile, live decoration, culminating in an enormous tank that takes up a whole wall, in which a big golden manta ray from the Indian Ocean glides among yellow longnose butterflyfish, little red fish as bright as rubies, slimy octopi, and seahorses riding on transparency like marionettes.

Time goes by and the priest grows older, work and hope occupying his days. There is, he feels, something microscopic about his work. The house has been left to him entire and complete, but from the moment he decided to decline the invitation to sainthood and pass it on to the next priest, he started finding little cracks to fill in that apparent completeness, and even after all this time and everything he has done, he’s still finding them. Each addition and improvement defines a new characteristic (always in the form of an alternative, a choice among possibilities), enriching the figure of the priest who will come to open the gates of heaven for him and his predecessor with the golden keys of Charity.

For he has not lost sight of Charity. Quite the contrary: it is the center and motor of his striving, although he will not be the one to practice it, which grieves him deeply. In his visits to the areas where the poor people live, he must close his eyes to the wretchedness of a situation that he cannot remedy: he has come too soon. He consoles himself with the thought that it makes no difference whether action is taken now or a generation later: by their very nature, desperate situations of that kind tend to perpetuate themselves. And when he returns to the house and its grounds, to that splendor built in the name of Charity, he sees it transformed into the enormous good that his successor will be able to do.

Protected by hope, then, he continues with his work, and, as with the previous incumbent, his excursions become less frequent until one day they finally cease altogether. Age, he feels, is bringing him closer to the man who will come to fulfill the promise. Old now, he approaches the young man to whom he has devoted so much thought, whose reactions he has tried to anticipate, guessing his preferences for this or that color, for a style in furnishing, or a way of spending his evenings. At certain moments, in the fuddled ramblings of senility, he believes that his successor is there already, opening the door and walking in, wet from the rain and ruddy-cheeked from the cold, exhausted after a day spent in the shacks of the local people, comforting the sick, taking food and clothing to the destitute, supervising the building of a school. . The new priest wants to relax now, and for that he has his comfortable abode. . but perhaps what he needs to complete his satisfaction at that imagined moment is a pipe to smoke, a harmless indulgence for an active man. . but there’s not a pipe in the house! Emerging from his somnolence, the old priest orders a set of pipes, in various woods and meerschaum, with mother-of-pearl and carving, and revolving pipe racks, and a set of pipe tools. .

These increasingly minor and intimate additions occupy the final days of his life. When the new priest arrives, he admires the house and is horrified by the terrible poverty surrounding it, as if he were performing a ritual. Just as his predecessors anticipated, the contrast intensifies his determination to act, and he is about to start handing out milk and diapers for the babies, medicine for the sick, blankets and fuel for the rudimentary huts that offer scant protection from the winds of a harsh winter. If he delays, it is not for want of initiative, but because there is so much to do. There is so much poverty, he doesn’t know where to start: the urgent needs compete among one another fiercely. And this delay, though meant to be brief, is long enough for his intention to deviate. Prompted by a natural curiosity, he visits the house, the gardens, the tea pavilion, the deer park; he only has to live there for a day, or an hour, perhaps just a minute, to catch the echoes of a former future of which he is the incarnation, and he begins to understand what motivated the builders. The sacrifices they have made for him are sublime, and it seems mean to take advantage of them. . He will be followed by another, and he is inspired by the idea of working for that other because, as he gradually sees and understands everything that has been prepared for him, he notices all the things that could be perfected and added for the next priest. .

There is no need to pursue the series: it would take us too far, all the way to an eternity that has been lying in wait from the outset. Let’s just say that the successor to this third priest, and the one who takes over from the fourth, and all those who follow, decipher the message and accept the challenge. The house continues to be completed and beautified, in splendid isolation, an oasis of perfection in a desert-like world devastated by egotism and indifference. In its permanence, the house becomes a symbol of the virtuous soul, the divine soul, and its comforts are progressively refined by the unbroken chain of just men, the golden thread that runs through History, in the name of the redemption that Charity will bring.

AUGUST 1, 2010