The Green Face by Gustav Meyrink

climbed up some
stairs that were as steep as a chicken ladder and were warmly
welcomed at the top by an old lady with snow-white hair and
round, child-like eyes who greeted them with the words, “Welcome, Eva, and thou, too, King Balthasar, welcome in the New
Jerusalem.”
    As the two of them entered, the six people, who had been
sitting in solemn silence round the table, rose with gauche
politeness and were introduced by Mademoiselle de Bourignon,
“This is Jan Swammerdam and his sister” - a wrinkled old
woman with a Dutch bonnet and Krulletjes, brass spirals, on her
ears who kept on curtseying - “and that is Mijnheer Lazarus
Egyolk, who is not actually a member of our spiritual circle, but
is `Simon the Cross-bearer’ (“and lives in the same house, your
Honours”, proudly added the man in question, an ancient Russian Jew in a caftan); “then there is Juffrouw Mary Faatz of the
Salvation Army, her spiritual name is Magdalena, and dear
Brother Ezekiel” - she pointed to a young man with a puffy,
pockmarked face, which looked as if it had been kneaded out of
dough, and inflamed eyelids without lashes - “he works in the
herb-store below; his spiritual name is Ezekiel because when
the time is fulfilled he will judge mankind.”
    Doctor Sephardi gave his companion a puzzled look. Her aunt, who noticed it, explained, “We all have spiritual names.
Jan Swammerdam, for example, is King Solomon and his sister
Shulamite; I am Gabriela, that is the feminine form of the Archangel Gabriel, but usually I am called `The Guardian of the
Threshold’, for it is my task to collect the souls that are scattered
in the cosmos and lead them back to paradise. You will come
to understand all this much better later on, Doctor Sephardi, for
you are one of us, although you do not know it at the moment.
Your spiritual name is King Balthasar. Have you never felt the
stigmata?”

    Sephardi was more confused than ever.
    “I’m afraid Sister Gabriela is rushing on ahead a little too
quickly”, said Swammerdam with a smile. “Many years ago a
true prophet of the Lord arose in this very house, a simple cobbler by the name of Anselm Klinkherbogk. You will meet him
this evening. He lives upstairs.
    We are not spiritualists, as you might assume, Mijnheer,
almost, I am tempted to say, the opposite, for we have nothing
to do with the realm of the dead. Ourgoal is eternal life. In every
name there resides a hidden power, and when we repeat our
names, with our lips closed, to our own hearts until it fills our
whole being day and night, then we draw the spiritual powerinto
our blood and it circulates through our veins, changing our
bodies little by little. This gradual transformation of the body
- only the body must be transformed, the spirit is perfect and
complete from the very beginning - is expressed in all kinds of
feelings which are the harbingers of the state known as`spiritual
rebirth’. One such feeling, for example, is the sensation of a
gnawing pain that comes and goes without our being able to
explain why. At first it just affects the flesh, but then it begins
to bore into the bones and penetrates the whole body until, as a
sign of the `first baptism’ - that is the baptism of water - the
crucifixion of the first degree appears; that is, on the hands there
appear inexplicable wounds with water coming out.” He and the
others, except forLazarus Egyolk, lifted up their hands to reveal
deep, circular scars, as if made by nails.
    “But that is hysteria!” cried Juffrouw van Druysen in horror.
    “You are welcome to call it hysteria, Mejuffrouw; our hys teria is not an illness. There are different kinds of hysteria. Only
hysteria which is associated with trances and mental imbalance
is a sickness and leads downwards; our hysteria, on the other
hand, is a matter of mental balance, the achieving of clarity, and
is the way upwards, from insight through rational thought to
knowledge