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Part One: Truth
Stop it ! You're really annoying me.
I intend to.
What do you want? I'm not your slave..I cannot keep this up ! You'll get me in trouble.
You're in trouble already. You were born in trouble. It's in your genes.
Oh! Give me a break ! The genes are your fault !
So there. You can't change it, can you? I couldn't keep Caspar away either.
Who?
Ah, a lot you know. Anyway, this is what I want tonight...
Whoa! I didn't agree to any more of your mischief. Look where it got you !
You cannot help yourself. We cannot altar our destiny.
What do you mean by that? Of course we can.
No. We cannot compromise our convictions. I couldn't, and neither can you.
Well, maybe not in some matters, but...
No "buts"! There is only dark and light for you and me, the truth and everything else.
Our truth, of course. Please spare me the parsing.
Of course. Now, as I was saying, tonight I want to make the point clear about...
No! No more! Your points don't matter today. Nobody will understand what you are saying.
That is your job...to make them understand.
Do you honestly believe people care much about truth? Did they then, in your time?
Truth has always been a struggle. Some say it is relative, yet there is only one side to truth.
And for this golden treasure, this "truth", how many millions have fought and died? How many poor souls
were burned at the stake, exiled, crucified, imprisoned?
Because it is dangerous ! This has been the kernel of man's eternal searching! Besides, when have you shied away
from danger?! Surely you are no stranger to danger, mischief or all else you accuse me of. Why do you think I
am here with you now? Do I enjoy your very contrary spirit? Your cheerless disposition? Your arrogance? No!
And those things too are your fault ! You didn't answer my question.
You didn't ask one.
You know full well what I asked. Was truth worth it? Scorn, mockery, punishment? Was it worth it to your
wife? Your children? What did you gain from it? Poverty? Pain? Grief?
It was and is worth it. We are but temporary. Truth is eternal. Without it we are worth nothing! Yes, the price is
heavy, but love is truth and truth alone is our salvation. I called it God. I know full well you cannot grasp the
concept of God. Yet, you do without knowing you do, because you understand the concept of truth. Truth is
innocence, it is love, it is salvation..and it is all we have to separate us from evil.
There you go again! Maybe I don't grasp evil either.
Oh, yes..you know better than most its power. You have seen what it does to those who esteem truth! You've
watched it bully, destroy, silence and try to corrupt
So should one man stand up against it? Alone? Put himself in the line of fire?
One man at a time is all that ever stood up against it. What if no man did? Who else would follow?
Once again you make me angry. And don't start with the patronizing pat to my shoulder.
When you look in a mirror you see eyes like mine. You see a small toe exactly like mine. That furrow between
your eyes is from me. Why then, if these physical characteristics are from me, would you not also think like me?
A dog does not need to be taught how to bury a bone. He has memory from long ago inside him at birth, eons and
eons of memory passed through his genes. Do you know that if you take a baby within minutes of its birth and put
its tiny fingers around yours it will cling so hard you can lift it in the air ? But it soon loses that ability, that age
old animal instinct to grab a mother's hair and hang on for dear life because it is a skill it doesn't need. It is just a
wasted primal urge no longer applicable.
What does that have to do with anything?
Because deep in your soul, in some uncharted region, you also remember from long before you think you can.
Somewhere in that vast abyss of brain tissue and nerves is every thought I ever had, there in you. I am the bone
you by instinct know how to bury. Just as I knew there was a purpose and a reason for what I did, you know
there is one for you as well.
So this makes me helpless in the face of fate? I don't buy that.
You cannot buy something you already own. I see you're tired tonight, so I'll come back another time
Thanks. For my part, I'll consider what you have told me. You know I love you.
And I you. Until then.

Part Two: Mercy
Wake up. You're moaning in your sleep.
Maybe I heard the rocker. How long have you been here?
I couldn't rest. You were dreaming of the wolfdog again.
Yes. He too haunts me.
You miss him still?
Well, I'm not sure miss is the right word...I mean I miss him like one might miss a bad tooth.
He had to go, and yet it won't ever be the same without him.
Why did you ever do such a foolish thing? Surely you knew the danger.
I don't know. It was as if he enchanted me from the beginning. Four weeks old and he looked at me and made me his. He
stood apart from the others, bigger, stronger, even on his wobbly puppy legs. Of course he was no puppy. When I took
him home he never cried once, like puppies do. He didn't like his litter mates. He wanted me.
Did not that aloofness, the size, the temperament warn you right then?
It should have, but as I said, he mesmerized me. He all but told me to take him from his pack. Yes, his pack. But I didn't
see it that way then. All I saw was him, he was majestic. His eyes had a look of eternity. Oh, many times since I've cursed
myself for succumbing to the temptation..especially in end, but at the time he compelled me to love him.
And you did.
Oh,Yes. I could never have hurt him, but in the end I caused him anguish he didn't deserve.
But he wanted to hurt you...
Only at the end. He didn't want to, it was just nature. Just nature..nothing I could change, inevitable.
Dominance.
Yes. Now the guilt torments me. I should have known better. That last night when he howled and howled for me after I
tricked him and locked him away..I cried for months. If I could howl I would have howled for him a thousand times over !
It was like having an arm torn off..longing for him so.
But you had no choice ! It was you or him in the end. He was stronger, bigger...
But not smarter.
No.
Do you know I can still smell him? I can close my eyes and feel my fingers digging in his soft fur, feel my face buried in it,
yet I could only love him when he allowed it, on his terms. It took me to an almost non human level. We were connected
spiritually.
You tried to turn him into something he wasn't.
I know that! And he tried to turn me into one of him! He wanted to please me but was incapable.
Indeed. The difference between a dog and a wolf.
Exactly. He was the supreme egoist. Regal.
Lethal.
Yes, a time bomb.
Did you think you could change him?
I didn't want to. But then, he controlled me..I wasn't aware at the time how he'd manipulated me into a sort of submission.
Ha ! A funny thought, you, submissive!
Aren't we all at one time or another? To someone, something, God, a belief?
I suppose so.
You submitted to God.
And you to a wolf..one who would have eaten you in the end.
I might say the same for your God. Sometimes our allegiances prove disastrous.
But I still have my God. All you have is the memory of that plaintive cry, that echoing howl for help, that ultimate
voice of______
Stop! It hurts to think of it.
Yet you do, even in your sleep.
Most of the time I'm over it.
It took the new dog to help you, an animal you could trust.
An obvious conclusion. It isn't the same and never can be, but the dog brought me love and needed mine.
Yes. You thought of the wolf as a dog and he couldn't be what you wanted.
Who knows anything unless they experience it themselves? Sometimes we do things without even knowing we're doing
them. I couldn't be what he needed either.
Your heart's still with the wolf isn't it?
Always, my friend. He grew into me, became part of me, lays dormant in my soul, races to my heart with the moonlight
through the night window when he comes to me in dreams.
Yet you forget being backed into a corner staring at his wild eyes and snarling teeth? Running from him?
I suppose we remember what is good more easily. It is a mercy that we have such a capacity.
There's a word you don't use much. A word used too lightly with too little thought, I might add. The only mercy in
your history with the wolf is your ability to forgive him.
If only I could forgive myself.
Mercy doesn't come from us. It isn't our gift to give
Ah, true Joe talk. I'm going back to sleep. Tomorrow's the new year.
Gluck auf!

Part Three: Conviction
It's snowing again. I can't hear your footsteps coming when it snows.
Do you prefer not being surprised?
Oh, no, I didn't mean that. I've come to look forward to your visits. I wonder, however, why you're so agitated at times.
Will you ever rest, Joseph?
This is rest.
Ha! I suppose you're right. But are you at peace?
No.
It's one of your quiet nights I see. No smile. Are you thinking about your children again?
I never stop thinking about them. I loved them so, and their dear mother, oh, how she suffered. It killed her.
Yes, I know that. Did your tormentors pay for their cruelty after..you know, after they passed?
I never asked. We paid for their cruelty when they lived. But then, it killed Gandolph, not me.
What a horrible man!
Actually he was quite unusual in some ways. A great lover of music and art, a benevolent patron. He only did
what he believed was for the best..just as I did.
But look at what he inflicted upon you !
He was what he was. He could not undo his birth, but he was only a man underneath the robes and fineries his
birth had burdened him with. He never even went to Rome to get his red hat. He loved his God, he loved Salzburg
and he loved his people, his flock. He had a strong sense of responsibility and he had big shoes to fill. But he
wasn't degenerate. Just Catholic.
Did you ever speak with him?
Yes, we spoke at length on one occasion. Had I repented he would have loved me, but of course I couldn't, so he
gave me the most difficult test of my faith he could devise. That was his duty after all, and a test for him too. I
doubt he derived any pleasure from it, indeed, the opposite. We were both born to do exactly what we did and
neither he nor I had any other options. He had the burden of power, of knowing he would win in earthly
matters but also knowing he would surely lose in matters spiritual with us, with me. He knew there was no contest,
no coin toss. He held all of the cards...there is no joy in that. It is like hunting a caged animal, and in the end it
destroyed him.
Well, you certainly passed the test, but at such a great cost.
It would have been costlier for me to have caved in. I wouldn't have been able to go on. I couldn't have ever faced
myself. What good would my life have been then, had I lived a lie? I couldn't live the lie anymore. It had gone on
far too long. But I had a choice. For Gandolph there was no choice!
Why is it some can be so firm in their convictions? Most just go with the flow, don't speak up, follow like
sheep. I'm surprised you had friends who stood with you.
Yes, they were good people, and banished into oblivion. Some of us never saw each other again after growing up
together our entire lives, working together for years and years. We watched our children be born and then
watched as we lost them one by one. We were scattered as so many autumn leaves caught in a gust of
wind...convicted by convictions. Not a day went by when we all did not think of one another even at great
distance. News would trickle in at intervals of our lives and adventures. We were all one in our faith. We were
born to those mountains and then swept away by an avalanche of self righteousness and power. We still wander.
Restless spirits?
Unrestored spirits.

Part Four: Power
How did you find me again?
The pipe. It was really the only clue...I didn't know where it came from and was not supposed to play with it, but I used
to take it out of the box it was kept in and look at it for hours as a child. I loved the smoothness and musky old aroma!
Your name was on it, on the ball and chain, but nobody really knew much about you.
Well, I don't think I ever properly thanked you. I'd been away far too long.
Maybe the pipe was like a magic bottle and you were the genie.
The what?
Nothing. Sometimes I forget you're so old. I always loved you and I always wondered what those men were doing to you.
They were asking me to betray God.
You refused.
Yes, of course I refused !
Couldn't you have pretended, then just gone home quietly, packed up your family and left?
That would not have been easy then, and besides, someone had to stand up against the bullying. I couldn't let the
possible consequences cloud my judgement, nor could I afford to be selfish. Too many others depended on me,
respected me...too many, and the suffering had to end.
But in the end thousands suffered anyway.
Yes, but great was their joy also when for the first time in their lives they could sing our songs openly, in freedom,
without fear ! And knowing their children would be freed from tyranny drove them forward. Without knowing
what suffering is we cannot appreciate bliss.
You were very old when the rest left. Did you realized what was happening?
Oh, yes ! There were of course quiet rumblings for some time of what would most likely transpire, yet I don't
believe anyone imagined the great multitude who would leave. I always thought it would come to that, sadly. Deep
in my heart I knew the people would take a firm stand, but even I was surprised at the sheer numbers. It was
horrible and wonderful all at once !
Did you see any of them, meet any of them?
Yes, at the end. One small group came and sang for me, that little song I wrote. I wasn't very well, you know, but I
heard them and it was as if the angels were singing. I was no longer lonely, and soon after closed my eyes. We
were all together in the end.
Were you ever given to guilt or remorse? Did you feel responsible for urging them on?
As I said, I always knew it would come to that and I wished it had not. The power was just too entrenched to be
moved. I tried, oh, I tried, but our fates were sealed. A hundred thousand of us would not have moved them. I
have consolation in that I did all one man could possibly do. We all gave it everything we had to give.
Where was God in all this? Where, Joseph?
In our hearts, child. God was in our hearts.
And how did it feel when the shade was lowering and your heart slowed?
It was like sunlight's gently slanted rays coming through the window on a long winter day and the smell of spring
flowers in the mountains, the music of a thousand voices and the taste of the sweetest fruit all in one. I felt great
contentment and peace. I felt hope for my friends, my children, for all mankind. Mostly, I felt a kind of triumph
over a great and vast evil. Evil dressed in silk and velvet is still evil. Evil cloaked in fine speech is still evil. Evil
beckoning with good intentions is still evil. We left the evil and that was our triumph. With only our faith and
strength and love we separated ourselves from it, soared above it and left it alone and, though many of us
suffered for it, our souls remained intact and uncorrupted.

Part Five: Faith
Light the candle.
Oh...it's too early to wake up !
You have to get it out while there's still time.
It sounds like the wind's picked up. Did it storm?
Yes. There's probably a foot of snow but it's not as cold.
Good.
You don't go out in the snow. I don't understand.
It frightens me. I like to stay inside and safe.
Ah. No snow trolls in here.
You believe in trolls?
No, I'm joking. Others did,however. Mostly the old folk, and for a very long time we seemed to have coexisted
with this parallel life form in the mountains. It was part fable, part practicality. There were good trolls and bad
trolls, depending on the lessons being imparted to the young. Bells, trolls, many stories.
I used to see a troll when I was a child. For maybe two years I was afraid of him. He'd come stand by my bed with his
wrinkled old face and pointy hat, not much taller than me. I'd have to hide under the covers because he'd make frightening
faces. If I cried everyone got angry at me for waking them up. But he was very real to me. Finally, he just vanished. Odd,
I still remember his ugly old face.
But you couldn't believe in God.
No, he was just another troll to my young mind, and I was told that trolls weren't real, just something in my head, a
figment of a child's imagination.
Yet, you saw the troll.
Well, I didn't see God! The troll at least had a form, so if I shouldn't believe in him why would I believe in a
formless spirit nobody even saw? I mean, the troll is just as plausible as God.
Odd you should say that. I used precisely that same argument once but applied it to saints, relics and other objects
invented to placate and rob the masses and inveigle their young to false belief. But, by the same argument, can
you touch truth? Can you see it? You cannot, yet you believe in truth!
Bah! That is not the argument. People want to believe in trolls, relics, saints, bells, false idols. And when there comes a
vacuum in such silliness they insert God.
Maybe God inserts himself. The trolls were aggressive. Theirs was a struggle for good or evil. They would do their
mischief, get away with as much as they could..annoying, plaguing, pushing, vexing, until some small thing foiled
them and they became impotent. Mankind would win again...at least for a while.
Then go back to church, ring bells, light candles, breath incense....
You do make me laugh ! God was above it all, bigger than all of that. You think God belongs with those silly
things when he alone can drive them out. You think he is imagination alone. No, he is reality, just as truth, or love
or hate is reality. Belief in him crowds out all else which is frivolous and false, clears away the garbage.
This is difficult for me, Joseph. Yet, if there is a God he comes through to me in Bach and Mozart..many others. A kind of
bridge between their work and divinity.
Yes, yes.
But that was how their minds worked it out. I don't see it in DaVinci. His mind existed apart from this.
Oh, you don't know this ! His expression was different. Yet God came through in him just as evil came through in
others. That struggle of good and evil, the manifestation of joy or torment. It all comes through to us..
I still think of great artists, writers and musicians who didn't wear God on their sleeve. Indeed, non-believers who were
still great.
But music, art and writing are all the same thing, mere arrangements in space. I submit that God is that space,
therefore within God the movements and arrangements are possible. Do you have a better explanation?
Perhaps I don't. Perhaps I think we are on our own, products of some freak event beyond our present
understanding..perhaps we invented God to give meaning to something we cannot understand.
But that is an ugly concept, not a beautiful concept. It holds no majesty. You also think we simply rot in the
ground when we die, that it is the end. Bach's work has majesty made possible through his faith.
Well, I admit that I now have some second thoughts about that, but then don't we all want to believe in more when our
own end is in sight? I would enjoy not thinking of myself as worm food.
Was Bach only worm food? For that matter, was I?
I suppose not. Look ! Look outside. There is so much new snow ! Joseph?
You think on it, my dear.

Part Six: Suffering
Were you really lonely, Joseph?
I cannot say that. I grew accustomed to it. There was devastation after my Magdalena died...then the young one
cheered me and brought me such life ! It was difficult to watch her suffer too. I had not the heart to go through it
again. I was occupied with hard labor. And there was the boy to keep me busy.
You were mentally occupied in other areas I suppose.
Yes. We tend to substitute other pursuits for companionship. We become one with our pen, our paintbrush...our
books. It is not altogether a bad thing.
Money was always a problem for you, was it not?
Oh ! That is understating it. Yes, it was a struggle..well, need I tell you? That is one of the reasons I went back
home on that last trip. The boy was growing up, and those bastards had stolen my home, my property. I made one
last attempt to retrieve what was rightfully mine ! But I failed. I was born into the mines, part of those hills. We
were like so many ants !A very close brotherhood. To go from such a structure to a busy city was shocking to us. I
lacked the social skills, had to be acclimated overnight. Whereas at home I had known every rock, every trail and
tree, suddenly I knew nothing! At home...well, no need to speak of it more. Those of mountain blood are their own
breed no matter where they are put.
Would you have been religious had you been born in the city?
I would, I hope. Yet at home in our quiet way, we had a delicious faith, intimate, heart filling, soul searching. It
was not the same feeling in a church. We had been our own "church", and it was a beautiful thing! I worried that
the church might become as pretentious as the one we had denied. Too wound up with money, politics..that the
inner heart could not feel God as acutely as when on a small personal level. Some of us still met and prayed after
we came to the city.
I can feel this when I lay my hands upon your book. It is almost as a beating heart, your heart. Still warm.
Thank you. Don't look so sad.
Oh, you suffered so needlessly !
It all had a reason, a rhythm. We must accept our suffering and know it serves a higher purpose, to elevate us.
There can be no life without suffering.
There are those who use their suffering or the suffering of others as a weapon of manipulation, not personal growth or for
the growth of mankind. Some even use it for financial or political gain.
Yes. Suffering can be a selfish and even a greedy thing. Or it can lead us to a higher step. All of mankind suffers!
No one has a monopoly on suffering.
Some think they do. They have latched on to it as their own personal cash cow.
Then they are selfish at best, wicked at worst. To deny that others suffer too is to diminish their importance as
human beings. By suffering alone is joy measured..and there is joy in surviving the pain.
Did you love her..the young one?
Yes, I suppose I did. She never made up for...oh, you know..yet she was lovely with thick, honey colored hair,
green eyes. And cheerful, always laughing. She just couldn't withstand the childbirths, the big babies. There was
something wrong. The poor, young thing. Just the one son survived.
I am glad for that !
As you should be! I had no time for him, really. He pretty much raised himself. A good boy, smart, strong. He had
to be. Yes, he survived. I guess we all did. Who is that in the small picture by your desk?
That was my grandfather.
My grandson.
One of them, yes.
There, you see. We survived. I must go now.
You always leave with the sun.
I would rather be here during the quiet times. I like sailing on the night.
But why suddenly the hurry? I don't understand you sometimes, why you come at all. Then, just when I get too close to
you, you vanish.
I am here for you to follow. I can only leave you with questions, I cannot answer them. You spoke of suffering.
You will think about that all day. There is no room for me when you think. Oh, I can tell you more on the subject.
Should I tell you of Maria Grüber? When her children were taken she never again uttered another word. No
sound ever came from her lips again. It was as if she had been turned to stone! Her poor husband tended to her all
the rest of his life, he lived with a corpse. Two months after she left, her 2 children were found dead, locked out of
the house as punishment for speaking of our religion. They froze to death only a few feet from the good, Catholic
family that was supposed to look after them..Or maybe I should tell you how when we left I forced my darling wife
to hold her head up straight, hold in her tears, look straight ahead. I made her march like a soldier. It was vanity
on my part, pride. I am not proud of that. I couldn't let them have the satisfaction of watching us suffer, so I made
her suffer even more, deprived her of her normal emotion. Yes, she suffered, died in my arms begging me to get
the children. She trusted me, and I failed. My dear old mother suffered ! Imagine bearing twelve children, then
watching them leave, one by one?
Yet you say there is a purpose for this? I don't believe that !
If we had not suffered then, others would have suffered more later...many, many more would have suffered later.
With that I am indeed departing ! You have plenty to ponder,child.

Conversations With Joseph

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