The Strange Life of P. D. Ouspensky Read Free Page A

and devotional techniques that he was convinced were insufficient for penetrating into the essential reality for which he was seeking.

    No doubt full records of this period of Ouspensky's life exist in the various newspapers he wrote for and will one day be published by some diligent researcher. Yet, while they would provide us with facts, they could hardly help us to a deeper understanding than Ouspensky himself provides in Osokin and the slightly later Talks with a Devil . The latter consists of two stories, the first of which, 'The Inventor', utilizes Ouspensky's American experience. The inventor is an American called Hugh B., who finds himself working in a factory, at a job that bores him. One day, as he is copying a design for a new machine, he realizes that it could be improved by a simple change. The designer becomes indignant at the suggestion and shouts at him. But the manager begins to see that Hugh is correct, and makes him senior draughtsman. Hugh is still dissatisfied because he is still underpaid for his inventions. He marries, but he and his wife are soon at loggerheads. All his attempts to achieve recognition as an inventor come to nothing. One day, like Ivan Osokin, he decides to commit suicide . . .
    But at this point, fate intervenes to change his life. As he is buying a revolver with which to end his life, he has an idea for an automatic revolver that will fire like a machine gun. By the time he gets back home, his wife has left him, but he is so obsessed by his new invention that he takes it in his stride. (At this point, the devil who is recounting the story to Ouspensky has to admit that he cannot even begin to understand how a man can become enthusiastic about a mere invention . . . )
    The prototype revolver is made, but no one seems to be interested. When one day Hugh encounters another inventor whose life has been a total failure, he almost loses courage. But eventually he meets a friend who is about to sell his factory, and the two go into partnership. At last, the new revolver is manufactured - but it sells so badly that Hugh is tempted to dispose of his patent for 1,000 dollars . . .
    At this point, though, fate again takes a hand. In Paris, a famous singer is murdered by her lesbian lover with one of Hugh's revolvers. A book about the case becomes a bestseller and Hugh's factory is suddenly inundated with orders. Every time there is a murder or political catastrophe involving the new repeating pistol, they receive still more orders. Soon Hugh is a millionaire and is reunited with his wife . . .
    So far, the story seems to be as deeply pessimistic as Osokin : despair leads to the decision to commit suicide; fate intervenes and brings success, but the success involves death and misery, and the death and misery bring still more success until the inventor feels that life has become meaningless. But at this point, we become aware that Ouspensky is no longer a pessimist trapped in the idea of Eternal Recurrence. As Hugh stands on the bridge of his yacht on the Amazon, gazing at the stars, he is suddenly imbued with a passion for astronomy. He spends the rest of the cruise reading books about the stars and, when he returns home, builds an observatory. 'Now he worked for the sake of knowledge alone, creative work, winning over and extorting from nature her closest secrets . . .' Hugh has slipped out of the grip of the devil, whose aim is to confine human beings to the narrowness of the material world. And when his wife decides to devote herself to healing the blind, the devil takes his leave, protesting that he is revolted by her sentimentality.
    In a footnote in Talks with a Devil , Ouspensky acknowledges that he has unconsciously plagiarized an idea from Dostoevsky's scene with the Devil in The Brothers Karamazov . In fact, Talks with a Devil is altogether closer to the third act of Shaw's Man and Superman , the dream episode called 'Don Juan in Hell'. Shaw's Devil is also a materialist, who has