Part 5

In this way they came to the end of the Prater where Oskar's carriage was waiting. Squashed, but none the less good-tempered, they drove to a wine-restaurant in the town. Oskar ordered champagne in a private room, George sat down by the piano and improvised the theme that had occurred to him on the switchback. Amy lounged back in the corner of the sofa, while Oskar kept whispering things into her ears which made her laugh. Heinrich had grown silent again and twirled his glass slowly between his fingers. Suddenly George stopped playing and let his hands lie on the keys. A feeling of the dreamlike and purposeless character of existence came over him, as it frequently did when he had drunk wine. Ages seemed to have passed since he had come down a badly-lighted staircase in the Paulanergasse, and his walk with Heinrich in the dark autumn avenue lay far away in the distant past. On the other hand he suddenly remembered, as vividly as though the whole thing had happened yesterday, a very young and very depraved individual, with whom he had spent many years ago a few weeks of that happy-go-lucky life which Oskar Ehrenberg was now leading with Amy. She had kept him waiting too long one evening in the street, he had gone away impatiently and had neither heard nor seen anything of her again. How easy life was sometimes....

He heard Amy's soft laugh and turned round. His look encountered that of Oskar, who seemed to be trying to catch his eye over Amy's blonde head. He felt irritated by that look and deliberately avoided it and struck a few chords again in a melancholy ballad-style. He felt a desire to describe all that had happened to him to-day, and looked at the clock over the door. It was past one. He caught Heinrich's eye and they both got up. Oskar pointed to Amy, who had gone to sleep on his shoulder, and intimated by a smile and a shrug of his shoulders that under such circumstances he could not think of going for the present. The two others shook hands with him, whispered good-night and slipped away.

"Do you know what I've done?" said Heinrich. "While you were improvising so extraordinarily finely on that ghastly piano I tried to get the real hang of that libretto that I spoke to you about in the spring."

"Oh, the opera libretto! that _is_ interesting. Won't you tell me?"

Heinrich shook his head. "I should like to, but the unfortunate thing is, as you've already seen, that it's really not yet finished--like most of my other so-called plots."

George looked at him interrogatively. "You had a whole lot of things on hand last spring, when we saw each other last."

"Yes, I have made a lot of notes, but to-day I've done nothing more than sentences ... no words, no, just letters on white paper. It's just as if a dead hand had touched everything. I'm frightened the next time I tackle the thing that it will all fall to pieces like tinder. Yes, I've been going through a bad time, and who knows if there's a better one in store for me?"

George was silent. Then he suddenly remembered the notice in the papers which he had read somewhere or other about Heinrich's father, the former deputy, Doctor Bermann. He suspected that that might be the reason. "Your father is ill, isn't he?" he asked.

Heinrich answered without looking at him. "Yes, my father has been in a mental home since June."

George shook his head sympathetically.

Heinrich continued: "Yes, it's an awful business, even though I wasn't on very intimate terms with him during the last months it is indescribably awful, and goes on being so."

"I can quite understand," said George, "not making any headway with one's work under circumstances like that."

"Yes," answered Heinrich hesitatingly. "But it's not that alone. To be quite frank that business plays a comparatively subordinate part in my present mental condition. I don't want to make myself out better than I am. Better...! Should I be better...!" He gave a short laugh and then went on speaking. "Look here, yesterday I still thought that it was the accumulation of every possible misfortune that depressed me so. But to-day I've had an infallible proof that things of no importance at all, positively silly things in fact, affect me more deeply than very real things like my father's illness. Disgusting, isn't it?"

George looked in front of him. Why do I still go on walking with him, he thought, and why does he take it quite for granted that I should?

Heinrich went on speaking with clenched teeth and unnecessary vehemence of tone. "I received two letters this afternoon. Two letters, yes ... one from my mother, who had visited my father yesterday in the home. This letter contained the news that he is bad--very bad; to come to the point he won't last much longer"--he gave a deep breath--"and as you can imagine that involves all kinds of troubles, responsibilities for my mother and my sister and for myself. But just think of it, another letter came at the same time as that one; it contained nothing of importance so to speak--a letter from a person with whom I have been intimate for two years--and there was a passage in that letter which struck me as a little suspicious--one isolated passage ... otherwise the letter was very affectionate and very nice, like all her other letters ... and now, just imagine, the memory of that one suspicious passage, which another man wouldn't have noticed at all, has been haunting me and torturing me the whole day. I've not been thinking about my father in the lunatic asylum, nor about my mother and sister who are in despair, but only about that unimportant passage in that silly letter from a really by no means brilliant female. It eats up all my strength, it makes me incapable of feeling like a son, like a human being ... isn't it ghastly?"

George listened coldly. It struck him as strange that this taciturn melancholy man should suddenly confide in so casual an acquaintance as himself, and he could not help feeling a painful sense of embarrassment when confronted with this unexpected revelation. He did not have the impression either that any particular sympathy for him on Heinrich's part was the real reason for all these confessions. He rather felt inclined to put it down to a want of tact, a certain natural lack of self-control, something which seemed very well described by the expression "bad breeding," which he had once heard applied to Heinrich--wasn't it by Hofrat Wilt? They went as far as the Burg gate. A starless sky lay over the silent town, there was a slight rustle in the trees of the park, they could hear somewhere or other the noise of a rolling carriage as it drove away into the distance.

As Heinrich was silent again, George stood still and said in as kind a tone as he could: "I must now really say good-bye, dear Herr Bermann."

"Oh," exclaimed Heinrich, "I now see that you've come with me quite a long way--and I've been tactless enough to tell you, or rather myself in your presence, a lot of things which can't interest you in the least.... Forgive me!"

"What is there to forgive?" answered George gently. He felt a little moved by this self-reproach of Heinrich's and held out his hand.

Heinrich took it, said "Good-bye, my dear Baron," and rushed off in a hurry, as though he had suddenly decided that any further word would be bound to be importunate.

George looked after him with a mixture of sympathy and repulsion, and suddenly a free and almost happy mood came over him. He felt young, devoid of care and destined for the most brilliant future. He rejoiced at the winter which was coming, there were all kinds of possibilities: work, amusement, sentiment, while he was absolutely indifferent as to who it was from whom these joys might come. He lingered a moment by the Opera-house. If he went home through the Paulanergasse it would not be appreciably out of his way. He smiled at the memory of the serenades of his earlier years. Not far from here lay the street where he had looked up many a night at a window behind whose curtains Marianne had been accustomed to show herself when her husband had gone to sleep. This woman who was always playing with dangers in whose seriousness she herself did not believe had never really been worthy of George.... Another memory more distant than this one was much more gracious. When he was a boy of seventeen in Florence he had walked to and fro many a night before the window of a beautiful girl, the first creature of the other sex who had given her virgin self to him as yet untouched. And he thought of the hour when he had seen his beloved step on the arm of her bridegroom up to the altar, where the priest was to consecrate the marriage, of the look of eternal farewell which she had sent to him from under her white veil....

He had now arrived at his goal. The lamps were still burning at both ends of the short street, so that it was quite dark where he stood opposite the house. The window of Anna's room was open, and the pinned curtains fluttered lightly in the wind, just as in the afternoon. It was quite dark below. A soft tenderness began to stir in George's heart. Of all the beings who had ever refrained from hiding their inclination for him he thought Anna the best and the purest. She was also the first who brought the gift of sympathy for his artistic aspirations. She was certainly more genuine than Marianne, whose tears would roll over her cheeks whatever he happened to play on the piano; she was deeper too than Else Ehrenberg, who no doubt only wanted to confirm herself in the proud consciousness of having been the first to recognise his talent. And if any person was positively cut out to counteract his tendency to dilettantism and nonchalance and to keep him working energetically, profitably and with a conscious object that person was Anna. He had thought only last winter of looking out for a post as a conductor or accompanist at some German Opera; at Ehrenbergs' he had casually spoken of his intentions, which had not been taken very seriously. Frau Ehrenberg, woman of the world that she was, had given him the motherly advice rather to undertake a tour through the United States as a composer and conductor, whereupon Else had cut in, "And an American heiress shouldn't be sniffed at either." As he remembered this conversation he was very pleased with the idea of knocking about the world a bit, he wished to get to know foreign towns and foreign men, to win love and fame somewhere out in the wide world, and finally came to the conclusion that his life was slipping away from him on the whole in far too quiet and monotonous a fashion.

He had long ago left the Paulanergasse, without having taken mentally any farewell of Anna, and was soon home.

As he stepped into the dining-room he saw a light shining from Felician's room.

"Good evening, Felician," he cried out.

The door was opened and Felician came out still fully dressed.

The brothers shook hands with each other.

"Only just got home?" said Felician. "I thought you had been asleep quite a long time." As he spoke he looked past him, as his manner was, and nodded his head towards the right. "What have you been doing, then?"

"I've been in the Prater," answered George.

"Alone?"

"No, I met people. Oskar Ehrenberg with his girl and Bermann the author. We shot and went on the switchback. It was quite jolly.... What have you got in your hand?" he said, interrupting his narrative. "Have you been out for a walk like that?" he added jestingly.

Felician let the sword which he held in his right hand shine in the light of the lamp. "I've just taken it down from the wall, I begin to-morrow again in earnest. The tournament is in the middle of November, and I want to try what I can do this year against Forestier."

"By Jove!" cried George.

"A piece of cheek, you think, what? But it's still a long time before the middle of November. And the strange thing is I've got the feeling as though I had learnt something fresh in the very six weeks of this summer when I didn't have the thing in my hand at all. It's as though my arm had got new ideas in the meanwhile. I can't explain it properly."

"I follow what you mean."

Felician held the sword stretched out in front of him and looked at it affectionately. He then said: "Ralph inquired after you, so did Guido ... a pity you weren't there."

"You spent the whole day with them?"

"Oh no, I remained at home after dinner. You must have gone out straight away. I've been studying."

"Studying?"

"Yes, I must really do something serious now. I want to pass my Diplomatic exam, by May at the outside."

"So you've quite made up your mind?"

"Absolutely. There's no point in my remaining on any more in the Stadthalterei. The longer I stay there the clearer it becomes. Anyway, the time won't have been wasted. They don't mind at all if one has spent a year or two in Home Service."

"So you'll probably be leaving Vienna in the autumn."

"Presumably."

"And where will they send you?"

"If one only knew."

George looked in front of him. "So the parting is as near as that?" But why did it affect him so much all of a sudden?... Why, he himself had determined to go away, and had quite recently spoken to his brother about his plans for next year. Was he still as sceptical as ever of his seriousness? If only they could have a good frank brotherly heart-to-heart talk as they had had on that evening after their father's funeral. As a matter of fact, it was only when life revealed its gloomy side to them that they felt absolutely in touch. Otherwise there was always this strange constraint between them both. There was obviously no help for it. They just had to talk more or less discreetly to each other like fairly intimate friends. And as though resigned to the situation George went on with his questions. "What did you do in the evening?"

"I had supper with Guido and an interesting young lady."

"Really?"

"He's in silken dalliance again, you know."

"Who is it, then?"

"Conservatoire, Jewess, violin. But she didn't bring it with her. Not particularly pretty, but clever. She improves him and he respects her; he wants her to be baptised. A humorous affair I can tell you. You would have had quite a good time."

George turned his eyes towards the sword which Felician still held in his hand. "Would you like to fence a bit?" he asked.

"Why not?" answered Felician and fetched a second foil out of his room. Meanwhile George had moved the big table in the middle up against the wall.

"I haven't had a thing in my hand since May," he said as he took hold of his sword. They took off their coats and crossed blades. George cried _touché_ the next second.

"Come on," cried George, and thought himself lucky that it was his brother whom he had to face as he stood in an awkward position with the slender flashing weapon in his hand.

Felician hit him as often as he wanted to without himself being touched a single time. He then lowered his sword and said: "You're too tired to-day, there's no point in it. But you should come more often to the club. I assure you it's a pity, with your talent."

George was pleased by his brotherly praise. He laid his sword down on the table, took a deep breath and went to the wide centre window which was open. "What wonderful air," he said. A lonely lamp was shining from the park, there was absolute silence.

Felician came up to George, and while the latter leant with both hands on the sill the elder brother remained upright and swept over street, park and town with one of his proud quiet glances. They were both silent for a long time. And they knew they were each thinking of the same thing: a May night of last spring when they had gone home together through the park and their father had greeted them with a silent nod of his head from the very same window by which they were now standing. And both felt a little shocked at the thought that they had enjoyed the whole day with such full gusto, without any painful memories of the beloved man who now lay beneath the ground.

"Well, good-night," said Felician in a softer tone than usual as he held out his hand to George. He pressed it in silence and each went into his own room.

George arranged the table lamp, took out some music paper and began to write. It was not the scherzo which had occurred to him when he had whizzed through the night with the others under the black tree-tops a few hours ago; and it was not the melancholy folk-ballad of the restaurant either; but a quite new _motif_ that swam up slowly and continuously as though from secret depths. George felt as though he had to allow some mysterious element to take its course. He wrote down the melody, which he thought should be sung by an _alto_ voice or played on the viola, and at the same time a strange accompaniment rang in his ears, which he knew would never vanish from his memory.

It was four o'clock in the morning when he went to bed with the calmness of a man to whom nothing evil can ever come in all his life and for whom neither solitude nor poverty nor death possess any terror.

[1] A special way of wearing a coat affected in Viennese artistic circles.

[2] A company celebrated for its risqué plays.

II

Frau Ehrenberg sat with her knitting on the green velvet sofa in the raised bow-window. Opposite her Else was reading a book. The white head of the marble Isis gleamed from out the far dark part of the room behind the piano, while a streak of light from the next room played through the open door over the grey carpet. Else looked up from her book through the window to the high tops of the trees in the Schwarzenberg Park which were waving in the autumn wind and said casually: "We might perhaps ring up George Wergenthin, to know if he's coming this evening."

Frau Ehrenberg let her knitting fall on her lap. "I don't know," she said. "You remember what a really charming condolence letter I wrote him and what a pressing invitation I gave him to come to Auhof. He didn't come and the coldness of his answer was quite marked. I wouldn't ring him up."

"One shouldn't treat him like other people," answered Else. "He belongs to the people whom one has occasionally to remind that one is still alive. When he has been reminded he is extremely glad."

Frau Ehrenberg went on with her knitting. "It really won't come to anything," she said quietly.

"It's not meant to come to anything," retorted Else. "I thought you knew that by this time, mamma. We're good friends, nothing more--and even that only at intervals; or do you really think that I'm in love with him, mamma? Yes, when I was a little girl I was, in Nice, when we played tennis together, but that is long past."

"Well--and Florence?"

"In Florence--I was more in love with Felician."

"And now?" asked Frau Ehrenberg slowly.

"Now ... you're probably thinking of Heinrich Bermann ... but you're making a mistake, mother."

"I prefer to be making a mistake. But this summer I really quite had the impression that----"

"I tell you," interrupted Else a little impatiently, "it isn't anything and never was anything. On one solitary occasion, when we went out boating on a sultry afternoon, you saw us from your balcony with your opera-glasses, no doubt--it was only then that it became a little dangerous. And even supposing we had fallen on each other's neck--which as a matter of fact we never did--it wouldn't have meant anything. It was simply a summer flirtation."

"And besides, he's supposed to be involved in a very serious love-affair," said Frau Ehrenberg.

"You mean ... with that actress, mamma?"

Frau Ehrenberg looked up. "Did he tell you anything about her?"

"Tell...? Not in so many words, but when we went for walks together in the park or went out in the evening on the lake, why, he practically spoke of nothing but her--of course without mentioning her name ... and the better he liked me--men really are such awfully funny people--the more jealous he became about the other woman.... But if it were only that? What young man isn't involved in a serious love affair? Do you think by any chance, mamma, that George Wergenthin is not?"

"In a serious one ... no, that will never happen to him. He's too cold, too superior for that ... he hasn't got enough temperament."

"That's exactly why," explained Else, airing her knowledge of human nature. "He'll slip into some whirlpool or other and get taken out of his depth without his having noticed it, and some fine day he'll get married ... out of sheer indolence ... to some person or other who'll probably be absolutely indifferent to him."

"You must have a definite suspicion," said Frau Ehrenberg.

"I have."

"Marianne?"

"Marianne! but that's been over a long time, mamma. And that was never anything particularly serious, either."

"Well, who is it then?"

"Well whom do you think, mamma?"

"I have no idea."

"It's Anna," said Else curtly.

"Which Anna?"

"Anna Rosner, of course."

"But...."

"You can say 'but' as much as you like--it's a fact."

"Else, you don't seriously think that Anna with her reserved character could so far forget herself as to----"

"So far forget herself...? Really, mamma, the number of expressions you keep on using--anyway, I don't think that's quite a case of one's forgetting oneself."

Frau Ehrenberg smiled, not without a certain pride.

The bell rang outside.

"It's he at last," said Else.

"It might quite as well be Demeter Stanzides," observed Frau Ehrenberg.

"Stanzides was to bring the Prince along sometime," said Else casually.

"Do you think that will come off?" inquired Frau Ehrenberg, letting her knitting fall into her lap.

"Why shouldn't it come off?" said Else. "They are so intimate."

The door opened. As a matter of fact it was none of the expected visitors who came in, but Edmund Nürnberger. He was dressed, as always, with the greatest care, though not after the latest fashion. His tail coat was a little too short and an emerald pin was stuck in his voluminous satin tie. He bowed as soon as he had got to the door, though his demeanour expressed at the same time a certain irony at his own politeness. "Am I the first?" he inquired. "No one here yet? Not a Hofrat--nor a count--nor an author--nor a diabolical female?"

"Only a woman who never was one, I'm sorry to say," answered Frau Ehrenberg as she shook hands with him.

"And one ... who will perhaps become one sometime."

"Oh, I am convinced," said Nürnberger, "that if she only takes it seriously, Fräulein Else will succeed in that." He stroked his smooth black somewhat glossy hair slowly with his left hand.

Frau Ehrenberg expressed her regret that their expectation of his coming to Auhof had not been realised. Had he really spent the whole summer in Vienna?

"Why do you wonder so much, my dear madam? Whether I am walking up and down among mountain scenery or by the shore of the sea or in my own room, it doesn't really matter much in the end."

"But you must have felt quite lonely," said Frau Ehrenberg.

"You certainly realise solitude more clearly when there's no one in the neighbourhood who shows any desire of talking to you.... But let's talk of more interesting and promising men than I am. How are all the numerous friends of your popular family?"

"Friends!" repeated Else. "I should like first to know what you mean by the word?"

"Well, all the people who say something agreeable to you from whatever motive, and whom you believe in when they say it."

The door of the bedroom opened, Herr Ehrenberg appeared and greeted Nürnberger.

"Are you ready packed?" asked Else.

"Packed and ready," answered Ehrenberg, who had on a grey suit that was far too loose and was biting a fat cigar between his teeth. He turned to Nürnberger to explain.... "I'm off to-day, just as I am, to Corfu ... for the time being; the season is beginning and the Ehrenberg 'at homes' make me feel sick."

"No one asks you," replied Frau Ehrenberg gently, "to honour them with your presence."