Part 14

It was more difficult for him to approach Christian than a member of the ministry or a distinguished foreigner. He vacillated between issuing a request and a command. He was not sure of his authority, and even less of any friendly understanding. But while he was spending a few days of rest and recreation in the family’s ancestral house at Würzburg, he sent a message to Christian, and begged him for an interview.

XIII

Crammon wrote to Christian. It was his humour to affect an archaic manner of speech:

“Most Honoured and Worthy Friend: With deep satisfaction I learn that your Worship has ruefully returned to the god Dionysos, and as a sign thereof laid down upon his altar a jewel, whose price has caused the teeth of the Philistines in the land to rattle, and their lame digestions to work with unwelcome swiftness. Your servant, the undersigned, did, on the contrary, when the news of happy augury came to him, perform a dance in his lonely closet, which so shocked the ladies of his palace that they at once called up psychiatrists on the telephone. Thus the world, barren of understanding, is incapable of great reflections.

“Unlovely are my days. I am ensnared in amorous adventures which do not content me, and, in addition, disappoint those who are involved. At times I sit by the charming glow of my chimney fire, and, closing my eyes, peruse the book of memory. A bottle of golden-hued cognac is my sole companion, and while I nourish my heart upon its artificial warmth, the higher regions are wont to sink into the cold mystery of mere idiocy. My mental powers are moving, like the crab, backward; my virile powers decline. Years ago in Paris I knew a chess player, a purblind old German, who lost every game he played, and exclaimed each time: ‘Where are the days in which I vanquished the great Zuckertort?’ The latter, I must explain, was a great master of the royal game. The necessary application to myself embarrasses me. There was once a Roman emperor famous above all others for his power over women; Maxentius was, I believe, the man’s name. But were I to exclaim: ‘Where are the days in which I rivalled the great Maxentius?’ it were but damnable boasting!

“It is a pity that you cannot be a beholder when I arise from my couch in the morning. Were this spectacle to be tested by connoisseurs and to be enjoyed by the laity, throngs would attend it, as whilom they did the rising of the kings of France. The gentry of the land would come to do me reverence, and lovely ladies would tickle me to elicit a beam of cheer upon my face. O blessed youth, friend and playmate of my dreams, I would have you know that the moments in which one leaves the linen well warmed by one’s own body, and goes forth to twelve hours of the world’s mischief, are to me moments of incomparable pitifulness. I sit on the bed’s edge, and regard my underwear with a loud though inward rage. Sadly I gather the remnants of my ego, and reknot the thread of consciousness where Morpheus cut it yestereve. My soul is strewn about, and rolls in little globules, like mercury spilt from a broken thermometer. Only the sacrificial fumes of the tea kettle, the fragrance of ham and of an omelet like cowslips, and, above all, gentle words uttered by the soft lips of my considerate housekeepers, reconcile me to my fate.

“Dear old Regamey is dead. The Count Sinsheim has had a paralytic stroke. My friend, Lady Constance Cuningham, a member of the highest aristocracy, has married a wealthy American bounder. The best are going, and the tree of life is growing bare. On my trip here I stopped over in Munich for three days as the guest of the young Imhofs. Your sister Judith is cutting a great figure. The painters paint her, the sculptors hew her in marble, the poets celebrate her. Yet her ambition is still vaulting. She desires passionately a little nine-pointed coronet upon her linen, her liveries, and her four motors, and flirts with everything that comes from the court or goes to it. Felix, on the contrary, being a democrat, surrounds himself with business men, speculators, explorers, and clever people of both sexes. Hence their house is a mixture of Guildhall, a grain exchange, a meeting of pettifoggers, and a jockey club. After watching the goings on for an evening, I retired to a corner with a pretty girl, and asked her to feel my pulse. She obeyed, and my suffering soul was soothed.

“Our sweet Ariel, I am told, intoxicates the Poles in Warsaw and the Muscovites in Moscow. In the latter city the students are said to have expressed their homage by a torchlight procession, and the officers to have covered the snowy streets from her dwelling to the theatre with roses. I am also told that the Grand Duke Cyril, commonly known as the human butcher, is half-mad with love of her, and is turning the world topsy-turvy to get her. It fills me with a piercing, depthless melancholy to think, O Ariel, that once I, too, felt thy breath. No more than that; but it suffices. _Le moulin n’y est plus, mais le vent y est encore._

“With this final remark, dear brother of my heart and sorely missed friend, I commend you to God, and beseech you to give some sign to your affectionately longing Bernard Gervasius C. v. W.”

When Christian had read the letter, he smiled, and laid it quietly aside.

XIV

On the slope of the hill behind the village Christian and Amadeus Voss met quite by chance.

“I have been waiting for you all week,” said Voss.

“I was going to come to you to-day,” said Christian. “Won’t you walk a little with me?”

Amadeus Voss turned and accompanied Christian. They climbed the hill-top, and then turned toward the forest. Silently they walked side by side. The sun shone through the boughs and everything was watery. Remnants of snow rested on the dry foliage; the ground was slippery; on the road the water flowed in the deep ruts. When they left the forest the sun was just setting, the sky was greenish and pink, and when they reached the first houses of Heptrich, twilight had fallen. On the whole way they had not exchanged a syllable. At first Voss had deliberately not kept step with Christian. Later they walked in a rhythmic harmony that was like the prelude to their conversations.

“I’m hungry,” said Amadeus Voss; “there is an inn yonder. Let us go.”

They entered the guest room, which they found empty. They sat down at a table near the oven, for the cold air had chilled them. A bar-maid lit a lamp, and brought what they ordered. Christian, in an access of fear, which was less only than his curiosity, thought: What will happen now? and watched Voss attentively.

“The other day I read a moral tale in an old book,” said Amadeus, and he used a sharpened match as a tooth-pick in a way that made Christian tremble with nervousness. “It tells about a king, who realized that men and things in his country were growing worse every day, and he asked four philosophers to find out the reason. The four wise men consulted, and then each went to one of the four gates of the city and inscribed thereon one of the chief reasons. The first wrote: ‘Here might is right, and therefore this land has no law; day is night, and therefore this land has no road; conflict is flight, and therefore this land has no honour.’ The second wrote: ‘One is two here, and therefore this land has no truth; friend is enemy here, therefore this land has no troth; evil is good, therefore we see no piety.’ The third wrote: ‘The snail pretends to be an eagle, and thieves hold all power.’ The fourth wrote: ‘The will is our counsellor, and its counsel is evil; the penny pronounces judgment, therefore our rule is vile; God is dead, and therefore the land is filled with sins.’”

He threw the match away, and leaned his head upon his hand. “In the same book,” he went on, “there is yet another story, and perhaps you will feel the connection between the two. Once upon a time the earth opened in the midst of Rome, and a yawning abyss was seen. The gods were questioned, and they made answer: ‘This abyss will not close until some one has leaped into it of his own free will.’ None could be persuaded to do that. At last a youth came and said: ‘If you will let me live for one year according to my pleasure, then at the year’s end I shall gladly and voluntarily plunge into the abyss.’ It was decided that nothing should be forbidden him, and he used the women and possessions of the Romans freely and at his pleasure. All yearned for the moment to come when they could be rid of him. And when the year was gone, he rode up on a noble charger, and with it leaped into the abyss, which immediately closed behind him.”

Christian shrugged his shoulders. “It is all dark to me,” he said moodily. “Did you really want to tell me these old tales? They have no meaning.”

Voss laughed hoarsely to himself. “You are not nimble,” he said, “you have not a nimble mind. Have you never felt the need of seeking refuge in some metaphor? It is like a drug that stills pain.”

“I don’t know what you mean by that,” Christian said, and again he heard the other’s soft laughter.

“Let us go,” said Christian and arose.

“Very well. Let us go.” Voss spoke with a morose air. And they went.

XV

The night air was very still and the sky sown with stars that gleamed coldly. When the village lay behind them, they heard no sound.

“How long were you in Ribbeck’s house?” Christian asked suddenly.

“Ten months,” Amadeus Voss replied. “When I got to Halbertsroda, the land lay under ice and snow. When I left, the land lay under ice and snow. Between my coming and going, there was a spring, a summer, and an autumn.”

He stopped for a moment, and gazed after an animal that in the darkness leaped across the road and disappeared in the furrows of a field. Then he began to talk, at first in a staccato manner and drily, then vividly and tempestuously, and at last gasping for breath. They wandered away from the road, but were not aware of it; the hour grew late, but they did not know it.

Voss told his story:

“I had never seen a house like that. The carpets, pictures, tapestries, the silver, the many servants--it was all new to me. I had never eaten of such dishes nor slept in such beds. I came from amid four bare walls, from a cot, an iron stove, a wash stand, a book shelf, and a crucifix.

“My two pupils were eleven and thirteen. The older was blond and spare, the younger brunette and stocky. Their hair hung down their shoulders like manes. From the very first hour they treated me with a jeering resistance. At first I did not see Frau Ribbeck at all. Not till a week had passed did she summon me. She made the impression of a young girl; she had rust-red hair and a pale, intimidated, undeveloped face. She treated me with a contempt that I had not expected, and that drove the blood into my temples. My meals were served to me alone. I was not permitted to eat at the master’s table, and the servants treated me as their equal. That gnawed at me cruelly. When Frau Ribbeck appeared in the garden and I lifted my hat, she barely nodded, blind and shameless in her contempt for one whom she paid. I was no more to her than thin air!

“It is as old as the world, this sin that was sinned against my soul. Ye sinners against my soul, why did you let me famish? Why did I taste of renunciation while ye revelled? How shall a hungry man withstand the temptations which the living Tempter places before him? Do you think we are not aware of your gluttony? All action, whether good or evil, runs through all nature. When the grape blossoms in Madeira, the wine that has been pressed from it stirs in a thousand casks far over sea and land, and a new fermentation sets in.

“One morning the boys locked the door of their room and refused to come to their instruction. While I shook the knob they mocked me from within. In the halls the servants stood and laughed at my powerlessness. I went to the gardener, borrowed an axe, and crashed through the door with three blows. A minute later I was in the room. The boys looked at me in consternation, and realized at last that I would not endure their insolence. The noise had brought Frau Ribbeck to the scene. She looked at the broken door and then at me. I shall never forget that look. She did not turn her eyes from me even while she was speaking to the children, and that was at least ten minutes. Her eyes asked: How dare you? Who are you? When she went out, she saw the axe near the door and stopped a moment, and I saw her shiver. But I knew that the direction of the wind had changed. Also it came into my consciousness that a human woman had stood before me.

“The teasing of my pupils was by no means at an end. On the contrary, they annoyed me as much as possible. But they did it secretively now, and the blame was hard to fix. I found pebbles and needles in my bed, ink spilled over my books, a horrible rent in the best suit of clothes I had. They jeered at me before others, lied about me to their mother, and exchanged glances of shameless insolence when I held them responsible. What they did was not like the ordinary mischief of silly boys. They had been sophisticated by luxury. They were afraid of a draught, had the rooms so overheated that one grew faint, and thought of nothing but physical comforts. Once they fought, and the younger bit the older’s finger. The boy went to bed for three days, and insisted that a physician be called. Nor was this merely a case of lazy malingering; bottomless malevolence and vengefulness entered into it. They considered me as far beneath them, and lost no chance to make me feel my dependent position. My mood was often bitter, but I determined to practise patience.

“One evening I entered the drawing-room. The hour which I had set as the boys’ bed-time was past. Frau Ribbeck sat on the carpet, the boys snuggled on either side of her. She was showing them the pictures in a book. Her hair hung loose,--an unfitting thing, I thought--and its reddish splendour covered her as well as the boys like a mantle of brocade. The boys fixed green and evil eyes upon me. I ordered them to bed at once. There must have been something in my tone that frightened them and forced them to obey. Without contradiction they got up and retired.

“Adeline remained on the carpet. I shall simply call her Adeline, as, indeed, I did later during our intercourse. She looked at me exactly as she had done that day I had used the axe. One cannot well be paler than she was by nature, but her skin now became positively transparent. She arose, went to the table, lifted some indifferent object, and put it down again. At the same time a mocking smile hovered upon her lips. That smile went through and through me. And indeed the woman herself pierced me, body and soul. You’ll misunderstand me. It doesn’t matter. If you don’t understand, no explanations will do any good. The sheet of ice above me cracked, and I had a glimpse of the upper world.”

“I believe I do understand you,” said Christian.

“To my question whether she desired me to leave the house, she replied that, since her husband had engaged me, it was for her to respect the arrangement. Her tone was frosty. I replied that the pressure of her dislike made it impossible for my activities to be fruitful. With an indirect glance at me, she answered that some method of decent co-operation could probably be found, and that she would think it over. Beginning with that evening, I was invited to table with her, and the boys and she treated me with respect, if not with kindness. Late one evening she sent for me and asked me to read to her. She gave me the book from which I was to read. It was a current fashionable novel, and, after I had read a few pages, I threw the volume on the table, and said that the stuff nauseated me. She nodded, and answered that that was quite her feeling, too, which she had not wanted to admit even to herself, and that she was grateful to me for my frankness. I went for my Bible, and read her the story of Samson from the Book of Judges. It must have seemed naïve to her, for when I had finished that mocking smile played again about her lips. Then she asked: ‘It’s hardly necessary, is it, to be a hero in Judah to share Samson’s fate? And do you think that what Delilah accomplished was so remarkable?’ I replied that I had no experience of such matters, and she laughed.

“One word led to another, and I gathered the courage to reproach her with the morally neglected condition of her children, and with the wounding and vulgar quality of all I had so far seen and experienced in her house. I intentionally used the sharpest words, in order that she might flare up in wrath and show me the door. But she remained quite calm, and begged me to explain my ideas more fully. I did so, not without passion, and she heard me with pleasure. Several times I saw her breathe deeply and stretch herself and close her eyes. She contradicted me, then agreed, defended her position, and in the end admitted it to be indefensible. I told her that the love which she thought she felt for her sons was really a sort of hatred, based on a poisoning of her own soul, in which there was yet another life and another love, which it was wicked to condemn to withering and death. She must have misunderstood me at this point, for she looked at me with her large eyes suddenly, and bade me go. When I had closed her door behind me, I heard sobs. I opened the door again, and saw her sitting there with her face hidden in her hands. I had the impulse to return to her. But her gesture dismissed me.

“I had never before seen any woman cry except my mother. I cannot tell you of my feelings. If I had had a sister and grown up in her companionship, I might have acted and felt differently. But Adeline was the first woman whom, in any deeper sense, I truly saw.

“Several days later she asked me whether I had any hope of forming her boys into human beings in my sense. She said that she had reflected on all I had urged, and had come to the conclusion that things could not go on as they were. I answered that it was not yet too late. She begged me to save what was possible, and announced that, in order to leave me a free hand, she had determined to travel for a few months. Three days later she departed. She took no personal farewell of her sons, but wrote them a letter from Dresden.

“I took the boys with me to a hunting lodge, that lay isolated in the woods, at a distance of two hours from Halbertsroda. It belonged to the Ribbeck estate, and Adeline had assigned it to me as a refuge. There I settled down with the boys and took them sternly in hand. Sometimes dread overcame me, when I thought of the words of Scripture: Why do you seek constantly to change your way? Beware lest you be deceived by Egypt, as you were deceived by Assyria.

“A deaf, old man-servant cooked for us, and luxurious meals were a thing of the past. The boys had to pray, to fast once a week, to sleep on hard mattresses, and to rise at five in the morning. In every way I broke down their stubbornness, their dull sloth, their furtive sensuality, their plots and tricks. There was no play now, and the days were divided with iron regularity. I shrank from no severity. I chastised them; at the slightest disobedience I used a whip. I taught them the meaning of pain. When they cowered naked before me, with the bloody stripes on their bodies, I spoke to them of the martyrdom of the saints. I kept a diary, in order that Adeline might know exactly what had happened. The boys started when they heard me from afar; they trembled if I but raised my head. Once I came upon them whispering to each other in bed at night. I drove them out. They screamed and fled out of the house from me. In their night shifts they ran into the forest, and I, with two dogs following me, pursued them. Rain began to pour, and at last they broke down and threw themselves on the ground and begged for mercy. Most difficult of all it was to lead them to Confession. But I was stronger than the Evil One within them, and forced them to cleanse their souls. Bitter hours were the hours I endured. But I had made a vow to Adeline in my heart.

“The boys became thoughtful, subdued, and silent. They went into corners and wept. When Adeline returned I took them to Halbertsroda, and she marvelled at the change in them. They flung themselves into her arms, but they uttered no complaint against me, either then or when they were left alone with her. I had told them that if they were disobedient or stubborn, we would return to the hunting lodge. One or two days a week were spent there under any circumstances. Gradually they came to avoid their mother, and Adeline herself was more indifferent to them. The softish, hectic, over-tender element in their relations had disappeared.

“Adeline sought my companionship and conversation. She watched me, and was condescending, weary, distracted in mind, and restless. She adorned herself as though guests were coming, and combed her hair thrice daily. In all respects she submitted to my regulations. There are dulled, worm-eaten, smouldering souls that kneel before the raised axe in another’s hand, and give only mockery to those who bend before them. Often her loftiness and reserve overwhelmed me, and I thought that she had no space for me in her mind. Then a look came into her eyes that made me forget whence I came and what I was in her house. Everything seemed possible with her. She was capable of setting fire to the house by night, because she was bored, and because the cancer that ate at her soul would cease its gnawing for no nobler ecstasy: she was capable of standing from noon to night before her mirror to watch a deepening furrow on her brow. Everything seemed possible. For is it not written: What man knoweth what is in man except only the spirit of man that is in him?

“My deep temptations began on an evening when, in the course of conversation, she carelessly laid her hand over mine, and withdrew it hastily. That gesture snatched from my sight the things about us. In the space between one thought and the next I had become the slave of visions and desires.

“She asked me to tell her about my life. I fell into that snare too, and told her.

“Once in the twilight I met her in the hall. She stood still, and looked at me piercingly. Then she laughed softly and moved away. I reeled, and the sweat stood in beads on my forehead.

“My heart was heavy when I was alone. Visions appeared that set my room in flames. My rosary and my missal were hidden from me, and I could find neither. Always there rose the cry in me: Once only! Let me taste that ecstasy but once! Then demons came and tormented me. All the muscles and nerves and sinews of my body seemed lacerated. Do with me as God wills, I whispered to the demons, for my heart is prepared. During sleep a strange force hurled me from my bed, and unconsciously I battered the walls with my head. One whole week I fasted upon bread and water, but it did not avail. Once when I had sat down to read, a huge ape stood before me and turned the leaves of my book. Every night a seductive vision of Adeline came to my bed-side. She stood there and spoke: ‘It is I, my beloved.’ Then I would rise and run senselessly about. But she would follow me and whisper: ‘You shall be my master and have all the good things of this world.’ But when I sought to grasp that vision of her, it showed a sudden aversion, and she called fluttering shadows to her aid. One was a notary with a pen and an ink-well, another a locksmith with a red-hot hammer, there was a mason with his trowel, an officer with naked sword, a woman with a painted face.