"Are you in favour of my marrying?" exclaimed George with some
astonishment.
"Not at all."
"Felician, be frank, please."
"Look here, one should not advise any one in affairs like that. Not
even one's own brother."
"But if I ask you, Felician? It seems to me as though there is
something in the business you didn't quite like."
"Well, it is like this, George.... You won't misunderstand me.... I
know of course that you are not thinking of leaving her in the lurch.
On the contrary, I am convinced that you will behave all through far
more nobly than any ordinary man in your position. But the question is
really this, would you have let yourself go into the thing if you had
considered the consequences from every point of view?"
"That of course is very hard to answer," said George.
"I mean just this: Did you intend ... not to make her your companion
for life, but to have a child by her all the same?"
"Great heavens, who thinks of that? Of course if one had wanted to be
so absolutely on the safe side----"
Felician interrupted him. "Does she know that you are not thinking of
marrying her?"
"Why, you don't think, surely, I promised her marriage?"
"No. But you did not promise to leave her stranded either."
"It would have been equally mean if I had promised, Felician. The whole
thing came about as affairs like that always do, developed without any
definite plan right up to the present time."
"Yes, that is all right. The only question is whether one is not more
or less under an obligation to have definite plans in really vital
matters."
"Possibly.... But that was never my line, unfortunately."
Felician remained standing in front of George, looked at him
affectionately and nodded a few times.
"That is quite true, George. You are not angry with me.... But now that
we are talking about it.... Of course I am not suggesting I have any
right to lecture you on your mode of life...."
"Go ahead, Felician.... I mean if.... It really does me good." He
stroked him lightly on the hand which lay on the back of the ottoman.
"Well, there is not much more to be said. I only mean that in
everything you do there is just ... the same lack of system. Look here,
to talk of another important matter, I personally am quite convinced
of your talent and many others are, too. But you really work damned
little, don't you? And fame doesn't come of itself, even when one...."
"Quite so. But I don't work as little as you think, Felician, it
is only that work is such a peculiar business with people of my
temperament. Frequently when one is out for a walk or even asleep one
gets all kinds of ideas.... And then in the autumn...."
"Yes, yes, we hope so, though I am afraid that you won't be able to
live on your salary at the commencement, and it is very questionable
how long your little money will hold out with your mode of life. I tell
you candidly, when you mentioned a few moments ago the sum which you
were able to leave to your child I had quite a shock."
"Be patient, Felician. In three or five years, when I have my opera
finished...." He spoke in an ironical tone.
"Are you really writing an opera, George?"
"I am beginning one shortly."
"Who is doing the libretto for you?"
"Heinrich Bermann. Of course you scowl again."
"My dear George, I have always been very far from lecturing you in any
way about the people you associate with. It is quite natural that you
with your intellectual tastes should live in a different set and mix
with different people to those I do, people whom I should probably find
rather less to my taste. But so long as Herr Bermann's libretto is good
you have my blessing ... and Herr Bermann, of course, too."
"The libretto is not ready yet, only the scenario."
Felician could not help laughing. "So that's how your opera stands! I
only hope the theatre is already built at which you are going to get a
post as conductor."
"Come, come," said George, somewhat hurt.
"Forgive me," replied Felician, "I have not really any doubts about
your future. I should only like you yourself to do a bit more towards
it. I really should be so ... proud, George, if you were to do anything
great, and it, I'm sure, only depends on yourself. Willy Eissler, who
is a man of genuine musical gifts, told me again only the other day
that he thinks more of you than of most of the young composers."
"On the strength of the few songs of mine which he knows? You're a good
fellow, Felician, but there is really no need for you to encourage me.
I already know what I have got in me, only I must be more industrious,
and my going away will do me quite a lot of good. It does one good to
get out of one's usual surroundings for a time, like this. And this
time it is quite different from last. It is the first time, Felician,
that I have had anything to do with a person who is absolutely my
equal, who is more ... whom I can treat as a true friend as well, and
the consciousness that I am going to have a child, and by her, too, is,
in spite of all the accompanying circumstances, rather pleasant."
"I can quite understand that," said Felician, and contemplated George
seriously and affectionately.
The clock on the writing-table struck two.
"What, so late already," cried Felician, "and I have got to pack early
to-morrow. Well, we can talk over everything at breakfast to-morrow.
Well, good-night, George."
"Good-night, Felician. Thank you," he added with emotion.
"What are you thanking me for, George? You really are funny!" They
shook hands and then kissed each other, which they had not done for
quite a long time, and George resolved to call his child Felician if it
was to be a boy, and he rejoiced at the good omen of a name which had
so happy a ring.
After his brother's departure George felt as deserted as though he had
never had another friend. Living in the great lonely house, where he
seemed to be weighed down by a mood like that which had followed the
first weeks after his father's death, made him feel depressed.
He regarded the days which still had to elapse before the departure as
a transition period, in which it was not worth while starting anything.
The hours he spent with his mistress in the room opposite the church
became colourless and blank. A psychological change, too, seemed to be
now taking place in Anna herself. She was frequently irritable, then
taciturn again, almost melancholy, and George was often overcome by
so great a sense of _ennui_ when he was with her that he felt quite
nervous of the next month in which they would be thrown completely into
each other's society. Of course the journey in itself promised change
enough, but how would it be in the subsequent months which would have
to be spent somewhere in the neighbourhood of Vienna? He must also
think about a companion for Anna; but he was still putting off speaking
to her about it, when Anna herself came to him with a piece of news
which was calculated to remove that difficulty, and at the same time to
raise another one, in the simplest way conceivable. Anna had recently,
particularly since she had gradually given up her lessons, become more
and more intimate with Therese, and had confided everything to her, and
so it soon came about that Therese's mother was also in the secret.
This lady was much more congenial to Anna than her own mother, who
after a slight glimmer of understanding had held aloof, aggrieved and
depressed, from her erring daughter.
Frau Golowski not only declared herself ready to live with Anna in the
country, but even promised to discover the little house which George
had not been able to find, while the young couple were away. However
much this willingness suited George's convenience, he found it none
the less somewhat painful to be under an obligation to this old woman,
who was a stranger to him, and in moments when he was out of temper
it struck him as almost grotesque that it should be Leo's mother and
Berthold's father, of all people, who should be fated to play so
important a part in so momentous an event in Anna's life.
George paid his farewell visit at Ehrenbergs' on a fine May afternoon
three days before he went away.
He had only rarely shown himself there since that Christmas celebration
and his conversations with Else had remained on the most innocent of
footings. She confessed to him, as though to a friend who could not
now misunderstand remarks of that character, that she felt more and
more unsettled at home. In particular the atmosphere of the house, as
George had frequently noticed before, seemed to be permanently overcast
by the bad relations between father and son. When Oskar came in at the
door with his nonchalant aristocratic swagger and began to talk in his
Viennese aristocratic accent, his father would turn scornfully away, or
would be unable to suppress allusions to the fact that he could make
an end this very day of all that aristocracy by stopping or lowering
his so-called allowance, which as a matter of fact was neither more
nor less than pocket-money. If, on his side, his father began to talk
Yiddish, as he was most fond of doing in front of company, and with
obvious malice, Oskar would bite his lips and make a point of leaving
the room. So it was only very rarely during the last few months that
father and son stayed in Vienna or in Neuhaus at the same time. They
both found each other's presence almost intolerable.
When George came in to Ehrenbergs' the room was almost in darkness. The
marble Isis gleamed from behind the pianoforte, and the twilight of the
late afternoon was falling in the alcove where mother and daughter sat
opposite each other. For the first time the appearance of these two
women struck George as somewhat strangely pathetic. A vague feeling
floated up in his mind that perhaps this was the last time he would
see this picture, and Else's smile shone towards him with such sweet
melancholy, that he thought for a whole minute: might I not have found
my happiness here, after all?
He now sat next to Frau Ehrenberg (who was going on quietly knitting)
opposite Else, smoked a cigarette and felt quite at home. He explained
that, fascinated by the tempting spring weather, he was starting on
his projected journey earlier than he had intended, and that he would
probably prolong it until the summer.
"And we are going to Auhof as early as the middle of May this time,"
said Frau Ehrenberg, "and we certainly count upon seeing you down there
this year."
"If you are not elsewhere engaged," added Else with a perfectly
straight face.
George promised to come in August, at any rate for some days. The
conversation then turned on Felician and Willy, who had started with
their party a few days ago from Biskra on their hunting expedition in
the desert; on Demeter Stanzides, who announced his immediate intention
of resigning from the army and retiring to an estate in Hungary; and
finally on Heinrich Bermann of whom no one had had any news for some
weeks.
"Who knows if he will ever come back to Vienna at all?" said Else.
"Why shouldn't he? What makes you think that, Fräulein Else?"
"Upon my word, perhaps he'll marry that actress and trot about the
world with her."
George shrugged his shoulders ... he didn't know personally of any
actress with whom Heinrich was mixed up, and he ventured to express
a doubt whether Heinrich would ever marry any one, whether she was a
Princess or a circus rider.
"It would be rather a pity if Bermann were to," said Frau Ehrenberg,
without taking any notice of George's discretion. "I certainly think
that young people take these matters either too lightly or too
seriously."
Else followed up the idea: "Yes, it is strange, all you men are either
cleverer or much sillier in these matters than in any other, although
really it is just in such crucial moments of one's life, that one ought
as far as possible to be one's ordinary self."
"My dear Else," said George casually, "once one's passions are set
going----"
"Yes, when they are set going," emphasised Frau Ehrenberg.
"Passions!" exclaimed Else. "I believe that like all other great things
in the world, they are really something quite rare."
"What do you know, my child?" said Frau Ehrenberg.
"At any rate I've never so far seen anything of that kind in my
immediate environment," explained Else.
"Who knows if you would discover it," remarked George, "even though it
did come once in a way quite near you? Viewed from outside a flirtation
and a life's tragedy may sometimes look quite the same."
"That is certainly not true," said Else. "Passion is something that is
bound to betray itself."
"How do you manage to know that, Else?" objected Frau Ehrenberg.
"Passions can often conceal themselves deeper than any ordinary
trumpery little emotion, for the very reason that there is usually more
at stake."
"I think," replied George, "that it is a very personal matter. There
are, of course, people who have everything written on their forehead,
and others who are impenetrable; being impenetrable is quite as much a
talent as anything else."
"It can be trained too, like anything else," said Else.
The conversation stuck for a moment, as is apt to occur when the
personal application that lies behind some general observation flashes
out only too palpably.
Frau Ehrenberg started a new topic. "Have you been composing anything
nice, George?" she asked.
"A few trifles for the piano. My quintette will soon be ready too."
"The quintette is beginning to grow mythical," said Else discontentedly.
"Else!" said her mother.
"Well, it really would be a good thing, if he were to be more
industrious."
"You are perhaps right about that," replied George.
"I think artists used to work much more in former days than they do
now."
"The great ones," qualified George.
"No, all," persisted Else.
"Perhaps it is a good thing that you are going to travel," said Frau
Ehrenberg, "for apparently you've too many distractions here."
"He'll let himself be distracted anywhere," asserted Else sternly.
"Even in Iglau, or wherever else he happens to be next year."
"That's why I've never yet thought of your going away," said Frau
Ehrenberg and shook her head; "and your brother will be in Sophia or
Athens next year and Stanzides in Hungary ... it's really a great pity
to think of all the nicest men being scattered like this to the four
corners of the world."
"If I were a man," said Else, "I would scatter too."
George smiled. "You're dreaming of a journey round the world in a white
yacht, Madeira, Ceylon, San Francisco."
"Oh no, I shouldn't like to be without a profession, but I should
probably have been an officer in the merchant service."
"Won't you be kind enough"--Frau Ehrenberg turned to George--"to play
us one or two of your new things?"
"Delighted, I'm sure." He got up from the recess and walked towards the
window into the darkness of the room. Else got up and turned on the
light on top. George opened the piano, sat down and played his ballads.
Else had sat down in an arm-chair and as she sat there, with her arm
resting on the side of the chair and her head resting on her arm in
the pose of a _grande dame_ and with the melancholy expression of a
precocious child, George felt again strangely thrilled by her look. He
was not feeling very satisfied with his ballad to-day, and was fully
conscious that he was endeavouring to help out its effect by putting
too much expression into his playing.
Hofrat Wilt stepped softly into the room and made a sign that they
were not to disturb themselves. He then remained standing by the door
leaning against the wall, tall, superior, good-natured, with his
closely-cropped grey hair, until George ended his performance with
some emphatic harmonies. They greeted each other. Wilt congratulated
George on being a free man and being now able to travel South. "I'm
sorry to say I can't do it," he added, "and all the same one has at
times a vague notion that even though one were not to visit one's
office for a year on end, not the slightest change would take place in
Austria." He talked with his usual irony about his profession and his
Fatherland. Frau Ehrenberg retorted that there was not a man who was
more patriotic, and took his calling more seriously than he himself.
He agreed. But he regarded Austria as an infinitely complicated
instrument, which only a master could handle properly, and said that
the only reason for its sounding badly so often was that every muddler
tried his art upon it. "They'll go on knocking it about," he said
dismally, "until all the strings break and the frame too."
When George went Else accompanied him into the empty room. She still
had a few words to say to him about his ballads. She had particularly
liked the middle movement. It had had such an inner glow. Anyway, she
hoped he would have a good time on his journey.
He thanked her.
"So," she said suddenly, when he already had his hat in his hand, "it's
really a case now of saying a final farewell to certain dreams."
"What dreams?" he asked in surprise.
"Mine of course, which you are bound to have known about by this time."
George was very astonished. She had never been so specific. He smiled
awkwardly and sought for an answer. "Who knows what the future will
bring forth?" he said at last lightly.
She puckered her forehead. "Why aren't you at any rate as straight with
me as I am with you? I know quite well that you are not travelling
alone ... I also know who is going with you ... what is more I know the
whole thing. Good gracious, what haven't I known since we have known
each other?"
And George heard grief and rage quivering below the surface of her
words. And he knew that if he ever did make her his wife, she would
make him feel that she had had to wait for him too long. He looked in
front of him and maintained a silence that seemed at once guilty and
defiant.
Then Else smiled brightly, held out her hand and said once again: "_Bon
voyage_."
He pressed her hand as though he were bound to make some apology. She
took it away from him, turned round and went back into the room. He
still waited for a few seconds standing by the door and then hurried
into the street. On the same evening George saw Leo Golowski again in
the café, for the first time for many weeks. He knew from Anna that
Leo had recently had to put up with a great deal of unpleasantness
as a volunteer and that that "fiend in human form" in particular had
persecuted him with malice, with real hatred in fact. It occurred to
George to-day that Leo had greatly altered during the short time in
which he had not seen him. He looked distinctly older.
"I'm very glad to get a chance of seeing you again before I leave,"
said George and sat down opposite him at the café table.
"You are glad," replied Leo, "that you happened to run across me
again, while I positively needed to see you once again, that is the
difference." His voice had even a tenderer note than usual. He looked
George in the face with a kind, almost fatherly expression.
At this moment George no longer had any doubt that Leo knew everything.
He felt as embarrassed for a few seconds as though he were responsible
to him, was irritated at his own embarrassment and was grateful to
Leo for not appearing to notice it. This evening they talked about
practically nothing except music. Leo inquired after the progress of
George's work, and it came about during the course of the conversation
that George declared himself quite willing to play one of his newest
compositions to Leo on the following Sunday afternoon. But when they
took leave of each other, George suddenly had the unpleasant feeling
of having passed with comparative success a theoretical examination,
and of being faced to-morrow with a practical examination. What did
this young man, who was so mature for his years, really want of him?
Was George to prove to him that his talent entitled him to be Anna's
lover or her child's father? He waited for Leo's visit with genuine
repugnance. He thought for a minute of refusing to see him. But when
Leo appeared with all that innocent sincerity which he so frequently
liked to affect, George's mood soon became less harsh. They drank tea
and smoked cigarettes and George showed him his library, the pictures
which were hanging in the house, the antiquities and the weapons, and
the examination feeling vanished. George sat down at the pianoforte,
played a few of his earlier pieces and also his latest ones as well as
the ballads, which he rendered much better than he had done yesterday
at Ehrenbergs', and then some songs, while Leo followed the melody with
his fingers, but with sure musical feeling. Eventually he started to
play the quintette from the score. He did not succeed and Leo stationed
himself at the window with the music and read it attentively.
"One can't really tell at all so far," he said. "A great deal of it
indicates a dilettante with a lot of taste, other parts an artist
without proper discipline. It's rather in the songs that one feels ...
but feels what?... talent ... I don't know. One feels at any rate that
you have distinction, real musical distinction."
"Well, that's not so much."
"As a matter of fact it's pretty little, but it doesn't prove anything
against you either, since you have worked so little--worked very little
and felt little."
"You think ..." George forced a sarcastic laugh.
"Oh, you've probably lived a great deal but felt ... you know what I
mean, George?"
"Yes, I can imagine well enough, but you're really making a mistake;
why I rather think that I have a certain tendency to sentimentalism,
which I ought to combat."
"Yes, that's just it. Sentimentalism, you know, is something which
is the direct antithesis to feeling, something by means of which
one reassures oneself about one's lack of feeling, one's essential
coldness. Sentimentalism is feeling which one has obtained, so to
speak, below cost price. I hate sentimentalism."
"Hm, and yet I think that you yourself are not quite free from it."
"I am a Jew, it's a national disease with us. Our respectable members
are working to change it into rage or fury. It's a bad habit with the
Germans, a kind of emotional slovenliness so to speak."
"So there is an excuse for you, not for us."
"There is no excuse for diseases either if, fully realising what one is
doing, one has missed one's opportunity of protecting oneself against
them. But we are beginning to babble in aphorism and are consequently
only on the way to half or quarter truths. Let's go back to your
quintette. I like the theme of the adagio best."