IX

Old Doctor Stauber and his son sat over their coffee. The old man held

a paper in his hand and seemed to be trying to find something. "The

hearing of the case," he said, "is not yet fixed."

"Really!" replied Berthold, "Leo Golowski thinks that it will take

place in the middle of November, that is to say in about three weeks.

Therese, you know, visited her brother a few days ago in prison. They

say he is perfectly calm and in quite good spirits."

"Well, who knows? perhaps he will be acquitted," said the old man.

"That's highly improbable, father. He ought to be glad, on the other

hand, that he isn't being prosecuted for ordinary murder. An attempt

was certainly made to get him prosecuted for it."

"You certainly can't call it a serious attempt, Berthold. You see

the Treasury didn't bother about the silly libel to which you are

referring."

"But if they had regarded it as a libel," retorted Berthold sharply,

"they would have been under an obligation to prosecute the libellers.

Beside, it is common knowledge that we are living in a state where no

Jew is safe from being convicted to death for ritual murder; so why

should the authorities shrink from taking official cognisance of the

theory that Jews when they fight duels with pistols with Christians

manage--perhaps for religious reasons--to ensure for themselves a

criminal advantage? That the Court didn't lack the good-will to take

another opportunity of doing a service to the party in power is best

seen by the fact that he still remains under arrest pending the trial,

in spite of the fact that the high bail was tendered."

"I don't believe the story about the bail," said the old doctor.

"Where's Leo Golowski to get fifty thousand gulden from?"

"It wasn't fifty thousand, father, but a hundred thousand, and so far

Leo Golowski knows nothing about it. I can tell you in confidence,

father, that Salomon Ehrenberg put up the money."

"Indeed! Well, I'll tell you something in confidence too, Berthold."

"Well?"

"It's possible that it won't go to trial at all. Golowski's advocate

has presented a petition to quash the proceedings."

Berthold burst out laughing. "On those grounds! And do you think,

father, that that can have the slightest prospect of success? Yes, if

Leo had fallen and the First-Lieutenant had survived ... then perhaps."

The old man shook his head impatiently. "You must always make

opposition speeches, my boy, at any price."

"Forgive me, father," said Berthold, twitching his brows. "Every one

hasn't got the enviable gift of being able to ignore certain tendencies

in public life when they don't concern him personally."

"Is that what I am in the habit of doing, then?" retorted the old man

vehemently, and the half-shut eyes beneath the high forehead opened

almost bitterly. "But it is you, Berthold, much more than I, who

refuse to look where you don't want to see. I think you're beginning

to brood over your ideas. You're getting morbid. I had hoped that a

stay in another city, in another country, would cure you of certain

petty narrow ideas, but they have grown worse instead. I notice it. I

can neither understand nor approve any one starting fighting like Leo

Golowski did. But to go on standing with your clenched fist in your

pocket, so to speak--what's the point of it? Pull yourself together,

man. Character and industry always pull through in the end. What's

the worst that can happen to you? That you get your professorship a

few years later than any one else. I don't think it is so great a

misfortune. They won't be able to ignore your work if it is worth

anything...."

"It is not only a question of myself," objected Berthold.

"But it is mostly a matter of second-class interests of that kind. And

to come back to our previous topic, it is really very questionable

whether if it had been the First-Lieutenant who had shot down Leo

Golowski and Ehrenberg, or Ehrenmann[1] for that matter, would have

turned up with a hundred thousand gulden for him. Yes, to be sure, and

now you are quite at liberty to take me for an Anti-Semite too, if it

amuses you, although I am driving straight into the Rembrandtstrasse

to see old Golowski. Well, good-bye, try and come to reason at last."

He held out his hand to his son. The latter took it without changing

countenance. The old man turned to go. At the door he said: "I suppose

we shall see each other this evening at the Medical Society?"

Berthold shook his head. "No, father, I am spending this evening in

a less edifying place--the 'Silberne Weintraube,' where there is a

meeting of the Social Political Union."

"Which you can't miss?"

"Impossible."

"Well, I wish you would tell me straight out. Are you going to stand

for the Landtag?"

"I ... am going to stand."

"Indeed! You think you're capable now of being able to face the ...

unpleasantness which you ran away from last year?"

Berthold looked through the window at the autumn rain. "You know,

father," he replied, twitching his brows, "that I wasn't in the right

frame of mind then. I now feel strong and armed, in spite of your

previous remarks, which have really touched the actual point. And above

all I know precisely what I want."

The old man shrugged his shoulders. "I can't understand how any one can

give up a definite work ... and you will certainly have to give it up,

for a man can't serve two masters ... to think of dropping something

definite to ... to make speeches to people whose profession, so to

speak, it is to have preconceived opinions--to fight for opinions which

are usually not even believed in by the man who puts you forward to

represent them."

Berthold shook his head. "I assure you, father, I'm not tempted this

time by any oratorical or dialectical ambition. This time I have

discovered the sphere in which I hope it will be possible for me to do

quite as definite work as in the laboratory. I intend, you know, if I

do any good at all, to bother about nothing else except questions of

public health. Perhaps I can count on your blessing, father, for this

kind of political activity."

"On mine ... yes. But how about your own?"

"What do you mean?"

"The blessing to which one might give the name of the inner call."

"You doubt even that," replied Berthold, really hurt.

The servant came in and gave the old doctor a visiting card. He read

it. "Tell him I'll be glad to see him in a minute."

The servant went away.

Berthold went on speaking in a state of some excitement. "I feel

justified in saying that my training, my knowledge...."

His father interrupted him as he played with the card. "I don't doubt

your knowledge or your energy or your industry, but it seems to me

that to be able to do any particular good in the sphere of public

health you need as well as those excellent qualities another one too,

which in my view you only have to a very small extent: kindness, my

dear Berthold, love of mankind."

Berthold shook his head vehemently. "I regard the love of humanity

which you mean, father, as absolutely superfluous and rather injurious.

Pity--and what else can loving people whom one doesn't personally know

really be?--necessarily leads to sentimentalism, to weakness. And when

one wants to help whole groups of men then, above all, you must be

able to be hard at times, hard to individuals--yes, be ready in fact

to sacrifice them if the common good demands it. You only need to

consider, father, that the most honest and consistent social hygiene

would have the direct result of annihilating diseased people, or at any

rate excluding them from all enjoyment of life, and I don't deny that I

have all kinds of ideas tending in that way which may seem cruel at the

first glance. But the future, I think, belongs to ideas. You needn't

be afraid, father, that I shall begin straight away to preach the

murder of the unhealthy and the superfluous. But theoretically that's

certainly what my programme leads to. Do you know, by the way, whom I

had a very interesting conversation with the other day on this very

subject?"

"What subject do you mean?"

"To put it precisely, a conversation on the right to kill. With

Heinrich Bermann the author, the son of the late Deputy."

"But where did you get the opportunity of seeing him then?"

"The other day at a meeting. Therese Golowski brought him along. You

know him, too, don't you, father?"

"Yes," replied the old man, "I've known him for quite a long time."

And he added: "I met him again this year in the summer at Anna

Rosner's."

Berthold's eyebrows again twitched violently. Then he said

sarcastically: "I thought it was something like that. Bermann

mentioned, you know, that he had seen you some time ago, but he

wouldn't remember exactly where. I concluded that it must have been

a case of--discretion. I see. So the Herr Baron thought he would

introduce his friends into her house."

"My dear Berthold, your tone seems to suggest that you have not got

over a certain matter as completely as you previously hinted."

Berthold shrugged his shoulders. "I have never denied that I have an

antipathy for Baron Wergenthin. That is why the whole business was so

painful to me from the very beginning."

"Is that why?"

"Yes."

"And yet I think, Berthold, that you would regard the matter

differently if you were to meet Anna Rosner again some time or other as

a widow--even assuming that her late husband was even more antipathetic

to you than Baron von Wergenthin."

"That's possible. One can certainly presume that she has been loved--or

at any rate respected, not just taken and--chucked away as soon as the

spree was over. I'd have found that rather.... Well, I won't put it any

more definitely."

The old man shook his head as he looked at his son. "It really seems as

though all the advanced views of you young people break down as soon as

your passions and vanities come into question."

"So far as certain questions of cleanness or cleanliness are concerned

I do not know that I am guilty of any so-called advanced views, father,

and I don't think that you would be particularly delighted either if

I felt any desire to be the successor of a more or less dead Baron

Wergenthin."

"Certainly not, Berthold. For her sake, especially, for you would

torture her to death."

"Don't be uneasy," replied Berthold, "Anna's in no peril from my

quarter. It's all over."

"That's a good reason. But, happily, there's an even better one. Baron

Wergenthin's neither dead nor has he cleared out...."

"It doesn't matter, you know, about the actual word."

"He has, as you know, a position as a conductor in Germany...."

"What a piece of luck! He has really been very fortunate over the whole

thing. Not even having to provide for a child."

"You have two faults, Berthold. In the first place you are really

an unkind man, and in the second place you never let one finish. I

was just on the point of saying that it doesn't seem to be anything

like all over between Anna and Baron Wergenthin. Only the day before

yesterday she gave me his kind regards."

Berthold shrugged his shoulders as though the matter were finished so

far as he was concerned. "How's old Rosner?" he asked.

"He'll pull through all right this time," replied the old man. "Anyway,

I hope that you've retained a sufficient sense of detachment to realise

that his attacks are not due to his grief about the prodigal daughter,

but to a sclerosis of the arteries that is unfortunately fairly far

advanced."

"Is Anna giving lessons again?" asked Berthold after some hesitation.

"Yes," replied the old man, "but perhaps not much longer." And he

showed his son the visiting card which he was still holding in his hand.

Berthold contracted the corners of his mouth. "Do you think," he asked

ironically, "he has come here to celebrate his wedding, father?"

"I shall soon find that out," replied the old man. "At any rate I'm

very glad to see him again--for I assure you he's one of the most

charming young men I've ever met."

"Extraordinary!" said Berthold. "A quite unique winner of hearts. Even

Therese raves about him. And Heinrich Bermann the other day, it was

almost funny.... Oh well, a slim handsome blonde young man, a baron, a

German, a Christian--what Jew could withstand the magic?... Goodbye,

father."

"Berthold!"

"Well, what?" He bit his lips.

"Pull yourself together! Remember what you are."

"I ... remember."

"No, you don't. Otherwise you couldn't forget so often who the others

are."

Berthold lifted his head interrogatively.

"You should really go to Rosner's some time. It is not worthy of you

to let Anna see your disapproval in so--childish a fashion. Goodbye

... hope you'll have a good time in the 'Silberne Weintraube." He

shook hands with his son and then went into his consulting-room. He

opened the door of the waiting-room and with a friendly nod of the head

invited George von Wergenthin, who was turning over the leaves of an

album, to come in.

"I must first apologise to you, Herr Doctor," said George, after he

had sat down. "My departure was so sudden.... Unfortunately I had no

opportunity of saying goodbye to you, of thanking you personally for

your great...."

Doctor Stauber deprecated his thanks. "I am very glad to see you

again," he said, "I suppose you are here in Vienna on leave?"

"Of course," replied George. "I've only got three days' leave; they

need me there so urgently, you see," he added with a modest smile.

Doctor Stauber sat opposite him in the chair behind his secretary

and contemplated him kindly. "You feel very satisfied with your new

position, so Anna says."

"Oh yes; of course there are all kinds of difficulties when one plunges

into a new kind of life like I did. But taking it all round everything

has turned out much easier than I expected."

"So I hear. And that you have already had a very good introduction at

Court."

George smiled. "Anna of course imagines that episode to be more

magnificent than it really was. I played once at the Hereditary

Prince's and a lady member of the theatre sang two songs of mine there;

that's all. But what is much more important is that I have a chance of

being appointed conductor this very season."

"I thought you were already."

"No, Herr Doctor, not yet officially. I have already conducted a few

times as deputy, _Freischütz_ and _Undine_, but for the time being I am

only accompanist."

In response to further questions from the doctor he told him some more

about his activities at the Detmold Opera. He then got up and said

goodbye.

"Perhaps I can give you a lift part of the way in my carriage," said

the doctor. "I am driving to the Rembrandtstrasse to the Golowskis'."

"Thanks very much, Herr Doctor, but that's not on my way. Anyway, I

intend to visit Frau Golowski in the course of to-morrow. She's not

ill, is she?"

"No. Of course the excitement of the last weeks is bound to have had

some effect upon her."

George mentioned that he had written a few words to her and also to Leo

immediately after the duel. "When one thinks that it might have turned

out differently ..." he added.

Doctor Stauber looked in front of him. "Having children," he said, "is

a happiness which one pays for by instalments."

At the door George began somewhat hesitatingly: "I also wanted ... to

inquire of you, Herr Doctor, about the real state of Herr Rosner's

health.... I must say I found him looking better than I had expected

from Anna's letters."

"I hope that he will get all right again," replied Stauber. "But of

course one must remember that he's an old man. He's even old for his

years."

"But it's not a case of anything serious?"

"Old age is a serious business in itself," replied Doctor Stauber,

"especially as his whole antecedent life, his youth and manhood, were

not particularly cheerful."

George, whose eyes had been roving round the room, suddenly exclaimed:

"I've just thought of it, Herr Doctor. I've never sent you back the

books you were good enough to lend me in the spring. And now I'm afraid

all our things are at the depository, silver, furniture, pictures and

the books as well. So I must ask you, Herr Doctor, to have patience

till the spring."

"If you have no worse troubles than that, my dear Baron...."

They went slowly down the stairs and Doctor Stauber inquired after

Felician.

"He's in Athens," replied George, "I've heard from him twice, not yet

in any great detail.... How strange it is, Herr Doctor, coming back

as a stranger to a town where one was at home a short time ago, and

staying at an hotel as a gentleman from Detmold!..."

Doctor Stauber got into his carriage. George asked him to give his very

best regards to Frau Golowski.

"I'll tell her. And I wish you all further success, my dear Baron.

Goodbye."

It was five by the Stephanskirche clock. George was faced with an

empty hour. He decided to stroll slowly into the suburb in the thin

tepid autumn rain. He had scarcely slept at all in the train and he

had been at the Rosners' two hours after his arrival. Anna herself had

opened the door to him, greeted him with an affectionate kiss, and

quickly taken him into the room, where her parents welcomed him with

more politeness than sincerity. The mother, who preserved her usual

embarrassed and slightly injured tone, did not say much. The father,

sitting in the corner of the ottoman, with a blue-coloured rug over his

knees, felt it incumbent on him to inquire about the social and musical

conditions of the little capital from which George had come. Then he

had remained alone awhile with Anna. They first exchanged question and

answer with undue quickness, and subsequently endearments, which were

both flat and awkward, and they both seemed disappointed that they

did not feel the happiness of seeing each other again with anything

like the intensity which their love had given them to expect. Very

soon a pupil of Anna's put in an appearance. George took his leave and

hurriedly arranged an appointment for the evening with his mistress. He

would fetch her from Bittner's and then take her to the opera to see

the performance of _Tristan_.

He had then taken his midday meal by the big window of a restaurant in

the Ringstrasse, made purchases and given orders at his tradesmen's,

looked up Heinrich, whom he did not find at home, and finally,

obeying a sudden idea, decided to pay his "return-thanks" visit to

Doctor Stauber. He now walked on slowly through the streets which

he knew so well and which already seemed to have an atmosphere of

strangeness; and he thought of the town from which he came and in

which he was feeling at home far more quickly than he had expected.

Count Malnitz had received him with great kindness from the very

first moment. He had the plan of reforming the opera in accordance

with modern ideas and wanted to win George to him, so the latter

thought, as a collaborator and friend in his far-reaching projects.

For the first conductor, excellent musician no doubt though he might

be, was nowadays more of a court official than an artist. He had been

appointed when he was five-and-twenty and had now been stationed in

the little town for thirty years, a paterfamilias with six children,

respected, contented and without ambition. Soon after his arrival

George heard songs sung at a concert which a long time ago had spread

the fame of the young conductor throughout almost the whole world.

George was unable to understand the impression produced by these quite

out-of-date pieces, but none the less warmly complimented the composer

with a kindly sympathy for the ageing man in whose eyes there seemed

to shine the distant glamour of a richer and more promising past.

George frequently asked himself if the old conductor still thought of

the fact that he had once been taken for a man who was destined to go

far, and whether he, like so many other of the inhabitants, regarded

the little town as a hub from which the rays of influence and of

fame fell far around. George had only found in a few any desire for

a larger and more complex sphere of activity; it often seemed to him

as though they rather treated him with a kind of good-natured pity

because he came from a great town, and in particular from Vienna.

Whenever the name of that town was mentioned in front of people George

noticed in their smug and somewhat sarcastic manner that almost as

regularly as harmonies accompany the bass, certain other words would

be immediately switched into the conversation, even though they were

not specifically mentioned: waltzes ... café ... _süsses Mädel_[2]

... grilled chicken ... fiacre ... parliamentary scandal. George was

often irritated by this and made up his mind to do all he could to

improve his countrymen's reputation in Detmold. He had been asked to

come because the third conductor, a quite young man, had suddenly died,

and so George, on the very first day, had to sit at the piano in the

little rehearsal-room and perform singing accompaniments. It went off

excellently. He rejoiced in his gifts, which were stronger and surer

than he had himself hoped, and it seemed to him, so far as he could

recollect, that Anna had slightly underestimated his talent. Apart from

this he threw himself more seriously into his compositions than he had

ever done before. He worked at an overture which had originated out of

the _motifs_ of Bermann's opera. He had begun a violin sonata, and the

mythical quintette, as Else had called it once, was nearly finished.

It was going to be performed this very winter in one of the Court

_soirées_, which were under the direction of the deputy-conductor of

the Detmold orchestra, a talented young man, the only person in fact in

his new home with whom George had so far become at all intimate, and

with whom he was accustomed to take his meals at the "Elephant."

George still inhabited a fine room in this inn, with a view on to the

big square planted with lindens, and from day to day put off taking

an apartment. He was quite uncertain whether he would be still in

Detmold next year and he also had the feeling that it would be bound

to wound Anna, if he were to do anything which looked like settling

down as a bachelor for any length of time. Yet he had said no word in

his letters to her about any of the prospects of the future, just as

she, on her side, left off addressing to him doubting or impatient

questions. They practically only communicated to each other actual

facts. She wrote of her gradual return into her old groove of life,

and he of all the new surroundings among which he must first settle

down. Although there was practically nothing which he had to keep from

her, he made a special point of slurring over many things that might

easily lead to a misunderstanding. How was one to express in words

the strange atmosphere which permeated in the morning the rehearsals

in the half-dark body of the theatre, when the odour of cosmetics,

perfumes, dresses, gas, old wood and fresh paint came down from the

stage to the stalls, when figures which one did not at first recognise

hopped to and fro between the rows of seats in ordinary or stage dress,

when some breath which was heavy and scented blew gently against one's

neck? And how was one to describe a glance which flashed down from the

eyes of a young singer while one looked up to her from the keys...?

Or when one saw this young singer home through the Theaterplatz and

the Königsstrasse in the broad light of noon and used the opportunity

not merely to talk about the part of Micaela, which one had just been

studying with her, but also about all kinds of other, though no doubt

fairly innocent, things? Could one recount this to one's mistress in

Vienna without her reading something suspicious between the lines? And

even if one had laid stress on the fact that Micaela was engaged to a

young doctor in Berlin who adored her as much as she did him it would

scarcely have improved matters, for that would really have looked as

though one felt obliged to answer and reassure.

How strange, thought George, that it is just this very evening that

she is singing the Micaela which I practised with her, and that I

am going here along this same road out to Mariahilf which I used to

take a year ago so frequently and so gladly. He thought of a specific

evening when he had fetched Anna from out there, walked about with her

in the quiet streets, looked at funny photographs in a doorway and

finally walked with her on the cool stone flags of an ancient church,

in a soft but how ominous conversation about an unknown future.... And

now all had turned out quite differently to what he had hoped--quite

differently.... Why did it strike him like that?... What had he

anticipated then at that time?... Had not the year that had just passed

been wonderfully rich and beautiful with its happiness and its grief?

And did he not love Anna to-day better and more deeply than ever? And

had he not frequently yearned for her in that fresh town as hotly

as though for a woman who had never yet belonged to him? To-day's

early meeting with its flat and awkward endearments in the sinister

atmosphere of a grey hour really ought not to lead him astray....

He was at the appointed place. When he looked up to the lighted

windows, behind which Anna was giving her lesson, a slight emotion

came over him, and when she came out of the door the next minute, in a

simple English dress and a grey felt hat on her rich dark blonde hair,

holding a book in her hand, just as she had appeared a year ago, an

unexpected feeling of happiness suddenly streamed over him. She did

not see him at once, for he was standing in the shadow of a house. She

opened her umbrella and went as far as the corner where she had been in

the habit of waiting for him the previous year. He gazed at her for a

while and was glad that she looked so fine and distinguished. Then he

followed her quickly, and caught her up in a few strides. She informed

him at once that she could not go to the opera with him. Her father had

been taken ill this afternoon.

George was very disappointed. "Won't you at any rate come with me for

the first act?"

She shook her head. "No, I am not very keen on that sort of thing. It

is much better for you to give the seat to some friend. Go and fetch

Nürnberger or Bermann."

"No," he replied, "if you can't come with me I'd rather go alone. I

should have enjoyed it so much. I am not very keen on the performance

personally. I'd prefer to stay with you ... so far as I am concerned,

even at your people's; but I must go. I have--to make a report."

Anna backed him up. "Of course you must go," and she added: "I

wouldn't advise you, too, to spend an evening with us. It's really not

particularly jolly."

He had taken the umbrella out of her hand and held it over her, while

she held his arm. "I say, Anna," he said, "I should like to make a

suggestion!" He was surprised that he should be looking for a way of

leading up to it, and began hesitatingly: "My few days in Vienna are,

of course, more or less unsettled and cut up--and now there's this

depressed atmosphere at your people's as well.... We are not really

managing to see anything of each other: don't you agree?"

She nodded without looking at him.

"So wouldn't you like to come part of the way with me, Anna, when I go

back again?"

She looked at him sideways in her arch way and did not answer.

He went on speaking. "I can, you see, quite well manage to get an extra

day's leave if I wire to the theatre. It would really be awfully nice

if we had a few hours all to ourselves."

She consented with sincerity but not enthusiasm and made her decision

depend on the state of her father's health. She then asked him how he

had spent the day.

He told her in detail, and also added his programme for to-morrow. "So

we two will see each other in the evening," he said. "I'll come to your

place if that's convenient, and then we'll arrange further details."

"Yes," said Anna, and looked in front of her down the damp brown-grey

street.

He tried again to persuade her to come to the opera with him, but it

was futile. He then inquired about her singing lessons and followed

that up by speaking about his own activity, as though he had to

convince her that after all he was not having a much better time than

she was. And he referred to his letters, in which he had written about

everything in full detail.

"So far as that's concerned ..." she said suddenly in quite a hard

voice.... And when, hurt by her tone, he could not help throwing back

his head, she proceeded: "What is there really in letters, however

detailed they are?"

He knew what she was thinking about--he felt a certain heaviness at

heart. Was there not in the very inexorableness of this silence all

that she refused to voice aloud?--question, reproach and rage. He had

already felt this morning and now felt again that a certain sense of

positive enmity to himself was rising within her, against which she

herself seemed to be struggling in vain. Was this morning the first

time...? Had it not dated far longer back? Perhaps it had been always

there, from the very first moment when they had belonged to each other,

and even in the moments of their supreme happiness? Had not this

hostile feeling been present when she pressed her bosom against his

behind dark curtains to the music of the organ, when she waited for

him in the room at the hotel in Rome, with eyes red with tears, while

he had been watching with delight from Monte Pincio the sun setting

in the Campagna, and had realised that he was finding this hour of

solitary enjoyment the most wonderful in the whole journey? Had it not

been present when he ran down the gravel path on a hot morning, dropped

down at her feet and cried in her lap as though it had been the lap of

a mother? And when he had sat by her bedside and looked out into the

garden at eventime, while the dead child she had borne an hour ago lay

silent on the white linen cloth, had it not been there again, drearier

than ever, so that it would have been almost unbearable, if they had

not long ago managed to put up with it, in the way one manages to

endure so much of the unsatisfactoriness and so much of the sorrow that

comes up out of the depths of human intercourse? And now how painfully

did he feel this sense of hostility as he walked arm-in-arm with her,

holding the umbrella carefully over her, down the damp streets? It was

there again--menacing and familiar. The words which she had spoken

were still ringing in his ears: "What is there really in letters,

however detailed they are?"... But even more solemnly there rang in

his ears the unspoken words: What does the most ardent kiss in which

body and soul seem to fuse really come to? What does the fact that we

travelled together for months through strange lands really come to?

What does the fact that I had a child by you come to? What does the

fact that you cried out in my lap your remorse for your deception? What

does it all come to, when you still go and leave me quite alone?...

Why, I was alone at the very moment when my body drank in the germ of

life which I carried within me for nine months, which was intended to

live amongst strangers, though our own child, and which did not wish to

remain on earth!

But while all this sank heavily into his soul he agreed in a light tone

that she was really quite right and that letters--even though they were

actually twenty pages long--could not contain much in particular; and

while a harrowing pity for her sprang up in him he gently expressed

the hope that there would be a time in which they would neither of

them any longer be thrown back upon mere letters. And then he found

words of greater tenderness, told her of those lonely walks of his in

the outskirts of the strange town when he thought of her; told her

of the hours in that meaningless hotel room, with its view of the

linden-planted square, and of his yearning for her, which was always

present whether he sat alone at his work or accompanied singers at the

pianoforte or chatted with new acquaintances. But when he stood with

her in front of the house door, with her hand in his, and looked up

into her eyes as he murmured a bright goodbye, he was shocked to see

in them the flickering out of a jaded sense of disillusionment that

had almost ceased to be painful. And he knew that all the words which

he had spoken to her had meant nothing to her, had meant less than

nothing, since the one word, the word she scarcely hoped for any more,

and yet longed for all the time, had not come.

A quarter of an hour later George was sitting in his stall at the

opera. He was first a little depressed and limp, but the pleasure of

enjoyment soon began to course through his veins. And when Brangäne

threw the king's cloak over her mistress's shoulders, Kurwenal

announced the king's approach and the ship's crew on the deck hailed

the land amid all the glory of the resplendent heavens, George had long

ago forgotten a bad night in the train, some boring commissions, an

extremely forced conversation with an old Jewish doctor and a walk on

the wet pavement which mirrored the light of the lamps by the side of

a young lady who looked decent, distinguished and somewhat depressed.

And when the curtain fell for the first time and the light streamed

through the enormous room, upholstered in red and gold, he did not

feel any unpleasant sense of being brought back to sober life, but

he rather felt as though he were plunging his head out of one dream

into another; while a reality which was full of all kinds of wretched

complications flew impotently past somewhere outside. The atmosphere of

this house, so it seemed to him, had never made him so intensely happy

as it did to-day. He had never felt so palpably that all the audience,

so long as they were here, were protected in some mystic way against

all the pain and all the dirt of life. He stood up in his corner seat,

which was in front by the middle gangway, saw many a pleased glance

turn towards him and felt conscious of looking handsome, elegant and

even somewhat unusual. And besides that he was--and this filled him

with satisfaction--a man who had a profession, a position, a man who

sat in this very theatre with a responsible commission to perform,

as a kind of envoy from a German court theatre. He looked round with

his opera-glass. From the back of the stalls Gleissner greeted him

with a somewhat too familiar nod of his head and seemed immediately

afterwards to be expatiating on George's personal characteristics to

the young lady who sat next to him. Who could she be? Was it the harlot

which the author, with his hobby for experimenting on souls, wanted to

make into a saint, or was it the saint whom he wanted to make into a

harlot? Hard to say, thought George. They'd both look about the same,

halfway.

George felt the lens of an opera-glass burning on the top of his head.

He looked up. It was Else, who was looking down to him from a box in

the first tier. Frau Ehrenberg sat near her and between them there

bowed over the front of the box a tall young man who was no other than

James Wyner. George bowed and two minutes later stepped into the box,

to find himself greeted with friendliness but not a trace of surprise.

Else, in a low-cut black velvet dress, with a small pearl necklet round

her throat and a somewhat strange though interesting coiffure, held out

her hand to him. "And how did you manage to get here? On leave? Sacked?

Run away?"

George explained, briefly and good-humouredly.

"It was very nice of you," said Frau Ehrenberg, "to have sent us a line

from Detmold."

"He really shouldn't have done that, either," remarked Else. "It was

quite calculated to make one think that he had gone off to America with

some one or other."

James was standing in the middle of the box, tall and gaunt, with his

chiselled face and his dark smooth hair parted at the side. "Well,

George, how do you like Detmold?"

Else was looking at him with dropped eyelashes. She seemed delighted

with his way of still always speaking German as though he had to

translate it to himself out of English. Anyway, she employed the

occasion to make a joke and said: "How George likes it in Detmold! I am

afraid your question is indiscreet, James." Then she turned to George.

"We are engaged, you know."

"We haven't yet sent out any cards, you know," added Frau Ehrenberg.

George offered his congratulations.

"Lunch with us to-morrow," said Frau Ehrenberg. "You will only meet a

few people. I'm sure they'll all be very glad to see you again--Sissy,

Frau Oberberger, Willy Eissler."

George excused himself. He could not bind himself to any specific time,

but if he possibly could he would very much like to look in during the

course of the afternoon.

"Quite so," said Else in a low voice, without looking at him, while her

arm, in its long white glove, lay carelessly on the ledge of the box.

"You are probably spending the middle of the day in the family circle."

George pretended not to hear and praised to-night's performance. James

declared that he liked _Tristan_ better than all the other operas by

Wagner, including the _Meistersingers_.

Else simply remarked: "It's awfully fine, but as a matter of fact I'm

all against love-philtres and things in that line."

George explained that the love-philtre was to be regarded as a symbol,

whereupon Else declared that she had a distaste for symbols as well.

The first signal for the second act was given. George took his leave

and rushed downstairs with only just enough time to take his place

before the curtain rose. He remembered again the semi-official capacity

in which he was sitting in the theatre to-night, and determined not

to surrender himself unreservedly to his impressions. He soon managed

to discover that it was possible to produce the love-scene quite

differently from the way in which it was being done to-night. Nor did

he think it right that Melot, by whose hand Tristan was doomed to die,

should be represented by a second-rate singer, as was nearly always

the case. After the fall of the curtain on the second act he got up

with a kind of increased self-consciousness, stood up in his seat and

looked frequently up to the box in the first tier, from which Frau

Ehrenberg nodded to him benevolently, while Else spoke to James, who

was standing still behind her with crossed arms. It struck George

that he would see James's sister again to-morrow. Did she still often

think of that wonderful hour in the park in the afternoon, amid the

dark green sultriness of the park, in the warm perfume of the moss and

the pines? How far away that was! He then remembered a fleeting kiss

in the nocturnal shadow of the garden wall at Lugano. How far away

that was too! He thought of the evening under the plane-tree, and the

conversation about Leo came again into his mind. A remarkable fellow

that Leo, really. How consistently he had stuck to his plan! For he

must have formed it a long time ago. And obviously Leo had only waited

for the day when he could doff his uniform to put it into execution.

George had received no answer to the letter which he had immediately

written him after hearing about the duel. He resolved to visit Leo in

prison if it were possible.

A man in the first row greeted him. It was Ralph Skelton. George

arranged by pantomimic signs to meet him at the end of the performance.

The lights were extinguished, the prelude to the third act began.

George heard the tired sea-waves surging against the desolate beach

and the grievous sighs of a mortally wounded hero were wafted through

the blue thin air. Where had he heard this last? Hadn't it been in

Munich...? No, it couldn't be so far back. And he suddenly remembered

the hour when the sheets of the _Tristan_ music had been spread open

before him on a balcony beneath a wooden gable. A sunny path opposite

ran to the churchyard between field and forest, while a cross had

flashed with its golden light; down in the house a woman he loved

had groaned in agony and he had felt sick at heart. And yet this

memory, too, had its own melancholy sweetness, like all else that had

completely passed. The balcony, the little blue angel between the

flowers, the white seat under the pear-tree, where was it all now? He

would see the house again once more, once more before he left Vienna.

The curtain rose. The shawm rang out yearningly beneath the pale

expanse of an unsympathetic heaven. The wounded hero slumbered in

the shade of the linden branches, and by his head watched Kurwenal

the faithful. The shawm was silent, the herdsman bent questioningly

over the wall and Kurwenal made answer. By Jove, that was a voice of

unusual timbre! If we only had a baritone like that, thought George.

And many other things, too, which we need! If he were only given the

requisite power he felt himself able, in the course of time, to turn

the modest theatre at which he worked into a first-class stage. He

dreamed of model performances to which people would stream from far

and wide. He no longer sat there as an envoy, but as a man to whom it

was perhaps vouchsafed to be himself a leader in not too distant days.

Further and higher coursed his hopes. Perhaps just a few years--and

his own original harmonies would be ringing through a spacious hall of

a musical festival, and the audience would be listening as thrilled

as the one to-day, while somewhere outside a hollow reality would be

flowing impotently past. Impotently? That was the question. Did he

know whether it was given him to compel human beings by his art as it

had been given to the master to whom they were listening to-day--to

triumph over the difficulty, wretchedness and awfulness of everyday

life? Impatience and doubt tried to rise out of his soul; but his will

and common-sense quickly banished them and he now felt again the pure

happiness he always experienced when he heard beautiful music, without

thinking of the fact that he often wished himself to do creative work

and obtain recognition for doing it.

In moments like this the only relation to his beloved art of which

he was conscious was that he was able to understand it with deeper

appreciation than any other human being. And he felt that Heinrich

had spoken the truth when they had ridden together through a forest

damp with the morning dew: it was not creative work--it was simply the

atmosphere of his art which was necessary to his existence. He was not

one of the damned, like Heinrich, who always felt driven to catch hold

of things, to mould them, to preserve them, and who found his world

fall to pieces whenever it tried to escape from his creative hand.

Isolde in Brangäne's arms had dropped dead over Tristan's body, the

last notes were dying away, the curtain fell. George cast a glance

up to the box in the first tier. Else stood by the ledge with her

look turned towards him, while James put her dark-red cloak over her

shoulders, and it was only now, that after a nod of the head as quick

as though she had meant no one to notice it, she turned towards the

exit. Remarkable, thought George from a distance: there is a certain

... melancholy romantic something about the way she carries herself,

about many of her movements. It is then that she reminds me most of

the gipsy girl of Nice, or the strange young person with whom I stood

in front of the Titian Venus in Florence.... Did she ever love me? No.

And she doesn't love her James either. Who is it then?... Perhaps ...

it was really that mad drawing-master in Florence. Or no one at all. Or

Heinrich, of all people?...

He met Skelton in the _foyer_. "Back again?" queried the latter.

"Only for a few days," replied George.

It transpired that Skelton had not really known what George was

doing and had thought that he was on a kind of musical tour through

the German towns for the purposes of study. He was now more or

less surprised to hear that George was here on leave and had been

practically commissioned by the manager to inspect the new production

of _Tristan_. "Will this suit you?" said Skelton. "I've got an

appointment with Breitner; at the '_Imperial_,' the white room."

"Excellent," replied George. "I'm staying there."

Doctor von Breitner was already smoking one of his celebrated big

cigars when the two men appeared at his table. "What a surprise!"

he exclaimed, when George greeted him. He had heard that George was

engaged as conductor in Düsseldorf.

"Detmold," said George, and he thought: "The people here don't bother

about me particularly.... But what does it matter?"

Skelton described the _Tristan_ performance and George mentioned that

he had spoken to the Ehrenbergs.

"Do you know that Oskar Ehrenberg is on his way to India or Ceylon?"

asked Doctor von Breitner.

"Really!"

"And whom do you think with?"

"Some woman, I suppose?"

"Oh, of course. I've even heard they've got five or seven women with

them."

"Who?--'they.'"

"Oskar Ehrenberg ... and ... have a guess.... Well, the Prince of

Guastalla!"

"Impossible!"

"Funny, eh? They became very thick this year at Ostend or at Spa....

_Cherchez_ ... et cetera. It seems that just as there are women, you

know, for whom people fight duels there's also another class across

whom, as it were, you shake hands. Now they've left Europe together.

Perhaps they'll found a kingdom on some island or other and Oskar

Ehrenberg will be prime minister."

Willy Eissler appeared. His complexion was sallow, his voice hoarse and

he looked as if he had been keeping late hours. "Hullo, Baron! Forgive

me not being thunderstruck but I have already heard that you are here.

Some one or other saw you in the Kärtnerstrasse."

George requested Willy to remember Count Malnitz to his father. He

himself, he was sorry to say, had no time on this occasion to look up

the old gentleman, to whom, as he observed with a pretty mock-modesty,

he owed his position in Detmold.

"So far as your future is concerned, Baron," said Willy, "I never had

any anxiety about it, particularly since I heard Bellini sing your

songs last year--or was it further back? But it is quite a good idea

of yours, deciding to leave Vienna. You'd have been bound to have been

taken for a dilettante here for a cool twenty or thirty years. That's

always the way in Vienna. I know it. When people know that a man comes

of a good family, has a taste too for pretty ties, good cigarettes and

various other amenities of life, they don't believe that he has real

artistic capacity. You wouldn't be taken seriously here without proof

from outside.... So hurry up and furnish us with a brilliant one,

Baron."

"I'll make an effort to," said George.

"By the way, have you heard the latest, gentlemen?" began Willy again.

"Leo Golowski, the one-year-volunteer who shot First-Lieutenant

Sefranek, is free."

"Let out on bail?" asked George.

"No, he's quite free. His advocate addressed a petition to the Emperor

to quash the proceedings, and it turned out successful to-day."

"Incredible!" exclaimed Breitner.

"Why are you so surprised, Breitner?" said Willy. "It is possible, you

know, for something sensible to happen in Austria once in a blue moon."

"A duel is never sensible," said Skelton, "and therefore a pardon for a

duel can't be sensible either."

"A duel, my dear Skelton, is either something very much worse or

something very much better than sensible," replied Willy. "It is

either a ghastly folly or a relentless necessity, either a crime or an

act of deliverance. It is not sensible and doesn't need to be so. In

exceptional cases, one can't make any headway at all with common-sense,

and I am sure you too will concede, Skelton, that in a case like the

one of which we have just been speaking a duel was inevitable."

"Absolutely," said Breitner.

"I can imagine a polity," observed Skelton, "in which differences of

that kind were settled by a court."

"Differences of that kind settled by a court! Oh, I say!... Do you

really think, Skelton, that in a case where there is no question of

right or of possession at issue, but where men confront each other with

a stupendous hate, do you really think that a proper settlement could

be arrived at by means of a fine or imprisonment? The fact, gentlemen,

that refusal to fight a duel in such cases is regarded as a piece of

cowardice by all people who possess temperament, honour and honesty has

a fairly deep significance. In the case of Jews at any rate," he added.

"So far as the Catholics are concerned it is well known that it is only

their orthodoxy which keeps them from fighting."

"That's certainly the case," said Breitner simply.

George wanted to know details of the affair between Leo Golowski and

the First-Lieutenant.

"Quite so," said Willy. "Of course you've only just arrived. Well, the

First-Lieutenant gave him a fine ragging for the whole year, and as a

matter of fact----"

"I know the prelude," interrupted George. "Part of it from first-hand

information."

"Really! Well, the prelude, to stick to that expression, was over on

the first of October. I mean Leo Golowski had finished his year of

service. And on the second he placed himself in front of the barracks

early in the morning and quietly waited till the First-Lieutenant

came out of the door. As soon as he did he stepped up to him; the

First-Lieutenant reached for his sword, but Leo Golowski grabs hold

of his hand, doesn't let it go, puts his other fist in front of his

forehead. There is a story, too, that Leo is supposed to have flung the

following words at the First-Lieutenant.... I don't know if it's true."

"What words?" asked George curiously.

"'You were worth more than I was yesterday, Herr First-Lieutenant; now

we are on an equality for the time being--but one of us will be worth

more than the other again by this time to-morrow.'"

"Somewhat Talmudic," remarked Breitner.

"You, of course, must be the best judge of that, Breitner," replied

Willy, and went on with his story. "Well, the duel took place next

morning in the fields by the Danube--three exchanges of ball at twenty

paces without advancing. If that proved abortive the sword till one or

other was _hors de combat_.... The first shots missed on both sides,

and after the second ... after the second, I say, Golowski was really

worth more than the First-Lieutenant, for the latter was worth nothing,

less than nothing--a dead man."

"Poor devil," said Breitner.

Willy shrugged his shoulders. "He just happened to have caught a

tartar. I'm sorry, too, but one must admit that Austria would be a

different place in many respects if all Jews would behave like Leo

Golowski in similar cases. Unfortunately...."

Skelton smiled. "You know, Willy, I don't like any one to say anything

against the Jews when I am there. I like them, and I should be sorry if

people wanted to solve the Jewish question by a series of duels, for

when it was all over there wouldn't be a single male specimen left of

that excellent race."

At the end of the conversation Skelton had to admit that the duel could

not be abolished in Austria for the present. But he reserved the right

of putting the question whether that fact was really an argument in

favour of the duel, and not rather an argument against Austria, since

many other countries--he refrained from mentioning any out of a sense

of modesty--had discarded the duel for centuries. And did he go too

far if he ventured to designate Austria--the country, too, in which

he had felt really at home for the last six years--as the country of

social shams? In that country more than anywhere else there existed

wild disputes without a touch of hate and a kind of tender love without

the need of fidelity. Quite humorous personal likings existed or came

into existence between political opponents; party colleagues, on the

other hand, reviled, libelled and betrayed each other. You would only

find a few people who would vouchsafe specific views on men and things,

and anyway even these few would be only too ready to make reservations

and admit exceptions. The political conflict there gave one quite

the impression as though the apparently most bitter enemies, while

exchanging their most virulent abuse, winked to each other: "It's not

meant so seriously."

"What do you think, Skelton?" asked Willy. "Would you wink, too, if the

bullets were flying on both sides?"

"You certainly would, Willy, unless death were staring you in the face.

But that circumstance, I think, doesn't affect one's mood but only

one's demeanour."

They went on sitting together for a long time and continued gossiping.

George heard all kinds of news. He learned among other things that

Demeter Stanzides had concluded the purchase of the estate on the

Hungarian-Croatian frontier, and that the Rattenmamsell was looking

forward to a happy event. Willy Eissler was much excited at the result

of this crossing of the races, and amused himself in the meanwhile by

inventing names for the expected child, such as Israel Pius or Rebecca

Portiuncula.

Subsequently the whole party betook itself to the neighbouring café.

George played a game of billiards with Breitner and then went up to his

room. He made out in bed a time-table for the next day and finally

sank into a deliciously deep sleep.

The paper he had ordered the day before was brought in with the tea

in the morning, together with a telegram. The manager requested him

to report on a singer. To George's delight it was the one he had

heard yesterday in Kurwenal. He was also allowed to stay three days

beyond his specified leave, "in order to put his affairs in order

at his convenience," since an alteration of the programme happened

to allow it. Excellent, really, thought George. It struck him that

he had completely forgotten his original intention of wiring for a

prolongation of his leave. I have got even more time for Anna now than

I thought, he reflected. We might perhaps go into the mountains. The

autumn days are fine and mild, and at this time one would be pretty

well alone and undisturbed anywhere. But supposing there is an accident

again--an--accident--again!... Those were the very words in which the

thought had flown through his mind. He bit his lips. Was that how he

had suddenly come to regard the matter? An accident.... Where was

the time when he had thought of himself almost with pride as a link

in an endless chain which went from the first ancestors to the last

descendants? And for a few moments he seemed to himself like a failure

in the sphere of love, somewhat dubious and pitiable.

He ran his eye over the paper. The proceedings against Leo Golowski had

been quashed by an Imperial pardon. He had been discharged from prison

last evening. George was very glad and decided to visit Leo this very

day. He then sent a telegram to the Count, and made out a report with

due formality and detail on yesterday's performance. When he got out

into the street it was nearly eleven. The air had the cool clearness

of autumn. George felt thoroughly rested, refreshed and in a good

temper. The day lay before him rich with hopes and promised all kinds

of excitement. Only something troubled him without his immediately

knowing what it was.... Oh yes, the visit in the Paulanergasse, the

depressing rooms, the ailing father, the aggrieved mother. I'll simply

fetch Anna, he thought, take her for a walk and then go and have supper

somewhere with her. He passed a flower shop, bought some wonderful

dark-red roses and had them sent to Anna with a card on which he wrote:

"A thousand wishes. Goodbye till the evening." When he had done this he

felt easier in his mind. He then went through the streets in the centre

of the town to the old house in which Nürnberger lived. He climbed up

the five storeys. A slatternly old servant with a dark cloth over her

head opened the door and ushered him into her master's room. Nürnberger

was standing by the window with his head slightly bent, in the brown

high-cut lounge-suit which he liked to wear at home. He was not alone.

Heinrich, of all people, got up from the old arm-chair in front of the

secretary with a manuscript in his hand. George was heartily welcomed.

"Has your being in Vienna anything to do with the crisis in the

management of the opera?" asked Nürnberger. He refused to allow this

observation to be simply passed over as a joke. "Look here," he said,

"if little boys who a short time ago were only in a position to give

formal proof of their connection with German literature on the strength

of the regularity of their visits to a literary café, are invited to

take appointments as readers on the Berlin stage, well, in an age like

this I see no occasion for astonishment if Baron Wergenthin is fetched

in triumph to the Vienna opera after his no doubt strenuous six weeks'

career as the conductor of a German Court theatre."

George paid a tribute to truth by explaining that he had only obtained

a short leave to put his Vienna affairs in order, and did not forget to

mention that he had seen the new production of _Tristan_ yesterday as a

kind of agent for his manager, but he smiled ironically at himself all

the time. Then he gave a short and fairly humorous description of his

experiences up to the present in the little capital. He even touched

jestingly on the Court concerts as though he were far from taking his

position, his present successes, the theatre, or indeed life in general

with any particular seriousness.

Conversation then turned on Leo Golowski's release from prison.

Nürnberger rejoiced at this unhoped-for issue, but yet firmly refused

to be surprised at it, for the most highly improbable things always

happened in life, and particularly in Austria, as they all knew very

well. But when George mentioned the rumour of Oskar Ehrenberg's

yachting trip with the Prince as a new proof of the soundness of

Nürnberger's theory, he was at first inclined nevertheless to be

slightly sceptical. Yet he finished by admitting its possibility,

since his imagination, as he had known for a long time, was invariably

surpassed by reality.

Heinrich looked at the time. It was time for him to say goodbye.

"Haven't I disturbed you, gentlemen?" asked George. "I think you were

reading something, Heinrich, when I came in?"

"I had already finished," replied Heinrich.

"You'll read me the last act to-morrow, Heinrich?" said Nürnberger.

"I have no intention of doing so," replied Heinrich with a laugh. "If

the first two acts are as great a frost in the theatre as they were

with you, my dear Nürnberger, it will be positively impossible to play

the thing through to the end. We'll assume, Nürnberger, that you rush

indignantly out of the stalls into the open air. I'll let you off the

cat-calls and the rotten eggs."

"Hang it all!" exclaimed George.

"You're exaggerating again, Heinrich," said Nürnberger. "I only

ventured to make a few objections," he said, turning to George,

"that's all. But he's an author, you know."

"It all depends on what you mean by 'objection,'" said Heinrich. "After

all, it is only an objection to the life of a fellow human being if you

cut his head open with a hatchet; only it's a fairly effective one." He

pointed to his manuscript and turned to George. "You know what that is?

My political tragi-comedy. No wreaths, by request."

Nürnberger laughed. "I assure you, Heinrich, you could still make

something really splendid out of your subject. You can even keep the

whole scenario and a number of the characters. All you need to do is to

make up your mind to be less fair when you revise your draft."

"But surely his fairness is a fine thing," said George.

Nürnberger shook his head. "One may be anywhere else, only not in the

drama," and turning to Heinrich again, "In a piece like that, which

deals with a question of the day, or indeed several questions, as you

really intended, you'll never do any good with a purely objective

treatment. The theatre public demands that the subjects tackled by the

author should be definitely settled, or that at any rate some illusion

of that kind should be created. For of course there never is any real

solution, and an apparent solution can only be made by a man who has

the courage or the simplicity or the temperament to take sides. You'll

soon appreciate the fact, my dear Heinrich, that fairness is no good in

the drama."

"Do you know, Nürnberger," said Heinrich, "one perhaps might do some

good even with fairness. I think I simply haven't got the right kind.

As a matter of fact, you know, I've no desire at all to be fair. I

imagine it must be so wonderfully nice to be unfair. I think it would

be the most healthy gymnastic exercise for one's soul that one could

possibly practise. It must do one such a lot of good to be able really

to hate the man whose views you are combating. It saves one, I'm sure,

a great deal of inner strength which you can expend far better yourself

in the actual fight. Yes, if one still preserves fairness of heart....

But my fairness is here," and he pointed to his forehead. "I do not

stand above parties either, but I belong to them all in a kind of way,

or am against them all. I have not got the divine but the dialectical

fairness. And that's why"--he held his manuscript high up--"it has

resulted in such a boring and fruitless lot of twaddle."

"Woe to the man," said Nürnberger, "who is rash enough to write

anything like that about you."

"Well, you see," replied Heinrich with a smile, "if some one else were

to say it, one couldn't suppress the slight suspicion that he might be

right. But now I must really go. Good-bye, George. I'm very sorry that

you missed me yesterday. When are you leaving again?"

"To-morrow."

"Anyway, I shall see you before you leave. I'm home to-day the whole

afternoon and evening. You will find a man who has resolutely turned

away from the questions of the day and devoted himself again to

the eternal problems, death and love.... Do you believe in death,

by-the-bye, Nürnberger? I am not asking you about love."

"That somewhat cheap joke from a man in your position," said

Nürnberger, "makes me suspect that in spite of your very dignified

demeanour my criticism has...."

"No, Nürnberger, I swear to you that I am not wounded. I have rather a

comfortable sensation of the whole thing being finished with."

"Finished with, why so? It is still quite possible that I've made

a mistake, and that this very piece, which I didn't think quite a

success, will have a success on the stage which will make you into a

millionaire. I should be deeply grieved if on account of my criticism,

which may be very far from being authoritative...."

"Quite so, quite so, Nürnberger. We must all of us always admit the

possibility that we may be mistaken. And the next time I'll write

another piece, and one with the following title too: '_Nobody's going

to take me in_,' and you shall be the hero of it, Nürnberger."

Nürnberger smiled. "... I? That means you'll take a man whom you

imagine you know, that you'll try to describe those sides of his

character which suit your game--that you'll suppress others which are

no use to you, and the result...."

"The result," interrupted Heinrich, "will be a portrait taken by a mad

photographer with a spoilt camera during an earthquake and an eclipse

of the sun. Is that right, or is there anything missing?"

"The psychology ought to be exhaustive," said Nürnberger.

Heinrich took his leave in boisterous spirits and went away with his

rolled-up manuscript. When he had gone George remarked: "His good

temper strikes me as a bit of a pose, you know."

"Do you think so? I have always found him in remarkably good form

lately."

"In really good form? Do you seriously think so? After what he has gone

through?"

"Why not? Men who are so almost exclusively self-centred as he is

get over emotional troubles with surprising quickness. Characters of

that type, and as a matter of fact other kinds of men as well, feel

the slightest physical discomfort far more acutely than any kind of

sentimental pain, even the faithlessness and death of the persons they

happen to love. It comes no doubt from the fact that every emotional

pain flatters our vanity somehow or other, and that you can't say the

same thing about an attack of typhoid or a catarrh in the stomach. Then

there is this additional point about artistic people, for while catarrh

of the stomach provides positively no copy at all (at any rate that

used to be reasonably certain a short time ago) you can get anything

you jolly well like out of your emotional pains, from lyric poems down

to works on philosophy."

"Emotional pains are of very different kinds, of course," replied

George. "And being deceived or deserted by a mistress ... or even her

dying a natural death ... is still rather a different thing to her

killing herself on our account."

"Do you know for a certainty," replied Nürnberger, "that Heinrich's

mistress really killed herself on his account?"

"Didn't Heinrich tell you, then?..."

"Of course, but that doesn't prove much. Even the shrewdest amongst us

are always fools about the things which concern ourselves."

Such remarks as these on the part of Nürnberger produced a strangely

disconcerting effect on George. They belonged to the class of which

Nürnberger was rather fond, and which, as Heinrich had once observed,

quite destroyed all the point of all human intercourse, and in fact of

all human relations.

Nürnberger went on speaking. "We only know two facts. One is that our

friend once had a _liaison_ with a girl and the other that the girl in

question threw herself into the water. We both of us know practically

nothing about all the intervening facts, and Heinrich probably doesn't

know anything more about them either. None of us can know why she

killed herself, and perhaps the poor girl herself didn't know either."

George looked through the window and saw roofs, chimneys and

weather-beaten pipes, while fairly near was the light-grey tower

with the broken stone cupola. The sky opposite was pale and empty.

It suddenly occurred to George that Nürnberger had not yet made any

inquiry about Anna. What was he probably thinking? Thinking no doubt

that George had deserted her, and that she had already consoled herself

with another lover. Why did I come to Vienna? he thought desultorily,

as though his journey had had no other purpose than to listen to

Nürnberger giving him what had now turned out to be a sufficiently

pessimistic analysis of life. It struck twelve. George took his leave.

Nürnberger accompanied him as far as the door and thanked him for

his visit. He inquired earnestly about what George was doing in his

new home, about his work and his new acquaintances, as though their

previous conversation on the subject had not really counted, and now

learned for the first time of the accident which was responsible for

George's sudden appointment in the little town.

"Yes, that's just what I always say," he then remarked. "It is not we

who make our fate, but some circumstance outside us usually sees to

that--some circumstance which we were not in a position to influence

in any way, which we never have a chance of bringing into the sphere

of our calculations. After all, do you deserve any credit...? I feel

justified in putting this question, much as I respect your talent.

Nor does old Eissler, whose interest in your affairs you once told me

about, deserve any credit either for your being wired to from Detmold

and finding your true sphere of work there so quickly. No. An innocent

man, some one you don't know, had to die a sudden death to enable you

to find that particular place vacant. And what a lot of other things

which you were equally unable to influence, and which you were quite

unable to foresee, had to come on the scene to enable you to leave

Vienna with a light heart--to enable you, in fact, to leave it at all."

George felt hurt. "What do you mean by a light heart?" he asked.

"I mean a lighter heart than you would have had under other

circumstances. If the little creature had remained alive who knows

whether you...."

"You can take it from me that I would have gone away, even then. And

Anna would have taken it quite as much as a matter of course as she

does now. Don't you believe me? Why, perhaps I'd have gone with an

even lighter heart if that matter had turned out otherwise. Why, it was

Anna who persuaded me to accept. I was quite undecided. You have no

idea what a good sensible creature Anna is."

"Oh, I don't doubt it at all. According to all you have told me about

her from time to time, she certainly seems to have behaved with more

dignity in her position than young ladies of her social status are

usually accustomed to exhibit on such occasions."

"My dear Herr Nürnberger, the position really wasn't as dreadful as all

that."

"Come, don't say that. For however much things may have been made

easier by your courtesy and consideration, take it from me that the

young lady is bound to have felt frequently during the last months

the irregularity of her position. I am sure there isn't a single

member of the feminine sex, however daring and advanced may be her

views, who doesn't prefer in a case like that to have a ring on her

finger. And it's all in favour, too, of your friend's sensible and

dignified behaviour that she never allowed you to notice it, and that

she took the bitter disillusionment at the end of these nine months,

which were certainly not entirely a bed of roses, with calmness and

self-possession."

"Disillusionment is rather a mild word. Pain would perhaps be more

correct."

"I dare say it was both. But in this case, as in most others, the

burning wound of pain heals more quickly than the throbbing piercing

wound of disillusionment."

"I don't quite understand."

"Well, my dear George, you don't doubt, do you, that if the little

creature had remained alive you two would have married very quickly;

why, you'd even be married this very day."

"And you think that now, just because we have no child.... Yes, you

seem to be of the opinion that ... that ... it's all over between us.

But you are quite wrong, quite wrong, my dear friend."

"My dear George," replied Nürnberger, "both of us would prefer not

to speak about the future. Neither you nor I know the place where a

strand of our fate is being spun at this very moment. You didn't have

the slightest inkling, either, when that conductor was attacked by a

stroke, and if I now wish you luck in your future career I don't know

whose death I have not conjured down by that very wish."

They took leave of each other on the landing. Nürnberger cried after

George from the stairs: "Let me hear from you now and then."

George turned round once more. "And mind you do the same." He only saw

Nürnberger's gesture of resigned remonstrance, smiled involuntarily,

hurried down the stairs and took a conveyance at the nearest corner.

He pondered over Nürnberger and Bermann on his way to the Golowskis'.

What a strange relationship it was between them. A scene which he

thought he had seen some time or other in a dream came into George's

mind. The two sat opposite each other, each held a mirror in front of

the other. The other saw himself in it with the mirror in his hand,

and in that mirror the other again with his mirror in his hand, and

so on to infinity; but did either of them really know the other, did

either of them really know himself? George's mind became dizzy. He

then thought of Anna. Was Nürnberger right again? Was it really all

over? Could it really ever end? Ever?... Life is long! But were even

the ensuing months dangerous? No. That was not to be taken seriously,

however it might turn out. Perhaps Micaela.... And in Easter he would

be in Vienna again. Then there came the summer, they would be together,

and then? Yes, what then? Engagement? Herr Rosner and Frau Rosner's

son-in-law, Joseph's brother-in-law! Oh well, what did he care about

the family? It was Anna after all who was going to be his wife, that

good gentle sensible creature.

The fly stopped in front of an ugly fairly new house, painted yellow,

in a wide monotonous street. George told the driver to wait and went

into the doorway. The house looked quite dilapidated from inside.

Mortar had crumbled away from the walls in many places and the steps

were dirty. There was a smell of bad fat coming out of some of the

kitchen windows. Two fat Jewesses were talking on the landing of the

first storey in a jargon which George found positively intolerable.

One of them said to a boy whom she held by the hand: "Moritz, let the

gentleman pass."

Why does she say that? thought George, there's plenty of room; she

obviously wants to get into conversation with me. As though I could do

her any harm or any good! An expression of Heinrich's in a long-past

conversation came into his mind: "An enemy's country."

A servant-girl showed him into a room which he immediately recognised

as Leo's. Books and papers on the writing-table, the piano open, a

Gladstone bag, which was still not completely unpacked, open on the

sofa. The door opened the next minute. Leo came in, embraced his

visitor and kissed him so quickly on both cheeks that the man who was

welcomed with such heartiness had no time to be embarrassed.

"This is nice of you," said Leo, and shook both his hands.

"You can't imagine how glad I was ..." began George.

"I believe you.... But please come in with me. We are having dinner,

you know, but it's nearly over."

He took him into the next room. The family was gathered round the table.

"I don't think you know my father yet," observed Leo, and introduced

them to each other.

Old Golowski got up, put away the serviette which he had tied round

his neck and held out his hand to George. The latter was surprised

that the old man should look so completely different from what he had

expected. He was not patriarchal, grey-bearded and venerable, but with

his clean-shaven face and broad cunning features looked more like an

ageing provincial comedian than anything else.

"I am very glad to make your acquaintance, Herr Baron," he said, while

one could read in his crafty eyes ... "I know everything."

Therese hastily asked George the conventional questions: when he had

come, how long he was staying, how he was; he answered patiently

and courteously, and she looked him in the face with animation and

curiosity.

Then he asked Leo about his plans for the near future.

"I must first practise the piano industriously, so as not to make

a fool of myself before my pupils. People were very nice to me, of

course. I had books, as many as I wanted, but they certainly didn't

put a piano at my disposition." He turned to Therese. "You should

certainly flog that point to death in one of your next speeches. This

bad treatment of prisoners awaiting trial must be abolished."

"It was no laughing matter for him this time yesterday," said old

Golowski.

"If you think by any chance," said Therese, "that the good luck which

happened to come your way will alter my views you are making a violent

mistake. On the contrary." And turning to George she continued:

"Theoretically, you know, I am absolutely against their having let

him out. If you'd simply knocked the fellow down dead, as you would

have been quite entitled to do, without this abominable farce of a

duel you'd never have been let out, but would have served your five

to ten years for a certainty. But since you went in for this ghastly

life-and-death gamble which is favoured by the State, because you

cringed down to the military point of view you've been pardoned. Am I

not right?" She turned again to George.

The latter only nodded and thought of the poor young man whom Leo had

shot, who as a matter of fact had had nothing else against the Jews

except that he disliked them just as much as most people did after

all--and whose real fault had only been that he had tried it on the

wrong man.

Leo stroked his sister's hair and said to her: "Look here, if you say

publicly in your next speech what you've just said to-day within these

four walls you'll really impress me."

"Yes, and you'll impress me," replied Therese, "if you take a ticket to

Jerusalem to-morrow with old Ehrenberg."

They got up from the table. Leo invited George to come into his room

with him.

"Shall I be disturbing you?" asked Therese. "I too would like to see

something of him, you know."

They all three sat in Leo's room and chatted. Leo seemed to be

enjoying his regained freedom without either scruples or remorse.

George felt strangely affected by this. Therese sat on the sofa in

a dark well-fitting dress. To-day was the first occasion on which

she resembled the young lady who had drunk Asti under a plane-tree

in Lugano, when she was the mistress of a cavalry officer, and who

had subsequently kissed some one else. She asked George to play the

piano. She had never yet heard him. He sat down, played something from

_Tristan_ and then improvised with happy inspiration. Leo expressed his

appreciation.

"What a pity that he is not staying," said Therese, as she leaned

against the wall and crossed her hands over her high coiffure.

"I am coming back at Easter," replied George, and looked at her.

"But only to disappear again," said Therese.

"That may be," replied George, and the thought that his home was no

longer here, that he had no home at all anywhere, and would not have

for a long time, suddenly overwhelmed him.

"How would it be," said Leo, "if we went on a tour together in the

summer?--you, Bermann and I? I promise you that you won't be bored by

theoretical conversation like you were once last autumn ... do you

still remember?"

"Oh well," said Therese, stretching herself, "nothing will come of it

anyway. Deeds, gentlemen!"

"And what comes of deeds?" asked Leo. "Putting them at the highest,

they simply save individual situations for the time being."

"Yes, deeds which you do for yourself," said Therese. "But I only

call a real deed what one is capable of doing for others, without

any feeling of revenge, without any personal vanity, and if possible

anonymously."

At last George had to go. What a lot of things he still had to see to.

"I'll come part of the way with you," said Therese to him.