Jason Philip Schimmelweis had been obliged to give up his house by the
museum bridge. He could not pay the rent; his business was ruined. By a
mere coincident it came about that the house on the Corn Market had a
cheap apartment that was vacant, and he took it. It was the same house
in which he lived when he made so much money twenty years ago.
Was Jason Philip no longer in touch with modern business methods? Had he
become too old and infirm to make the public hungry for literary
nourishment? Were his advertisements without allurement, his baits
without scent? No one felt inclined to buy expensive lexicons and
editions de luxe on the instalment plan. The rich old fellows with a
nose for dubious reading matter never came around any more. Jason Philip
had become a dilatory debtor; the publishers no longer gave him books on
approval; he was placed on the black list.
He took to abusing modern writers, contending that it was no wonder that
the writing of books was left exclusively to good-for-nothing subjects
of the Empire, for the whole nation was suffering from cerebral atrophy.
But his reasoning was of no avail; his business collapse was imminent;
in a jiffy it was a hard reality. A man by the name of Rindskopf bought
his stock and furnishings at brokers' prices, and the firm of Jason
Philip Schimmelweis had ceased to exist.
In his distress Jason Philip appealed to the Liberal party. He boasted
of his friendship with the former leader of the party, Baron von
Auffenberg, but this only made matters worse: one renegade was depending
upon the support of another. This was natural: birds of a feather flock
together.
Then he went to the Masons, and began to feel around for their help; he
tried to be made a member of one of the better lodges. He was given to
understand that there was some doubt as to the loyalty of his
convictions, with the result that the Masons would have none of him.
For some time he found actual difficulty in earning his daily bread. He
had resigned his position with the Prudentia Insurance Company long ago.
Ever since a certain interpellation in the Reichstag and a long lawsuit
in which the Prudentia became involved, and which was decided in favour
of its opponents, the standing of the company had suffered irreparably.
Jason Philip had no other choice: he had to go back to bookbinding; he
had to return to pasting, cutting, and folding. He returned in the
evening of his life, downcast, impoverished, and embittered, to the
position from which he had started as an ambitious, resourceful,
stout-hearted, and self-assured man years ago. His eloquence had proved
of no avail, his cunning had not helped him, nor his change of political
conviction, nor his familiarity with the favourable turns of the market,
nor his speculations. He had never believed that the order of things in
the world about him was just and righteous, neither as a Socialist nor
as a Liberal. And now he was convinced that it was impossible to write a
motto on the basis of business principles that would be fit material for
a copy book in a kindergarten.
Willibald was still the same efficient clerk. Markus had got a job in a
furniture store, where he spent his leisure hours studying Volapuek,
convinced as he was that all the nations of the earth would soon be
using this great fraternal tongue.
Theresa moved into the house on the Corn Market with as much peace and
placidity as if she had been anticipating such a change for years. There
was a bay window in the house, and by this she sat when her work in the
kitchen was done, knitting socks for her sons. At times she would
scratch her grey head with her knitting needle, at times she would reach
over and take a sip of cold, unsugared coffee, a small pot of which she
always kept by her side. Hers was the most depressed face then known to
the human family; hers were the horniest, wrinkliest peasant hands that
formed part of any citizen of the City of Nuremberg.
She thought without ceasing of all that nice money that had passed
through her hands during the two decades she had stood behind the
counter of the establishment in the Plobenhof Street.
She tried to imagine where all the money had gone, who was using it now,
and who was being tormented by it. For she was rid of it, and in the
bottom of her heart she was glad that she no longer had it.
One day Jason Philip came rushing from his workshop into her room. He
had a newspaper in his hand; his face was radiant with joy. "At last, my
dear, at last! I have been avenged. Jason Philip Schimmelweis was after
all a good prophet. Well, what do you say?" he continued, as Theresa
looked at him without any noticeable display of curiosity, "what do you
say? I'll bet you can't guess. No, you will never be able to guess
what's happened; it's too much for a woman's brain." He mounted a chair,
held the paper in his hand as if it were the flag of his country, waved
it, and shouted: "Bismarck is done for! He's got to go. The Kaiser hates
him! Now let come what may, I have not lived in vain."
Jason Philip had the feeling that it was due to his efforts that the
reins of government had been snatched from the hands of the Iron
Chancellor. His satisfaction found expression in blatancy and in actions
that were thoroughly at odds with a man of his age. He held up his
acquaintances on the street, and demanded that they offer him their
congratulations. He went to his favourite cafe, and ordered a barrel of
beer for the rejuvenation of his friends. He delivered an oration,
spiced with all the forms of sarcasm known to the art of cheap politics
and embellished with innumerable popular phrases, explaining why he
regarded this as the happiest day of his eventful life.
He said: "If fate were to do me the favour of allowing me to stand face
to face with this menace to public institutions, this unscrupulous
tyrant, I would not, believe me, mince matters in the slightest: I would
tell him things no mortal man has thus far dared say to him."
Several months passed by. Bismarck, then staying at his country place in
Sachsenwald and quarrelling with his lot, decided to visit Munich. There
was tremendous excitement in Nuremberg when it was learned that he would
pass through the city at such and such an hour.
Everybody wanted to see him, young and old, aristocrats and humble folk.
Early in the morning the whole city seemed to be on its feet, making its
way in dense crowds out through the King's Gate.
This was a drama in which Jason Philip had to play his part: without him
it would be incomplete. "To look into the eyes of a tiger whose claws
have been chopped off and whose teeth have been knocked out is a
pleasure and a satisfaction that my mother's son dare not forego," said
he.
His elbows stood him in good stead. When the train pulled into the
station, our rebel was standing in the front row, having pushed his way
through the seemingly impenetrable mass of humanity.
The train stopped for a few minutes. The Iron Chancellor left his
carriage amid deafening hurrahs from the assembled multitude. He shook
hands with the Mayor and a few high-ranking army officers.
Jason Philip never budged. It never occurred to him to shout his own
hurrah. An acidulous smile played around his mouth, his white beard
quivered when he dropped the corners of his lips in satanic glee. It
never occurred to him to take off his hat, despite the threatening
protests all too audible round about him. "I am consistent, my dear
Bismarck, I am incorruptible," he thought to himself.
And yet--the satisfaction which we have described as satanic seemed
somehow or other to be ill founded: it was in such marked contrast to
the general enthusiasm. What had possessed this imbecile pack? Why was
it raging? It saw the enemy, the hangman, right there before it, immune
to the law, dressed in civilian clothes, and yet it was acting as though
the Messiah had come to town on an extra train!
Jason Philip had the feeling that Bismarck was looking straight at him.
He fancied that the fearfully tall man with the unusually small head and
the enormously blue eyes had taken offence at his silence. He feared
some one had told him all about his political beliefs.
The scornful smile died away. Jason Philip detected a lukewarm impotency
creeping over his body. The sweat of solicitude trickled down across his
forehead. Involuntarily he kneed his way closer to the edge of the
platform, threw out his chest, jerked his hat from his head, opened his
mouth, and cried: "Hurrah!"
He cried hurrah. The Prince turned his face from him, and looked in
another direction.
But Jason Philip had cried hurrah.
He sneaked home shaking with shame. He drew his slippers, "For the tired
Man--Consolation," on his feet. They had become quite worn in the course
of his tempestuous life. He lay down on the sofa with his face to the
wall, his back to the window and against the world.
V
Daniel had been in Berlin for weeks. He had been living a lonely life on
the east side of the gigantic city. One of the managers of Philander and
Sons came to see him. He returned the call, and in the course of two
hours he was surrounded, contrary to his own will, by a veritable swarm
of composers, directors, virtuosos, and musical critics.
Some had heard of him; to them he appeared to be a remarkable man. They
threw out their nets to catch him, but he slipped through the meshes.
Unprepared, however, as he was for their schemes, he could not help
being caught in time. He had to give an account of himself, to unveil
himself. He found himself under obligations, interested, and so forth,
but in the end they could not prevail against him: he simply passed
through them.
They laughed at his dialect and his rudeness. What drew them to him was
his self-respect; what annoyed them was his secretiveness; what they
found odd about him was the fact that, try as they might to associate
with him, he would disappear entirely from them for months at a time.
A divorced young woman, a Jewess by the name of Regina Sussmann, fell in
love with him. She recognised in Daniel an elemental nature. The more he
avoided her the more persistent she became. At times it made him feel
good to come once again into intimate association with a woman, to hear
her bright voice, her step more delicate, her breathing more ardent than
that of men. But he could not trust Regina Sussmann; she seemed to know
too much. There was nothing of the plant-like about her, and without
that characteristic any woman appealed to him as being unformed and
uncultured.
One winter day she came to see him in his barren hall room in Greifswald
Street. She sat down at the piano and began to improvise. At first it
was all like a haze to him. Suddenly he was struck by her playing. What
he heard made a half disagreeable, half painful impression on him. He
seemed to be familiar with the piece. She was playing motifs from his
quartette, his "Eleanore Quartette" as he had called it. It came out
that Regina Sussmann had been present at the concert given in Leipzig
three years ago when the quartette was performed.
After a painful pause Regina began to ask some questions that cut him to
the very heart. She wanted to know what relation, if any, the
composition bore to actual life. She was trying to lift the veil from
his unknown fate. He thrust her from him. Then he felt sorry for her: he
began to speak, with some hesitation, of his symphony. There was
something bewitching, enchanting in the woman's passionate silence and
sympathy. He lost himself, forgot himself, disclosed his heart. He built
up the work in words before her, pictured the seven movements like seven
stairs in the tower of a temple, a glorious promenade in the upper
spheres, a tragic storm with tragically cheerful pauses of memory and
meditation, all accompanied by laughing genii that adorned and crowned
the pillars of the structure of his dreams.
He went to the piano, began playing the melancholy leading motif and the
two subsidiary themes, counterpointed them, ran into lofty crescendos,
introduced variations, modulated and sang at the same time. The pupils
of his eyes became distended until they shone behind his glasses like
seas of green fire. Regina Sussmann fell on her knees by the piano. It
may be that she was so affected by his playing that she could not act
otherwise; and it may be that she wished thereby to give him visible
proof of her respect and adoration. All of a sudden the woman became
repulsive to him. The unleashed longing of her eyes filled him with
disgust. Her kneeling position appealed to him as a gesture of mockery
and ridicule: a memory had been desecrated. He sprang to his feet and
rushed out of the room, leaving her behind and quite alone. He never
said a word; he merely bit his lips in anger and left. When he came back
home late that night, he was afraid he might meet her again; but she was
not there. Only a letter lay on the table by the lamp.
She wrote that she had understood him; that she understood he had been
living in the past as if in an impregnable fortress, surrounded by
shadows that were not to be dispelled or disturbed by the presumption of
any living human being. She remarked that she had neither intention nor
desire to encroach upon his peace of mind, that she was merely concerned
for his future, and was wondering how he would fight down his hunger of
body and soul.
"Shameless wretch," cried Daniel, "a spy and a woman!"
She remarked, with almost perverse humility, that she had recognised his
greatness, that he was the genius she had been waiting for, and that her
one desire was to serve him. That is, she wished to serve him at a
distance, seeing that he could not endure her presence. She implored him
to grant her this poor privilege, not merely for his own sake, but for
the sake of humanity as well.
Daniel threw the letter in the stove. In the night he woke up with a
burning desire for delicate contact with an untouched woman. He dreamed
of a smile on the face of a seventeen-year-old girl innocently playing
around him--and shuddered at himself and the thought of himself.
Shortly after this he went to Dresden, where he had some work to do in
the Royal library.
People came to him anxious to place themselves at his service. Many
signs told him that Regina Sussmann was making fervent propaganda for
him.
One day he received a letter from a musical society in Magdeburg, asking
him to give a concert there. He hesitated for a long while, and then
agreed to accede to their wish. Outwardly it could not be called an
unusually successful evening, but his auditors felt his power. People
with the thinnest smattering of music forgot themselves and became
infatuated with his arms and his eyes. An uncertain, undetermined
happiness which he brought to the hearts of real musicians carried him
further along on his career. For two successive winters he directed
concerts in the provincial towns of North Germany. He was the first to
accustom the people to strictly classical programmes. It is rare that
the first in any enterprise of this kind reaps the gratitude of those
who pay to hear him. Had he not desisted with such Puritanical severity
from feeding the people on popular songs, opera selections, and
favourite melodies, his activity would have been much better rewarded.
As it was, his name was mentioned with respect, but he passed through
the streets unacclaimed.
Regina Sussmann was always on hand when he gave a concert. He knew it,
even if he did not see her. At times he caught sight of her sitting in
the front row. She never approached him. Articles redolent with
adulation appeared in the papers about him: it was manifest that she had
been influential in having them written. Once he met her on the steps of
a hotel. She stopped and cast her eyes to the ground; she was pale. He
passed by her. Again he was filled with longing to come into intimate
contact with an untouched woman. Was his heart already hungry, as she
had predicted? He bit his lips, and worked throughout the whole night.
He felt that he was being fearfully endangered by the prosy insipidity
of the age and the world he was living in. But could he not escape the
terrors of such without having recourse to a woman? The shadows receded,
enveloped in sorrow, Gertrude and Eleanore, wrapped in the embrace of
sisters.
"Don't!" they cried. He saw at once that his provincial concerts were
leading him to false goals, enflaming false ambitions, robbing him of
his strength. He no longer found it possible to endure the sight of
brilliantly lighted halls, and the over-dressed people who came empty
and left untransformed. It all seemed to him like a lie. He desisted; he
threw it all overboard just as the temptation was strongest, just as the
Berlin Philharmonic invited him to give a concert of his own works in
its hall.
He had suddenly disappeared. In less than three months his name had
become a saga.