One morning he sat at breakfast with his father. He marvelled how
strange to him was this gentleman with the white, parted hair, with the
elegantly clipped and divided beard and the rosy complexion.
Herr Wahnschaffe treated him with very great courtesy. He inquired
after the social relations that Christian had formed in England,
and commented upon his son’s frugal answers with instructive remarks
concerning men and things. “It is well for Germans to gain ground
there--useful and necessary.”
He discussed the threatening clouds in the political sky, and expressed
his disapproval of Germany’s attitude during the Moroccan crisis.
But Christian remained silent, through want of interest and through
ignorance, and his father became visibly cooler, took up his paper, and
began to read.
What a stranger he is to me, Christian thought, and searched for a
pretext that would let him rise and leave. At that moment Wolfgang came
to the table, and talked about the results of the races at Baden-Baden.
His voice annoyed Christian, and he escaped.
It happened that Judith was sitting in the library and teased him about
Letitia. Then Letitia herself and Crammon entered chatting. Felix
Imhof soon joined them. Letitia took a book, and carefully avoided,
as was clear, looking in Christian’s direction. Then those three left
the room again, and Judith listened with pallor to their retreating
voices, for she had heard Felix pay Letitia a compliment. “Perhaps she
is committing a great folly,” she said. Then she turned to her brother.
“Why are you so silent?” She wrinkled her forehead, and rested her
folded hands on his shoulder. “We are all merry and light hearted here,
and you are so changed. Don’t you like to be among us? Isn’t it lovely
here at home? And if you don’t like it, can’t you go at any time? Why
are you so moody?”
“I hardly know; I am not moody,” Christian replied. “One cannot always
be laughing.”
“You’ll stay until my wedding, won’t you?” Judith continued, and raised
her brows. “I’ll never forgive you if you don’t.” Christian nodded, and
then she said with a friendly urgency, “Why don’t you ever talk to me,
you bear? Ask me something!”
Christian smiled. “Very well, I’ll ask you something,” he said. “Are
you contented, Judith? Is your heart at peace?”
Judith laughed. “That’s asking too much at once! You used not to be so
forthright.” Then she leaned forward, with her elbows on her knees,
and spread out her hands. “We Wahnschaffes can never be contented. All
that we have is too little, for there is always so much that one has
not. I’m afraid I shall be like the fisherman’s wife in the fairy tale.
Or, rather, I’m not afraid but glad at the thought that I’ll send my
fisherman back to the fish in the sea again and again. Then I shall
know, at least, what he is willing to risk.”
Christian regarded his beautiful sister, and heard the temerity of
her words. There was an audacity about her gestures, her words, her
bright, clear voice, and the glow of her eyes. He remembered how he
had sat one evening with Eva Sorel; and she had been as near him as
Judith was now. In silent ecstasy he had looked at Eva’s hands, and she
had raised her left hand and held it against the lamp, and though the
radiance outlined only the more definitely the noble form of the rosy
translucence of her flesh, the dark shadow of the bony structure had
been plainly visible. And Eva had said: “Ah, Eidolon, the kernel knows
nothing of beauty.”
Christian arose and asked almost sadly: “You will know what he risks.
But will that teach you to know what you gain?”
Judith looked up at him in surprise, and her face darkened.
X
One day he entered the sitting-room of his mother, but she was not
there. He approached the door that led to her bedroom, and knocked.
When he received no answer, he opened it. She was not in this room
either. Looking about, he became aware of a brown silk dress trimmed
with lace that belonged to his mother and that had been put on a form.
And for a second he seemed to see her before him, but without a head.
He fell to thinking, and the same thought came to him that he had had
in his father’s presence: What a stranger she is to me! And the dress,
that hid only the wicker form, became an image of his mother, more
recognizable to him than her living body.
For there was about her something impenetrable and inexplicable--the
rigid attitude, the hopeless mien, the dull eye, the rough voice that
had no resonance, her whole joyless character. She, in whose house all
made merry, and whose whole activity and being seemed dedicated to give
others the opportunity of delight, was herself utterly barren of joy.
But she had the most magnificent pearls in Europe. And all men knew
this and esteemed her for it and boasted of it.
Christian’s self-deception went so far, that he was about to talk to
that hollow form more intimately than he would have done to his living
mother. A question leaped to his lips, a tender and cheerful word. Then
he heard her footsteps, and was startled. He turned around, and seemed
to see her double.
She was not surprised at meeting him here. She was rarely surprised at
anything. She sat down on a chair and her eyes were empty.
She discussed Imhof, who had introduced a Jewish friend of his to the
house. She deprecated association with Jews as a practice. She added
that Wahnschaffe--she always called her husband so--agreed with her.
She expressed her disapproval of Judith’s engagement. “Wahnschaffe is
really opposed to this marriage too,” she said, “but it was difficult
to find a pretext to refuse. If Judith sets her heart on anything!
Well, you know her! I am afraid her chief ambition was to get ahead of
her friend Letitia.”
Christian looked up in amazement. His mother did not observe it, and
continued: “With all his good qualities Imhof does not seem reliable.
He is a plunger, and restless and changeable as a weather vane. Of the
ten millions which his foster father left him, five or six are already
lost through speculation and extravagance. What is your judgment of
him?”
“I haven’t really thought about it,” Christian answered. This
conversation was beginning to weary him.
“Then, too, his origin is obscure. He was a foundling. Old Martin
Imhof, whom Wahnschaffe knew, by the way, and who belonged to one of
the first patrician families of Düsseldorf, is said to have adopted
him under peculiar circumstances. He was an old bachelor, and had a
reputation for misanthropy. At last he was quite alone in the world,
and absolutely adored this strange child. Hadn’t you heard about that?”
“Some rumour, yes,” Christian said.
“Well, now tell me something about yourself, my son,” Frau Wahnschaffe
asked, with a changed expression and with a smile of suffering.
But Christian had no answer. His world and his mother’s world--he saw
no bridge between the two. And as the knowledge came to him, another
matter also became clear. And it was this, that there was likewise no
bridge between the world of his conscious life and another that lay
far behind it, misty and menacing, luring and terrible at once, which
he did not understand, nor know, of which he had not even a definite
presage, but which had come to him only as a vision through flashes of
lightning, or as a dream or in a swift touch of horror.
He kissed his mother’s hand, and hastened out.