When Christian arrived in Berlin with Amadeus Voss he found, quite as
he had expected, many people and a great tumult about Eva. He could
scarcely get to her. “I am tired, Eidolon,” she cried out, when she
caught sight of him. “Take me away from everything.”
And again, when she had escaped the oppressive host of admirers, she
said: “How good it is that you are here, Eidolon. I have waited for you
with an ache in my heart. We’ll leave to-morrow.”
But the journey was postponed from day to day. They planned to live
alone and in retirement at the Dutch watering place that was their
immediate goal, but Christian had already met a dozen people who had
ordered accommodations there, and so he doubted the seriousness of
Eva’s intentions. People had become indispensable to her. When she was
silent she wanted, at least, to hear the voices of others; when she was
quiet she wanted movement about her.
When he stood before her the fragrance of her body penetrated him like
a great fear. His blood flowed in such violent waves that his pulses
lost the rhythm of their beating.
He had forgotten her face, the inimitable veracity of her gestures,
her power of feeling and inspiring ecstasy, her whole powerful,
delicate, flowerlike, radiant being. Everything seemed to yield to her,
even the elements. When she appeared in the street, the sun shone more
purely and the air was more temperate; and thus the wild turmoil about
her was transformed into a steady and obedient tide.
Susan said to Christian: “We are to dance here, and have offers. But we
don’t like the Prussians. They seem an arid folk, who save their money
for soldiers and barracks. I haven’t seen a real face. All men and all
women look alike. They may be worthy, no doubt they are; but they seem
machine-made.”
“Eva herself is a German,” Christian rebuked the woman’s spiteful words.
“Bah, if a genius is cast forth from heaven and tumbles on the earth,
it is blind and cannot choose its place. Where is Herr von Crammon?”
she interrupted herself. “Why doesn’t he come to see us? And whom have
you brought in his stead?” She poked out her chin toward Amadeus Voss,
who stood timidly in a corner, and whose large spectacles made him look
like an owl. “Who is that?”
Who is that? The same question appeared in the astonished faces of
Wiguniewski and of the Marquis of Tavera. Amadeus was new to the world
with a vengeance. The fixed expression on his features had something
so silly at times, that Christian was ashamed of him and the others
laughed.
Voss wandered about the streets, pushed himself into crowds, surveyed
the exhibits behind the plate-glass windows of shops, stared into
coffee-houses, bought newspapers and pamphlets, but found no way of
calming his soul. All he could see was the face of the dancer, and the
gestures with which she cut a fruit or greeted a friend or bowed or sat
down in a chair or arose or smelled a flower, or the motions of her
lids and lips and neck and shoulders and hips and legs. And he found
all these things in her provocative and affected, and yet they had
bitten into his brain as acid bites into metal.
One evening he entered Christian’s room, and his face was the colour of
dust.
“Who really is Eva Sorel?” he asked, with a bitter rancour. “Where does
she come from? To whom does she belong? What are we doing here with
her? Tell me something about her. Enlighten me.” He threw himself into
a chair, and stared at Christian.
When Christian, unprepared for this tempest of questions, made no
answer, he went on: “You’ve put me into a new skin, but the old Adam
writhes in it still. Is this a masquerade? If so, tell me at least what
the masks represent. I seem to be disguised too, but badly. I expect
you to improve my disguise.”
“You aren’t disguised any worse than the others,” Christian said, with
a soothing smile.
Voss rested his head on his two hands. “So she’s a dancer, a dancer,”
he murmured thoughtfully. “To my way of feeling there has always been
something lewd about that word and what it means. How can it help
arousing images that bring the blush to one’s cheek?” Suddenly he
looked up, and asked with a piercing glance: “Is she your mistress?”
The blood left Christian’s face. “I think I understand what disturbs
you so,” he said. “But now that you’ve gone with me, you must bear with
me. I don’t know how long we shall stay with this crowd, and I can’t
myself tell exactly why we are here. But you must not ask me about Eva
Sorel. We must not discuss her either for praise or blame.”
Voss was silenced.