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Title: The World's Illusion, Volume 1 (of 2) Eva Author: Jakob Wassermann Translator: Ludwig Lewisohn Release Date: May 27, 2017 [EBook #54794] Language: English Character set encoding: UTF-8 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WORLD'S ILLUSION, VOLUME 1 *** Produced by Henry Flower and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries) THE EUROPEAN LIBRARY EDITED BY J. E. SPINGARN [i] THE WORLD’S ILLUSION BY JACOB WASSERMANN AUTHORIZED TRANSLATION BY LUDWIG LEWISOHN THE FIRST VOLUME: EVA NEW YORK HARCOURT, BRACE AND HOWE 1920 [iii] COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY HARCOURT, BRACE AND HOWE, INC. THE QUINN & BODEN COMPANY RAHWAY, N. J. [iv] CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME PAGE Crammon, the Stainless Knight 1 Christian’s Rest 15 The Globe on the Fingertips of an Elf 46 An Owl on Every Post 87 Or Ever the Silver Cord Be Loosed 143 The Naked Feet 209 Karen Engelschall 296 [v] THE WORLD’S ILLUSION CRAMMON, THE STAINLESS KNIGHT I From the days of his earliest manhood, Crammon, a pilgrim upon the paths of pleasantness and delight, had been a constant wayfarer from capital to capital and from country-seat to country-seat. He came of an Austrian family whose landed estates lay in Moravia, and his full name was Bernard Gervasius Crammon von Weissenfels. In Vienna he owned a small but beautifully furnished house. Two old, unmarried ladies were its guardians—the Misses Aglaia and Constantine. They were his distant kinswomen, but he was devoted to them as to sisters of his blood, and they returned his affection with an equal tenderness. On an afternoon in May the two sat by an open window and gazed longingly down into the street. He had announced the date of his arrival by letter, but four days had passed and they were still waiting in vain. Whenever a carriage turned the corner, both ladies started and looked in the same direction. When twilight came they closed the window and sighed. Constantine took Aglaia’s arm, and together they went through the charming rooms, made gleamingly ready for their master. All the beautiful things in the house reminded them of him, just as every one of them was endeared to him because it united him to some experience or memory. Here was the chiselled fifteenth century goblet which the Marquis d’Autichamps had given him, yonder the agate bowl bequeathed him by the Countess Ortenburg. There were the coloured etchings, part of the legacy of a Duchess of Gainsborough, the precious desk-set which he had received from the old Baron Regamey, the Tanagra figurines which Felix Imhof had brought him from Greece. There, above all, was his own portrait, which the English artist Lavery had painted on an order from Sir Charles MacNamara. They knew these things and esteemed them at their true worth. They stopped before his picture, as they so often delighted to do. The well rounded face wore a stern, an almost sombre expression. But that expression seemed deceptive, for a tell-tale gleam of worldly delight, of irony and roguishness, played about the clean-shaven lips. When night fell the two ladies received a telegram informing them that Crammon had been forced to put off his return home for a month. They lit no lights after that, and went sadly to bed. II Once it had happened that Crammon was dining with a few friends at Baden-Baden. He had just returned from Scotland where he had visited the famous trout streams of MacPherson, and had left the train at the end of a long journey. He felt very tired, and after the meal lay down on a sofa and fell asleep. His friends chatted for a while, until his deep breathing drew their attention to him, and they decided to perpetrate a jest at his expense. One of them shook him by the shoulder, and when he opened his eyes asked: “Listen, Bernard, can’t you tell us what is the matter with Lord Darlington? Where is he? Why is he never heard of any more?” Crammon without a moment’s hesitation answered in a clear voice and with an almost solemn seriousness: “Darlington is on his yacht in the Bay of Liguria between Leghorn and Nice. What time is it? Three o’clock? Then he is just about to take the sedative which his Italian physician, Magliano, prepares and gives him.” He turned on his other side and slept on. One of the men, who knew Crammon only slightly, said: “That’s a pure invention!” The others assured the doubter that Crammon’s word was above suspicion, and they spoke softly so as not to disturb his sleep. III On another occasion Crammon was a guest on an estate in Hungary, and planned with a group of young men, who were visiting a neighbouring country-house, to attend a festivity in the next town. The dawn was breaking when the friends separated. Crammon, with senses slightly dulled, went on alone and longed for the bed from which half an hour’s walk still separated him. By chance he came upon a cattle market crowded with peasants, who had brought in their cows and calves from the villages around. The crowd brought him to a halt, and he stopped to listen while a bull was being offered for sale. The auctioneer cried: “I am offered fifty crowns!” There was no answer; the peasants were slowly turning the matter over in their minds. Fifty crowns for a bull? To Crammon’s mind, from which the wine fumes had not quite faded, it seemed remarkable, and without hesitation he offered five crowns more. The peasants drew aside respectfully. One of them offered fifty-six; [1] [2] [3] Crammon bid fifty-eight. The auctioneer raised his three-fold cry; the hammer fell. Crammon owned the bull. A magnificent beast, he said to himself, and felt quite satisfied with his bargain. But when the time came for him to pay, he discovered that the bidding had been so much per hundred weight, and since the bull weighed twelve hundred and fifty pounds, he was required to pay seven hundred and twenty-five crowns. He refused angrily. A loud squabble followed; but his arguments were useless. The bull was his property. But he had no such sum of money on his person, and had to hire a man to accompany him with the animal to his friend’s house. He strode on wretchedly vexed. The man followed, dragging the unwilling bull by a rope. His host helped Crammon out of his embarrassment by purchasing the bull, but the incident furnished endless amusement to the whole countryside. IV Crammon loved the theatre and everything connected with it. When the great Marian Wolter died, he locked himself in his house for a week, and mourned as if for a personal bereavement. During a stay in Berlin he heard of the early fame of Edgar Lorm. He saw him as Hamlet, and when he left the theatre he embraced an utter stranger and cried out: “I am happy!” A little crowd gathered. He had meant to stay in Berlin three days but remained three months. His connections made it easy for him to meet Lorm. He overwhelmed the actor with gifts—costly bric-à-brac, rare books, exquisite delicacies. Every morning, when Edgar Lorm arose, Crammon was there, and with a deep absorption watched the actor at his morning tasks and his gymnastic exercises. He admired his slender stature, his noble gestures, his eloquent mimicry, and the perfection of his voice. He took care of Lorm’s correspondence for him, interviewed agents, got rid of unwelcome admirers of either sex. He called the dramatic reviewers to account, and in the theatre looked his rage whenever he thought the applause too tepid. “The beasts should roar,” he said. During the scene in Richard II in which the king addresses the lords from the castle wall, his enthusiasm was so great that his friend, the Princess Uchnina, who shared his box, covered her face with her fan to escape the glances of the public. To him Lorm was in very truth the royal Richard, the melancholy Hamlet, Romeo the lover, and Fiesko the rebel. His faith in the actor’s art was boundless; his imagination was wholly convinced. He attributed to him the wit of Beaumarchais, the eloquence of Antony, the sarcasm of Mephistopheles, the dæmonic energy of Franz Moor. When it was necessary for him to part, he did not conceal his grief, and from afar wrote him at intervals a letter of adoration. The actor accepted this worship as a tribute that differed fundamentally from the average praise and love with which he was beginning to be satiated. V Lola Hesekiel, the celebrated beauty, owed her good fortune wholly to Crammon. Crammon had educated her and given her her place in the world and its appreciation. When she was but an undistinguished young girl Crammon took a trip with her to Sylt. There they met Crammon’s friend, Franz Lothar von Westernach. Lola fell in love with the handsome young aristocrat, and one evening, after a tender hour, she confessed her love for the other to Crammon. Then Crammon arose from his couch, dressed himself, went to Franz Lothar’s room and brought the shy lad in. “My children,” he said in the kindliest way, “I give you to each other. Be happy and enjoy your youth.” With these words he left the two alone. And for long neither of them quite knew how to take so unwonted a situation. VI A curious occurrence was that connected with the Countess Ortenburg and the agate bowl. The countess was an old lady of seventy, who lived in retirement at her château near Bregenz. Crammon, who had a great liking for ancient ladies of dignity and worldly wisdom, visited her almost annually to cheer her and to chat with her about the past. The countess was grateful to him for his devotion, and determined to reward it. One day she showed him an agate bowl mounted on gold, an heirloom of her house, and told him that this bowl would be his after her death, as she had provided in her will. Crammon flushed with pleasure, and tenderly kissed her hand. At every visit he took occasion to see the precious bowl, revelled in the sight of it, and enjoyed the foretaste of complete possession. The countess died, and Crammon was soon notified concerning her legacy. The bowl was sent him carefully packed in [4] [5] [6] a box. When it was freed of its wrappings he saw with amazement and disgust that he had been cheated. What he held was an imitation—skilfully and exactly made. But the material was base; only the setting had been copied in real gold. Bitterly he considered what to do. Whom dared he accuse? How could he prove the very existence of the genuine bowl? The heirs of the countess were three nephews of her name. The eldest, Count Leopold, was in ill repute as a miser who grudged himself and others their very bread. If he had played the trick, the bowl had been sold long ago. It was easy to find a pretext for visiting Count Leopold at Salzburg. He sought distinction in piety and stood in favour at the bishop’s court. Crammon thought that there was a gleam of embarrassment in the man’s eyes. He himself peered about like a lynx. In vain. He happened, however, to know all the prominent dealers in antiquities on the Continent, and so he set out on a quest. For two months and a half he travelled from city to city, from one dealer to another, and asked questions, investigated, and kept a sharp look-out. He carried the imitation bowl with him and showed it to all. The dealers were quite familiar with the sight of a connoisseur with his heart set on some object of art; they answered his questions willingly and sent him hither and thither. He was on the point of despairing, when in Aix he was told of a dealer in Brussels who was said to have acquired the bowl. It was true. He found the object of his search in Brussels. Crammon inquired after the name of the seller and discovered it to be that of one who had business relations with Count Leopold. The Belgian dealer demanded twenty thousand francs for the bowl. Crammon at once deposited one thousand, with the assurance that he would pay the rest within a week and then take the bowl. He made no attempt at bargaining, much to the astonishment of the dealer. But in his rage he thought: I have snared the thief. Why should his rascality come cheaply? Two days later he entered the count’s room. He was accompanied by a hotel porter, who placed a box containing the imitation bowl on a table and disappeared. The count was breakfasting alone. He arose and frowned. Crammon silently opened the little box, lifted the bowl out, polished it carefully with a handkerchief, kept it in his hand, and assumed a care-worn look. “What is it?” asked the count, turning pale. Crammon told him how, by the merest chance, he had discovered in a Brussels shop this bowl which, as he knew, had been for centuries in the possession of the Ortenburgs. It had, therefore, scarcely required the mournful memory of his dear and honoured old friend to persuade him to restore the precious object to the family treasury whence it came. He esteemed it a great good fortune that it was he who had discovered this impious trade in precious things. Had it been any one else the danger of loose tongues causing an actual scandal was obvious enough. He had, he continued, paid twenty thousand francs for the bowl, which he had brought in order to restore it to the house of Ortenburg. The receipt was at the count’s disposal. All he requested of the count was a cheque for the amount involved. He breathed no word concerning a will or a legacy, and betrayed no suspicion of how he had been tricked. The count understood. He looked at the imitation bowl on the table and recognized it for what it was. But he lacked courage to object. He swallowed his rage, sat down and made out the cheque. His chin quivered with fury. Crammon was radiant. He left the imitation bowl where it stood, and at once set out for Brussels to fetch the other. VII There were three things that Crammon hated from the bottom of his heart: newspapers, universal education, and taxes. It was especially impossible for him to realize that he, like others, was subject to taxation. He had been summoned on a certain occasion to give an accounting of his income. He declared that during the greater part of the year he lived as a guest in the châteaux and on the estates of his friends. The examining official replied that since he was known to live a rather luxurious life, it was clear that he must have a fixed income from some source. “Undoubtedly,” Crammon lied with the utmost cynicism. “This income consists wholly of meagre winnings at the various international gambling resorts. Earnings of that sort are not subject to taxation.” The official was astonished and shook his head. He left the room in order to consult his superiors in regard to the case. Crammon was left alone. Trembling with rage he gazed about him, took a stack of legal documents from a shelf, and shoved them far behind a bookcase against the wall. There, so far as one could tell, they would moulder in the course of the years, and in their illegal hiding place save the owners of the names they recorded from taxation. For years he would chuckle whenever he thought of this deviltry. VIII The Princess Uchnina had made Crammon’s acquaintance in one of the castles of the Esterhazys in Hungary. Even at that time the free manner of her life had set tongues wagging; later on her family disowned her. [7] [8] [9] He met her again in a hotel at Cairo. Since she was wealthy there was no danger of his being exploited. He had little liking for the professional vampire, nor had he ever lost the mastery over his senses. There was no passion that could prevent him from going to bed at ten and sleeping soundly through a long night. The princess was fond of laughing and Crammon helped her to laugh, since it pleased him to see her amused. He did not care to be loved beyond measure; he valued considerate treatment and a comradely freedom of contact. He had no desire for love with its usual spices of romance and disquietude, jealousy and enslavement. He wanted the delight of love in as tangible and sensible a form as possible; he cared less for the flame than for the dainty on the spit. On the ship that took him and the princess to Brindisi there appeared a Danish lady with hair the hue of wheat and eyes like cornflowers. She was lonely, and he sought her out and succeeded in charming her. The three travelled together to Naples, where the Danish lady and Crammon seemed to have become friendlier than ever; but the princess only laughed. They arrived in Florence. In front of the Baptistery Crammon met a melancholy young woman, whom he recognized as an acquaintance made at Ostende. She was the daughter of a manufacturer of Mainz. She had married recently, but her husband had lost her dowry at Monte Carlo and had fled to America. Crammon introduced her to the other ladies, but, for the sake of the Dane, who was suspicious and exacting, passed her off as his cousin. It was not long, however, before a quarrel broke out between the two, and Crammon was very busy preaching the spirit of reconciliation and peace. The princess laughed. Crammon said: “I should like to see how many women one can gather together like this without their thirsting for one another’s blood.” He made a wager with the princess for a hundred marks that he could increase the number to five, herself of course excepted. In the station at Milan a charming creature ran into him, and gave signs of unalloyed delight. She was an actress who had been intimate with a friend of his years before. She had just been engaged by a theatre in Petrograd and was now on her way there. Crammon found her so amusing that he neglected the others for her sake; and although he was not lacking in subtlety, the signs of a coming revolution in his palace increased. The revolution broke out in Munich. There were hard words and tears; trunks were packed; and the ladies scattered to all the points of the compass,—North to Denmark, West to Mainz, East to Petrograd. Crammon was mournful; he had lost his bet. The little princess laughed. She remained with him until another lure grew stronger. Then they celebrated a cheerful farewell. IX When Crammon was but a youth of twenty-three he had once been a member of a large hunting party at Count Sinsheim’s. Among the guests there was a gentleman named von Febronius who attracted his attention, first by his silence, and next by frequently seeking his society while carefully avoiding the others. One day Febronius, with unusual urgency, begged Crammon to visit him. Febronius possessed an extensive entailed estate on the boundary between Silesia and Poland. He was the last of his race and name, and, as every one knew, deeply unhappy on this account. Nine years earlier he had married the daughter of a middle-class family of Breslau, and in spite of the difference in age the two were genuinely devoted to each other. The wife was thirty, the husband near fifty. The marriage had proved childless, and there seemed now no further hope. Crammon promised to come, and some weeks later, on an evening in May, he arrived at the estate. Febronius was delighted to see him, but the lady, who was pretty and cultivated, was noticeably chill in her demeanour. Whenever she was forced to look at Crammon a perceptible change of colour overspread her face. Next morning Febronius showed him the whole estate—the park, the fields and forests, the stables and dairies. It was a little kingdom, and Crammon expressed his admiration; but his host sighed. He said that his blessings had all been embittered, every beast of the field seemed to regard him with reproachful eyes, and the land and its fertility meant nothing to him who had brought death to his race, and whom the fertility of nature but put in mind of the sterile curse which had come upon his blood. Then he became silent, and silently accompanied Crammon, whose head whirled with very bold and equivocal thoughts. After dinner they were sitting on the terrace with Frau von Febronius. Suddenly the lord of the manor was called away and returned shortly with a telegram in his hand. He said that an urgent matter of business required him to set out on a journey at once. Crammon arose with a gesture, to show his consciousness of the propriety of his leaving too. But his host, almost frightened, begged him to stay and keep his wife company. It was, he said, only a matter of two days, and she would be grateful. He stammered these words and grew pale. His wife kept her face bent closely over her embroidery frame, and Crammon saw her fingers tremble. He knew enough. He shook hands with Febronius, and knew that they would not and dared not meet again in life. [10] [11] [12] He found the lady, when they were alone together, shier than he had anticipated. Her gestures expressed reluctance, her glances fear. When his speech grew bolder, shame and indignation flamed in her eyes. She fled from him, sought him again, and when in the evening they strolled through the park she implored him to leave next day, and went to the stables to order the carriage for the morning. When he consented, her behaviour altered, her torment and her harshness seemed to melt. After midnight she suddenly appeared in his room, struggling with herself and on the defensive, defiant and deeply humiliated, bitter in her yielding, and in her very tenderness estranged. Early next morning the carriage was ready and drove him to the station. That marvellous night faded from his memory as a thousand others, less marvellous, had done. The spectral experience blended with a host of others that were without its aroma of spiritual pain. X Sixteen years later chance brought him into the same part of the country. He inquired after Febronius, and learned that that gentleman had been dead for ten years. He was told, furthermore, that during his last years the character of Febronius had changed radically. He had become a spendthrift; frightful mismanagement had ruined his estate and shaken his fortune; swindlers and false friends had ruled him exclusively, so that his widow, who was still living on the estate with her only daughter, could scarcely maintain herself there. She was beset by usurious creditors and a growing burden of debt; she did not know an easy hour, and complete ruin was but a matter of time. Crammon drove over to the estate, and had himself announced under an assumed name. When Frau von Febronius entered he saw that she was still charming. Her hair was still brown, her features curiously young. But there was something frightened and suspicious about her. She asked where she had had the pleasure of his acquaintance. Crammon simply regarded her for a while, and she too looked at him attentively. Suddenly she uttered a cry and hid her face in her hands. When she had mastered her emotion, she gave him her hand. Then she left the room, and returned in a few minutes leading a young girl of great sweetness. “Here she is.” The girl smiled. Her lips curved as though she were about to pout, and her teeth showed the glittering moisture of shells to which the water of the sea still clings. She spoke of the beautiful day and of her having lain in the sun. The broken alto voice surprised one in so young a creature. In her wide, brown eyes there was a radiance of unbounded desires. Crammon was flattered, and thought: If God had made me a woman, perhaps I should have been such an one. He asked after her name. It was Letitia. Frau von Febronius clung to the girl with every glance. Letitia brought in a basket full of golden pears. She looked at the fruit with greed and with an ironic consciousness of her greed. She cut a pear in half and found a worm in it. That disgusted her and she complained bitterly. Crammon asked her what she cared for most, and she answered: “Jewels.” Her mother reproached her with being careless of what she had. “Only the other day,” said Frau von Febronius, “she lost a costly ring.” “Just give me something to love,” Letitia replied and stroked a white kitten that purred and jumped on her lap, “and I’ll hold on to it fast.” When he said farewell Crammon promised to write, and Letitia promised to send him her picture. A few weeks later Frau von Febronius informed him that she had taken Letitia to Weimar, and placed her in the care of her sister, the Countess Brainitz. XI On Crammon’s fortieth birthday he received from seven of his friends, whose names were signed to it, a document written in the elaborate script and manner of an official diploma. And the content of the document was this: “O Crammon, friend of friends, admirer of women and contemner of their sex, enemy of marriage, glass of fashion, defender of descent, shield of high rank, guest of all noble spirits, finder of the genuine, tester of the exquisite, friend of the people and hater of mankind, long sleeper and rebel, Bernard Gervasius, hail to thee!” Gleaming with pride and satisfaction Crammon hung up the beautifully framed parchment on the wall beside his bed. Then with the two ladies of his household he took a turn in the park. Miss Aglaia walked at his right, Miss Constantine at his left. Both were festively arrayed, though in a somewhat antique fashion, and their faces were the happiest to be seen. [13] [14] CHRISTIAN’S REST I Crammon found the forties to be a critical period in a man’s life. It is then that in his mind he sits in judgment upon himself; he seeks the sum of his existence, and finds blunder after blunder in the reckoning. But these moral difficulties did not very much influence either his attitude or the character of his activities. He found his appetite for life growing, but he found loneliness a heavier burden than before. When he was alone he was overcome by a feeling which he called the melancholy of the half-way house. In Paris he was overtaken by this distemper of the soul. Felix Imhof and Franz Lothar von Westernach had agreed to meet him, and both had left him in the lurch. Imhof had been kept in Frankfort by his business on the exchange and his real estate interests, and had telegraphed a later date of arrival. Franz Lothar had remained in Switzerland with his brother and Count Prosper Madruzzi. In his vexation Crammon spent his days largely in bed. He either read foolish novels or murmured his annoyances over to himself. Out of sheer boredom he ordered fourteen pairs of boots of those three or four masters of the craft who work only for the elect and accept a new customer only when recommended by a distinguished client. He was to have spent the month of September with the Wahnschaffe family on their estate in the Odenwald. He had made the acquaintance of young Wolfgang Wahnschaffe the summer before at a tennis tournament in Hamburg, and had accepted his invitation. In his exasperation over his truant friends he now wrote and excused himself. One evening in Montmartre he met the painter Weikhardt, whom he had known in Munich. They walked together for a while, and Weikhardt encouraged Crammon to visit a neighbouring music hall. A very young dancer had been appearing there for the past week, the painter told him, and many French colleagues had advised seeing her. Crammon agreed. Weikhardt led him through a maze of suspicious looking alleys to a no less suspicious looking house. This was the Théâtre Sapajou. A boy in fantastic costume opened the door that led to a moderately large, half-darkened hall with scarlet walls and a wooden gallery. About fifty people, mostly painters and writers with their wives, sat facing a tiny stage. The performance had begun. Two fiddles and a clarionet furnished the music. And Crammon saw Eva Sorel dance. II His anger against his friends was extinguished. He was glad that they were not here. He was afraid of meeting any of his many Parisian acquaintances and passed through the streets with lowered eyes. The thought was repulsive to him that he would be forced to speak to them of Eva Sorel, and then to see their indifferent or curious faces, beneath which there could be no feeling akin to his own. He avoided the painter Weikhardt, for the latter would rob him of the illusion that he, Crammon, had discovered Eva Sorel, and that for the present she lived only in his consciousness as the miracle that he felt her to be. He went about like an unrecognized rich man, or else as troubled as a miser who knows that thieves lie in wait for his treasure. All who carried their chatter of delight from the Théâtre Sapajou out into the world he regarded as thieves. They threatened to attract to the little playhouse the crowd of the stupid and the banal who drag great things into the dust by making them fashionable. He nursed the dream of kidnapping the dancer and of fleeing with her to a deserted island of the sea. He would have been satisfied to adore her there and would have asked nothing of her. For Lorm he had demanded applause. But he hated the favour which the dancer gained. Not because she was a woman. It was not the jealousy of the male. He did not think of her under the aspect of sex. Her being was to him the fulfilment of dark presentiments and visions; she represented the spirit of lightness as opposed to the heaviness of life which weighed him and others down; she was flight that mocked the creeping of the earth-bound, the mystery that is beyond knowledge, form that is the denial of chaos. He said: “This boasted twentieth century, young as it is, wearies my nerves. Humanity drags itself across the earth like an ugly clumsy worm. She desires freedom from this condition, and in her yearning to escape the chrysalis she finds the dance. It is a barbaric spirit of comedy at its highest point.” He knew well that the life he led was a challenge and a disturbance to his fellow men who earned their bread by the sweat of their toil. He was an enthusiastic admirer of those ages in which the ruling classes had really ruled, when a prince of the Church had had a capon stuffer amid the officials of his court, and an insignificant count of the Holy Roman Empire had paid an army that consisted of one general, six colonels, four drummers, and two privates. And he was [15] [16] [17] grateful to the dancer because she lifted him out of his own age even more thoroughly than the actor had done. He made an idol of her, for the years were coming in which he needed one—he who, satiated, still knew hunger with senses avid for the flight of birds. III Eva Sorel had a companion and guardian, Susan Rappard, a thorough scarecrow, clad in black, and absent-minded. She had emerged with Eva out of the unknown past, and she was still rubbing its darkness out of her eyes when Eva, at eighteen, saw the paths of light open to her. But she played the piano admirably, and thus accompanied Eva’s practice. Crammon had paid her some attentions, and the tone in which he spoke of her mistress gained her sympathy. She persuaded Eva to receive him. “Take her flowers,” she whispered. “She’s fond of them.” Eva and Susan Rappard lived in two rooms in a small hotel. Crammon brought such masses of roses that the close corridors held the fragrance for many hours. As he entered he saw Eva in an armchair in front of a mirror. Susan was combing her hair, which was of the colour of honey. On the carpet was kneeling a lad of seventeen who was very pale and whose face bore traces of tears. He had declared his love to Eva. Even when the stranger entered he had no impulse to get up; his luckless passion made him blind. Crammon remained standing by the door. “Susan, you’re hurting me!” Eva cried. Susan was startled and dropped the comb. Eva held out her hand to Crammon. He approached and bent over to kiss it. “Poor chap,” she said, smiling, and indicating the lad, “he torments himself cruelly. It’s so foolish.” The boy pressed his forehead against the back of her chair. “I’ll kill myself,” he whimpered. Eva clapped her hands and brought her face with its arch mockery of sadness near to the boy’s. “What a gesture!” Crammon thought. “How perfect in its light completeness, how delicate, how new! And how she raised her lids and showed the strong light of her starry eyes, and dropped her chin a little in that inclination of the head, and wore a smile that was unexpected in its blending of desire and sweetness and cunning and childlikeness!” “Where is my golden snood?” Eva asked and arose. Susan said that she had left it on the table. She looked there in vain. She fluttered hither and thither like a huge black butterfly: she opened and closed drawers, shook her head, thoughtfully pressed her hand against her forehead, and finally found the snood under the piano lid next to a roll of bank notes. “It’s always that way with us,” Eva sighed. “We always find things. But we have to hunt a long time.” She fastened the snood about her hair. “I can’t place your French accent,” Crammon remarked. His own pronunciation was Parisian. “I don’t know,” she answered. “Perhaps it’s Spanish. I was in Spain a long time. Perhaps it’s German. I was born in Germany and lived there till I was twelve.” Her eyes grew a little sombre. IV The lovelorn boy had left. Eva seemed to have forgotten him, and there was no shadow upon the brunette pallor of her face. She sat down again, and after a brief exchange of questions she told him of an experience that she had had. The reason for her telling the story seemed to inhere in thoughts which she did not express. Her glance rested calmly in the illimitable. Her eyes knew no walls in their vision; no one could assert that she looked at him. She merely gazed. Susan Rappard sat by the tile-oven, resting her chin upon her arm, while her fingers, gliding past the furrowed cheeks, clung amid her greyish hair. At Arles in Provence a young monk named Brother Leotade had often visited Eva. He was not over twenty-five, vigorous, a typical Frenchman of the South, though rather taciturn. He loved the land and knew the old castles. Once he spoke to her of a tower that stood on a cliff, a mile from the city; he described the view from the top of the tower in words that made Eva long to enjoy it. He offered to be her guide, and they agreed on the hour and the day. The tower had an iron gate which was kept locked, and the key was in the keeping of a certain vintner. It was late afternoon when they set out, but on the unshaded road it was still hot. They meant to be back before night fall, and so they walked quickly; but when they reached the tower the sun had already disappeared behind the hills. Brother Leotade opened the iron gate and they saw a narrow spiral staircase of stone. They climbed a few stairs. Then [18] [19] [20] the monk turned suddenly, locked the door from within, and slipped the key into the pocket of his cowl. Eva asked his reason. He replied that it was safer so. It was dim in the vaulted tower, and Eva saw a menacing gleam in the monk’s eyes. She let him precede her, but on a landing he turned and grasped her. She was silent, although she felt the pressure of his fingers. Still silent, she glided from his grasp, and ran up as swiftly as she could. She heard no steps behind her in the darkness, and the stairs seemed endless. Still she climbed until her breath gave out, and she panted for the light. Suddenly the greenish bell of the sky gleamed into the shaft; and as she mounted, the circle of her vision widened to the scarlet of the West, and when she stood on the last step and on the platform, having emerged from the mustiness of the old walls into the balsamic coolness and the multiform and tinted beauty of earth and air, the danger seemed wholly past. She waited and watched the dark hole from which she had come. The monk did not appear. His treacherous concealment strained her nerves to the uttermost. The brief twilight faded; evening turned into night; there was no sound, no tread. Not until late did it occur to her that she could call for help. She cried out into the land, but she saw that it was a desolate region in which no one dwelled. And when her feeble cry had died away, the shape of Brother Leotade appeared at the head of the stairs. The expression on his face filled her now with an even greater horror. He murmured something and stretched out his arms after her. She bounded backward, groping behind her with her hands. He followed her, and she leaped upon the parapet, crouched near the pinnacle, hard by the outer rim of the wall, her head and shoulders over the abyss. The wind caught the veil that had been wound about her head and it streamed forth like a flag. The monk stood still, bound to the spot by her eyes. His own were fixed relentlessly upon her, but he dared not move, for he saw the determination in her face: if he moved toward her, she would leap to her death. And yet a rage of desire kept flaring in his eyes. The hours passed. The monk stood there as though cast of bronze, while she crouched on the parapet, motionless but for her fluttering veil, and held him with her eye as one holds a wolf. Stars gathered in the sky; from time to time she glanced for a second at the firmament. Never had she been so near to the eternal flame. She seemed to hear the melody of a million worlds singing in their orbits; her unmoving limbs seemed to vibrate; the hands with which she clung to the harsh wall seemed to upbear the adamantine roof of the cosmos, while below her was the created thing, blind and wracked by passion and sworn to a God whom it belied. Gradually the rim of heaven grew bright and the birds began to flutter upward. Then Brother Leotade threw himself upon his face and began to pray aloud. And as the East grew brighter he lifted up more resonantly the voice of his prayer. He crept toward the stairs. Then he arose and disappeared. She saw him issue from the gate below and disappear in the dawn among the vineyards. Eva lay long in the grass below, worn and dull, before she could walk back to the city. “It may be,” she said at the end of her story, “that some one looked on from Sirius, some one who will come soon and perhaps be my friend.” She smiled. “From Sirius?” The voice of Susan was heard. “Where will he get pearls and diadems? What crowns will he offer you, and what provinces? Let us have no dealings with beggars, even though they come from the sky.” “Keep quiet, you Sancho Panza!” Eva said. “All that I ask is that he can laugh, laugh marvellously—laugh like that young muleteer at Cordova! Do you remember him? I want him to laugh so that I can forget my ambitions.” Hers is a virtue that hardly begs for pennies, thought Crammon, and determined to be on his guard and seek security while there was time. For in his breast he felt a new, unknown, and melancholy burning, and he knew well that he could not laugh like that young Cordovan muleteer and make an ambitious woman forget her striving. V Felix Imhof arrived, and with him Wolfgang Wahnschaffe, a very tall young man of twenty-two. There was an elegance about the latter that suggested unlimited means. His father was one of the German steel kings. Crammon’s refusal of his invitation had annoyed Wahnschaffe, and he was anxious to secure the older man’s friendship. It was characteristic of the Wahnschaffes to desire most strongly whatever seemed to withhold itself from their grasp. They went to the Théâtre Sapajou, and Felix Imhof agreed that the dancer was incomparable. Plans at once flew from his mind like sparks from beaten iron in a smithy. He talked of founding an Academy of the Dance, of hiring an impresario for a tour through Europe, of inventing a pantomime. All this was to be done, so to speak, over night. They sat together and drank a good deal—first wine, then champagne, then ale, then whiskey, then coffee, then wine once more. The excess had no effect on Imhof at all; in his soberest moments he was like others in the ecstasy of drunkenness. He celebrated the praises of Gauguin, of Schiller, and of Balzac, and developed the plan for a great experiment in human eugenics. Faultless men and women were to be chosen and united and to beget an Arcadian race. In the midst of it all he quoted passages of Keats and Rabelais, mixed drinks of ten kinds, and related a dozen succulent anecdotes from his wide experience with women. His mouth with its sensual lips poured forth superlatives, his [21] [22] [23] protruding negroid eyes sparkled with whim and wit, and his spare, sinewy body seemed to suffer if it was forced to but a minute’s immobility. The other two nearly fell asleep through sheer weariness. He grew steadily more awake and noisy, waved his hands, beat on the table, inhaled the smoky air luxuriously, and laughed with his gigantic bass voice. Five successive nights were spent in this way. That was enough for Crammon and he determined to leave. Wolfgang Wahnschaffe had invited him to a hunting party at Waldleiningen. It was at eleven in the forenoon when Felix Imhof burst in on Crammon. In the middle of the room stood a huge open trunk. Linen, clothes, books, shoes, cravattes were scattered about like things hastily saved in a fire. Outside of the window swayed in flaming yellow the tree-tops of the Park Monceau. Crammon sat in an armchair. He was naked but for a pair of long hose. He had breakfasted thus, and his expression was sombre. His square Gothic head and his broad, muscular torso seemed made of bronze. The day before Felix Imhof had made the acquaintance of Cardillac, ruler of the Paris Bourse, and was on his way to him now. He was going to embark on some enterprise of Cardillac to the extent of two millions, and asked Crammon in passing whether the latter did not wish to risk something too. A trifle, say fifty thousand francs, would suffice. Cardillac was a magician who trebled one’s money in three days. Then you had had the pleasure of the game and the suspense. “This Cardillac,” he said, “is a wonder. He began life as an errand boy in an hotel. Now he is chief shareholder in thirty- seven corporations, founder of the Franco-Hispanic Bank, owner of the zinc mines of Le Nère, ruler of a horde of newspapers, and master of a fortune running into the hundreds of millions.” Crammon arose, and from the heaps on the floor drew forth a violet dressing gown which he put over his shivering body. He looked in it like a cardinal. “Do you happen to know,” he asked, thoughtfully and sleepily, “or did you by chance ever observe how the young muleteers in Cordova laugh?” Imhof’s helpless astonishment made him look stupid. He was silent. Crammon took a large peach from a plate and began to eat it. You could see drops of the amber juice. “There’s no way out,” he said, and sighed sadly, “I shall have to go to Cordova myself.” VI On their journey Wahnschaffe told Crammon about his family: his sister Judith, his older brother Christian, his mother, who had the most beautiful pearls in Europe. “When she wears them,” he said, “she looks like an Indian goddess.” His father he described as an amiable man with unseen backgrounds of the soul. Crammon was anxious to get as much light as possible on the life and history of one of those great and rich bourgeois families which had won in the race against the old aristocracy. Here, it seemed to him, was a new world, an undiscovered country which was still in the blossoming stage and which was to be feared. His cleverly put questions got him no farther. What he did learn was a story of silent, bitter rivalry between this brother and Christian, who seemed to Wolfgang to be preferred to himself to an incomprehensible degree. He heard a story of doubt and complaint and scorn, and of words that the mother of the two had uttered to a stranger: “You don’t know my son Christian? He is the most precious thing God ever made.” It was cheap enough, Wolfgang asserted, to praise a horse in the stable, one that had never been sent to the Derby because it was thought to be too noble and precious. Crammon was amused by the sporting simile. Why was that cheap, he asked, and what was its exact meaning? Wolfgang said that it applied to Christian, who had as yet proved himself in no way, nor accomplished anything despite his twenty-three years. He had passed his final examinations at college with difficulty; he was no luminary in any respect. No one could deny that he had an admirable figure, an elegant air, a complexion like milk and blood. He had also, it was not to be denied, a charm so exquisite that no man or woman could withstand him. But he was cold as a hound’s nose and smooth as an eel, and as immeasurably spoiled and arrogant as though the whole world had been made for his sole benefit. “You will succumb to him as every one does,” Wolfgang said finally, and there was something almost like hatred in his voice. They arrived in Waldleiningen on a rainy evening of October. The house was full of guests. VII Wolfgang’s prediction came true sooner than he himself would perhaps have thought. As early as the third day Crammon and Christian Wahnschaffe were inseparable and utterly united. They conversed with an air of intimacy as though they had known each other for years. The difference of almost two decades in their ages seemed simply non- [24] [25] [26] existent. With a laugh Crammon reminded Wolfgang of his prophecy, and added, “I hope that nothing worse will ever be predicted to me, and that delightful things will always become realities so promptly.” And he knocked wood, for he was as superstitious as an old wife. Wolfgang’s expression seemed to say: I was quite prepared for it. What else is one to expect? Crammon had expected to find Christian spoiled and effeminate. Instead he saw a thoroughly healthy blond young athlete, a head and more taller than himself, conscious of his vigour and beauty, without a trace of vanity, and radiant in every mood. It was true, as he had heard, that all were at his beck and call, from his mother to the youngest of the grooms, and that he accepted everything as he did fair weather—simply, lightly, and graciously, but without binding himself to any reciprocal obligation. Crammon loved young men who were as elastic as panthers and whose serenity transformed the moods of others as a precious aroma does the air of a sick room. Such youths seemed to him to be gifted with an especial grace. One should, he held, clear their path of anything that might hinder their beneficent mission. He did not strive to impress them but rather to learn of them. It was in England and among the English that he had found this respect for youth and ripening manhood, which had long become a principle with him and a rule of life. The climate of a perfectly nurtured understanding he thought the fittest atmosphere for such a being, and made his plans in secret. He thought of the grand tour in the sense of the eighteenth century, with himself in the rôle of mentor and guide. In the meantime he and Christian talked about hunting, trout-fishing, the various ways of preparing venison, the advantages of each season over the others, the numerous charms of the female sex, the amusing characteristics of common acquaintances. And of all these light things he spoke in a thoughtful manner and with exhausting thoroughness. He could not see Christian without reflecting: What eyes and teeth and head and limbs! Nature has here used her choicest substance, meant for permanence as well as delight, and a master has fitted the parts into harmony. If one were a mean-spirited fellow one could burst with envy. One incident charmed him so much that he felt impelled to communicate his delight to the others who had also witnessed it. It took place in the yard where early in the morning the hunting parties assembled. The dogs were to be leashed. Christian stood alone among twenty-three mastiffs who leaped around and at him with deafening barks and yells. He swung a short-handled whip which whirred above their heads. The beasts grew wilder; he had to ward off the fiercer ones with his elbow. The forester wanted to come to his help and called to the raging pack. Christian beckoned him to stay back. The man’s assumed anger and all his gestures irritated the dogs. One of them, whose mouth was flecked with foam, snapped at Christian, and the sharp teeth clung to his shoulder. Then all cried out, especially Judith. But Christian gave a short sharp whistle from between his teeth, his arms dropped, his glance held the dogs nearest to him, and suddenly the noise stopped, and only those in front gave a humble whine. Frau Wahnschaffe had grown pale. She approached her son and asked him whether he was hurt. He was not, although his jacket showed a long rent. “He leads a charmed life,” she said that night after dinner to Crammon, with whom she had withdrawn to a quiet corner. “And that is my one consolation. His utter recklessness often frightens me. I have noticed with pleasure that you take an interest in him. Do try to guide him a little along reasonable ways.” Her voice was hollow and her face immobile. Her eyes stared past one. She knew no cares and had never known any, nor had she, apparently, ever reflected concerning those of others. Yet no one had ever seen this woman smile. The utter absence of friction in her life seemed to have reduced the motions of her soul to a point of deadness. Only the thought of Christian gave her whole being a shade of warmth; only when she could speak of him did she grow...