In her
confusion
she mistrusted him, and yet she felt with.
Musil - Man Without Qualities - v1
She had no idea where Ulrich's line of reasoning was taking her.
She believed him because she was in love with him, and
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doubted him because she was ten years younger than he and be- longed to a new generation keenly aware of its fresh energies; the two conflicting strands of feeling mingled hazily within her as she
. listened.
''Besides which, you see, we have data that are indistinguishable
from those that demonstrate a natural law, yet they have no such basis. Statistical series can sometimes have the same regularity that we associate with natural law. I'm sure you can think of examples you've heard in some sociology lecture, like the statistics about di- vorce in America, let's say. Or the ratio between male and female births, one of the most stable factors of the kind. Or the number of conscripts annually who try to evade their military service by some form of self-mutilation, also a relative constant, or the suicide statis- tics; even theft, rape, and bankruptcy occur, as far as I know, at more
·or less the same annual rate. . . . "
At this point Gerda's resistance tried to break through. "Are you
trying to explain progress to me? " she cried out, doing her best to sound sarcastic.
"But of course," Ulrich came back at her, without breaking stride. "It's called the law of large numbers, a bit nebulously. Meaning that one person may commit suicide for this reason and another for that reason, but when a great number is involved, then the accidental and the personal elements cancel each ·other out, and what's left . . . but that's just it: what is left? I ask you. Because you see, what'S left is what each one of us as laymen calls, simply, the average, which is a "something," but nobody really knows exactly what. Let me add that efforts have been made to find a logical and formal explanation for this law of large numbers, as an accepted fact, as it were. But there are also those who say that such regularity of phenomena which are not casually related to each other cannot be explained at all by con- ventional logic, and the point has been made, among others, that such phenomena must be analyzed not as individual instances but as involving some unknown laws of aggregates or collectives. I don't
want to bother you with the details, which I no longer have at my fingertips anyway, but I would certainly love to know, for myself, whether there are such laws of the collective phenomenon, or whether it is simply by some irony of nature that the particular in- stance arises from the happening of nothing in particular, and that
the ultimate meaning turns out to be something arrived at by taking the average ofwhat is basically meaningless. It would certainly make a radical differenc~ to our sense of ourselves if we knew the answer, one way or another! Whichever it turns out to be, any possibility of leading an ordered life depends on this law oflarge numbers. If there were no such law of averages, we might have a year with nothing at all happening, followed by one in which you could count on nothing for certain, famine alternating with oversupply, no births followed by too many, and we would all be fluttering to and fro between our heavenly and our hellish possibilities like little birds when someone suddenly comes up to their cage. "
"Is all this true? " Gerda asked hesitantly.
"You ought to know it yourself. "
"Of course I do, as far as the details go! But what I don't know is
whether this is what you meant before, when they were all arguing. What you were saying about progress simply sounded like a deliber- ate provocation. "
"That's what you·always think about me. But what do we really know about the nature of our progress? Not a thing. There are all sorts of possibilities for the way things might tum out, and I simply mentioned just one more. "
"How things might tum out! That's always the way with you; it would never occur to you to wonder how things should be. "
"You and·your friends-always jumping the gun. There's always got to be a supreme goal, an ideal, a program-an absolute. Yet in the end, all that ever comes of it is a compromise, some common denominator. Isn't it tiring and ridiculous to be always reaching for the heights and always ending up settling for some mediocre result? "
It was essentially the same conversation he had had with Diotima, with only superficial differences. Nor did it make much difference which woman happened to . be sitting there facing him; a body, intra-· duced into a given magnetic field, invariably sets certain processes in motion. Ulrich studied Gerda, who was not answering his last ques- tion. There she sat, a skinny girl, with a little furrow of resentment between her eyes. Another hollow, vertical furrow could be seen in the V of her low-cut blouse. Her arms and legs were long and deli- cate. She suggested a limp springtime, aglow with a premature sum- mer heat, together with the full impact ofthe willfulness locked in so
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young a body. He felt a strange mixture of aversion and detachment at the thought that he was closer to a decision than he had realized and that this young girl was destined to play a part ill it. Willy-nilly he suddenly found himself telling her his impressions of the so-called younger generation in the Parallel Campaign, ending with words that took Gerda by surprise:
"These younger people are also very radical, and I'm not popular with them either. But I pay them back in the same coin, because I, too, am radical in my own way, and I can put up with any kind of disorder more easily than the intellectual kind. I like to see ideas not onlydeveloped but brought together. I want not only the oscillation but also the density of an idea. This is what you, my indispensable friend, criticize as my tendency to describe only what might be, in- stead of what ought to be. Well, I do know the difference. This is probably the most anachronistic attitude one can have nowadays, when intellectual rigor and the emotional life are at the farthest re- move from each other, but our precision in technology has unfortu- nately advanced to such a point that it seems to regard the imprecision of life as its proper complement. Why won't you under- stand? The chances are you're incapable of understanding ~e. and it's perverse of me to try to confuse a mind so well attuned to the times. Still, Gerda, I sometimes honestly wonder whether I might be wrong, after all. Possibly the very people I can't stand are carrying out what I once hoped to accomplish myself. They may be doing it all wrong, not using their heads, one running-this way and the other that way, each spouting an idea that he regards as the only possible idea in the world; each one of them feels tremendously clever, and they all agree in regarding our times as cursed ·with sterility. But suppose it's the other way around, and every one of them is stupid, but all of them together are pregnant with the future? Everyone of our truths seems to be born split into two opposing falsehoods, and this, too, can be a way of arriving at a result that transcends the merely per- sonal. In that case the final balance, the sum total of all the experi- ments, no longer rests with the individual, who becomes unbearably one-sided, but with the experimental collective. In short, I ask you to make allowances for an old man whose loneliness sometimes drives him to excess. "
"You've certainly given me a lot to think about," Gerda said
grimly. ''Why don't you write a book? That way, you might be able to help yourself and us, too. "
"Why on earth should I feel called upon to write a book? " Ulrich objected. "I was born of my mother, after all, not an inkwell. "
G~rda was wondering whether a book by Ulrich would really help anyone. Like all the young people in her circle, she overrated the power of the printed word. A total silence had fallen in the apartment since they had stopped talking, as if the elder Fischels had left the house in the wake of their indignant guests. And Gerda sensed the force emanating from the more powerful male body beside her, as she always did, contrary to all her resolutions, when they were alone to- gether; the effort to resist made her tremble. Ulrich noticed it; he stood up, laid his hand on Gerda's frail shoulder, and said to her: "Look at it this way, Gerda. Suppose the moral sphere works more or less like the physical, as suggested by the kinetic theory of gases: ev- erything whirling around at random, each element doing what it will, but as soon as you work out rationally what is least likely to result from all this, that's precisely the result you get! Such correspondences, strange as they are, do exist. So suppose we also assume that there is a certain number ofideas circulating in our day,'resulting in some aver- age value that keeps shifting, very slowly and automatically-it's what we call progress, or the historical situation. What matters most about this, however, is that our personal, individual share in all this makes no difference; whether we individually move to the right or to the left, whether we think and act on a high or a low level, in an unpredictable m:: a calculated fashion, a new or an old style, does not affect this aver- age term, which is all that. God and the world care about. "
As he spoke he tried to put his arm around her, though it was pal- pably costing him an effort.
Gerda was furious. "You always begin by philosophizing," she cried out, "and it always turns into the usual rooster's cock-a-doodle- doo! " Her face was aflame, with flecks ofcolor in it. . Her lips seemed to be sweating, but there was something attractive about her indigna- tion. ''What you make of it is precisely what we don't want! "
N~w Ulrich could not resist the temptation to ask her, in a low voice: "Is possession so deadly? "
"I don't want to talk about that," Gerda retorted in an equally low tone.
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"It's all the same, whether it's a person you own or a thing. I know that," Ulrich went on. "Gerda, I understand you and Hans better than you think. So what is it that you and Hans want? Tell me. "
"Nothing! That's just it," Gerda exclaimed triumphantly. ''There's no way to state it. Papa also keeps on saying: 'You must make clear to yourselfwhat it is you actually want. Then you will see what nonsense it is. ' Well, everything is nonsense when you make it clear to yourself. To be sensible is never to get beyond the commonplace. I know you'll have some~ingto say about that, you and your sensible way of thinking. " '
Ulrich shook his head. "And what about this demonstration against Count Leinsdorf? " he asked gently, as though he were not changing the subject.
"Oh, so yo1,1 spy on us! " Gerda exclaimed.
"Call it spying if you like, I don't mind; but tell me about it, Gerda. ''
Gerda showed some embarrassment. "Nothing special. Just some sort of demonstration by the Young Germans-marching past his residence, yelling 'Shamel' and things like that. The Parallel Cam- paign is a shame! " '
"In what way? "
Gerda shrugged.
"Do sit down again," Ulrich pleaded. ''You're making far too much
of it. Let's have a quiet talk about it, shall we? ''
Gerda obeyed.
"Now listen to me, and tell me ifyou think I'm on the right track.
You say that possession kills. You're thinking of money, to begin with, and ofyour parents. I agree that they're dead souls. . . . "
Gerda looked offended.
"Very well, let's not talk about money but of 'having' in other ways. Take the man who 'has' himself in hand; the man who 'has' his con- victions; the man· who lets himself be 'had' by another person or by his own passions or merely his own habits or successes; the man who wants to conquer something, the man who wants anything at all: you reject all that? You want to be nomads, nomads forever on the move, as Hans once called it, if I remember. Moving on toward some other meaning, or state of being? Am I right so far? "
"All you're saying is quite right, in an awful sort of way; the intelli- gence doing a good imitation ofthe soul. "
"And intelligence is implicated in all that 'having', isn't it? The in- telligence is what measures, weighs, classifies, and collects every- thing, like an old banker. But what about all the things I talked with you about today that have quite a lot to do with our soUls? "
"A cold kind ofsoul. "
"You're absolutely right, Gerda. Now all I have to do is to tell you why I'm taking the part of the cold souls or even the bankers. "
"Because you're a coward. " Ulrich noticed that as she spoke she bared her teeth like a terrified little animal.
"So be it," he replied. "But surely you believe me capable, ifnoth- ing else, of being man enough to escape by, if necessary, climbing a lightning rod or down the tiniest foothold on a wall, if I were not so sure that every attempt at breaking out only leads back to Papa. "
Gerda had refused to enter into this conversation with Ulrich ever since their last talk on a similar subject. The feelings he was talking about were hers and Hans's alone, and she dreaded, even more than Ulrich's sarcasm, his coming over to her side, which merely left her at his mercy before she could tell whether he meant what he said or was just acting the Devil quoting scripture. From the moment, ear- lier on, when she had been taken by surprise at the sadness in his words-she was now enduring the consequences of having so briefly let down her guard-she had been visibly engaged in a violent inner struggle. But Ulrich was in a similar fix himself. He was far from tak- ing a perverse pleruiure in his power over the girl; he simply did not take Gerda seriously, and since this involved a certain element ofdis- like, he generally expressed himself freely to her, without regard for her feelings. But for some time now, the more·zestfully he took the world's part against her, the more he felt curiously inclined to con- fide in her, to let her see him as he really was, withou~ deceit or mak- ing himself look good, and wanting to see her true inner self as naked as a garden slug. He now looked at her thoughtfully and said: "I feel like letting my eyes rest between your cheeks like clouds in the sky. I don't really know how clouds feel in the sky, but then, I know as much as anybody about those moments when God seizes us like a glove and slowly turns us inside out on his fingers. You and your
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friends make it too easy for yourselves. You sense the negative side of the world we all live in, and you loudly proclaim that the positive world belongs to your parents and elders, and the world ofthe shad- owy negative to you, the new generation. I don't exactly relish play- ing the spy for your parents, my dear Gerda, but I put it to you that in choosing between the banker and an angel, the more realistic charac- ter of the banker's profession counts for something too. "
"Would you like some tea? " Gerda said sharply. "What can I do to make you comfortable here? I want you to see me at my best as the perfect daughter of the house. " She had pulled herself together again.
"Then suppose you marry Hans? "
"But I don't want to marry him! "
"You must have some plan or other-you can't go on living forever
on your opposition to your parents. "
"One of these days I shall leave home, make myself independent,
and he and I will remain friends. "
"Please, Gerda, let's suppose that you and Hans will be married or
something like it; it can hardly be avoided if things keep going the way they are. And now try to imagine yourself brushing your teeth in the morning, and Hans making out the income tax return, in an otheiWorldly state of mind. "
"DoIhavetoknowthat? " ·
"Your Papa would say so, if he had any notion of otheiWorldly states of mind; most people on life's voyage, I'm sorry to say, know very well how to stow their uncommon experiences so deep in the hold of their ship that they never perceive them at all. But let me ask a simpler question: Will you be expecting Hans to be faithful to you? Marital fidelity is part and parcel of the ownership complex, you know. You would have to accept Hans's fmding inspiration in an- other woman. Indeed, according to your principles, you would have to see it as an enrichment ofyour own life. "
"Don't suppose for a minute that we never discuss these questions ourselves," Gerda replied. ''You can't become a new human being overnight; but it is very bourgeois to consider this an argument against . making the effort. "
"What your father wants is actually something quite different from
what you think. He doesn't even claim to know more about all that than you and Hans; he merely says that he can't understand what you're up to. But he does know that power is a very sensible thing. He believes there's more sense in it than in you and him and Hans all rolled into one. What if he were to offer Hans enough money to let him finish his course and get his degree, without having to worry? And ifhe promised him, after a fair trial period, not that the marriage would take place, but at least that he would not stand in its way on principle? Ori only one condition: namely, that until the end of the trial period you two stop seeing each other, or keeping in touch, even to the extent you do now? "
"So this is what you're lending yourself to, is it? "
"I merely want to help you understand your father. He is a sinister deity who wields uncanny powers. He thinks he can make Hans see things his way by using money. In his opinion, a Hans with a limited monthly income couldn't possibly go on exceeding every limit of foolishness. But your father may be a dreamer, in his own way. I ad- mire him, just as I admire compromises, averages, dry facts, dead numbers. I don't believe in the Devil, but if I did I should think of him as the trainer who drives Heaven to break its own records. Any- way, I promised him to keep at you until there was nothing left of your fantasies-only reality. "
Ulrich was far from saying all this with a clear conscience. Gerda stood facing him as if in flames, the anger in her eyes overlaid with tears. All at once, a way had been opened up for her and Hans. But had Ulrich betrayed her, or did he want to help them? She had no idea, but whichever it was, it was likely to make her as unhappy as it made her happy.
In her confusion she mistrusted him, and yet she felt with. a passion that there was a sacred bond between them, if only he would admit it.
He now added: "Your father of course harbors a secret hope that I may use the opportunity to win you for myself and change your mind altogether. "
"That's out of the question! " Gerda forced herself to say.
"As far as you and I are concerned, I suppose· that is out of the question," Ulrich said gently. "But we can't go on like this, either. I've already gone too far. " He tried to smile, but felt extreme self-
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loathing as he did. so. He really wanted none of this. He sensed the irresolution in her and despised himself for the cruelty it aroused in him.
At that very instant Gerda stared at him with horrified eyes. Sud- denly she was beautiful, like a fire one has approached t<;>o closely; almost without form, only a warmth th~tparalyzes the will.
"You must come to see me," he suggested. 'W e can't speak freely here. " Male ruthlessness shone out of his eyes in a blaze of empty light. .
"No," Gerda said defensively. But she averted her eyes, and Ul- rich sadly saw-as though by turning away she had again presented herself to his scrutiny-the body of this young girl, neither beautiful nor ugly, breathing hard. He gave a deep and wholly sincere sigh.
104
RACHEL AND SOLIMAN ON THE WARPATH
In the Tuzzi household, charged as it was with a high mission as a gathering place of ideas, there was a light-footed, quick, ardent, on- German creature in service. The little lady's maid, Rachel, was like a chambermaid in Mozart. She opened the front door and stood ready with arms half outstretched to receive the visitor's overcoat. At such times Ulrich sometimes wondered whether she had any idea of his connection with the Tuzzis and tried to catch her eye, but Rachel either turned her eyes away or let them meet his blankly, like two blind little patches of black velvet. He seemed to rememher her eyes meeting his with quite a different expression at their first encounter, and several times noticed another pair of eyes, like two big white snails, aiming at Rachel from a dark comer of the entrance hall, Soli- man's eyes, but whether this boy might be the reason for Rachel's reserve was an open question, because Rachel responded as little to that gaie as to Ulrich's, and quietly withdrew as soon as she had an- nounced the visitor.
The truth was more romantic than curiosity could suppose. Ever since Solim. an had succeeded, with his willful innuendos against Am- heim, in lending that radiant presence a shadowy aura of obscure machinations, tarnishing even Rachel's childlike admiration for Di- otima, all her passionate need to outdo herselfin correct and devoted service had concentrated on Ulrich. Convinced by Soliman that a strict watch had to be kept on everything that went on in the house, she had become a zealous eavesdropper at keyholes, and while wait- ing on the guests had overheard more than one private conversation between Section ChiefTuzzi and his wife; nor had Ulrich's position midway between Diotima and Amheim, as a man they both dis- trusted and desired, escaped her notice, and this corresponded en- tirely to her own feeling, wavering between rebellion and remorse, for her unsuspecting mistress. Now she also realized'that she had known for a long time that Ulrich wanted something from her. It never entered her mind that he might find her attractive. Driven from home as she had been, and longing to prove to her family back in Galicia how great a success she could make of herself despite all that, she naturally dreamed of striking it lucky, something like an un- expected inheritance, the discovery that she was of noble birth, a chance to save the life of a prince . . . but the simple possibility that a gentleman who came to her mistress's house as a visitor might take a liking to her and want her to be his lover or even his wife would never have occurred to her. And so she simply held herself ready to do Ul- rich some great service. It was she and Soliman who had sent the General an invitation when they learned that he was a friend of Ul- rich's, though there was no denying they also did it to get things mov- ing; considering what they thought they knew, a general certainly seemed the right person to tum the trick. Rachel, in her obscure,
elfin sympathy with Ulrich, inevitably developed an overwhelming identification with him, as she secretly watched every movement of his lips, his eyes, his fingers, as if these were actors to whom she was bound with the passion of someone who sees her own insignificant self brought by them onto a vast stage. The more she realized that this mutual involvement constricted her breathing like a tight dress when crouching at a keyhole, the more depraved she felt for not re- sisting with greater firmness Soliman's simultaneous dark pursuit of her; this was the reason, ofwhich Ulrich had no inkling, why she met
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his curiosity about her with that subseiVient passion for acting the well-trained, model maidseiVant. .
Ulrich wondered in vain why this creature who seemed to be made for tender love play was so chaste that she might be almost a case of that rebellious frigidity not uncommonly found among some fine-boned women. He changed his mind, however, and was even a bit disappointed when he came upon a surprising scene one day. Arnheim had just arrived and gone in to see Diotima; Soliman was squatting on his haunches in the foyer, and Rachel had slipped away again as usual. Ulrich took advantage of the momentary stir caused by Arnheim's arrival to return to the hall for the handkerchief in his overcoat pocket. The light was out again, and Soliman did not realize that Ulrich, in the shadow of the doorway, had not returned to the reception room. Soliman got to his feet stealthily and, with great care, produced a large flower from under his jacket, a lovely white calla lily, wltich he contemplated for a while, then he set off on tiptoe past the kitchen door. Ulrich quietly followed him until Soliman stopped at Rachel's door, pressed the flower to his lips, and fixed it to the handle by twisting the stem around twice and squeezing its end into the keyhole.
It had not been easy to extract this lily from the bouquet on the way over with Arnheim and hide it for Rachel, and Rachel fully ap- preciated such attentions. Getting caught and fired would have meant Death and Judgment Day as far as Rachel was concerned, ·so it was naturally a great nuisance to have to watch out for Soliman all the time, wherever she might be, nor did she like being suddenly pinched in the leg without daring to cry out whenever she passed some hiding place where he might be lying in wait for her. Still, the fact that somebody was taking terrible chances just to be attentive to her, to spy devotedly on her every step and put her character to the test under the most difficult circumstances, could hardly fail to make an impression. The little ape was rushing her quite needlessly and dangerously, and yet, against all her principles and at odds with her crumpled dreams of great things in store, she sometimes felt a guilty craving to make the most of this Mrican king's son whose thick lips were waiting at every tum to seiVe her, the seiVing maid, as ifmade for her alone.
One day, Soliman asked her right out if she was game. Amheim
had gone to the mountains with Diotima and some friends for two days and had left Soliman behind. It was the cook's day off, and Sec- tion Chief Tuzzi was taking his meals at a restaurant. Rachel had told Soliman about the cigarette stubs she had found in her room, and Diotima's unspoken question what would the little maid make of it was answered by Rachel's and Soliman's agreeing that something seemed to be afoot in the Council, something that called for the two of them to take some action of their own. When Soliman asked her if she was game, he announced that he meant to take the documents proving hls noble birth from where Arnheim had locked them up. Rachel did not believe in these documents, but life amid so many tempting mysteries had given her a craving for something to happen. They decided that she would keep on her maid's . cap and frilled apron when Soliman fetched her and took her to Arnheim's hotel, as ifshe had been sent on an errand there by her employers. When they stepped out on the street, such a smoldering heat rose up from be- hind the lacy bib of her apron that it almost blurred her vision, but Soliman boldly stopped a cab; he had plenty of money these days, when Arnheim was so often absentminded. This stiffened Rachel's spine too, and she stepped into the carriage in the sight of all the world as if·she were charged and employed to ride in style with little black boys. The midmorning streets, with the well-dressed idlers to whom they belonged, flew by, and again Rachel's heart was thump- ing as if she were a thief. She tried to lean back properly, as she had seen Diotima do, but could not keep her body from bouncing up and down in. the rich upholstery as the closed carriage rocked along, while Soliman took advantage of her reclining position to press the broad stamp pads ofhis lips on hers, risking their being seen through the windows, and a sensation like the simmering of some scented fluid poured from the billowing cushions into Rachel's back.
Nor was, the young Moor disposed to forgo the pomp of driving right up to the hotel entrance. The porters in their black silk sleeves and green aprons grinned when Rachel stepped out of the carriage, the doorman peered through the glass door as Soliman paid the fare, and Rachel felt as though the pavement were giving way under her feet. But when no one stopped them as they walked through the vast pillared lobby, she thought that Soliman must enjoy a certain status in the hotel. Again she flushed with embarrassment when she felt the
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eyes of some armchair loungers following her as she passed by, but going up the stairs, she saw many chambermaids dressed in black with their white caps, like herself, if not perhaps as smartly, and she began to feel quite like an explorer wandering over an unknown, pos- sibly dangerous island, who encounters human beings at last.
Then Rachel found herself for the first time in her life inside the rooms of a distinguished hotel. Soliman immediately locked all the doors and then felt called upon to kiss his little friend again. The kisses these two had been giving each other of late had something of the glow of a child's kiss, intended more for mutual reassurance than as any assault upon the moral. fiber, and even. now, when they were
. for the first time alone together in a locked room; Soliman's most pressing concern was to find even more romantic ways of hiding themselves away. He pulled down the blinds and stopped up all the keyholes giving on the corridor. Rachel was much too excited by all these preparations to think of anything other than her own daring and the disgrace of a possible discovery.
Next, Soliman led her to Arnheim's closets and trunks, all open except for one. This was clearly the one harboring the secret. He took the keys from all the open trunks and tried them one by one, with no success, while chattering nonstop, pouring out all his re- serves of camels, princes, mysterious couriers, and insinuations against Arnheim. He borrowed one of Rachel's hairpins and tried to pick the lock with it. When this failed him, he ripped all the keys from all the closet doors and drawers, spread them out between his knees as he squatted on the floor, and paused to brood over this col- lection, trying to think of a fresh expedient. "Now you can see how he hides things from mel" he said to Rachel, rubbing his forehead. "But I may as well show y6u everything else first. "
· And so he simply spread tha be'Wildering riches from Arnheim's trunks and closets out before Rachel, who was crouching on the floor, with her hands clasped between her knees, staring at these things with curiosity. The intimate wardrobe of a man accustomed to the choicest of luxUries was something she had never seen before. Her. own master was certainly not poorly dressed, but he had neither the money nor the need for the ultrasophisticated concoctions of the best tailors and shirtmakers, the creators of luxuries for home and travel. Even her mistress had nothing to compare with the exquisite
things, feminine in their delicacy and complicated in their uses, that belonged to this immensely rich man. Something of Rachel's original awe for the nabob came to life again, even as Soliman puffed himself up with pride in the stunning impression he was making on her as he dragged out everything, showing off all the gadgets and eagerly ex- plaining all the mysteries. Rachel was beginning to tire ofthe endless display, when she was suddenly struck by an odd coincidence. She realized that things of this kind had been cropping up lately among Diotima's lingerie andhousehold things. They were not as numerous or as expensive as Arnheim's, but compared to Diotima's former mo- nastic simplicity, they were certainly 'closer to what she was seeing here than to her austere past. Rachel was overcome by the outra- geous notion that the link between her mistress and Arnheim might be less spiritual than she had supposed.
She blushed to the roots of her hair.
Never since she had entered Oiotima's seiVice had her thoughts wandered into this area. Her eyes had gulped down the glory of her mistress's body without giving any thought to the possible uses of such beauties, like gulping down a powder with its paper envelope. Her satisfaction at being permitted to share the life of persons of such exalted station had been so great that in all this time Rachel, who was so easily seduced, had never thought of any man as a sexual being, but only as someone different in a romantic way, like in a novel. Her high-mindedness had made her a child again, transport- ing her, as it were, back to the stage before puberty, that time of selfless enthusiasms for the greatness of others. This was in fact how Rachel had come to swallow Soliman's tall stories so willingly, in such a trance of gullibility, that it made the cook laugh at her. But now, as Rachel crouched on the floor and saw the suggestive tokens of an adulterous union between Arnheim and Diotima spread out before her in broad daylight, a long-impending change took place inside her-the awakening from an unnatural state of exaltation into the
mistrustful state of the actual world of the flesh.
Gone in a flash was her romanticism; she was a down-to-earth lit-
tle body with a somewhat irritated nop. on that even a servant girl had some rights in life. Soliman was squatting beside her before his out- spread bazaar, having collected up all the things she had especially admired, and was trying to stuff into her pockets whatever was not
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too big, as presents from him. Now he leapt up and made another quick attack with a pocketknife on the locked trunk, while rattling on about having to get a lot of money from the bank before Arnheim returned, using his master's checkbook-in money matters the mad little devil had quite lost his innocence-so that he and Rachel could run away together, but not before. he had his papers.
Rachel abruptly stood up, firmly emptied her pockets of all the "presents" he had stuffed into them, and said, "Don't talk such non- sensei I have to go now. What time is it? '' Her voice sounded deeper. She smoothed her apron and adjusted her cap. Soliman instantly realized that she was through with playing the game, and that she was suddenly much older than he. But! before he could reassert him- self, Rachel was kissing him good-bye. This time her lips did not tremble but pressed hard into the luscious fruit of his face as she bent over him, forcing the boy's head back and keeping atit so long that he almost choked. Soliman struggled, and when she fmally let go he felt as if a taller, stronger boy had been ·holding him under water, so that his first impulse was to get even with her for an unfair trick played on him. But Rachel had slipped out the door, and the·look he sent after her-for that was all of him that caught up with. her-as inflamed as the red-hot tip of a burning arrow, gradually faded to a soft ash. Soliman then picked up his master's belongings from the floor to put them back in order; he had now turned into a young man who could look fmward to something that had ceased to be unattainable.
105
LOVE . ON THE HIGHEST LEVEL IS NO JOKE
Following their excursion to~the mountains, Amheim had gone abroad for longer than usual. "Gone abroad"-as he had come to think of it himself-was cert~y an odd expression to use, consider-
·ing that it should have been "gone home. " It was because of this and other such reasons that it was in fact becoming urgently necessary for him to come to a decision. He was haunted by unpleasant daydreams such as had never before entered his disciplined head. One espe- cially persistent one was ofseeing himselfstanding with Diotima on a tall church steeple, where they gazed briefly at the green landscape stretched far below and then jumped off. A vision of forcing his way unchivalrously into the Tuzzis' bedroom at night to shoot the Section Chief obviously came to the same thing. He could perhaps have cho- sen to finish him off in a duel, but this seemed less natural; the fan- tasy was already loaded down with too many realistic rituals, and the closer Amheim approached reality, the· more troublesome the in- crease ofinhibitions. Asking Tuzzi simply and openly for the hand of his wife in marriage was conceivable, but what would Tuzzi be likely to say to that? It simply meant opening oneself up to all sorts of ridi- cule. And even if Tuzzi were to be civilized about it and there was a minimum of scandal, or possibly no scandal at all, divorce having come to be tolerated even in the best circles, there was still the fact that an old bachelor always made himself a bit ridiculous by a late marriage, much like a couple having a baby for their silver wedding anniversary. And if Arnheim really had to do such a thing, he owed it to the firm to marry a prominent American widow at the very least, or a great lady of ancient lineage with connections at court, and not the divorced wife of a middle-class government official. He could not make a move, even if it were merely of a sensual nature, that was not permeated with responsibility. In a time like the present, when re- sponsibility for one's acts or thoughts plays so slight a role, it was by no means mere personal ambition that raised such objections, but a truly suprapersonal need to bring the power fostered by the Am- heims (a formation rooted in simple greed, which it had long since outgrown, however; it now had a mind of its own, a will of its own, it had to keep growing, to solidify its position, lest it sicken, lest it become rusted when it rested! ) into accord with the forces and hier- archies of life itself, nor had he ever knowingly made a secret of this to Diotima. An Amheim was ofcourse free to marry even some peas- ant if he chose, but free only as regarded his own person; he would
still be betraying a cause for a personal weakness.
It was nevertheless true that he had proposed marriage to Di-
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otima. He h~d done it, if only to forestall the kind of adulterous goings-on that do not consort well with the disciplined conduct oflife on a high level. Diotima had gratefully pressed his hand and, with a smile reminiscent of the fmest such smiles in the history of art, she had responded to his proposal with the words: "It is never those we embrace that we love most deeply. . . . "After this answer, as equivo- cal as the seductive yellow deep inside the chaste lily, Arnheim could never bring himself to go once more into the breach. Instead, they went in for general conversations in which the words "divorce," "marriage," "adultery," and the like showed a strange tendency to crop up. More than once, for instance, Arnheim and Diotima talked in depth about the treatment of adultery in contemporary literature, and Diotima felt that this problem was invariably handled without any appreciation for the great values of self-discipline, renunciation, or heroic self-denial, but purely from a sensual point of view. Arn- heim's view was precisely the same, unfortunately, so that he could only add that there was hardly anyone left these days capable of fully appreciating the deep moral mystery of the individual. This mystery consisted in having to keep a tight rein on the tendency to self-indul- gence. Historic periods of permissiveness have never failed, so far, in
· making all those who lived in them miserable. All discipline, absti- nence, chivalry, music, morality, poetry,Jorm, taboo, had no deeper purpose than to give the correct limits, a definite shape, to life. There is no such thing as boundless happiness. There is no great happiness without great taboos. Even in business, to pursue one's advantage at all costs is to risk getting nowhere. Keeping within one's limits is the secret of all phenomena, of power, happiness, faith, and the key to the task of maintaining oneself as a tiny human creature within the universe. Such was Amheim's statement of the case, and Diotima could not but agree. It was in a sense a regrettable consquence of such insights that they lent to legitimacy a richness of meaning that is no longer available to most people. But great souls cannot do without legitimacy. At peak moments of perception, one senses how the cos- mos turns on an axis ofvertical austerity. And the businessman, even as he rules the world, respects kingship, aristocracy, and the church as pillars of the irrational. The legitimate is simple, as all greatness is
-simple, open to anyone's understanding. Homer was simple, Christ was simple. The truly great minds always come down to simple bas-
ics;. one must have the courage to admit, in fact, that they always come back to moral commonplaces, which is why it is hardest of all for the truly free spirit to defy tradition.
Such insights, true as they are, are not much help to a man bent on intruding into someone else's marriage. So these two people found themselves in the position ofbeing linked by a splendid bridge with a hole at its center, just a few yards wide, so that they cannot come together. Arnheim was deeply sony that he had no spark of that de- sire which is the same, whatever its object, and as likely to catapult a man into a rash business deal as into a rash love affair; his regret moved him to talk at length about desire. According to him, desire was precisely the feeling that best corresponds to the merely intellec- tual culture of our era. No other feeling aims so unequivocally at its specific object. It strikes and sticks like an arrow, rather than swann- ing on into ever greater distances like a flock ofbirds. It impoverishes the soul, just like arithmetic and mechanics and brutality. In this fashion Arnheim spoke with disapproval of desire, even as he felt it struggling like a blinded slave in the cellar.
Diotima took a different tack. She held out her hand to him and beseeched him: "Let us say no more! Words can do much, but there are things beyond words. The real truth between two people cannot be put into words. The moment we speak, certain doors begin to close; language works best for what doesn't really matter; we talk in lieu ofliving. . . . "
Arnheim concurred. ''You're so right. The word, in its arrogance, gives ah arbitrary and impoverished form to the invisible movements of our inner being. "
"Say no more, please," Diotima repeated, laying a hand on his arm. "I feel that we give each other a moment of life when we are silent together. " After a while, she withdrew her hand again and sighed: "There are instants when all the hidden jewels of the soul lie revealed. "
"There may come a time," Arnheim complemented this,"-and there are many signs that it is near already-when souls will behold each other without the mediation of the senses. Souls come together when one pair of lips withdraws from the other. "
Diotima pursed her lips so that they suggested a crooked little tube such as butterflies dip into blossoms. She was totally besotted.
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Like all heightened states of emotion, love brings out a certain mad- ness about the supposed connectedness of things so that any words uttered tended to light up with richly ramifying significance, which manifested itself like a veiled deity before it dissolved in silence. Di- otima knew this phenomenon from her lonely hours of lofty medita- tion, but never before with this intensity to the very edge of barely endurable joy; she was brimming over with uncontrollable feeling, with something godlike inside her that moved as if on skates, and more than once she felt that she was about to crash down in a dead faint.
Arnheim buoyed her up with his great pronouncements. He gave her time to recover, to catch her breath. Then he again spread the safety net ofideal considerations beneath them.
The torment of this expansive joy was that it militated against con- centration. It kept emitting tremulous new waves that rippled out- ward in widening circles but never pressed together to form a current of action. Diotima had after all reached the point of regard- ing the risks ofan affair as the more considerate and civilized alterna- tive to the crude catastrophe of smashed lives, while Arnheim had long since opted morally against accepting such a ~acrifice and was ready to marry her. They could have each other, one way or another, at any moment, and they both knew it, but they did not know which form it should take, for their happiness swept their souls, made for it as they were, to such solemn heights that the fear of spoiling every- thing by some awkward move paralyzed them: a natural state ofanxi- ety for people with a cloud under their feet.
Their minds had never failed to drink in all the grandeur and beauty life had poured out for them, and yet, at its very apex, their joy was strangely curtailed. All the wishes and vanities that had nor- mally filled their lives now lay far beneath them, like toy houses and farmyards deep in the valley, with all the clucking, barking, and other excitements swallowed up in the stillness, leaving only the sense of silerit deep space.
"Can it be that we have a mission? " Diotima wondered, surveying the emotional pinnacle on which she found herselfwith a foreboding ofsome agonizing and unimaginable tum up ahead. Not only had she experienced lesser degrees of such exaltation herself, but even an emotional lightweight like her cousin had been known to speak of
such things, and much had been written about them of late. But if there was any truth to the reports, there were times, every thousand years or so, when the.
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doubted him because she was ten years younger than he and be- longed to a new generation keenly aware of its fresh energies; the two conflicting strands of feeling mingled hazily within her as she
. listened.
''Besides which, you see, we have data that are indistinguishable
from those that demonstrate a natural law, yet they have no such basis. Statistical series can sometimes have the same regularity that we associate with natural law. I'm sure you can think of examples you've heard in some sociology lecture, like the statistics about di- vorce in America, let's say. Or the ratio between male and female births, one of the most stable factors of the kind. Or the number of conscripts annually who try to evade their military service by some form of self-mutilation, also a relative constant, or the suicide statis- tics; even theft, rape, and bankruptcy occur, as far as I know, at more
·or less the same annual rate. . . . "
At this point Gerda's resistance tried to break through. "Are you
trying to explain progress to me? " she cried out, doing her best to sound sarcastic.
"But of course," Ulrich came back at her, without breaking stride. "It's called the law of large numbers, a bit nebulously. Meaning that one person may commit suicide for this reason and another for that reason, but when a great number is involved, then the accidental and the personal elements cancel each ·other out, and what's left . . . but that's just it: what is left? I ask you. Because you see, what'S left is what each one of us as laymen calls, simply, the average, which is a "something," but nobody really knows exactly what. Let me add that efforts have been made to find a logical and formal explanation for this law of large numbers, as an accepted fact, as it were. But there are also those who say that such regularity of phenomena which are not casually related to each other cannot be explained at all by con- ventional logic, and the point has been made, among others, that such phenomena must be analyzed not as individual instances but as involving some unknown laws of aggregates or collectives. I don't
want to bother you with the details, which I no longer have at my fingertips anyway, but I would certainly love to know, for myself, whether there are such laws of the collective phenomenon, or whether it is simply by some irony of nature that the particular in- stance arises from the happening of nothing in particular, and that
the ultimate meaning turns out to be something arrived at by taking the average ofwhat is basically meaningless. It would certainly make a radical differenc~ to our sense of ourselves if we knew the answer, one way or another! Whichever it turns out to be, any possibility of leading an ordered life depends on this law oflarge numbers. If there were no such law of averages, we might have a year with nothing at all happening, followed by one in which you could count on nothing for certain, famine alternating with oversupply, no births followed by too many, and we would all be fluttering to and fro between our heavenly and our hellish possibilities like little birds when someone suddenly comes up to their cage. "
"Is all this true? " Gerda asked hesitantly.
"You ought to know it yourself. "
"Of course I do, as far as the details go! But what I don't know is
whether this is what you meant before, when they were all arguing. What you were saying about progress simply sounded like a deliber- ate provocation. "
"That's what you·always think about me. But what do we really know about the nature of our progress? Not a thing. There are all sorts of possibilities for the way things might tum out, and I simply mentioned just one more. "
"How things might tum out! That's always the way with you; it would never occur to you to wonder how things should be. "
"You and·your friends-always jumping the gun. There's always got to be a supreme goal, an ideal, a program-an absolute. Yet in the end, all that ever comes of it is a compromise, some common denominator. Isn't it tiring and ridiculous to be always reaching for the heights and always ending up settling for some mediocre result? "
It was essentially the same conversation he had had with Diotima, with only superficial differences. Nor did it make much difference which woman happened to . be sitting there facing him; a body, intra-· duced into a given magnetic field, invariably sets certain processes in motion. Ulrich studied Gerda, who was not answering his last ques- tion. There she sat, a skinny girl, with a little furrow of resentment between her eyes. Another hollow, vertical furrow could be seen in the V of her low-cut blouse. Her arms and legs were long and deli- cate. She suggested a limp springtime, aglow with a premature sum- mer heat, together with the full impact ofthe willfulness locked in so
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young a body. He felt a strange mixture of aversion and detachment at the thought that he was closer to a decision than he had realized and that this young girl was destined to play a part ill it. Willy-nilly he suddenly found himself telling her his impressions of the so-called younger generation in the Parallel Campaign, ending with words that took Gerda by surprise:
"These younger people are also very radical, and I'm not popular with them either. But I pay them back in the same coin, because I, too, am radical in my own way, and I can put up with any kind of disorder more easily than the intellectual kind. I like to see ideas not onlydeveloped but brought together. I want not only the oscillation but also the density of an idea. This is what you, my indispensable friend, criticize as my tendency to describe only what might be, in- stead of what ought to be. Well, I do know the difference. This is probably the most anachronistic attitude one can have nowadays, when intellectual rigor and the emotional life are at the farthest re- move from each other, but our precision in technology has unfortu- nately advanced to such a point that it seems to regard the imprecision of life as its proper complement. Why won't you under- stand? The chances are you're incapable of understanding ~e. and it's perverse of me to try to confuse a mind so well attuned to the times. Still, Gerda, I sometimes honestly wonder whether I might be wrong, after all. Possibly the very people I can't stand are carrying out what I once hoped to accomplish myself. They may be doing it all wrong, not using their heads, one running-this way and the other that way, each spouting an idea that he regards as the only possible idea in the world; each one of them feels tremendously clever, and they all agree in regarding our times as cursed ·with sterility. But suppose it's the other way around, and every one of them is stupid, but all of them together are pregnant with the future? Everyone of our truths seems to be born split into two opposing falsehoods, and this, too, can be a way of arriving at a result that transcends the merely per- sonal. In that case the final balance, the sum total of all the experi- ments, no longer rests with the individual, who becomes unbearably one-sided, but with the experimental collective. In short, I ask you to make allowances for an old man whose loneliness sometimes drives him to excess. "
"You've certainly given me a lot to think about," Gerda said
grimly. ''Why don't you write a book? That way, you might be able to help yourself and us, too. "
"Why on earth should I feel called upon to write a book? " Ulrich objected. "I was born of my mother, after all, not an inkwell. "
G~rda was wondering whether a book by Ulrich would really help anyone. Like all the young people in her circle, she overrated the power of the printed word. A total silence had fallen in the apartment since they had stopped talking, as if the elder Fischels had left the house in the wake of their indignant guests. And Gerda sensed the force emanating from the more powerful male body beside her, as she always did, contrary to all her resolutions, when they were alone to- gether; the effort to resist made her tremble. Ulrich noticed it; he stood up, laid his hand on Gerda's frail shoulder, and said to her: "Look at it this way, Gerda. Suppose the moral sphere works more or less like the physical, as suggested by the kinetic theory of gases: ev- erything whirling around at random, each element doing what it will, but as soon as you work out rationally what is least likely to result from all this, that's precisely the result you get! Such correspondences, strange as they are, do exist. So suppose we also assume that there is a certain number ofideas circulating in our day,'resulting in some aver- age value that keeps shifting, very slowly and automatically-it's what we call progress, or the historical situation. What matters most about this, however, is that our personal, individual share in all this makes no difference; whether we individually move to the right or to the left, whether we think and act on a high or a low level, in an unpredictable m:: a calculated fashion, a new or an old style, does not affect this aver- age term, which is all that. God and the world care about. "
As he spoke he tried to put his arm around her, though it was pal- pably costing him an effort.
Gerda was furious. "You always begin by philosophizing," she cried out, "and it always turns into the usual rooster's cock-a-doodle- doo! " Her face was aflame, with flecks ofcolor in it. . Her lips seemed to be sweating, but there was something attractive about her indigna- tion. ''What you make of it is precisely what we don't want! "
N~w Ulrich could not resist the temptation to ask her, in a low voice: "Is possession so deadly? "
"I don't want to talk about that," Gerda retorted in an equally low tone.
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"It's all the same, whether it's a person you own or a thing. I know that," Ulrich went on. "Gerda, I understand you and Hans better than you think. So what is it that you and Hans want? Tell me. "
"Nothing! That's just it," Gerda exclaimed triumphantly. ''There's no way to state it. Papa also keeps on saying: 'You must make clear to yourselfwhat it is you actually want. Then you will see what nonsense it is. ' Well, everything is nonsense when you make it clear to yourself. To be sensible is never to get beyond the commonplace. I know you'll have some~ingto say about that, you and your sensible way of thinking. " '
Ulrich shook his head. "And what about this demonstration against Count Leinsdorf? " he asked gently, as though he were not changing the subject.
"Oh, so yo1,1 spy on us! " Gerda exclaimed.
"Call it spying if you like, I don't mind; but tell me about it, Gerda. ''
Gerda showed some embarrassment. "Nothing special. Just some sort of demonstration by the Young Germans-marching past his residence, yelling 'Shamel' and things like that. The Parallel Cam- paign is a shame! " '
"In what way? "
Gerda shrugged.
"Do sit down again," Ulrich pleaded. ''You're making far too much
of it. Let's have a quiet talk about it, shall we? ''
Gerda obeyed.
"Now listen to me, and tell me ifyou think I'm on the right track.
You say that possession kills. You're thinking of money, to begin with, and ofyour parents. I agree that they're dead souls. . . . "
Gerda looked offended.
"Very well, let's not talk about money but of 'having' in other ways. Take the man who 'has' himself in hand; the man who 'has' his con- victions; the man· who lets himself be 'had' by another person or by his own passions or merely his own habits or successes; the man who wants to conquer something, the man who wants anything at all: you reject all that? You want to be nomads, nomads forever on the move, as Hans once called it, if I remember. Moving on toward some other meaning, or state of being? Am I right so far? "
"All you're saying is quite right, in an awful sort of way; the intelli- gence doing a good imitation ofthe soul. "
"And intelligence is implicated in all that 'having', isn't it? The in- telligence is what measures, weighs, classifies, and collects every- thing, like an old banker. But what about all the things I talked with you about today that have quite a lot to do with our soUls? "
"A cold kind ofsoul. "
"You're absolutely right, Gerda. Now all I have to do is to tell you why I'm taking the part of the cold souls or even the bankers. "
"Because you're a coward. " Ulrich noticed that as she spoke she bared her teeth like a terrified little animal.
"So be it," he replied. "But surely you believe me capable, ifnoth- ing else, of being man enough to escape by, if necessary, climbing a lightning rod or down the tiniest foothold on a wall, if I were not so sure that every attempt at breaking out only leads back to Papa. "
Gerda had refused to enter into this conversation with Ulrich ever since their last talk on a similar subject. The feelings he was talking about were hers and Hans's alone, and she dreaded, even more than Ulrich's sarcasm, his coming over to her side, which merely left her at his mercy before she could tell whether he meant what he said or was just acting the Devil quoting scripture. From the moment, ear- lier on, when she had been taken by surprise at the sadness in his words-she was now enduring the consequences of having so briefly let down her guard-she had been visibly engaged in a violent inner struggle. But Ulrich was in a similar fix himself. He was far from tak- ing a perverse pleruiure in his power over the girl; he simply did not take Gerda seriously, and since this involved a certain element ofdis- like, he generally expressed himself freely to her, without regard for her feelings. But for some time now, the more·zestfully he took the world's part against her, the more he felt curiously inclined to con- fide in her, to let her see him as he really was, withou~ deceit or mak- ing himself look good, and wanting to see her true inner self as naked as a garden slug. He now looked at her thoughtfully and said: "I feel like letting my eyes rest between your cheeks like clouds in the sky. I don't really know how clouds feel in the sky, but then, I know as much as anybody about those moments when God seizes us like a glove and slowly turns us inside out on his fingers. You and your
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friends make it too easy for yourselves. You sense the negative side of the world we all live in, and you loudly proclaim that the positive world belongs to your parents and elders, and the world ofthe shad- owy negative to you, the new generation. I don't exactly relish play- ing the spy for your parents, my dear Gerda, but I put it to you that in choosing between the banker and an angel, the more realistic charac- ter of the banker's profession counts for something too. "
"Would you like some tea? " Gerda said sharply. "What can I do to make you comfortable here? I want you to see me at my best as the perfect daughter of the house. " She had pulled herself together again.
"Then suppose you marry Hans? "
"But I don't want to marry him! "
"You must have some plan or other-you can't go on living forever
on your opposition to your parents. "
"One of these days I shall leave home, make myself independent,
and he and I will remain friends. "
"Please, Gerda, let's suppose that you and Hans will be married or
something like it; it can hardly be avoided if things keep going the way they are. And now try to imagine yourself brushing your teeth in the morning, and Hans making out the income tax return, in an otheiWorldly state of mind. "
"DoIhavetoknowthat? " ·
"Your Papa would say so, if he had any notion of otheiWorldly states of mind; most people on life's voyage, I'm sorry to say, know very well how to stow their uncommon experiences so deep in the hold of their ship that they never perceive them at all. But let me ask a simpler question: Will you be expecting Hans to be faithful to you? Marital fidelity is part and parcel of the ownership complex, you know. You would have to accept Hans's fmding inspiration in an- other woman. Indeed, according to your principles, you would have to see it as an enrichment ofyour own life. "
"Don't suppose for a minute that we never discuss these questions ourselves," Gerda replied. ''You can't become a new human being overnight; but it is very bourgeois to consider this an argument against . making the effort. "
"What your father wants is actually something quite different from
what you think. He doesn't even claim to know more about all that than you and Hans; he merely says that he can't understand what you're up to. But he does know that power is a very sensible thing. He believes there's more sense in it than in you and him and Hans all rolled into one. What if he were to offer Hans enough money to let him finish his course and get his degree, without having to worry? And ifhe promised him, after a fair trial period, not that the marriage would take place, but at least that he would not stand in its way on principle? Ori only one condition: namely, that until the end of the trial period you two stop seeing each other, or keeping in touch, even to the extent you do now? "
"So this is what you're lending yourself to, is it? "
"I merely want to help you understand your father. He is a sinister deity who wields uncanny powers. He thinks he can make Hans see things his way by using money. In his opinion, a Hans with a limited monthly income couldn't possibly go on exceeding every limit of foolishness. But your father may be a dreamer, in his own way. I ad- mire him, just as I admire compromises, averages, dry facts, dead numbers. I don't believe in the Devil, but if I did I should think of him as the trainer who drives Heaven to break its own records. Any- way, I promised him to keep at you until there was nothing left of your fantasies-only reality. "
Ulrich was far from saying all this with a clear conscience. Gerda stood facing him as if in flames, the anger in her eyes overlaid with tears. All at once, a way had been opened up for her and Hans. But had Ulrich betrayed her, or did he want to help them? She had no idea, but whichever it was, it was likely to make her as unhappy as it made her happy.
In her confusion she mistrusted him, and yet she felt with. a passion that there was a sacred bond between them, if only he would admit it.
He now added: "Your father of course harbors a secret hope that I may use the opportunity to win you for myself and change your mind altogether. "
"That's out of the question! " Gerda forced herself to say.
"As far as you and I are concerned, I suppose· that is out of the question," Ulrich said gently. "But we can't go on like this, either. I've already gone too far. " He tried to smile, but felt extreme self-
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loathing as he did. so. He really wanted none of this. He sensed the irresolution in her and despised himself for the cruelty it aroused in him.
At that very instant Gerda stared at him with horrified eyes. Sud- denly she was beautiful, like a fire one has approached t<;>o closely; almost without form, only a warmth th~tparalyzes the will.
"You must come to see me," he suggested. 'W e can't speak freely here. " Male ruthlessness shone out of his eyes in a blaze of empty light. .
"No," Gerda said defensively. But she averted her eyes, and Ul- rich sadly saw-as though by turning away she had again presented herself to his scrutiny-the body of this young girl, neither beautiful nor ugly, breathing hard. He gave a deep and wholly sincere sigh.
104
RACHEL AND SOLIMAN ON THE WARPATH
In the Tuzzi household, charged as it was with a high mission as a gathering place of ideas, there was a light-footed, quick, ardent, on- German creature in service. The little lady's maid, Rachel, was like a chambermaid in Mozart. She opened the front door and stood ready with arms half outstretched to receive the visitor's overcoat. At such times Ulrich sometimes wondered whether she had any idea of his connection with the Tuzzis and tried to catch her eye, but Rachel either turned her eyes away or let them meet his blankly, like two blind little patches of black velvet. He seemed to rememher her eyes meeting his with quite a different expression at their first encounter, and several times noticed another pair of eyes, like two big white snails, aiming at Rachel from a dark comer of the entrance hall, Soli- man's eyes, but whether this boy might be the reason for Rachel's reserve was an open question, because Rachel responded as little to that gaie as to Ulrich's, and quietly withdrew as soon as she had an- nounced the visitor.
The truth was more romantic than curiosity could suppose. Ever since Solim. an had succeeded, with his willful innuendos against Am- heim, in lending that radiant presence a shadowy aura of obscure machinations, tarnishing even Rachel's childlike admiration for Di- otima, all her passionate need to outdo herselfin correct and devoted service had concentrated on Ulrich. Convinced by Soliman that a strict watch had to be kept on everything that went on in the house, she had become a zealous eavesdropper at keyholes, and while wait- ing on the guests had overheard more than one private conversation between Section ChiefTuzzi and his wife; nor had Ulrich's position midway between Diotima and Amheim, as a man they both dis- trusted and desired, escaped her notice, and this corresponded en- tirely to her own feeling, wavering between rebellion and remorse, for her unsuspecting mistress. Now she also realized'that she had known for a long time that Ulrich wanted something from her. It never entered her mind that he might find her attractive. Driven from home as she had been, and longing to prove to her family back in Galicia how great a success she could make of herself despite all that, she naturally dreamed of striking it lucky, something like an un- expected inheritance, the discovery that she was of noble birth, a chance to save the life of a prince . . . but the simple possibility that a gentleman who came to her mistress's house as a visitor might take a liking to her and want her to be his lover or even his wife would never have occurred to her. And so she simply held herself ready to do Ul- rich some great service. It was she and Soliman who had sent the General an invitation when they learned that he was a friend of Ul- rich's, though there was no denying they also did it to get things mov- ing; considering what they thought they knew, a general certainly seemed the right person to tum the trick. Rachel, in her obscure,
elfin sympathy with Ulrich, inevitably developed an overwhelming identification with him, as she secretly watched every movement of his lips, his eyes, his fingers, as if these were actors to whom she was bound with the passion of someone who sees her own insignificant self brought by them onto a vast stage. The more she realized that this mutual involvement constricted her breathing like a tight dress when crouching at a keyhole, the more depraved she felt for not re- sisting with greater firmness Soliman's simultaneous dark pursuit of her; this was the reason, ofwhich Ulrich had no inkling, why she met
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his curiosity about her with that subseiVient passion for acting the well-trained, model maidseiVant. .
Ulrich wondered in vain why this creature who seemed to be made for tender love play was so chaste that she might be almost a case of that rebellious frigidity not uncommonly found among some fine-boned women. He changed his mind, however, and was even a bit disappointed when he came upon a surprising scene one day. Arnheim had just arrived and gone in to see Diotima; Soliman was squatting on his haunches in the foyer, and Rachel had slipped away again as usual. Ulrich took advantage of the momentary stir caused by Arnheim's arrival to return to the hall for the handkerchief in his overcoat pocket. The light was out again, and Soliman did not realize that Ulrich, in the shadow of the doorway, had not returned to the reception room. Soliman got to his feet stealthily and, with great care, produced a large flower from under his jacket, a lovely white calla lily, wltich he contemplated for a while, then he set off on tiptoe past the kitchen door. Ulrich quietly followed him until Soliman stopped at Rachel's door, pressed the flower to his lips, and fixed it to the handle by twisting the stem around twice and squeezing its end into the keyhole.
It had not been easy to extract this lily from the bouquet on the way over with Arnheim and hide it for Rachel, and Rachel fully ap- preciated such attentions. Getting caught and fired would have meant Death and Judgment Day as far as Rachel was concerned, ·so it was naturally a great nuisance to have to watch out for Soliman all the time, wherever she might be, nor did she like being suddenly pinched in the leg without daring to cry out whenever she passed some hiding place where he might be lying in wait for her. Still, the fact that somebody was taking terrible chances just to be attentive to her, to spy devotedly on her every step and put her character to the test under the most difficult circumstances, could hardly fail to make an impression. The little ape was rushing her quite needlessly and dangerously, and yet, against all her principles and at odds with her crumpled dreams of great things in store, she sometimes felt a guilty craving to make the most of this Mrican king's son whose thick lips were waiting at every tum to seiVe her, the seiVing maid, as ifmade for her alone.
One day, Soliman asked her right out if she was game. Amheim
had gone to the mountains with Diotima and some friends for two days and had left Soliman behind. It was the cook's day off, and Sec- tion Chief Tuzzi was taking his meals at a restaurant. Rachel had told Soliman about the cigarette stubs she had found in her room, and Diotima's unspoken question what would the little maid make of it was answered by Rachel's and Soliman's agreeing that something seemed to be afoot in the Council, something that called for the two of them to take some action of their own. When Soliman asked her if she was game, he announced that he meant to take the documents proving hls noble birth from where Arnheim had locked them up. Rachel did not believe in these documents, but life amid so many tempting mysteries had given her a craving for something to happen. They decided that she would keep on her maid's . cap and frilled apron when Soliman fetched her and took her to Arnheim's hotel, as ifshe had been sent on an errand there by her employers. When they stepped out on the street, such a smoldering heat rose up from be- hind the lacy bib of her apron that it almost blurred her vision, but Soliman boldly stopped a cab; he had plenty of money these days, when Arnheim was so often absentminded. This stiffened Rachel's spine too, and she stepped into the carriage in the sight of all the world as if·she were charged and employed to ride in style with little black boys. The midmorning streets, with the well-dressed idlers to whom they belonged, flew by, and again Rachel's heart was thump- ing as if she were a thief. She tried to lean back properly, as she had seen Diotima do, but could not keep her body from bouncing up and down in. the rich upholstery as the closed carriage rocked along, while Soliman took advantage of her reclining position to press the broad stamp pads ofhis lips on hers, risking their being seen through the windows, and a sensation like the simmering of some scented fluid poured from the billowing cushions into Rachel's back.
Nor was, the young Moor disposed to forgo the pomp of driving right up to the hotel entrance. The porters in their black silk sleeves and green aprons grinned when Rachel stepped out of the carriage, the doorman peered through the glass door as Soliman paid the fare, and Rachel felt as though the pavement were giving way under her feet. But when no one stopped them as they walked through the vast pillared lobby, she thought that Soliman must enjoy a certain status in the hotel. Again she flushed with embarrassment when she felt the
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eyes of some armchair loungers following her as she passed by, but going up the stairs, she saw many chambermaids dressed in black with their white caps, like herself, if not perhaps as smartly, and she began to feel quite like an explorer wandering over an unknown, pos- sibly dangerous island, who encounters human beings at last.
Then Rachel found herself for the first time in her life inside the rooms of a distinguished hotel. Soliman immediately locked all the doors and then felt called upon to kiss his little friend again. The kisses these two had been giving each other of late had something of the glow of a child's kiss, intended more for mutual reassurance than as any assault upon the moral. fiber, and even. now, when they were
. for the first time alone together in a locked room; Soliman's most pressing concern was to find even more romantic ways of hiding themselves away. He pulled down the blinds and stopped up all the keyholes giving on the corridor. Rachel was much too excited by all these preparations to think of anything other than her own daring and the disgrace of a possible discovery.
Next, Soliman led her to Arnheim's closets and trunks, all open except for one. This was clearly the one harboring the secret. He took the keys from all the open trunks and tried them one by one, with no success, while chattering nonstop, pouring out all his re- serves of camels, princes, mysterious couriers, and insinuations against Arnheim. He borrowed one of Rachel's hairpins and tried to pick the lock with it. When this failed him, he ripped all the keys from all the closet doors and drawers, spread them out between his knees as he squatted on the floor, and paused to brood over this col- lection, trying to think of a fresh expedient. "Now you can see how he hides things from mel" he said to Rachel, rubbing his forehead. "But I may as well show y6u everything else first. "
· And so he simply spread tha be'Wildering riches from Arnheim's trunks and closets out before Rachel, who was crouching on the floor, with her hands clasped between her knees, staring at these things with curiosity. The intimate wardrobe of a man accustomed to the choicest of luxUries was something she had never seen before. Her. own master was certainly not poorly dressed, but he had neither the money nor the need for the ultrasophisticated concoctions of the best tailors and shirtmakers, the creators of luxuries for home and travel. Even her mistress had nothing to compare with the exquisite
things, feminine in their delicacy and complicated in their uses, that belonged to this immensely rich man. Something of Rachel's original awe for the nabob came to life again, even as Soliman puffed himself up with pride in the stunning impression he was making on her as he dragged out everything, showing off all the gadgets and eagerly ex- plaining all the mysteries. Rachel was beginning to tire ofthe endless display, when she was suddenly struck by an odd coincidence. She realized that things of this kind had been cropping up lately among Diotima's lingerie andhousehold things. They were not as numerous or as expensive as Arnheim's, but compared to Diotima's former mo- nastic simplicity, they were certainly 'closer to what she was seeing here than to her austere past. Rachel was overcome by the outra- geous notion that the link between her mistress and Arnheim might be less spiritual than she had supposed.
She blushed to the roots of her hair.
Never since she had entered Oiotima's seiVice had her thoughts wandered into this area. Her eyes had gulped down the glory of her mistress's body without giving any thought to the possible uses of such beauties, like gulping down a powder with its paper envelope. Her satisfaction at being permitted to share the life of persons of such exalted station had been so great that in all this time Rachel, who was so easily seduced, had never thought of any man as a sexual being, but only as someone different in a romantic way, like in a novel. Her high-mindedness had made her a child again, transport- ing her, as it were, back to the stage before puberty, that time of selfless enthusiasms for the greatness of others. This was in fact how Rachel had come to swallow Soliman's tall stories so willingly, in such a trance of gullibility, that it made the cook laugh at her. But now, as Rachel crouched on the floor and saw the suggestive tokens of an adulterous union between Arnheim and Diotima spread out before her in broad daylight, a long-impending change took place inside her-the awakening from an unnatural state of exaltation into the
mistrustful state of the actual world of the flesh.
Gone in a flash was her romanticism; she was a down-to-earth lit-
tle body with a somewhat irritated nop. on that even a servant girl had some rights in life. Soliman was squatting beside her before his out- spread bazaar, having collected up all the things she had especially admired, and was trying to stuff into her pockets whatever was not
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too big, as presents from him. Now he leapt up and made another quick attack with a pocketknife on the locked trunk, while rattling on about having to get a lot of money from the bank before Arnheim returned, using his master's checkbook-in money matters the mad little devil had quite lost his innocence-so that he and Rachel could run away together, but not before. he had his papers.
Rachel abruptly stood up, firmly emptied her pockets of all the "presents" he had stuffed into them, and said, "Don't talk such non- sensei I have to go now. What time is it? '' Her voice sounded deeper. She smoothed her apron and adjusted her cap. Soliman instantly realized that she was through with playing the game, and that she was suddenly much older than he. But! before he could reassert him- self, Rachel was kissing him good-bye. This time her lips did not tremble but pressed hard into the luscious fruit of his face as she bent over him, forcing the boy's head back and keeping atit so long that he almost choked. Soliman struggled, and when she fmally let go he felt as if a taller, stronger boy had been ·holding him under water, so that his first impulse was to get even with her for an unfair trick played on him. But Rachel had slipped out the door, and the·look he sent after her-for that was all of him that caught up with. her-as inflamed as the red-hot tip of a burning arrow, gradually faded to a soft ash. Soliman then picked up his master's belongings from the floor to put them back in order; he had now turned into a young man who could look fmward to something that had ceased to be unattainable.
105
LOVE . ON THE HIGHEST LEVEL IS NO JOKE
Following their excursion to~the mountains, Amheim had gone abroad for longer than usual. "Gone abroad"-as he had come to think of it himself-was cert~y an odd expression to use, consider-
·ing that it should have been "gone home. " It was because of this and other such reasons that it was in fact becoming urgently necessary for him to come to a decision. He was haunted by unpleasant daydreams such as had never before entered his disciplined head. One espe- cially persistent one was ofseeing himselfstanding with Diotima on a tall church steeple, where they gazed briefly at the green landscape stretched far below and then jumped off. A vision of forcing his way unchivalrously into the Tuzzis' bedroom at night to shoot the Section Chief obviously came to the same thing. He could perhaps have cho- sen to finish him off in a duel, but this seemed less natural; the fan- tasy was already loaded down with too many realistic rituals, and the closer Amheim approached reality, the· more troublesome the in- crease ofinhibitions. Asking Tuzzi simply and openly for the hand of his wife in marriage was conceivable, but what would Tuzzi be likely to say to that? It simply meant opening oneself up to all sorts of ridi- cule. And even if Tuzzi were to be civilized about it and there was a minimum of scandal, or possibly no scandal at all, divorce having come to be tolerated even in the best circles, there was still the fact that an old bachelor always made himself a bit ridiculous by a late marriage, much like a couple having a baby for their silver wedding anniversary. And if Arnheim really had to do such a thing, he owed it to the firm to marry a prominent American widow at the very least, or a great lady of ancient lineage with connections at court, and not the divorced wife of a middle-class government official. He could not make a move, even if it were merely of a sensual nature, that was not permeated with responsibility. In a time like the present, when re- sponsibility for one's acts or thoughts plays so slight a role, it was by no means mere personal ambition that raised such objections, but a truly suprapersonal need to bring the power fostered by the Am- heims (a formation rooted in simple greed, which it had long since outgrown, however; it now had a mind of its own, a will of its own, it had to keep growing, to solidify its position, lest it sicken, lest it become rusted when it rested! ) into accord with the forces and hier- archies of life itself, nor had he ever knowingly made a secret of this to Diotima. An Amheim was ofcourse free to marry even some peas- ant if he chose, but free only as regarded his own person; he would
still be betraying a cause for a personal weakness.
It was nevertheless true that he had proposed marriage to Di-
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otima. He h~d done it, if only to forestall the kind of adulterous goings-on that do not consort well with the disciplined conduct oflife on a high level. Diotima had gratefully pressed his hand and, with a smile reminiscent of the fmest such smiles in the history of art, she had responded to his proposal with the words: "It is never those we embrace that we love most deeply. . . . "After this answer, as equivo- cal as the seductive yellow deep inside the chaste lily, Arnheim could never bring himself to go once more into the breach. Instead, they went in for general conversations in which the words "divorce," "marriage," "adultery," and the like showed a strange tendency to crop up. More than once, for instance, Arnheim and Diotima talked in depth about the treatment of adultery in contemporary literature, and Diotima felt that this problem was invariably handled without any appreciation for the great values of self-discipline, renunciation, or heroic self-denial, but purely from a sensual point of view. Arn- heim's view was precisely the same, unfortunately, so that he could only add that there was hardly anyone left these days capable of fully appreciating the deep moral mystery of the individual. This mystery consisted in having to keep a tight rein on the tendency to self-indul- gence. Historic periods of permissiveness have never failed, so far, in
· making all those who lived in them miserable. All discipline, absti- nence, chivalry, music, morality, poetry,Jorm, taboo, had no deeper purpose than to give the correct limits, a definite shape, to life. There is no such thing as boundless happiness. There is no great happiness without great taboos. Even in business, to pursue one's advantage at all costs is to risk getting nowhere. Keeping within one's limits is the secret of all phenomena, of power, happiness, faith, and the key to the task of maintaining oneself as a tiny human creature within the universe. Such was Amheim's statement of the case, and Diotima could not but agree. It was in a sense a regrettable consquence of such insights that they lent to legitimacy a richness of meaning that is no longer available to most people. But great souls cannot do without legitimacy. At peak moments of perception, one senses how the cos- mos turns on an axis ofvertical austerity. And the businessman, even as he rules the world, respects kingship, aristocracy, and the church as pillars of the irrational. The legitimate is simple, as all greatness is
-simple, open to anyone's understanding. Homer was simple, Christ was simple. The truly great minds always come down to simple bas-
ics;. one must have the courage to admit, in fact, that they always come back to moral commonplaces, which is why it is hardest of all for the truly free spirit to defy tradition.
Such insights, true as they are, are not much help to a man bent on intruding into someone else's marriage. So these two people found themselves in the position ofbeing linked by a splendid bridge with a hole at its center, just a few yards wide, so that they cannot come together. Arnheim was deeply sony that he had no spark of that de- sire which is the same, whatever its object, and as likely to catapult a man into a rash business deal as into a rash love affair; his regret moved him to talk at length about desire. According to him, desire was precisely the feeling that best corresponds to the merely intellec- tual culture of our era. No other feeling aims so unequivocally at its specific object. It strikes and sticks like an arrow, rather than swann- ing on into ever greater distances like a flock ofbirds. It impoverishes the soul, just like arithmetic and mechanics and brutality. In this fashion Arnheim spoke with disapproval of desire, even as he felt it struggling like a blinded slave in the cellar.
Diotima took a different tack. She held out her hand to him and beseeched him: "Let us say no more! Words can do much, but there are things beyond words. The real truth between two people cannot be put into words. The moment we speak, certain doors begin to close; language works best for what doesn't really matter; we talk in lieu ofliving. . . . "
Arnheim concurred. ''You're so right. The word, in its arrogance, gives ah arbitrary and impoverished form to the invisible movements of our inner being. "
"Say no more, please," Diotima repeated, laying a hand on his arm. "I feel that we give each other a moment of life when we are silent together. " After a while, she withdrew her hand again and sighed: "There are instants when all the hidden jewels of the soul lie revealed. "
"There may come a time," Arnheim complemented this,"-and there are many signs that it is near already-when souls will behold each other without the mediation of the senses. Souls come together when one pair of lips withdraws from the other. "
Diotima pursed her lips so that they suggested a crooked little tube such as butterflies dip into blossoms. She was totally besotted.
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Like all heightened states of emotion, love brings out a certain mad- ness about the supposed connectedness of things so that any words uttered tended to light up with richly ramifying significance, which manifested itself like a veiled deity before it dissolved in silence. Di- otima knew this phenomenon from her lonely hours of lofty medita- tion, but never before with this intensity to the very edge of barely endurable joy; she was brimming over with uncontrollable feeling, with something godlike inside her that moved as if on skates, and more than once she felt that she was about to crash down in a dead faint.
Arnheim buoyed her up with his great pronouncements. He gave her time to recover, to catch her breath. Then he again spread the safety net ofideal considerations beneath them.
The torment of this expansive joy was that it militated against con- centration. It kept emitting tremulous new waves that rippled out- ward in widening circles but never pressed together to form a current of action. Diotima had after all reached the point of regard- ing the risks ofan affair as the more considerate and civilized alterna- tive to the crude catastrophe of smashed lives, while Arnheim had long since opted morally against accepting such a ~acrifice and was ready to marry her. They could have each other, one way or another, at any moment, and they both knew it, but they did not know which form it should take, for their happiness swept their souls, made for it as they were, to such solemn heights that the fear of spoiling every- thing by some awkward move paralyzed them: a natural state ofanxi- ety for people with a cloud under their feet.
Their minds had never failed to drink in all the grandeur and beauty life had poured out for them, and yet, at its very apex, their joy was strangely curtailed. All the wishes and vanities that had nor- mally filled their lives now lay far beneath them, like toy houses and farmyards deep in the valley, with all the clucking, barking, and other excitements swallowed up in the stillness, leaving only the sense of silerit deep space.
"Can it be that we have a mission? " Diotima wondered, surveying the emotional pinnacle on which she found herselfwith a foreboding ofsome agonizing and unimaginable tum up ahead. Not only had she experienced lesser degrees of such exaltation herself, but even an emotional lightweight like her cousin had been known to speak of
such things, and much had been written about them of late. But if there was any truth to the reports, there were times, every thousand years or so, when the.
