"Gerda says he's a great poet; Hans Sepp says he's nothing but a
careerist
who's taken everyone in!
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" He needed to talk: when he had got home that afternoon, Agathe had been there but soon left again; they had spoken only a few brief words before they came to Diotima's; Agathe had dressed with the aid of the gardener's wife.
"I did warn you!
" Ulrich said.
"Against what? " Diotima asked slowly. "Oh, I don't know. Against everything! "
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In fact, he no longer knew himself what he had not warned her against: her ideas, her ambition, the Parallel Campaign, love, intel- lect, the Jubilee Year, the world of business, her salon, her passions; against the dangers of sensibility and of casually letting things take their course, against letting herself go too far and holding herself too much in check, against adultery and marriage. There was nothing he had not warned her against. "That's how she is," he thought. Every- thing she did looked ridiculous to him, yet she was so beautiful it made him sad.
"I warned you," Ulrich repeated. "I hear that you're no longer in- terested in anything but the scientific approach to sexual problems. " Diotima ignored this. "Do you think this Drangsal's protege is re-
ally gifted? " she asked.
"Certainly," Ulrich replied. "Gifted, young, undeveloped. His suc-
cess and this woman will be the ruin ofhim. In this country newborn babies are ruined by being told that they are people with fabulous instincts that intellectual development would only rob them of. He sometimes comes up with good ideas, but can't let ten minutes go by without making an ass of himself. " He leaned over to say in her ear: "Do you know anything specific about that woman? ''
Diotima shook her head almost imperceptibly.
"She's dangerously ambitious," Ulrich said. "But not uninteresting from the point of view of your current researches. Where beautiful women used to wear a fig leaf, she wears a laurelleafl I hate women like that! "
Diotima did not laugh, nor even smile; she merely inclined her head toward the "cousin. "
"And how do you find him as a man? '' he asked.
"Pathetic," Diotima whispered. "Like a lambkin running to pre- mature fat. "
"What of it? The beauty of the male is only a secondary sexual characteristic," Ulrich said. "What's primarily exciting about him is the expectation of his success. Ten years from now Feuermaul will be an international celebrity; Drangsal's connections will take care of that, and then she'll marry him. If he remains a celebrity, it'll be a happy marriage. "
Diotima bethought herself and gravely corrected him: "Happiness in marriage depends on factors one cannot judge without first sub-
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jecting oneself to a certain discipline! " Then she abandoned him as a proud ship abandons the quay alongside which it has lain. Her duties as hostess bore her away from him with the barest nod, not even a glance, as she cast off her moorings. But she did not mean it un- kindly; on the contrary, Ulrich's voice had affected her like an old tune from her youth. She even wondered privately what she might learn about him by subjecting his sexuality to the illumination of a scientific study. Oddly enough, in all her detailed research into these problems, she had never thought of connecting them with him.
Ulrich looked up, and through a gap in the festive tumult-a kind of optical channel through which Diotima's gaze might have pre- ceded his own just before she had taken her somewhat abrupt depar- ture-he saw, in the room beyond the next, Paul Arnheim in conversation with Feuermaul, with Frau Drangsal standing benignly by. She had brought the two men together. Arnheim was holding the hand with the cigar raised, as though in an unconscious gesture of self-defense, but he was smiling most engagingly; Feuermaul was talking vivaciously, holding his cigar with two fingers and sucking at it between sentences with the greed of a calf butting its muzzle at the maternal udder. Ulrich could have imagined what they were talking about, but he didn't bother; he stayed where he was, in happy isola- tion, looking around for his sister. He discovered her in a group of men who were mostly strangers to him, and a cool chill ran through him despite his distractedness. But just then Stumm von Bordwehr poked him gently in the ribs with a fingertip, and at the same mo- ment Hofrat Professor Schwung approached him on the other side but was stopped a few steps away by the intervention of one of his colleagues from the capital.
"So there you are at last! " the General murmured in relief. "The Minister wants to know what an 'ethos' is. "
''Why an ethos? "
"I don't know. What's an ethos? "
"An eternal truth," Ulrich defined, "that is neither eternal nor
true, but valid for a time to serve as a standard for people to go by. It's a philosophical and sociological term, and not often used. "
"Aha, that'll be it," the General said. "Arnheim, you see, was claiming that the proposition 'Man is good' is only an ethos. Feuer- maul replied that he didn't know what an ethos was, but man is good,
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and that's an eternal truth! Then Leinsdorf said, 'Quite right. There can't really be any evil people, since no one can possibly will evil; these people are only misguided. People are rather nervous these days because in times like these we have so many skeptics who won't believe in anything solid. ' I couldn't help thinking he should have been with us this afternoon. Anyway, he also thinks that people who won't realize what's good for them have to be forced to. And so the Minister wants to know what an ethos is. rll just dash over to him and come right back. Don't budge, so I can find you again! There's some- thing else I must talk with you about, urgently, and then rll take you to the Minister. "
Before Ulrich could ask for particulars, Tuzzi slipped a hand around his arm in passing, saying: 'We haven't seen you here in ages! " Then he went on: "Do you remember my prediction that we'd have a pacifist invasion to deal with? " So saying, he gazed cordially into the General's eyes, but Stumm was in a hurry and merely said that though his ethos as an officer was of another kind, any sincere conviction . . . The rest of this sentence vanished with him, because he always found Tuzzi irritating, which is not conducive to good thinking.
The Section Chief blinked gaily at the General's retreating form and then turned back to the "cousin. " "That business with the oil fields is only a blind, of course," he said.
Ulrich looked at him in surprise.
"You don't mean to say you haven't heard about the oil fields? " Tuzzi asked.
"I have," Ulrich answered. "I was merely surprised that you knew about them," and, not to be impolite, added, "You really understood how to keep quiet about it! "
''I've known about them for quite some time," Tuzzi said, flat- tered. "That this fellow Feuermaul is here this evening is of course Arnheim's doing, bywayofLeinsdorf. Have you read his books, inci- dentally? "
Ulrich admitted that he had.
"A dyed-in-the-wool pacifist! " Tuzzi said. "And La Drangsal, as my wife calls her, mothers him so ambitiously that she'll kill for paci- fism if she has to, even though it's not really her line-artists are her line. " Tuzzi paused to consider, then revealed to Ulrich: "Pacifism is
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the main thing, of course; the oil fields are only a red herring; that's why they're pushing Feuermaul, with his pacifi. sm, to make everyone think: 'Aha, that's the red herring! ' and believe that what's behind it is the oil fields! Neatly done, but much too clever to fool anybody. For ifArnheim has the Galician oil fields and a contract to supply the Army, we naturally have to protect our frontier. W e also have to in- stall oil bases for the Navy on the Adriatic, which will upset the Ital- ians. But ifwe provoke our neighbors this way, the outcry for peace goes up, and so does the peace propaganda, and then when the Czar steps fotward with some idea about Perpetual Peace, he'll flnd the ground psychologically prepared for it. That's Arnheim's real objective! "
"And you've something against it? "
"Of course we have nothing against it," Tuzzi said. "But as you may remember, I've already explained to you why there's nothing so dangerous as peace at any price. We must defend ourselves against the dilettantes! "
"But Arnheim is a munitions maker! " Ulrich objected, smiling.
"Of course he is! " Tuzzi murmured with some exasperation. "For heaven's sake, how can you be so nai've about these things? He'll have his contract in his pocket. At most, our neighbors will arm too. Mark my words: at the crucial moment, he'll show his hand as a paci- fist! Pacifi. sm is a safe, dependable business for munitions makers; war is a risk! "
"It seems to me the military doesn't really mean any harm," Ulrich said, trying to mollify him. "They're only using the business with Arnheim to bring their artillery up-to-date, nothing more. Today the whole world is only arming for peace, after all, so it only seems right to let the pacifi. sts help. "
"And how do these people imagine that's to be done? " Tuzzi in- quired, ignoring the joke.
"I don't think they've got that far yet; for the present they're still searching their hearts. "
"Naturally! " Tuzzi agreed crossly, as though this were just what he had expected. "The military ought to stick to thinking about war and leave everything else to the department responsible. But before doing that, these gentlemen with their dilettantism would rather en- danger the whole world! I tell you again: Nothing is so dangerous in
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diplomacy as loose talk about peace! Every time the demand for peace has reached a certain pitch and was no longer to be contained, it's led straight to war! I can document that for you! . .
Now Hofrat Professor Schwung had rid himself of his colleague and turned with great warmth to Ulrich for an introduction to their host. Ulrich obliged with the remark that one might say that this dis- tinguished jurist condemned pacifism in the sphere of the penal code as ardently as the authoritative Section Chief did in the political arena.
"But good gracious,. . Tuzzi protested, laughing, "you've misun- derstood me entirely! . .
And Schwung too, after a moment's hesitation, was sufficiently re- assured to join forces with him, saying that he would not like his view of diminished responsibility to be regarded as in any way bloodthirsty or inhumane.
"Quite the opposite! . . he said, spreading his voice in place of his arms like an old actor on the lecture platform. "It is precisely the pacification of the human being that requires us to be strict! May I assume that the Herr Section Chief has heard something about my most recent current efforts in this matter? . . And he now turned di- rectly to his host, who had heard nothing about the dispute as to whether the diminished responsibility of an insane criminal is based exclusively in his ideas or exclusively in his will, and thus hastened all the more politely to agree with everything Schwung said. Schwung, well satisfied with the effect he had produced, then began to praise the serious view of life to which this evening's gathering gave wit- ness, and reported that he had often overheard in conversations here and there such expressions as "manly severity. . and "moral sound- ness. . . "Our culture is far too infested with inferior types and moral imbeciles,. . he added by way of his own contribution, and asked: "But what is the real purpose of this evening? As I passed some of the groups, I've been struck by how often I've heard positively Rous- seauistic sentiments about the innate goodness of man. . .
Tuzzi, to whom this question was principally addressed, merely smiled, but just then the General came back to Ulrich, and Ulrich, who wanted to give him the slip, introduced him to Schwung and called him the man best qualified among all those present to answer the question. Stumm von Bordwehr vehemently denied this, but nei-
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ther Schwung nor even Tuzzi would let him go. Ulrich was already beating a jubilant retreat, when he was grabbed by an old acquaint- ance, who said:
"My wife and daughter are also here. " It was Bank Director Leo Fischel.
"Hans Sepp has passed his State Exam," he said. "What do you say to that? All he has to do now is pass one more exam for his doctorate! We're all sitting in that comer over there. . . . "He pointed toward the farthest room. "We know too few people here. Nor have we seen anything ofyou for a long time! Your father, wasn't it . . . ? Hans Sepp got us the invitation for this evening-my wife was dead set on it-so you see the fellow isn't entirely hopeless. They're semi-officially en- gaged now, he and Gerda. You probably didn't know that, did you? But Gerda, you see, that girl, I don't even know whether she's in love with him or has just got it into her head that she is. Won't you come over and join us for a bit? "
'Til be along later," Ulrich promised.
"Please do," Fischel urged, and fell silent. Then he whispered: "Isn't that our host? Won't you introduce me? We haven't had the opportunity. We don't know either him or her. "
But when Ulrich made a move in that direction, Fischel held him back. "And how is the great philosopher? What's he up to? " he asked. "My wife and Gerda are of course mad about him. But what's this about the oil fields? The word now is that it was a false rumor, but I don't believe it. They always deny it! You know, it's the same as when my wife is annoyed with a maid, then I keep hearing that the maid is untruthful, immoral, impertinent-nothing but defects of character, you see? But when I quietly promise the girl a raise, just to have peace in the house, then her character suddenly disappears. No more talk about character, everything's suddenly in order, and my wife doesn't know why. Isn't it always like that? There's too much economic probability in those oil fields for the denials to be be- lieved. "
And because Ulrich held his peace, while Fischel wanted to return to his wife as the glorious bearer of inside information, he began once more:
"One has to admit it's very nice here. But my wife would like to know what all the strange talk is about. And who is this Feuermaul
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anyway? " he added.
"Gerda says he's a great poet; Hans Sepp says he's nothing but a careerist who's taken everyone in! "
Ulrich allowed that the truth probably lay somewhere in between.
"Now, that's well put! " Fischel said gratefully. "The truth always lies somewhere in between, which everyone forgets nowadays, they're all so extreme! I keep telling Hans Sepp that everyone's enti- tled to his opinions, but the only opinions that count are the ones that enable you to earn a living, because that means that other people appreciate your opinions too! "
There had been an impalpable but important change in Leo Fischel, but Ulrich unfortunately passed up the opportunity to look into it and merely hastened to leave Gerda's father with the group around Section Chief Tuzzi. Here Stumm von Bordwehr had mean- while grown eloquent, frustrated at his inability to pin Ulrich down, and so highly charged with things to say that they burst out by the shortest path.
"How to account for this gathering tonight? " he cried, reiterating Hofrat Schwung's question. "I would assert, in the same judicious spirit in which it was asked: Not at all! I'm not joking, gentlemen," he went on, not without a touch of pride. "This very afternoon I hap- pened to ask a young lady whom I had to show around the psychiatric clinic of our University what it was she was actually interested in see- ing, so we could explain it properly, and she gave me a very witty answer, exceptionally thought-provoking. What she said was: 'If we stop to explain everything, we will never change anything in the world. '"
Schwung shook his head in disapproval.
"What she meant by that I don't really know"-Stumm defended himself-"and I won't take responsibility for it, but you can't help feeling there is some truth in it. You see, I am, for instance, indebted to my friend here"-he gave a polite nod in Ulrich's direction- "who has so often given His Grace, and thereby the Parallel Cam- paign too, the benefit of his thoughts, for a great deal of instruction. But what is taking shape here tonight is a certain distaste for instruc- tion. Which brings me back to my first assertion. "
"But isn't what you want . . . ? " Tuzzi. said. "I mean, the word is that colleagues from the War Ministry hope to stimulate a patriotic decision here, a collection of public funds or some such thing, in
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order to bring our artillery up to strength. Naturally, a mere token demonstration, just to put some pressure on Parliament through public opinion. ''
"That is certainly my understanding of some things I've heard to- night! " Hofrat Schwung concurred.
"It's much more complicated, Herr Section Chief," the General said.
"And what about Dr. Arnheim? " Tuzzi. said bluntly. "If I may be quite candid: Are you sure that Arnheim wants nothing more than the Galician oil fields, which are tied up, as it were, with the artillery problem? "
"I can only speak of myself and my part in it, Section Chief," Stumm said, warding him off, then repeated: "And it's all much more complicated! "
"Naturally it's more complicated," Tuzzi. said, smiling.
"Of course we need the guns," the General said, warming to the subject, "and it may indeed be advantageous to work with Arnheim along the lines you suggest. But I repeat that I can only speak from my point of view as a cultural officer, and as such I put it to you: 'What's the use of cannons without the spirit to go with them? '"
"And why, in that case, was so much importance attached to bring- ing in Herr Feuermaul? '' Tuzzi. asked ironically. "That is defeatism pure and simple! "
"Permit me to disagree," the General said firmly, "but that is the spirit of the times! Nowadays the spirit of the times has two separate currents. His Grace-he's standing over there with the Minister; I've just come from talking with them-His Grace, for instance, says that the call has to go out for action, that's what the times demand. And in fact people are much less enchanted with the great idea of humanity than they were, say, a hundred years ago. On the other hand, there is of course something to be said for the point of view of loving man- kind, but about that His Grace says that those who do not want what is good for them must in certain circumstances be forced to accept it! So His Grace is in favor of the one current, but without turning his back on the other. "
"I don't quite follow that," Professor Schwung demurred.
"It's not easy to follow," Stumm readily admitted. "Suppose we go back to the point that I see two currents at work in the mind of our
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period. The one states that man is good by nature, when he is left to himself, as it were--"
"How do you mean good? '' Schwung interrupted. 'Who can possi- bly think in such nai've terms nowadays? We're not living in the world of eighteenth-century idealism! "
'Well, I don't know about that. " The General sounded rather net- tled. "Just think of the pacifists, the vegetarians, the enemies of violence, the back-to-nature people, the anti-intellectuals, the con- scientious objectors-! can't call them all to mind offhand-and all the people who put their faith in mankind, as it were; they all form one big current. But ifyou prefer," he added in that obliging way he had that made him so likable, "we can just as easily start out from the opposite point of view. Suppose we start with the fact that people must be regimented because they never do the right thing of their own accord; we might find it easier to agree on that. The masses need a strong hand, they need leaders who can be tough with them and don't just talk; in a word, they need to be guided by the spirit of action. Human society consists, as it were, of only a small number of volunteers, who also have the necessary training, and of millions without any higher ambitions, who seiVe only because they must. Isn't that so, roughly speaking? And because experience has gradu- ally forced us to recognize this fact even here in our campaign, the first current-for what I've just been talking about is the second cur- rent-the first current, I say, is alarmed at the possibility that the great idea of love and faith in mankind might get lost altogether. Hence there were forces at work, you see, that have sent Feuer- maul into our midst to save what can still be saved at the eleventh hour. Which makes it all much easier to understand than we first thought, no? "
"And what's going to happen then? '' Tuzzi wanted to know.
"Nothing, I imagine," Stumm replied. 'We've had lots ofcurrents in the campaign by now. "
"But there's an intolerable contradiction between your two cur- rents," protested Professor Schwung, who as a jurist could not bear such ambiguity.
"Not ifyou look at it closely," Stumm countered. "The one current is of course also in favor of loving mankind, provided you change it first by force. They differ on a technicality, you might say. "
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Now Director Fischel spoke up: "As a latecomer to the discussion, I'm afraid I don't have a complete picture. But if I mafsay so, it seems to me that respect for humanity is basically on a higher level than its opposite. This evening I've heard some incredible senti- ments-not representative of this gathering, I'm sure, but still-in- credible sentiments about people of different convictions and above all of differing nationalities. " With his chin clean-shaven between muttonchop whiskers and his tilted pince-nez, he looked like an En- glish lord upholding the freedom of humanity and free trade; he did not mention that the disreputable sentiments in question were those of Hans Sepp, his prospective son-in-law, who was in his element in "the second current" of our times.
"Savage sentiments? " the General asked helpfully. "Extraordinarily savage," Fischel confinned.
"Could they have been talking about 'toughening up'? It's easy to
misconstrue that kind of talk," Stumm said.
"No, no," Fischel exclaimed. "Utterly nihilistic, positively revolu-
tionary views! Perhaps you're out of touch with our rebellious younger generation, Herr Major General. I'm surprised that such people are admitted here at all. "
"Revolutionary views? '' Stumm asked, not at all pleased, and smil- ing in as chilly a manner as his plump face would allow. ''I'm afraid I must admit, Herr Direktor, that I'm by no means an out-and-out op- ponent of revolutionary views. Short of an actual revolution, of course. There's often a good deal of idealism in that sort of thing. And as for admitting them here, our campaign, which is intended to draw the whole country together, has no right to turn away construc- tive forces, in whatever mode they may express themselves! "
Leo Fischel was silent. Professor Schwung was not much inter- ested in the views of a dignitary who was outside the ranks of the civilian bureaucracy. Tuzzi had been dreaming: "first current . . . sec- ond current. " It reminded him of two similar expressions, "first res- eiVoir . . . second reseiVoir," but he could not remember them precisely, or the conversation with Ulrich in which they had come up; yet it stirred in him an incomprehensible jealousy of his wife, which was connected to this harmless General by intangible links he could not begin to disentangle. Awakened to reality by the silence, he
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wanted to show the representative of the military that he was not to be sidetracked by digressions.
"All in all, General," he began, "the military party wants-"
"But, my dear Section Chief, there is no military party! " Stumm immediately broke in. "People are always talking about a military party, but by its very nature the military is above party! "
"Let's say the military hierarchy, then," Tuzzi replied, chafing at the interruption. "You were saying that what the army needs is not just guns but the spirit to go with them; by what spirit will you be pleased to have your guns loaded? ''
"That's going too far, Section Chiefl" Stumm protested. "It all started with my being asked to explain tonight's gathering to these gentlemen, and I said one really couldn't explain anything; that's all I'm taking my stand on! Ifthe spirit ofthe times really has two such currents as I have described, neither of them favors 'explanation'; today we favor instinctual energies, dark forces in the blood, and the like. I certainly don't go along with that, but there's something in it! "
At these words Fischel began to fume again, finding it immoral for the military to even consider making terms with the anti-Semites in order to get their guns.
"Come now, Herr Director," Stumm tried to pacify him. "In the first place, a little anti-Semitism more or less hardly matters when people are already so anti to begin with: the Germans anti the Czechs and the Magyars, the Czechs anti the Magyars and the Ger- mans, and so on, everybody against everybody else. Second, if any- one has always been international, it has been the Austrian Army Officers Corps: you need only look at the many Italian, French, Scot- tish, and Lord knows what other names; we even have an Infantry General von Kohn, he's a corps commandant in Olmiitz! "
"All the same, I'm afraid you've bitten off more than you can chew," Tuzzi broke in on this diversion. "You're both internationalist and war-minded, but you want to deal with the nationalist move- ments and the pacifists as well: that's almost more than a professional diplomat could manage. Conducting military politics with pacifism is the task confronting the greatest diplomatic experts in Europe at this moment! "
"But we're not at all the ones who are playing politics! " Stumm
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protested again, in a tone of weary complaint over so much misun- derstanding. "His Grace simply wanted to give capital and culture one last chance to join forces-that's the whole reason for this eve- ning. Of course, if the civilian sector can't come to some kind of ac- cord, we would find ourselves in a position-"
"In what position? That would be interesting to hear, indeed! " Tuzzi cried, a bit too eager to fan the flame.
'Well, in a difficult position, ofcourse," Stumm said with caution and modesty.
While the four gentlemen were engaged in this discussion, Ulrich had long since unobtrusively slipped away to find Gerda, giving a wide berth to the group around His Grace and the Minister to avoid a summons from that quarter.
He caught sight of her from some way off, sitting by the wall be- side her mother, who was gazing stiffly into the salon. Hans Sepp was standing at her other side, with an uneasy, defiant look. Since her last miserable encounter with Ulrich, Gerda had grown even thinner, looking more barren offeminine charms the closer he came, and yet, by the same measure, more banefully attractive, her head on those slack shoulders standing out against the room. When she caught sight of Ulrich her face flushed scarlet, only to tum paler than ever, and she made an involuntary movement with her upper body like someone with a sharp pain in the heart who is somehow unable to press a hand to the spot. He had a fleeting vision of the scene when, wildly intent on his animal advantage in having aroused her physi- cally, he had abused her confusion. There that body was sitting, visi- ble to him beneath her dress, receiving orders from her humiliated will to hold itself proudly high, but trembling the while. Gerda was not angry at him, he could see, but she wanted to be done with him at all costs. He unobtrusively slowed down, trying to savor this to the full, and this sensuous tarrying seemed in keeping with the relation- ship between these two people, who could never quite come to- gether. When Ulrich was very close to her, aware of nothing now but the quivering in the uplifted face awaiting him, he felt in passing something weightless, like a shadow or a gust ofwarmth; and he per- ceived Bonadea, who had passed by him in silence but hardly with- out intent, and in all probability had been following him. He bowed to her. The world is beautiful ifone takes it as it is: For a second the
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naive contrast between the voluptuous and the meager, as expressed in these two women, loomed as large to him as that between pasture and rock at the timberline, and he felt himself stepping down from the Parallel Campaign, even though with a guilty smile. When Gerda saw this smile slowly sinking down toward her outstretched hand, her eyelids quivered.
At this moment Diotima noticed that Arnheim was taking young Feuermaul to meet His Grace and the War Minister, and, skilled tac- tician that she was, she thwarted all encounters by ordering the ser- vants in with trays of refreshments.
37
A COMP ARISON
Such conversations as those just reported went on by the dozen, and they all had something in common, which is not easy to describe but that cannot be passed over if one lacks Privy Councillor Mese- ritscher's flair for giving a dazzling account of a party just by making lists: who was there, wearing what, and saying this and that-all those things that are, in fact, considered by many to be the truest narrative art. So Friedel Feuermaul was not really being a miserable toady, which he never was, but merely flnding the right word for the time and place when he said of Meseritscher, while standing in front of him: "He's really the Homer of our era! No, I mean it," he added, when Meseritscher tried to brush it off. "That epic, imperturbable 'and' with which you link all persons and events strikes me as having real greatness! " He had got hold of Meseritscher because the editor of the Parliamentary and Social Gazette had been reluctant to leave without paying his respects to Arnheim; but this still did not get Feuermaul's name into print "among those present. "
Without going into the flner distinctions between idiots and cre- tins, suffice it to say that an idiot ofa certain degree is not up to form-
1102 • THE MAN WITH 0 U T QUALITIES
ing the concept "parents," even though he has no trouble with the idea of "father and mother. " This same simple additive, "and," was Meseritscher's device for relating social phenomena to one another. Another point about idiots is that in the basic concreteness of their thinking they have something that is generally agreed to appeal to the emotions in a mysterious way; and poets appeal directly to the emotions in very much the same way, insofar as their minds run to palpable realities. And so, when Friedel Feuermaul addressed Mese- ritscher as a poet, he could just as well-that is, out of the same ob- scure, hovering feeling, which, in his case, was also tantamount to a sudden illumination-have called him an idiot, in a way that would have had considerable significance for all mankind. For the element common to both is a mental condition that cannot be spanned by far-reaching concepts, or refined by distinctions and abstractions, a mental state of the crudest pattern, expressed most clearly in the way it limits itself to the simplest of coordinating conjunctions, the help- lessly additive "and," which for those of meager mental capacity re- places more intricate relationships; and it may be said that our world, regardless of all its intellectual riches, is in a mental condition akin to idiocy; indeed, there is no avoiding this conclusion if one tries to grasp as a totality what is going on in the world.
Not that those who are the first to propound or who come to share such a view have a monopoly on intelligence! It simply doesn't de- pend in the least on the individual, or on the pursuits he is engaged in-and which were indeed being engaged in, with more or with less shrewdness, by all those who had come to Diotima's on this evening. For when General Stumm von Bordwehr, for instance, during the pause caused by the arrival of refreshments, got into a conversation with His Grace in the course of which he argued in a genially obsti- nate and respectfully daring tone: 'With all due respect, Your Grace, permit me to disagree most strongly; there is more than mere pre- sumption in people who are proud of their race; there is also some- thing appealingly aristocratic! " he knew precisely what he meant by these words, but not so precisely what he conveyed by them, for such civilities are wrapped in an extra something that is like a pair of thick gloves in which one must struggle to pick up a single match out of a full box. And Leo Fischel, who had not budged from Stumm's side
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after he noticed that the General was moving impatiently toward His Grace, added:
"People must be judged not by their race but on their merit! "
What His Grace replied was logical; disregarding Director Fischel, who had only just been introduced to him, he answered Stumm:
"What does the middle class need race for? They've always been up in arms about a court chamberlain needing sixteen noble ances- tors, and now what are they doing themselves? Trying to ape it, and exaggerating it to boot! More than sixteen ancestors is sheer snob- bery! " For His Grace was upset, and therefore it was quite logical for him to express himself in this fashion. Man is indisputably endowed with reason; the problem is only how he uses his reason in the com- pany of others.
His Grace was vexed by the intrusion of "national" elements into the Parallel Campaign, although he himself had brought it about. Various political and social considerations had driven him to it; he himself recognized only "the national populace. " His political friends had advised him: "There's no harm in listening to what they have to say about race and purity and blood-who takes what anyone says seriously anyway? "
"But they're talking about human beings as if they were beasts! " Count Leinsdorfhad objected; he had a Catholic view of human dig- nity, which prevented him from seeing that the principles of the chicken farm and of horse breeding could be equally well applied to God's children, even though he was a great landowner. To this his friends had replied: "Come now, you've no need to brood about it. And anyhow it's probably better than their talking about the good of mankind and all that revolutionary drivel from abroad, as they've been doing. " His Grace had finally seen the light on this point. But His Grace was also vexed because this fellow Feuermaul, whom he had forced Diotima to invite, was merely bringing fresh confusion into the Parallel Campaign and was a disappointment to him. Baron- ess Wayden had praised Feuermaul to the skies, and he had finally yielded to her insistence. "You're quite right," Leinsdorf had conceded. "The way things are going just now, we can easily be ac- cused of Germanizing. And there may be no harm, as you say, in in-
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viting a poet who says that we have to love all mankind. But don't you see, I can't really spring that on Frau Tuzzi! " But the Baroness would not give an inch and must have found new and effective arguments, for at the end of their conversation Leinsdorf had promised to make Diotima invite Feuermaul. "Not that I like doing it," he had said, "but a strong hand does need the right word to get its message across; I must agree with you there. And it's also true that things have been moving too slowly recently; we haven't had the right spirit! "
But now he was dissatisfied. His Grace was far from thinking that other people were stupid, even if he did think himself more intelli- gent than they were, and he could not comprehend why all these intelligent people taken together made such a poor impression on him. Indeed, life as a whole made this impression on him, as though all the intelligence in individuals and in official institutions-among which he was known to count religion and science-somehow added up to a state of total unaccountability. New ideas that one had not heard of before kept popping up, aroused passions, and then van- ished again after running their course; people were always chasing after some leader or another, and stumbling from one superstition to the next, cheering His Majesty one day and giving the most disgust- ing incendiary speeches in Parliament the next, and none of it ever amounted to anything in the end! If this could be miniaturized by a factor of a million and reduced, as it were, to the dimensions of a single head, the result would be precisely the image of the unac- countable, forgetful, ignorant conduct and the demented hopping around that had always been Count Leinsdorf's image of a lunatic, although he had hitherto had little occasion to think about it. Glumly he stood here now, in the midst of the men surrounding him, and reflected that the whole idea of the Parallel Campaign had been to bring out the truth behind all this, and he found himself unable to formulate some vague idea about faith that was there in his mind; all he could feel was something as pleasantly soothing as the shade of a high wall-a church wall, presumably.
"Funny," he said to Ulrich, giving up his thought after a while. "If you look at all this with some detachment, it somehow reminds you of starlings-you know, the way they flock together in autumn in the fruit trees. "
Ulrich had come back after seeing Gerda. Their conversation had
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not lived up to its promising beginning; Gerda had not managed to utter more than brief, laborious answers hacked off from something that stuck like a hard wedge in her breast, while Hans Sepp talked all the more; he had set himself up as her watchdog and let it be known at once that he was not to be intimidated by his decadent surround- ings.
"You don't know the great racial theorist Bremshuber? " he had asked Ulrich.
''Where does he live? " Ulrich had asked.
"In Scharding on the Laa," Hans Sepp had told him.
''What does he do? " Ulrich had asked.
''What difference does that make? " Hans had said.
"Against what? " Diotima asked slowly. "Oh, I don't know. Against everything! "
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In fact, he no longer knew himself what he had not warned her against: her ideas, her ambition, the Parallel Campaign, love, intel- lect, the Jubilee Year, the world of business, her salon, her passions; against the dangers of sensibility and of casually letting things take their course, against letting herself go too far and holding herself too much in check, against adultery and marriage. There was nothing he had not warned her against. "That's how she is," he thought. Every- thing she did looked ridiculous to him, yet she was so beautiful it made him sad.
"I warned you," Ulrich repeated. "I hear that you're no longer in- terested in anything but the scientific approach to sexual problems. " Diotima ignored this. "Do you think this Drangsal's protege is re-
ally gifted? " she asked.
"Certainly," Ulrich replied. "Gifted, young, undeveloped. His suc-
cess and this woman will be the ruin ofhim. In this country newborn babies are ruined by being told that they are people with fabulous instincts that intellectual development would only rob them of. He sometimes comes up with good ideas, but can't let ten minutes go by without making an ass of himself. " He leaned over to say in her ear: "Do you know anything specific about that woman? ''
Diotima shook her head almost imperceptibly.
"She's dangerously ambitious," Ulrich said. "But not uninteresting from the point of view of your current researches. Where beautiful women used to wear a fig leaf, she wears a laurelleafl I hate women like that! "
Diotima did not laugh, nor even smile; she merely inclined her head toward the "cousin. "
"And how do you find him as a man? '' he asked.
"Pathetic," Diotima whispered. "Like a lambkin running to pre- mature fat. "
"What of it? The beauty of the male is only a secondary sexual characteristic," Ulrich said. "What's primarily exciting about him is the expectation of his success. Ten years from now Feuermaul will be an international celebrity; Drangsal's connections will take care of that, and then she'll marry him. If he remains a celebrity, it'll be a happy marriage. "
Diotima bethought herself and gravely corrected him: "Happiness in marriage depends on factors one cannot judge without first sub-
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jecting oneself to a certain discipline! " Then she abandoned him as a proud ship abandons the quay alongside which it has lain. Her duties as hostess bore her away from him with the barest nod, not even a glance, as she cast off her moorings. But she did not mean it un- kindly; on the contrary, Ulrich's voice had affected her like an old tune from her youth. She even wondered privately what she might learn about him by subjecting his sexuality to the illumination of a scientific study. Oddly enough, in all her detailed research into these problems, she had never thought of connecting them with him.
Ulrich looked up, and through a gap in the festive tumult-a kind of optical channel through which Diotima's gaze might have pre- ceded his own just before she had taken her somewhat abrupt depar- ture-he saw, in the room beyond the next, Paul Arnheim in conversation with Feuermaul, with Frau Drangsal standing benignly by. She had brought the two men together. Arnheim was holding the hand with the cigar raised, as though in an unconscious gesture of self-defense, but he was smiling most engagingly; Feuermaul was talking vivaciously, holding his cigar with two fingers and sucking at it between sentences with the greed of a calf butting its muzzle at the maternal udder. Ulrich could have imagined what they were talking about, but he didn't bother; he stayed where he was, in happy isola- tion, looking around for his sister. He discovered her in a group of men who were mostly strangers to him, and a cool chill ran through him despite his distractedness. But just then Stumm von Bordwehr poked him gently in the ribs with a fingertip, and at the same mo- ment Hofrat Professor Schwung approached him on the other side but was stopped a few steps away by the intervention of one of his colleagues from the capital.
"So there you are at last! " the General murmured in relief. "The Minister wants to know what an 'ethos' is. "
''Why an ethos? "
"I don't know. What's an ethos? "
"An eternal truth," Ulrich defined, "that is neither eternal nor
true, but valid for a time to serve as a standard for people to go by. It's a philosophical and sociological term, and not often used. "
"Aha, that'll be it," the General said. "Arnheim, you see, was claiming that the proposition 'Man is good' is only an ethos. Feuer- maul replied that he didn't know what an ethos was, but man is good,
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and that's an eternal truth! Then Leinsdorf said, 'Quite right. There can't really be any evil people, since no one can possibly will evil; these people are only misguided. People are rather nervous these days because in times like these we have so many skeptics who won't believe in anything solid. ' I couldn't help thinking he should have been with us this afternoon. Anyway, he also thinks that people who won't realize what's good for them have to be forced to. And so the Minister wants to know what an ethos is. rll just dash over to him and come right back. Don't budge, so I can find you again! There's some- thing else I must talk with you about, urgently, and then rll take you to the Minister. "
Before Ulrich could ask for particulars, Tuzzi slipped a hand around his arm in passing, saying: 'We haven't seen you here in ages! " Then he went on: "Do you remember my prediction that we'd have a pacifist invasion to deal with? " So saying, he gazed cordially into the General's eyes, but Stumm was in a hurry and merely said that though his ethos as an officer was of another kind, any sincere conviction . . . The rest of this sentence vanished with him, because he always found Tuzzi irritating, which is not conducive to good thinking.
The Section Chief blinked gaily at the General's retreating form and then turned back to the "cousin. " "That business with the oil fields is only a blind, of course," he said.
Ulrich looked at him in surprise.
"You don't mean to say you haven't heard about the oil fields? " Tuzzi asked.
"I have," Ulrich answered. "I was merely surprised that you knew about them," and, not to be impolite, added, "You really understood how to keep quiet about it! "
''I've known about them for quite some time," Tuzzi said, flat- tered. "That this fellow Feuermaul is here this evening is of course Arnheim's doing, bywayofLeinsdorf. Have you read his books, inci- dentally? "
Ulrich admitted that he had.
"A dyed-in-the-wool pacifist! " Tuzzi said. "And La Drangsal, as my wife calls her, mothers him so ambitiously that she'll kill for paci- fism if she has to, even though it's not really her line-artists are her line. " Tuzzi paused to consider, then revealed to Ulrich: "Pacifism is
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the main thing, of course; the oil fields are only a red herring; that's why they're pushing Feuermaul, with his pacifi. sm, to make everyone think: 'Aha, that's the red herring! ' and believe that what's behind it is the oil fields! Neatly done, but much too clever to fool anybody. For ifArnheim has the Galician oil fields and a contract to supply the Army, we naturally have to protect our frontier. W e also have to in- stall oil bases for the Navy on the Adriatic, which will upset the Ital- ians. But ifwe provoke our neighbors this way, the outcry for peace goes up, and so does the peace propaganda, and then when the Czar steps fotward with some idea about Perpetual Peace, he'll flnd the ground psychologically prepared for it. That's Arnheim's real objective! "
"And you've something against it? "
"Of course we have nothing against it," Tuzzi said. "But as you may remember, I've already explained to you why there's nothing so dangerous as peace at any price. We must defend ourselves against the dilettantes! "
"But Arnheim is a munitions maker! " Ulrich objected, smiling.
"Of course he is! " Tuzzi murmured with some exasperation. "For heaven's sake, how can you be so nai've about these things? He'll have his contract in his pocket. At most, our neighbors will arm too. Mark my words: at the crucial moment, he'll show his hand as a paci- fist! Pacifi. sm is a safe, dependable business for munitions makers; war is a risk! "
"It seems to me the military doesn't really mean any harm," Ulrich said, trying to mollify him. "They're only using the business with Arnheim to bring their artillery up-to-date, nothing more. Today the whole world is only arming for peace, after all, so it only seems right to let the pacifi. sts help. "
"And how do these people imagine that's to be done? " Tuzzi in- quired, ignoring the joke.
"I don't think they've got that far yet; for the present they're still searching their hearts. "
"Naturally! " Tuzzi agreed crossly, as though this were just what he had expected. "The military ought to stick to thinking about war and leave everything else to the department responsible. But before doing that, these gentlemen with their dilettantism would rather en- danger the whole world! I tell you again: Nothing is so dangerous in
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diplomacy as loose talk about peace! Every time the demand for peace has reached a certain pitch and was no longer to be contained, it's led straight to war! I can document that for you! . .
Now Hofrat Professor Schwung had rid himself of his colleague and turned with great warmth to Ulrich for an introduction to their host. Ulrich obliged with the remark that one might say that this dis- tinguished jurist condemned pacifism in the sphere of the penal code as ardently as the authoritative Section Chief did in the political arena.
"But good gracious,. . Tuzzi protested, laughing, "you've misun- derstood me entirely! . .
And Schwung too, after a moment's hesitation, was sufficiently re- assured to join forces with him, saying that he would not like his view of diminished responsibility to be regarded as in any way bloodthirsty or inhumane.
"Quite the opposite! . . he said, spreading his voice in place of his arms like an old actor on the lecture platform. "It is precisely the pacification of the human being that requires us to be strict! May I assume that the Herr Section Chief has heard something about my most recent current efforts in this matter? . . And he now turned di- rectly to his host, who had heard nothing about the dispute as to whether the diminished responsibility of an insane criminal is based exclusively in his ideas or exclusively in his will, and thus hastened all the more politely to agree with everything Schwung said. Schwung, well satisfied with the effect he had produced, then began to praise the serious view of life to which this evening's gathering gave wit- ness, and reported that he had often overheard in conversations here and there such expressions as "manly severity. . and "moral sound- ness. . . "Our culture is far too infested with inferior types and moral imbeciles,. . he added by way of his own contribution, and asked: "But what is the real purpose of this evening? As I passed some of the groups, I've been struck by how often I've heard positively Rous- seauistic sentiments about the innate goodness of man. . .
Tuzzi, to whom this question was principally addressed, merely smiled, but just then the General came back to Ulrich, and Ulrich, who wanted to give him the slip, introduced him to Schwung and called him the man best qualified among all those present to answer the question. Stumm von Bordwehr vehemently denied this, but nei-
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ther Schwung nor even Tuzzi would let him go. Ulrich was already beating a jubilant retreat, when he was grabbed by an old acquaint- ance, who said:
"My wife and daughter are also here. " It was Bank Director Leo Fischel.
"Hans Sepp has passed his State Exam," he said. "What do you say to that? All he has to do now is pass one more exam for his doctorate! We're all sitting in that comer over there. . . . "He pointed toward the farthest room. "We know too few people here. Nor have we seen anything ofyou for a long time! Your father, wasn't it . . . ? Hans Sepp got us the invitation for this evening-my wife was dead set on it-so you see the fellow isn't entirely hopeless. They're semi-officially en- gaged now, he and Gerda. You probably didn't know that, did you? But Gerda, you see, that girl, I don't even know whether she's in love with him or has just got it into her head that she is. Won't you come over and join us for a bit? "
'Til be along later," Ulrich promised.
"Please do," Fischel urged, and fell silent. Then he whispered: "Isn't that our host? Won't you introduce me? We haven't had the opportunity. We don't know either him or her. "
But when Ulrich made a move in that direction, Fischel held him back. "And how is the great philosopher? What's he up to? " he asked. "My wife and Gerda are of course mad about him. But what's this about the oil fields? The word now is that it was a false rumor, but I don't believe it. They always deny it! You know, it's the same as when my wife is annoyed with a maid, then I keep hearing that the maid is untruthful, immoral, impertinent-nothing but defects of character, you see? But when I quietly promise the girl a raise, just to have peace in the house, then her character suddenly disappears. No more talk about character, everything's suddenly in order, and my wife doesn't know why. Isn't it always like that? There's too much economic probability in those oil fields for the denials to be be- lieved. "
And because Ulrich held his peace, while Fischel wanted to return to his wife as the glorious bearer of inside information, he began once more:
"One has to admit it's very nice here. But my wife would like to know what all the strange talk is about. And who is this Feuermaul
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anyway? " he added.
"Gerda says he's a great poet; Hans Sepp says he's nothing but a careerist who's taken everyone in! "
Ulrich allowed that the truth probably lay somewhere in between.
"Now, that's well put! " Fischel said gratefully. "The truth always lies somewhere in between, which everyone forgets nowadays, they're all so extreme! I keep telling Hans Sepp that everyone's enti- tled to his opinions, but the only opinions that count are the ones that enable you to earn a living, because that means that other people appreciate your opinions too! "
There had been an impalpable but important change in Leo Fischel, but Ulrich unfortunately passed up the opportunity to look into it and merely hastened to leave Gerda's father with the group around Section Chief Tuzzi. Here Stumm von Bordwehr had mean- while grown eloquent, frustrated at his inability to pin Ulrich down, and so highly charged with things to say that they burst out by the shortest path.
"How to account for this gathering tonight? " he cried, reiterating Hofrat Schwung's question. "I would assert, in the same judicious spirit in which it was asked: Not at all! I'm not joking, gentlemen," he went on, not without a touch of pride. "This very afternoon I hap- pened to ask a young lady whom I had to show around the psychiatric clinic of our University what it was she was actually interested in see- ing, so we could explain it properly, and she gave me a very witty answer, exceptionally thought-provoking. What she said was: 'If we stop to explain everything, we will never change anything in the world. '"
Schwung shook his head in disapproval.
"What she meant by that I don't really know"-Stumm defended himself-"and I won't take responsibility for it, but you can't help feeling there is some truth in it. You see, I am, for instance, indebted to my friend here"-he gave a polite nod in Ulrich's direction- "who has so often given His Grace, and thereby the Parallel Cam- paign too, the benefit of his thoughts, for a great deal of instruction. But what is taking shape here tonight is a certain distaste for instruc- tion. Which brings me back to my first assertion. "
"But isn't what you want . . . ? " Tuzzi. said. "I mean, the word is that colleagues from the War Ministry hope to stimulate a patriotic decision here, a collection of public funds or some such thing, in
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order to bring our artillery up to strength. Naturally, a mere token demonstration, just to put some pressure on Parliament through public opinion. ''
"That is certainly my understanding of some things I've heard to- night! " Hofrat Schwung concurred.
"It's much more complicated, Herr Section Chief," the General said.
"And what about Dr. Arnheim? " Tuzzi. said bluntly. "If I may be quite candid: Are you sure that Arnheim wants nothing more than the Galician oil fields, which are tied up, as it were, with the artillery problem? "
"I can only speak of myself and my part in it, Section Chief," Stumm said, warding him off, then repeated: "And it's all much more complicated! "
"Naturally it's more complicated," Tuzzi. said, smiling.
"Of course we need the guns," the General said, warming to the subject, "and it may indeed be advantageous to work with Arnheim along the lines you suggest. But I repeat that I can only speak from my point of view as a cultural officer, and as such I put it to you: 'What's the use of cannons without the spirit to go with them? '"
"And why, in that case, was so much importance attached to bring- ing in Herr Feuermaul? '' Tuzzi. asked ironically. "That is defeatism pure and simple! "
"Permit me to disagree," the General said firmly, "but that is the spirit of the times! Nowadays the spirit of the times has two separate currents. His Grace-he's standing over there with the Minister; I've just come from talking with them-His Grace, for instance, says that the call has to go out for action, that's what the times demand. And in fact people are much less enchanted with the great idea of humanity than they were, say, a hundred years ago. On the other hand, there is of course something to be said for the point of view of loving man- kind, but about that His Grace says that those who do not want what is good for them must in certain circumstances be forced to accept it! So His Grace is in favor of the one current, but without turning his back on the other. "
"I don't quite follow that," Professor Schwung demurred.
"It's not easy to follow," Stumm readily admitted. "Suppose we go back to the point that I see two currents at work in the mind of our
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period. The one states that man is good by nature, when he is left to himself, as it were--"
"How do you mean good? '' Schwung interrupted. 'Who can possi- bly think in such nai've terms nowadays? We're not living in the world of eighteenth-century idealism! "
'Well, I don't know about that. " The General sounded rather net- tled. "Just think of the pacifists, the vegetarians, the enemies of violence, the back-to-nature people, the anti-intellectuals, the con- scientious objectors-! can't call them all to mind offhand-and all the people who put their faith in mankind, as it were; they all form one big current. But ifyou prefer," he added in that obliging way he had that made him so likable, "we can just as easily start out from the opposite point of view. Suppose we start with the fact that people must be regimented because they never do the right thing of their own accord; we might find it easier to agree on that. The masses need a strong hand, they need leaders who can be tough with them and don't just talk; in a word, they need to be guided by the spirit of action. Human society consists, as it were, of only a small number of volunteers, who also have the necessary training, and of millions without any higher ambitions, who seiVe only because they must. Isn't that so, roughly speaking? And because experience has gradu- ally forced us to recognize this fact even here in our campaign, the first current-for what I've just been talking about is the second cur- rent-the first current, I say, is alarmed at the possibility that the great idea of love and faith in mankind might get lost altogether. Hence there were forces at work, you see, that have sent Feuer- maul into our midst to save what can still be saved at the eleventh hour. Which makes it all much easier to understand than we first thought, no? "
"And what's going to happen then? '' Tuzzi wanted to know.
"Nothing, I imagine," Stumm replied. 'We've had lots ofcurrents in the campaign by now. "
"But there's an intolerable contradiction between your two cur- rents," protested Professor Schwung, who as a jurist could not bear such ambiguity.
"Not ifyou look at it closely," Stumm countered. "The one current is of course also in favor of loving mankind, provided you change it first by force. They differ on a technicality, you might say. "
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Now Director Fischel spoke up: "As a latecomer to the discussion, I'm afraid I don't have a complete picture. But if I mafsay so, it seems to me that respect for humanity is basically on a higher level than its opposite. This evening I've heard some incredible senti- ments-not representative of this gathering, I'm sure, but still-in- credible sentiments about people of different convictions and above all of differing nationalities. " With his chin clean-shaven between muttonchop whiskers and his tilted pince-nez, he looked like an En- glish lord upholding the freedom of humanity and free trade; he did not mention that the disreputable sentiments in question were those of Hans Sepp, his prospective son-in-law, who was in his element in "the second current" of our times.
"Savage sentiments? " the General asked helpfully. "Extraordinarily savage," Fischel confinned.
"Could they have been talking about 'toughening up'? It's easy to
misconstrue that kind of talk," Stumm said.
"No, no," Fischel exclaimed. "Utterly nihilistic, positively revolu-
tionary views! Perhaps you're out of touch with our rebellious younger generation, Herr Major General. I'm surprised that such people are admitted here at all. "
"Revolutionary views? '' Stumm asked, not at all pleased, and smil- ing in as chilly a manner as his plump face would allow. ''I'm afraid I must admit, Herr Direktor, that I'm by no means an out-and-out op- ponent of revolutionary views. Short of an actual revolution, of course. There's often a good deal of idealism in that sort of thing. And as for admitting them here, our campaign, which is intended to draw the whole country together, has no right to turn away construc- tive forces, in whatever mode they may express themselves! "
Leo Fischel was silent. Professor Schwung was not much inter- ested in the views of a dignitary who was outside the ranks of the civilian bureaucracy. Tuzzi had been dreaming: "first current . . . sec- ond current. " It reminded him of two similar expressions, "first res- eiVoir . . . second reseiVoir," but he could not remember them precisely, or the conversation with Ulrich in which they had come up; yet it stirred in him an incomprehensible jealousy of his wife, which was connected to this harmless General by intangible links he could not begin to disentangle. Awakened to reality by the silence, he
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wanted to show the representative of the military that he was not to be sidetracked by digressions.
"All in all, General," he began, "the military party wants-"
"But, my dear Section Chief, there is no military party! " Stumm immediately broke in. "People are always talking about a military party, but by its very nature the military is above party! "
"Let's say the military hierarchy, then," Tuzzi replied, chafing at the interruption. "You were saying that what the army needs is not just guns but the spirit to go with them; by what spirit will you be pleased to have your guns loaded? ''
"That's going too far, Section Chiefl" Stumm protested. "It all started with my being asked to explain tonight's gathering to these gentlemen, and I said one really couldn't explain anything; that's all I'm taking my stand on! Ifthe spirit ofthe times really has two such currents as I have described, neither of them favors 'explanation'; today we favor instinctual energies, dark forces in the blood, and the like. I certainly don't go along with that, but there's something in it! "
At these words Fischel began to fume again, finding it immoral for the military to even consider making terms with the anti-Semites in order to get their guns.
"Come now, Herr Director," Stumm tried to pacify him. "In the first place, a little anti-Semitism more or less hardly matters when people are already so anti to begin with: the Germans anti the Czechs and the Magyars, the Czechs anti the Magyars and the Ger- mans, and so on, everybody against everybody else. Second, if any- one has always been international, it has been the Austrian Army Officers Corps: you need only look at the many Italian, French, Scot- tish, and Lord knows what other names; we even have an Infantry General von Kohn, he's a corps commandant in Olmiitz! "
"All the same, I'm afraid you've bitten off more than you can chew," Tuzzi broke in on this diversion. "You're both internationalist and war-minded, but you want to deal with the nationalist move- ments and the pacifists as well: that's almost more than a professional diplomat could manage. Conducting military politics with pacifism is the task confronting the greatest diplomatic experts in Europe at this moment! "
"But we're not at all the ones who are playing politics! " Stumm
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protested again, in a tone of weary complaint over so much misun- derstanding. "His Grace simply wanted to give capital and culture one last chance to join forces-that's the whole reason for this eve- ning. Of course, if the civilian sector can't come to some kind of ac- cord, we would find ourselves in a position-"
"In what position? That would be interesting to hear, indeed! " Tuzzi cried, a bit too eager to fan the flame.
'Well, in a difficult position, ofcourse," Stumm said with caution and modesty.
While the four gentlemen were engaged in this discussion, Ulrich had long since unobtrusively slipped away to find Gerda, giving a wide berth to the group around His Grace and the Minister to avoid a summons from that quarter.
He caught sight of her from some way off, sitting by the wall be- side her mother, who was gazing stiffly into the salon. Hans Sepp was standing at her other side, with an uneasy, defiant look. Since her last miserable encounter with Ulrich, Gerda had grown even thinner, looking more barren offeminine charms the closer he came, and yet, by the same measure, more banefully attractive, her head on those slack shoulders standing out against the room. When she caught sight of Ulrich her face flushed scarlet, only to tum paler than ever, and she made an involuntary movement with her upper body like someone with a sharp pain in the heart who is somehow unable to press a hand to the spot. He had a fleeting vision of the scene when, wildly intent on his animal advantage in having aroused her physi- cally, he had abused her confusion. There that body was sitting, visi- ble to him beneath her dress, receiving orders from her humiliated will to hold itself proudly high, but trembling the while. Gerda was not angry at him, he could see, but she wanted to be done with him at all costs. He unobtrusively slowed down, trying to savor this to the full, and this sensuous tarrying seemed in keeping with the relation- ship between these two people, who could never quite come to- gether. When Ulrich was very close to her, aware of nothing now but the quivering in the uplifted face awaiting him, he felt in passing something weightless, like a shadow or a gust ofwarmth; and he per- ceived Bonadea, who had passed by him in silence but hardly with- out intent, and in all probability had been following him. He bowed to her. The world is beautiful ifone takes it as it is: For a second the
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naive contrast between the voluptuous and the meager, as expressed in these two women, loomed as large to him as that between pasture and rock at the timberline, and he felt himself stepping down from the Parallel Campaign, even though with a guilty smile. When Gerda saw this smile slowly sinking down toward her outstretched hand, her eyelids quivered.
At this moment Diotima noticed that Arnheim was taking young Feuermaul to meet His Grace and the War Minister, and, skilled tac- tician that she was, she thwarted all encounters by ordering the ser- vants in with trays of refreshments.
37
A COMP ARISON
Such conversations as those just reported went on by the dozen, and they all had something in common, which is not easy to describe but that cannot be passed over if one lacks Privy Councillor Mese- ritscher's flair for giving a dazzling account of a party just by making lists: who was there, wearing what, and saying this and that-all those things that are, in fact, considered by many to be the truest narrative art. So Friedel Feuermaul was not really being a miserable toady, which he never was, but merely flnding the right word for the time and place when he said of Meseritscher, while standing in front of him: "He's really the Homer of our era! No, I mean it," he added, when Meseritscher tried to brush it off. "That epic, imperturbable 'and' with which you link all persons and events strikes me as having real greatness! " He had got hold of Meseritscher because the editor of the Parliamentary and Social Gazette had been reluctant to leave without paying his respects to Arnheim; but this still did not get Feuermaul's name into print "among those present. "
Without going into the flner distinctions between idiots and cre- tins, suffice it to say that an idiot ofa certain degree is not up to form-
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ing the concept "parents," even though he has no trouble with the idea of "father and mother. " This same simple additive, "and," was Meseritscher's device for relating social phenomena to one another. Another point about idiots is that in the basic concreteness of their thinking they have something that is generally agreed to appeal to the emotions in a mysterious way; and poets appeal directly to the emotions in very much the same way, insofar as their minds run to palpable realities. And so, when Friedel Feuermaul addressed Mese- ritscher as a poet, he could just as well-that is, out of the same ob- scure, hovering feeling, which, in his case, was also tantamount to a sudden illumination-have called him an idiot, in a way that would have had considerable significance for all mankind. For the element common to both is a mental condition that cannot be spanned by far-reaching concepts, or refined by distinctions and abstractions, a mental state of the crudest pattern, expressed most clearly in the way it limits itself to the simplest of coordinating conjunctions, the help- lessly additive "and," which for those of meager mental capacity re- places more intricate relationships; and it may be said that our world, regardless of all its intellectual riches, is in a mental condition akin to idiocy; indeed, there is no avoiding this conclusion if one tries to grasp as a totality what is going on in the world.
Not that those who are the first to propound or who come to share such a view have a monopoly on intelligence! It simply doesn't de- pend in the least on the individual, or on the pursuits he is engaged in-and which were indeed being engaged in, with more or with less shrewdness, by all those who had come to Diotima's on this evening. For when General Stumm von Bordwehr, for instance, during the pause caused by the arrival of refreshments, got into a conversation with His Grace in the course of which he argued in a genially obsti- nate and respectfully daring tone: 'With all due respect, Your Grace, permit me to disagree most strongly; there is more than mere pre- sumption in people who are proud of their race; there is also some- thing appealingly aristocratic! " he knew precisely what he meant by these words, but not so precisely what he conveyed by them, for such civilities are wrapped in an extra something that is like a pair of thick gloves in which one must struggle to pick up a single match out of a full box. And Leo Fischel, who had not budged from Stumm's side
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after he noticed that the General was moving impatiently toward His Grace, added:
"People must be judged not by their race but on their merit! "
What His Grace replied was logical; disregarding Director Fischel, who had only just been introduced to him, he answered Stumm:
"What does the middle class need race for? They've always been up in arms about a court chamberlain needing sixteen noble ances- tors, and now what are they doing themselves? Trying to ape it, and exaggerating it to boot! More than sixteen ancestors is sheer snob- bery! " For His Grace was upset, and therefore it was quite logical for him to express himself in this fashion. Man is indisputably endowed with reason; the problem is only how he uses his reason in the com- pany of others.
His Grace was vexed by the intrusion of "national" elements into the Parallel Campaign, although he himself had brought it about. Various political and social considerations had driven him to it; he himself recognized only "the national populace. " His political friends had advised him: "There's no harm in listening to what they have to say about race and purity and blood-who takes what anyone says seriously anyway? "
"But they're talking about human beings as if they were beasts! " Count Leinsdorfhad objected; he had a Catholic view of human dig- nity, which prevented him from seeing that the principles of the chicken farm and of horse breeding could be equally well applied to God's children, even though he was a great landowner. To this his friends had replied: "Come now, you've no need to brood about it. And anyhow it's probably better than their talking about the good of mankind and all that revolutionary drivel from abroad, as they've been doing. " His Grace had finally seen the light on this point. But His Grace was also vexed because this fellow Feuermaul, whom he had forced Diotima to invite, was merely bringing fresh confusion into the Parallel Campaign and was a disappointment to him. Baron- ess Wayden had praised Feuermaul to the skies, and he had finally yielded to her insistence. "You're quite right," Leinsdorf had conceded. "The way things are going just now, we can easily be ac- cused of Germanizing. And there may be no harm, as you say, in in-
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viting a poet who says that we have to love all mankind. But don't you see, I can't really spring that on Frau Tuzzi! " But the Baroness would not give an inch and must have found new and effective arguments, for at the end of their conversation Leinsdorf had promised to make Diotima invite Feuermaul. "Not that I like doing it," he had said, "but a strong hand does need the right word to get its message across; I must agree with you there. And it's also true that things have been moving too slowly recently; we haven't had the right spirit! "
But now he was dissatisfied. His Grace was far from thinking that other people were stupid, even if he did think himself more intelli- gent than they were, and he could not comprehend why all these intelligent people taken together made such a poor impression on him. Indeed, life as a whole made this impression on him, as though all the intelligence in individuals and in official institutions-among which he was known to count religion and science-somehow added up to a state of total unaccountability. New ideas that one had not heard of before kept popping up, aroused passions, and then van- ished again after running their course; people were always chasing after some leader or another, and stumbling from one superstition to the next, cheering His Majesty one day and giving the most disgust- ing incendiary speeches in Parliament the next, and none of it ever amounted to anything in the end! If this could be miniaturized by a factor of a million and reduced, as it were, to the dimensions of a single head, the result would be precisely the image of the unac- countable, forgetful, ignorant conduct and the demented hopping around that had always been Count Leinsdorf's image of a lunatic, although he had hitherto had little occasion to think about it. Glumly he stood here now, in the midst of the men surrounding him, and reflected that the whole idea of the Parallel Campaign had been to bring out the truth behind all this, and he found himself unable to formulate some vague idea about faith that was there in his mind; all he could feel was something as pleasantly soothing as the shade of a high wall-a church wall, presumably.
"Funny," he said to Ulrich, giving up his thought after a while. "If you look at all this with some detachment, it somehow reminds you of starlings-you know, the way they flock together in autumn in the fruit trees. "
Ulrich had come back after seeing Gerda. Their conversation had
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not lived up to its promising beginning; Gerda had not managed to utter more than brief, laborious answers hacked off from something that stuck like a hard wedge in her breast, while Hans Sepp talked all the more; he had set himself up as her watchdog and let it be known at once that he was not to be intimidated by his decadent surround- ings.
"You don't know the great racial theorist Bremshuber? " he had asked Ulrich.
''Where does he live? " Ulrich had asked.
"In Scharding on the Laa," Hans Sepp had told him.
''What does he do? " Ulrich had asked.
''What difference does that make? " Hans had said.
