/> "The young Madame gave orders for tea to be served in half an hour," the well-trained old man replied, with a servant's politely blank expression giving discreet assurance that he understood noth- ing beyond his duty.
Musil - Man Without Qualities - v2
PART II
INTO THE MILLENNIUM
(THE CRIMINALS)
1
THE FORGOTTEN SISTER
On his arrival in - - - toward evening of the same day, as Ulrich came out ofthe station he saw before him a wide, shallow square that opened into streets at both ends and jolted his memory almost pain- fully, as happens with a landscape one has seen often and then for- gotten again.
"Believe me, income has dropped by twenty percent and prices have gone up twenty percent, that's a total of forty percent! " "Be- lieve me, a six-day bike race promotes international goodwill like nothing else! " These voices were still coming out of his ear: train voices. Then he distinctly heard someone saying: "Still, for me, there's nothing to beat opera! " "Is that your hobby? " "It's my passion. "
He tilted his head as though to shake water out of his ear. The train had been crowded, the journey long. Driblets of the general conversation around him that had seeped into him during the trip were oozing out again. Ulrich had waited for the joyfulness and bus- tle of arrival-which had poured into the quiet square from the sta- tion exit as from the mouth of a drainpipe-to subside to a trickle; now he was standing in the vacuum of silence left behind by such noise. But even as his hearing was still disturbed from the abrupt change, he was struck by an unaccustomed peace that met his eyes. Everything visible was more intensely so than usual, and when he looked across the square the crossbars ofperfectlyordinarywindows stood as black against the pale sheen of glass in the dimming light as if they were the crosses of Golgotha. And everything that moved seemed to detach itself from the calm of the street in a way that never happens in very large cities. Whether passing or standing still, things evidently had the space here in which to make their impor-
730 · THE MAN WITHOUT QUALITIES
tance felt. He could see this with the curiosity of reacquaintance as he gazed out on the large provincial town where he had spent some brief, not very pleasant, parts of his life. It had, as he well knew, an air of someplace colonial, a place of exile: here a nucleus of ancient German burgher stock, transplanted centuries ago to Slavic soil, had withered away so that hardly anything was left, apart from a few churches and family names, to remind one ofit; nor, except for a fine old palace that had been preseiVed, was there evidence of its having become, later on, the old seat ofthe Provincial Diet. But in the era of absolute rule this past had been overlaid by a vast apparatus of impe- rial administration, with its provincial headquarters, schools and uni- versities, barracks, courthouses, prisons, bishop's palace, assembly rooms, and theater, together with the people needed to run them and the merchants and artisans who came in their wake, until finally an industry ofentrepreneurs moved in, filling the suburbs with their factories one after the other, with a greater influence on the fate of this piece ofearth in the past few generations than anything else had had. This town had a past, and it even had a face, but the eyes did not go with the mouth, or the chin with the hair; over everything lay the traces of a hectic life that is inwardly empty. This could possibly, under special personal circumstances, foster great originality.
To sum it up in a phrase perhaps equally arguable, Ulrich had the sense of something "spiritually insubstantial" in which one lost one- self so entirely as to awaken unbridled imaginings. In his pocket he carried his father's eccentric telegram, which he knew by heart: "This is to inform you that I am deceased" was the old gentleman's message for him-or was it to him? as indicated by the signature at the end: "Your father. " His Excellency the Privy Councillor never went in for levity at serious moments. The weird information of the message was consequently infernally logical, since he was himself notifying his son when, in expectation of his end, he wrote or dictated word for word the message that was to be dispatched the instant he had drawn his last breath; the facts could really not be more correctly stated, and yet this act by which the present tried to dominate a fu- ture it could not live to see emitted from the grave an uncanny whiff of an angrily decayed will!
This manifestation, which somehow reminded Ulrich of the meticulously undiscriminating taste of small towns, made him think
Into the Millennium (The Criminals) · 731
with some misgiving of his sister, who had married in the provinces and whom he was about to meet, in the next few minutes. He had been wondering about her already on the train, for he did not know much about her. From time to time standard items of family news reached him through his father's letters; for example: "Your sister Agathe is married," adding some ofthe details, since at the time Ul- rich had not been able to come home for the wedding. Only about a year later he received notice of the young husband's death; then, three years or so after that, if he was not mistaken, word came that "Your sister Agathe, I am glad to say, has decided to marry again. " At this second wedding, five years ago, Ulrich had been present and had seen his sister for a few days, but all he remembered was a ceaseless whirl, like a giant wheel ofwhite cambric and lace. He also remem- bered the bridegroom, who made a poor impression on him. Agathe must have been twenty-two then, while he was twenty-seven, for he had just received his doctorate, so that his sister had to be twenty- seven now; but he had not seen her since that time, nor exchanged letters with her. He recalled only that his father had later written more than once: "It pains me to report that all does not seem to be going as well as it might in your sister's marriage, although her hus- band is a capital fellow" and "The latest successes of your sister Agathe's husband have been most gratifying": Such, more or less, were his father's comments in letters to which Ulrich had, regretta- bly, never paid any attention; but once, as he now remembered quite clearly, in connection with a disapproving comment on his sister's childlessness, their father expressed the hope that she was neverthe- less contented in her marriage, although it was not in her character ever to admit it.
"I wonder what she looks like now," he thought.
It had been one ofthe old gentleman's eccenbicities to keep them conscientiously informed about each other after he had sent them away from home at a tender age, right after their mother's death, to be educated in different schools. Ulrich, who got into scrapes, was often not allowed home for school holidays; so that since their child- hood, when they had in fact been inseparable, he had hardly seen his sister again, with the exception of one longish visit when Agathe was ten.
In the circumstances, Ulrich had thought it only natural that they
732 • THE MAN WITHOUT QUALITIES
did not write. What would they have had to say to each other? At the time of Agathe's first marriage he was, as he now remembered, a lieutenant in the army, and in the hospital recovering from a bullet wound received in a duel: Lord, what an ass he had been! In fact, he had made eve:ry kind of ass of himself. For he remembered now that thememo:ryofthewoundedlieutenantbelongedsomeplaceelse. He had been about to qualify as an engineer and had something "impor- tant" to do that had kept him from the family ceremony. Later he learned that his sister had been ve:ry much in love with her first hus- band; he could not remember who had told him, but what does "ve:ry much in love" mean anyway? It's what people say. She had married again, and Ulrich could not stand her second husband; that was the one thing he was sure of. He disliked him not only for the bad im- pression he made personally but also for that made by some of his books, which Ulrich had read, so that Ulrich's subsequent forgetting of his sister might not have been quite unintentional. It was nothing to be proud of, but he had to admit that even during this last year, when he had thought of so many things, he had never given her a thought, not even when he had received the news of their father's death. But he did ask the old manservant who came to meet him at the station whether his brother-in-law had arrived yet, and was re- lieved to hear that Professor Hagauer was not expected until the day of the funeral. Even though it could be no more than two or three days till then, it seemed to him like a respite of indefinite duration, which he would spend alone with his sister as though they were the closest people in the world. There would have been no point in try- ing to see any logic in this; the thought of "my unknown sister" was evidently one of those roomy abstractions in which many feelings that are not quite at home anywhere could find a place.
Thus preoccupied, Ulrich had walked slowly into the town that opened up before him, at once strange and familiar. He had sent on his luggage, into which he had stuffed quite a number of books at the last minute, in a cab with the old servant, a part of his childhood memories, who had come to combine the functions ofcaretaker, but- ler, and clerk in a fashion that over the years made them hard to dis- tinguish from one another. It was probably this self-effacing, taciturn man to whom Ulrich's father had dictated his death notice, and Ul- rich's feet led him homeward in pleasurable wonder as his now alert
Into the Millennium (The Criminals) · 733
senses curiously took in the fresh impressions that every growing city springs on someone who has not seen it for a long time. At a certain point, which they remembered before he did, Ulrich's feet turned off the main street, and he soon found himself in a narrow lane formed by two garden walls. Diagonally across his path stood the house of barely two stories, the main building higher than the wings, with the old stable to one side and, still pressed against the garden wall, the little house where the servant and his wife lived; it looked as though for all his confidence in them the aged master had wished to keep them as far as possible from him while still embracing them within his walls. Ulrich had absently walked up to the locked garden gate and dropped the big ring-shaped knocker that hung there in lieu ofa bell against the low door, blackwith age, before the servant came running up to correct his error. They had to go back around the wall to the main entrance, where the cab had drawn up, and it was only at this moment, seeing the shuttered fat;ade of the house before him, that it occurred to Ulrich that his sister had not come to meet him at the station. The servant reported that Madame had a migraine and had retired after lunch, ordering them to wake her when the Herr Doktor arrived. Did his sister suffer from migraine often? Ulrich went on to ask, then instantly regretted his slip in drawing the old servant's attention to family matters that were better passed over in silence.
"The young Madame gave orders for tea to be served in half an hour," the well-trained old man replied, with a servant's politely blank expression giving discreet assurance that he understood noth- ing beyond his duty.
Spontaneously Ulrich glanced up at the windows, supposing that Agathe might be standing there observing his arrival. He wondered whether she would be agreeable, becoming uneasily aware how awk- ward the visit would be if he happened not to like her. That she had neither come to meet his train nor met him at the house door was distinctly in her favor, however, showing a certain rapport offeeling: rushing to meet him, after all, would have been as uncalled for as it would have been for him on arrival to rush to his father's coffin. He left word for her that he would be down in half an hour, and went to his room to get himself in order. The room he was to stay in was in the mansard-roofed second story of the main house and had been his
734 ; THE MAN WITH0UT QUALITIES
childhood room, now curiously supplemented by the addition of a few random pieces for an adult's comfort. "It was probably the best they could do as long as the body is still in the house," Ulrich thought, settling in among the ruins of his childhood a little awk- wardly, yet also with a rather warm feeling that seemed to rise like mist from the floor. A5 he started to change it occurred to him to put on a pajama-like lounging suit he came across while unpacking. "She might at least have come down to say hello when I got here," he thought, and there was a hint of rebuke in his casual choice of dress, even as he continued to feel that his sister's reason for acting as she did was likely to be a congenial one, so that he was also compliment- ing her by his unforced expression of ease.
The loose lounging suit of soft wool he put on was patterned in black and gray squares, almost a Pierrot costume, gathered at the waist, wrists, and ankles; he liked its comfort, which felt pleasant after that sleepless night and the long train journey, as he came down the stairs. But when he entered the room where his sister was wait- ing, he was amazed at his costume, for by some mysterious directive of chance he found his appearance echoed in that of a tall, blond Pierrot in a pattern of delicate gray and rust stripes and lozenges, who at first glance looked quite like himself.
"I had no idea we were twins! " Agathe said, her face lighting up with a smile.
2
CONFIDENCES
They did not greet each other with a kiss but merely stood amicably facing each other, then moved apart, and Ulrich was able to take a good look at his sister. They were of matching height. Agathe's hair was fairer than his and had the same dry fragrance as her skin, the fragrance that was the only thing he liked-about his own body. In-
Into the Millennium (The Criminals) · 735
stead of being all bosom she had small, finn breasts, and her limbs seemed to have the long, slender spindle shape that combines natu- ral athletic ability and beauty.
"I hope you're over your migraine," Ulrich said. "It doesn't show. "
"I never had migraine; it was just the simplest thing to say," Agathe explained. "I couldn't very well send you a long and compli- cated message through the seiVants. I was lazy, that's all. I took a nap. In this house I've got into the habit of sleeping every chance I get. I'm basically lazy--out of desperation, I think. And when I heard you were coming I thought, 'Let's hope this is the last time I feel sleepy,' and I gave myself up to a sort of sleep cure. I thought it over carefully and then, for the butler's convenience, decided to call it migraine. "
"Don't you go in for any sports? " Ulrich asked.
"Some tennis. But I detest sports. "
As she spoke, he studied her face again. It did not seem very like
his own, but perhaps he was mistaken; maybe it was like the same face done in pastels and in a woodcut, the difference in the medium obscuring the congruence of line and plane. There was something in this face he found disturbing. After a while, he realized that he sim- ply could not read its expression; what was missing was whatever it is that enables one to draw the usual inferences about the person. It was an expressive face, but nothing in it was emphasized, nothing combined in the way that normally suggests traits of character.
"How did you happen to dress like that? " Ulrich asked.
"No special reason. I thought it would be nice. "
"It's very nice! " Ulrich laughed. "But positively a conjuring trick of
chance! And Father's death doesn't seem to have greatly upset you either? "
Agathe rose slowly on her toes and then just as slowly sank back on her heels.
"Is your husband here yet? " her brother asked, just to say some- thing.
"Professor Hagauer is coming for the funeral. " She seemed to rel- ish the occasion to pronounce that name so formally and to dissociate herself from it as if it were some strange object.
Ulrich was at a loss how to respond. "Oh yes, so I was told," he said.
Again they looked at each other, and then they went, as the proper next step, into the little room where the body lay.
736 · THE MAN WITH0UT QUALITIES
The room had been kept artificially dark for a whole day; it was drenched in black. Flowers and lighted candles glowed and scented the air. The two Pierrots stood straight as they faced the dead man, as ifwatchinghim.
'Til never go back to Hagauer," Agathe said, just to get it out. One could almost think she wanted the dead man to hear it too.
There he lay on his bier, as he had directed: in full evening dress, the pall drawn halfway down his chest to expose the stiff shirtfront with all his decorations, his hands folded without a crucifix. Small, hard-ridged brows, sunken cheeks and lips. Stitched into the horri- ble, eyeless corpse's skin, which is still a part of the personality and yet already something apart: life's traveling bag. In spite of himself, Ulrich felt shaken at his very core, deep beneath any feeling or thought; but nowhere else. If he had had to put it into words, he would only have been able to say that a tiresome, loveless relation- ship had come to an end. Just as a bad marriage debases the people who cannot get free of it, so does every burdensome bond meant to last forever when the mortal substance shrivels away from under it.
"I would have liked you to come sooner," Agathe went on, "but Papa wouldn't have it. He made all the arrangements for his death himself. I think he would have been embarrassed to die with you looking on. I've been living here for two weeks now; it's been horrible. "
"Did he love you, at least? " Ulrich asked.
"Whatever he wanted done he told old Franz to take care of, and from then on he gave the impression of someone who has nothing to do and has no purpose in life. But every fifteen minutes or so he'd lift up his head to check whether I was still in the room. For the flrst few days, that is. Then it was only every half hour, then every hour, and during that frightful last day it happened only two or three times. And all that time he never said a word to me except when I asked him something. "
As she spoke, Ulrich was thinking: "She's really hard. Even as a child she could be incredibly stubborn, in her quiet way. And yet she seems to be amenable enough. . . . " And suddenly he thought of an avalanche. He had once almost lost his life in a forest that was being devastated by an avalanche. It had been no more than a soft cloud of
Into the Millennium (The Criminals) · 737
powdery snow, and yet the irresistible force behind it gave it the im- pact of a toppling mountain.
'W as it you who sent me the telegram? " he asked.
"That was old Franz, of course. It was all settled beforehand. He wouldn't let me take care of him, either. He certainly never loved me, and I don't know why he sent for me. I felt miserable and shut myself up in my room as often as I could. It was during one of those times that he died. "
"He probably did it to prove that you were in the wrong," Ulrich said bitterly. "Come on! " He drew her toward the door. "But maybe he wanted you to stroke his forehead? Or kneel by his bedside? Even if it was only because he had always read that it's the proper way to take leave ofa father for the last time. Only he couldn't bring himself to ask you. "
"Maybe," she said.
They had stopped for another look at him.
"How horrible it is, all of it! " Agathe said.
"Yes," Ulrich said. "And we know so little about it. "
As they were leaving the room Agathe stopped again and said to
Ulrich: ''I'm springing something on you that can't be of any concern to you, of course, but it was during Father's illness that I decided not to go back to my husband under any circumstances. "
Her brother could not help smiling at the stubbornness with which she said this, for Agathe had a vertical furrow between her brows and spoke vehemently; she seemed to fear that he would not be on her side, and reminded him of a terrified cat whose fright makes it leap bravely to the attack.
"Does he consent? '' Ulrich asked.
"He knows nothing about it yet," Agathe said. "But he won't con- sent! "
Her brother gave her a questioning look. She shook her head im- patiently. "Oh no, it's not what you think. There's no third person involved," she said.
With this, their conversation came to an end for the time being. Agathe apologized for having been so unmindful of Ulrich's hunger and fatigue, led him to a room where tea had been laid out, then went herself to fetch something that was missing from the tray. Left
738 · THE MAN WITH0UT QUALITIES
to himself, Ulrich used the opportunity to concentrate on whatever he could recollect about her husband, the better to understand her. Professor Hagauer was a man of medium height with a ramrod bear- ing and plump legs in baggy trousers, rather fleshy lips under a bris- tly mustache, and a fondness for florid neckties, probably as a sign that he was no common schoolmaster but one who was future-ori- ented. Ulrich felt his cold misgivings about Agathe's choice re- awaken, but that Gottlieb Hagauer, with candor shining from his brow and eyes, would harbor secret vices was entirely out of the question. "He's the very model of the industrious, capable person, doing his best for humanity in his own field without meddling in mat- ters beyond his scope," Ulrich decided, remembering Hagauer's writings, as well, and falling into not entirely agreeable thoughts.
Such people can first be recognized for what they are even in their school days. They study not so much conscientiously-as it is called, confusing the effect with the cause-as in an orderly and practical fashion. They lay out every task beforehand, just as one has to lay out every piece of tomorrow's clothing, down to the last collar button, the night before if one wants to dress quickly and without a hitch in the morning. There is no chain of thought they cannot fix in their minds by using half a dozen such laid-out studs, and there is no deny- ing that the results do them credit and stand up to scrutiny. This takes them to the head of the class without their being perceived as prigs by their classmates, while people like Ulrich, who may be far more gifted but are given to overdoing a bit here and falling a bit short there, get gradually left behind in some imperceptibly fated way. It occurred to him that he was secretly somewhat in awe-Of these favored types, because the precision with which their minds worked made his own romantic enthusiasm for precision seem a bit windy. "They haven't a trace of soul," he thought, "and they're good- natured fellows. After the age of sixteen, when adolescents get worked up about intellectual problems, they seem to fall behind a little, not quite able to catch on to new ideas and feelings, but here, too, they work with their ten studs, and the day comes when they're able to prove that they have always understood everything, of course without going to any untenable extremes, and in the end they are the ones who introduce the new ideas into practical life when for every- one else those ideas have faded away with their long-past adoles-
Into the Millennium (The Criminals) · 739
cence, or have become lonely eccentricities. " And so, by the time Agathe came back into the room, Ulrich could still not imagine what had actually happened to her, but he felt that entering the lists against her husband, even if it was unfair, was likely to offer him a most reprehensible pleasure.
Agathe seemed to see no point in trying to explain her decision rationally. Outwardly her marriage was in the most perfect order, as was only to be expected in the case of a man of Hagauer's character. No quarrels, hardly any differences of opinion; if only because Agathe, as she told Ulrich, never confided her opinion to him on any subject. Of course no vices: no drink, no gambling, not even bachelor habits. Income fairly apportioned. Orderly household. Smooth social life as well as unsocial life, when they were alone.
"So if you simply leave him for no reason at all," Ulrich said, "the divorce will be decided in his favor, provided he sues. "
"Let him sue! " Agathe said defiantly.
"Wouldn't it be a good idea to offer him a small financial compen- sation i f he'll agree to a friendly settlement?
/> "The young Madame gave orders for tea to be served in half an hour," the well-trained old man replied, with a servant's politely blank expression giving discreet assurance that he understood noth- ing beyond his duty.
Spontaneously Ulrich glanced up at the windows, supposing that Agathe might be standing there observing his arrival. He wondered whether she would be agreeable, becoming uneasily aware how awk- ward the visit would be if he happened not to like her. That she had neither come to meet his train nor met him at the house door was distinctly in her favor, however, showing a certain rapport offeeling: rushing to meet him, after all, would have been as uncalled for as it would have been for him on arrival to rush to his father's coffin. He left word for her that he would be down in half an hour, and went to his room to get himself in order. The room he was to stay in was in the mansard-roofed second story of the main house and had been his
734 ; THE MAN WITH0UT QUALITIES
childhood room, now curiously supplemented by the addition of a few random pieces for an adult's comfort. "It was probably the best they could do as long as the body is still in the house," Ulrich thought, settling in among the ruins of his childhood a little awk- wardly, yet also with a rather warm feeling that seemed to rise like mist from the floor. A5 he started to change it occurred to him to put on a pajama-like lounging suit he came across while unpacking. "She might at least have come down to say hello when I got here," he thought, and there was a hint of rebuke in his casual choice of dress, even as he continued to feel that his sister's reason for acting as she did was likely to be a congenial one, so that he was also compliment- ing her by his unforced expression of ease.
The loose lounging suit of soft wool he put on was patterned in black and gray squares, almost a Pierrot costume, gathered at the waist, wrists, and ankles; he liked its comfort, which felt pleasant after that sleepless night and the long train journey, as he came down the stairs. But when he entered the room where his sister was wait- ing, he was amazed at his costume, for by some mysterious directive of chance he found his appearance echoed in that of a tall, blond Pierrot in a pattern of delicate gray and rust stripes and lozenges, who at first glance looked quite like himself.
"I had no idea we were twins! " Agathe said, her face lighting up with a smile.
2
CONFIDENCES
They did not greet each other with a kiss but merely stood amicably facing each other, then moved apart, and Ulrich was able to take a good look at his sister. They were of matching height. Agathe's hair was fairer than his and had the same dry fragrance as her skin, the fragrance that was the only thing he liked-about his own body. In-
Into the Millennium (The Criminals) · 735
stead of being all bosom she had small, finn breasts, and her limbs seemed to have the long, slender spindle shape that combines natu- ral athletic ability and beauty.
"I hope you're over your migraine," Ulrich said. "It doesn't show. "
"I never had migraine; it was just the simplest thing to say," Agathe explained. "I couldn't very well send you a long and compli- cated message through the seiVants. I was lazy, that's all. I took a nap. In this house I've got into the habit of sleeping every chance I get. I'm basically lazy--out of desperation, I think. And when I heard you were coming I thought, 'Let's hope this is the last time I feel sleepy,' and I gave myself up to a sort of sleep cure. I thought it over carefully and then, for the butler's convenience, decided to call it migraine. "
"Don't you go in for any sports? " Ulrich asked.
"Some tennis. But I detest sports. "
As she spoke, he studied her face again. It did not seem very like
his own, but perhaps he was mistaken; maybe it was like the same face done in pastels and in a woodcut, the difference in the medium obscuring the congruence of line and plane. There was something in this face he found disturbing. After a while, he realized that he sim- ply could not read its expression; what was missing was whatever it is that enables one to draw the usual inferences about the person. It was an expressive face, but nothing in it was emphasized, nothing combined in the way that normally suggests traits of character.
"How did you happen to dress like that? " Ulrich asked.
"No special reason. I thought it would be nice. "
"It's very nice! " Ulrich laughed. "But positively a conjuring trick of
chance! And Father's death doesn't seem to have greatly upset you either? "
Agathe rose slowly on her toes and then just as slowly sank back on her heels.
"Is your husband here yet? " her brother asked, just to say some- thing.
"Professor Hagauer is coming for the funeral. " She seemed to rel- ish the occasion to pronounce that name so formally and to dissociate herself from it as if it were some strange object.
Ulrich was at a loss how to respond. "Oh yes, so I was told," he said.
Again they looked at each other, and then they went, as the proper next step, into the little room where the body lay.
736 · THE MAN WITH0UT QUALITIES
The room had been kept artificially dark for a whole day; it was drenched in black. Flowers and lighted candles glowed and scented the air. The two Pierrots stood straight as they faced the dead man, as ifwatchinghim.
'Til never go back to Hagauer," Agathe said, just to get it out. One could almost think she wanted the dead man to hear it too.
There he lay on his bier, as he had directed: in full evening dress, the pall drawn halfway down his chest to expose the stiff shirtfront with all his decorations, his hands folded without a crucifix. Small, hard-ridged brows, sunken cheeks and lips. Stitched into the horri- ble, eyeless corpse's skin, which is still a part of the personality and yet already something apart: life's traveling bag. In spite of himself, Ulrich felt shaken at his very core, deep beneath any feeling or thought; but nowhere else. If he had had to put it into words, he would only have been able to say that a tiresome, loveless relation- ship had come to an end. Just as a bad marriage debases the people who cannot get free of it, so does every burdensome bond meant to last forever when the mortal substance shrivels away from under it.
"I would have liked you to come sooner," Agathe went on, "but Papa wouldn't have it. He made all the arrangements for his death himself. I think he would have been embarrassed to die with you looking on. I've been living here for two weeks now; it's been horrible. "
"Did he love you, at least? " Ulrich asked.
"Whatever he wanted done he told old Franz to take care of, and from then on he gave the impression of someone who has nothing to do and has no purpose in life. But every fifteen minutes or so he'd lift up his head to check whether I was still in the room. For the flrst few days, that is. Then it was only every half hour, then every hour, and during that frightful last day it happened only two or three times. And all that time he never said a word to me except when I asked him something. "
As she spoke, Ulrich was thinking: "She's really hard. Even as a child she could be incredibly stubborn, in her quiet way. And yet she seems to be amenable enough. . . . " And suddenly he thought of an avalanche. He had once almost lost his life in a forest that was being devastated by an avalanche. It had been no more than a soft cloud of
Into the Millennium (The Criminals) · 737
powdery snow, and yet the irresistible force behind it gave it the im- pact of a toppling mountain.
'W as it you who sent me the telegram? " he asked.
"That was old Franz, of course. It was all settled beforehand. He wouldn't let me take care of him, either. He certainly never loved me, and I don't know why he sent for me. I felt miserable and shut myself up in my room as often as I could. It was during one of those times that he died. "
"He probably did it to prove that you were in the wrong," Ulrich said bitterly. "Come on! " He drew her toward the door. "But maybe he wanted you to stroke his forehead? Or kneel by his bedside? Even if it was only because he had always read that it's the proper way to take leave ofa father for the last time. Only he couldn't bring himself to ask you. "
"Maybe," she said.
They had stopped for another look at him.
"How horrible it is, all of it! " Agathe said.
"Yes," Ulrich said. "And we know so little about it. "
As they were leaving the room Agathe stopped again and said to
Ulrich: ''I'm springing something on you that can't be of any concern to you, of course, but it was during Father's illness that I decided not to go back to my husband under any circumstances. "
Her brother could not help smiling at the stubbornness with which she said this, for Agathe had a vertical furrow between her brows and spoke vehemently; she seemed to fear that he would not be on her side, and reminded him of a terrified cat whose fright makes it leap bravely to the attack.
"Does he consent? '' Ulrich asked.
"He knows nothing about it yet," Agathe said. "But he won't con- sent! "
Her brother gave her a questioning look. She shook her head im- patiently. "Oh no, it's not what you think. There's no third person involved," she said.
With this, their conversation came to an end for the time being. Agathe apologized for having been so unmindful of Ulrich's hunger and fatigue, led him to a room where tea had been laid out, then went herself to fetch something that was missing from the tray. Left
738 · THE MAN WITH0UT QUALITIES
to himself, Ulrich used the opportunity to concentrate on whatever he could recollect about her husband, the better to understand her. Professor Hagauer was a man of medium height with a ramrod bear- ing and plump legs in baggy trousers, rather fleshy lips under a bris- tly mustache, and a fondness for florid neckties, probably as a sign that he was no common schoolmaster but one who was future-ori- ented. Ulrich felt his cold misgivings about Agathe's choice re- awaken, but that Gottlieb Hagauer, with candor shining from his brow and eyes, would harbor secret vices was entirely out of the question. "He's the very model of the industrious, capable person, doing his best for humanity in his own field without meddling in mat- ters beyond his scope," Ulrich decided, remembering Hagauer's writings, as well, and falling into not entirely agreeable thoughts.
Such people can first be recognized for what they are even in their school days. They study not so much conscientiously-as it is called, confusing the effect with the cause-as in an orderly and practical fashion. They lay out every task beforehand, just as one has to lay out every piece of tomorrow's clothing, down to the last collar button, the night before if one wants to dress quickly and without a hitch in the morning. There is no chain of thought they cannot fix in their minds by using half a dozen such laid-out studs, and there is no deny- ing that the results do them credit and stand up to scrutiny. This takes them to the head of the class without their being perceived as prigs by their classmates, while people like Ulrich, who may be far more gifted but are given to overdoing a bit here and falling a bit short there, get gradually left behind in some imperceptibly fated way. It occurred to him that he was secretly somewhat in awe-Of these favored types, because the precision with which their minds worked made his own romantic enthusiasm for precision seem a bit windy. "They haven't a trace of soul," he thought, "and they're good- natured fellows. After the age of sixteen, when adolescents get worked up about intellectual problems, they seem to fall behind a little, not quite able to catch on to new ideas and feelings, but here, too, they work with their ten studs, and the day comes when they're able to prove that they have always understood everything, of course without going to any untenable extremes, and in the end they are the ones who introduce the new ideas into practical life when for every- one else those ideas have faded away with their long-past adoles-
Into the Millennium (The Criminals) · 739
cence, or have become lonely eccentricities. " And so, by the time Agathe came back into the room, Ulrich could still not imagine what had actually happened to her, but he felt that entering the lists against her husband, even if it was unfair, was likely to offer him a most reprehensible pleasure.
Agathe seemed to see no point in trying to explain her decision rationally. Outwardly her marriage was in the most perfect order, as was only to be expected in the case of a man of Hagauer's character. No quarrels, hardly any differences of opinion; if only because Agathe, as she told Ulrich, never confided her opinion to him on any subject. Of course no vices: no drink, no gambling, not even bachelor habits. Income fairly apportioned. Orderly household. Smooth social life as well as unsocial life, when they were alone.
"So if you simply leave him for no reason at all," Ulrich said, "the divorce will be decided in his favor, provided he sues. "
"Let him sue! " Agathe said defiantly.
"Wouldn't it be a good idea to offer him a small financial compen- sation i f he'll agree to a friendly settlement? "
"All I took away with me," she replied, "was what I would need during an absence of three weeks, except for a few childish things and mementos from the time before Hagauer. He can keep all the rest; I don't want it. But for the future he's to get nothing more out of me-absolutely nothing! "
Again she had spoken with surprising vehemence. One could per- haps explain it by saying that Agathe wanted to revenge herself on this man for having let him take too much advantage of her in the past. Ulrich's fighting spirit, his sportsmanship, his inventiveness in surmounting obstacles, were now aroused, although he was not espe- cially pleased to feel it; it was too much like the effect of a stimulant that moves the superficial emotions while the deeper ones remain quite untouched. Groping for an overview, he gave the conversation a different turn:
"I've read some of his work, and I've heard of him too," he said. "As far as I can gather, he's regarded as a coming man in pedagogy and education. "
"Yes," Agatha said. "So he is. "
"Judging by what I know of his work, he's not only a sound educa- tor but a pioneer of reform in higher education. I remember one
740 · THE MAN WITH0UT QUALITIES
book ofhis in which he discussed the unique value ofhistory and the humanities for a moral education on the one hand, and on the other the equally unique value of science and mathematics as intellectual discipline, and then, thirdly, the unique value ofthat brimming sense of life in sports and military exercise that makes one flt for action. Is that it? "
"I suppose so," Agatha said, "but did you notice his way with quo- tations? "
"Quotations? Let me see: I dimly remember noticing something there. He uses lots of quotations. He quotes the classics. Of course, he quotes the modems too. . . . Now I've got it: He does something positively revolutionary for a schoolmaster-he quotes not merely academic sources but even aircraft designers, political flgures, and artists of today. . . . But I've already said that, haven't I? " He ended on that uncertain note with which recollection runs into a dead end.
"What he does," Agatha added, "with music, for instance, is to go recklessly as far as Richard Strauss, or with painting as far as Picasso, but he will never, even if only to illustrate something that's wrong, cite a name that hasn't become more or less established currency in the newspapers, even ifit's only treated negatively. "
That was it. Just what he had been groping for in his memory. He looked up. He was pleased by the taste and the acuity shown in Agathe's reply.
"So he's become a leader, over time, by being among the fust to follow in time's train," he commented with a laugh. "All those who come after him see him already ahead of them! But do you like our leading flgures yourself? "
"I don't know. In any case, I don't quote them. "
"Still, we ought to give him his due," Ulrich said. "Your husband's name stands for a program that many people today regard as the most advanced. His achievement represents a solid small step for- ward. His rise cannot be long in coming. Sooner or later he will have at least a university chair, even though he has had to toil for his living as a schoolteacher, while as for me, all I ever had to do was go straight along the course laid out for me-and today I've come so far that I probably wouldn't even get a lectureship. "
Agathe was disappointed, which was probably why her face took
Into the Millennium (The Criminals) · 741
on a blank, porcelain-smooth, ladylike mask as she sweetly said: "Oh, I don't know; perhaps you ought to keep on his good side. "
"When do you expect him? " Ulrich asked.
"Not before the funeral; he has no time to spare. But under no circumstances is he to stay in this house--I won't have it! "
"As you like," Ulrich decided unexpectedly. "I shall meet him at the station and drop him off at some hotel. And if you want, I'll tell him, 'This is where you stay. ' "
Agathe was surprised and suddenly elated.
"That will make him furious, because he'll have to pay; he was of course counting on staying here with us! " Her expression had in- stantly changed and regained the look of a wild and mischievous child.
"What is the situation, actually? " her brother asked. "Does the house belong to you, me, or both of us? Is there a will? "
"Papa left a big package for me that's supposed to contain all we need to know. " They went to the study, which lay beyond the deceased.
Again they moved through candlelight and the scent of flowers, through the field of vision of those two eyes that no longer saw.
INTO THE MILLENNIUM
(THE CRIMINALS)
1
THE FORGOTTEN SISTER
On his arrival in - - - toward evening of the same day, as Ulrich came out ofthe station he saw before him a wide, shallow square that opened into streets at both ends and jolted his memory almost pain- fully, as happens with a landscape one has seen often and then for- gotten again.
"Believe me, income has dropped by twenty percent and prices have gone up twenty percent, that's a total of forty percent! " "Be- lieve me, a six-day bike race promotes international goodwill like nothing else! " These voices were still coming out of his ear: train voices. Then he distinctly heard someone saying: "Still, for me, there's nothing to beat opera! " "Is that your hobby? " "It's my passion. "
He tilted his head as though to shake water out of his ear. The train had been crowded, the journey long. Driblets of the general conversation around him that had seeped into him during the trip were oozing out again. Ulrich had waited for the joyfulness and bus- tle of arrival-which had poured into the quiet square from the sta- tion exit as from the mouth of a drainpipe-to subside to a trickle; now he was standing in the vacuum of silence left behind by such noise. But even as his hearing was still disturbed from the abrupt change, he was struck by an unaccustomed peace that met his eyes. Everything visible was more intensely so than usual, and when he looked across the square the crossbars ofperfectlyordinarywindows stood as black against the pale sheen of glass in the dimming light as if they were the crosses of Golgotha. And everything that moved seemed to detach itself from the calm of the street in a way that never happens in very large cities. Whether passing or standing still, things evidently had the space here in which to make their impor-
730 · THE MAN WITHOUT QUALITIES
tance felt. He could see this with the curiosity of reacquaintance as he gazed out on the large provincial town where he had spent some brief, not very pleasant, parts of his life. It had, as he well knew, an air of someplace colonial, a place of exile: here a nucleus of ancient German burgher stock, transplanted centuries ago to Slavic soil, had withered away so that hardly anything was left, apart from a few churches and family names, to remind one ofit; nor, except for a fine old palace that had been preseiVed, was there evidence of its having become, later on, the old seat ofthe Provincial Diet. But in the era of absolute rule this past had been overlaid by a vast apparatus of impe- rial administration, with its provincial headquarters, schools and uni- versities, barracks, courthouses, prisons, bishop's palace, assembly rooms, and theater, together with the people needed to run them and the merchants and artisans who came in their wake, until finally an industry ofentrepreneurs moved in, filling the suburbs with their factories one after the other, with a greater influence on the fate of this piece ofearth in the past few generations than anything else had had. This town had a past, and it even had a face, but the eyes did not go with the mouth, or the chin with the hair; over everything lay the traces of a hectic life that is inwardly empty. This could possibly, under special personal circumstances, foster great originality.
To sum it up in a phrase perhaps equally arguable, Ulrich had the sense of something "spiritually insubstantial" in which one lost one- self so entirely as to awaken unbridled imaginings. In his pocket he carried his father's eccentric telegram, which he knew by heart: "This is to inform you that I am deceased" was the old gentleman's message for him-or was it to him? as indicated by the signature at the end: "Your father. " His Excellency the Privy Councillor never went in for levity at serious moments. The weird information of the message was consequently infernally logical, since he was himself notifying his son when, in expectation of his end, he wrote or dictated word for word the message that was to be dispatched the instant he had drawn his last breath; the facts could really not be more correctly stated, and yet this act by which the present tried to dominate a fu- ture it could not live to see emitted from the grave an uncanny whiff of an angrily decayed will!
This manifestation, which somehow reminded Ulrich of the meticulously undiscriminating taste of small towns, made him think
Into the Millennium (The Criminals) · 731
with some misgiving of his sister, who had married in the provinces and whom he was about to meet, in the next few minutes. He had been wondering about her already on the train, for he did not know much about her. From time to time standard items of family news reached him through his father's letters; for example: "Your sister Agathe is married," adding some ofthe details, since at the time Ul- rich had not been able to come home for the wedding. Only about a year later he received notice of the young husband's death; then, three years or so after that, if he was not mistaken, word came that "Your sister Agathe, I am glad to say, has decided to marry again. " At this second wedding, five years ago, Ulrich had been present and had seen his sister for a few days, but all he remembered was a ceaseless whirl, like a giant wheel ofwhite cambric and lace. He also remem- bered the bridegroom, who made a poor impression on him. Agathe must have been twenty-two then, while he was twenty-seven, for he had just received his doctorate, so that his sister had to be twenty- seven now; but he had not seen her since that time, nor exchanged letters with her. He recalled only that his father had later written more than once: "It pains me to report that all does not seem to be going as well as it might in your sister's marriage, although her hus- band is a capital fellow" and "The latest successes of your sister Agathe's husband have been most gratifying": Such, more or less, were his father's comments in letters to which Ulrich had, regretta- bly, never paid any attention; but once, as he now remembered quite clearly, in connection with a disapproving comment on his sister's childlessness, their father expressed the hope that she was neverthe- less contented in her marriage, although it was not in her character ever to admit it.
"I wonder what she looks like now," he thought.
It had been one ofthe old gentleman's eccenbicities to keep them conscientiously informed about each other after he had sent them away from home at a tender age, right after their mother's death, to be educated in different schools. Ulrich, who got into scrapes, was often not allowed home for school holidays; so that since their child- hood, when they had in fact been inseparable, he had hardly seen his sister again, with the exception of one longish visit when Agathe was ten.
In the circumstances, Ulrich had thought it only natural that they
732 • THE MAN WITHOUT QUALITIES
did not write. What would they have had to say to each other? At the time of Agathe's first marriage he was, as he now remembered, a lieutenant in the army, and in the hospital recovering from a bullet wound received in a duel: Lord, what an ass he had been! In fact, he had made eve:ry kind of ass of himself. For he remembered now that thememo:ryofthewoundedlieutenantbelongedsomeplaceelse. He had been about to qualify as an engineer and had something "impor- tant" to do that had kept him from the family ceremony. Later he learned that his sister had been ve:ry much in love with her first hus- band; he could not remember who had told him, but what does "ve:ry much in love" mean anyway? It's what people say. She had married again, and Ulrich could not stand her second husband; that was the one thing he was sure of. He disliked him not only for the bad im- pression he made personally but also for that made by some of his books, which Ulrich had read, so that Ulrich's subsequent forgetting of his sister might not have been quite unintentional. It was nothing to be proud of, but he had to admit that even during this last year, when he had thought of so many things, he had never given her a thought, not even when he had received the news of their father's death. But he did ask the old manservant who came to meet him at the station whether his brother-in-law had arrived yet, and was re- lieved to hear that Professor Hagauer was not expected until the day of the funeral. Even though it could be no more than two or three days till then, it seemed to him like a respite of indefinite duration, which he would spend alone with his sister as though they were the closest people in the world. There would have been no point in try- ing to see any logic in this; the thought of "my unknown sister" was evidently one of those roomy abstractions in which many feelings that are not quite at home anywhere could find a place.
Thus preoccupied, Ulrich had walked slowly into the town that opened up before him, at once strange and familiar. He had sent on his luggage, into which he had stuffed quite a number of books at the last minute, in a cab with the old servant, a part of his childhood memories, who had come to combine the functions ofcaretaker, but- ler, and clerk in a fashion that over the years made them hard to dis- tinguish from one another. It was probably this self-effacing, taciturn man to whom Ulrich's father had dictated his death notice, and Ul- rich's feet led him homeward in pleasurable wonder as his now alert
Into the Millennium (The Criminals) · 733
senses curiously took in the fresh impressions that every growing city springs on someone who has not seen it for a long time. At a certain point, which they remembered before he did, Ulrich's feet turned off the main street, and he soon found himself in a narrow lane formed by two garden walls. Diagonally across his path stood the house of barely two stories, the main building higher than the wings, with the old stable to one side and, still pressed against the garden wall, the little house where the servant and his wife lived; it looked as though for all his confidence in them the aged master had wished to keep them as far as possible from him while still embracing them within his walls. Ulrich had absently walked up to the locked garden gate and dropped the big ring-shaped knocker that hung there in lieu ofa bell against the low door, blackwith age, before the servant came running up to correct his error. They had to go back around the wall to the main entrance, where the cab had drawn up, and it was only at this moment, seeing the shuttered fat;ade of the house before him, that it occurred to Ulrich that his sister had not come to meet him at the station. The servant reported that Madame had a migraine and had retired after lunch, ordering them to wake her when the Herr Doktor arrived. Did his sister suffer from migraine often? Ulrich went on to ask, then instantly regretted his slip in drawing the old servant's attention to family matters that were better passed over in silence.
"The young Madame gave orders for tea to be served in half an hour," the well-trained old man replied, with a servant's politely blank expression giving discreet assurance that he understood noth- ing beyond his duty.
Spontaneously Ulrich glanced up at the windows, supposing that Agathe might be standing there observing his arrival. He wondered whether she would be agreeable, becoming uneasily aware how awk- ward the visit would be if he happened not to like her. That she had neither come to meet his train nor met him at the house door was distinctly in her favor, however, showing a certain rapport offeeling: rushing to meet him, after all, would have been as uncalled for as it would have been for him on arrival to rush to his father's coffin. He left word for her that he would be down in half an hour, and went to his room to get himself in order. The room he was to stay in was in the mansard-roofed second story of the main house and had been his
734 ; THE MAN WITH0UT QUALITIES
childhood room, now curiously supplemented by the addition of a few random pieces for an adult's comfort. "It was probably the best they could do as long as the body is still in the house," Ulrich thought, settling in among the ruins of his childhood a little awk- wardly, yet also with a rather warm feeling that seemed to rise like mist from the floor. A5 he started to change it occurred to him to put on a pajama-like lounging suit he came across while unpacking. "She might at least have come down to say hello when I got here," he thought, and there was a hint of rebuke in his casual choice of dress, even as he continued to feel that his sister's reason for acting as she did was likely to be a congenial one, so that he was also compliment- ing her by his unforced expression of ease.
The loose lounging suit of soft wool he put on was patterned in black and gray squares, almost a Pierrot costume, gathered at the waist, wrists, and ankles; he liked its comfort, which felt pleasant after that sleepless night and the long train journey, as he came down the stairs. But when he entered the room where his sister was wait- ing, he was amazed at his costume, for by some mysterious directive of chance he found his appearance echoed in that of a tall, blond Pierrot in a pattern of delicate gray and rust stripes and lozenges, who at first glance looked quite like himself.
"I had no idea we were twins! " Agathe said, her face lighting up with a smile.
2
CONFIDENCES
They did not greet each other with a kiss but merely stood amicably facing each other, then moved apart, and Ulrich was able to take a good look at his sister. They were of matching height. Agathe's hair was fairer than his and had the same dry fragrance as her skin, the fragrance that was the only thing he liked-about his own body. In-
Into the Millennium (The Criminals) · 735
stead of being all bosom she had small, finn breasts, and her limbs seemed to have the long, slender spindle shape that combines natu- ral athletic ability and beauty.
"I hope you're over your migraine," Ulrich said. "It doesn't show. "
"I never had migraine; it was just the simplest thing to say," Agathe explained. "I couldn't very well send you a long and compli- cated message through the seiVants. I was lazy, that's all. I took a nap. In this house I've got into the habit of sleeping every chance I get. I'm basically lazy--out of desperation, I think. And when I heard you were coming I thought, 'Let's hope this is the last time I feel sleepy,' and I gave myself up to a sort of sleep cure. I thought it over carefully and then, for the butler's convenience, decided to call it migraine. "
"Don't you go in for any sports? " Ulrich asked.
"Some tennis. But I detest sports. "
As she spoke, he studied her face again. It did not seem very like
his own, but perhaps he was mistaken; maybe it was like the same face done in pastels and in a woodcut, the difference in the medium obscuring the congruence of line and plane. There was something in this face he found disturbing. After a while, he realized that he sim- ply could not read its expression; what was missing was whatever it is that enables one to draw the usual inferences about the person. It was an expressive face, but nothing in it was emphasized, nothing combined in the way that normally suggests traits of character.
"How did you happen to dress like that? " Ulrich asked.
"No special reason. I thought it would be nice. "
"It's very nice! " Ulrich laughed. "But positively a conjuring trick of
chance! And Father's death doesn't seem to have greatly upset you either? "
Agathe rose slowly on her toes and then just as slowly sank back on her heels.
"Is your husband here yet? " her brother asked, just to say some- thing.
"Professor Hagauer is coming for the funeral. " She seemed to rel- ish the occasion to pronounce that name so formally and to dissociate herself from it as if it were some strange object.
Ulrich was at a loss how to respond. "Oh yes, so I was told," he said.
Again they looked at each other, and then they went, as the proper next step, into the little room where the body lay.
736 · THE MAN WITH0UT QUALITIES
The room had been kept artificially dark for a whole day; it was drenched in black. Flowers and lighted candles glowed and scented the air. The two Pierrots stood straight as they faced the dead man, as ifwatchinghim.
'Til never go back to Hagauer," Agathe said, just to get it out. One could almost think she wanted the dead man to hear it too.
There he lay on his bier, as he had directed: in full evening dress, the pall drawn halfway down his chest to expose the stiff shirtfront with all his decorations, his hands folded without a crucifix. Small, hard-ridged brows, sunken cheeks and lips. Stitched into the horri- ble, eyeless corpse's skin, which is still a part of the personality and yet already something apart: life's traveling bag. In spite of himself, Ulrich felt shaken at his very core, deep beneath any feeling or thought; but nowhere else. If he had had to put it into words, he would only have been able to say that a tiresome, loveless relation- ship had come to an end. Just as a bad marriage debases the people who cannot get free of it, so does every burdensome bond meant to last forever when the mortal substance shrivels away from under it.
"I would have liked you to come sooner," Agathe went on, "but Papa wouldn't have it. He made all the arrangements for his death himself. I think he would have been embarrassed to die with you looking on. I've been living here for two weeks now; it's been horrible. "
"Did he love you, at least? " Ulrich asked.
"Whatever he wanted done he told old Franz to take care of, and from then on he gave the impression of someone who has nothing to do and has no purpose in life. But every fifteen minutes or so he'd lift up his head to check whether I was still in the room. For the flrst few days, that is. Then it was only every half hour, then every hour, and during that frightful last day it happened only two or three times. And all that time he never said a word to me except when I asked him something. "
As she spoke, Ulrich was thinking: "She's really hard. Even as a child she could be incredibly stubborn, in her quiet way. And yet she seems to be amenable enough. . . . " And suddenly he thought of an avalanche. He had once almost lost his life in a forest that was being devastated by an avalanche. It had been no more than a soft cloud of
Into the Millennium (The Criminals) · 737
powdery snow, and yet the irresistible force behind it gave it the im- pact of a toppling mountain.
'W as it you who sent me the telegram? " he asked.
"That was old Franz, of course. It was all settled beforehand. He wouldn't let me take care of him, either. He certainly never loved me, and I don't know why he sent for me. I felt miserable and shut myself up in my room as often as I could. It was during one of those times that he died. "
"He probably did it to prove that you were in the wrong," Ulrich said bitterly. "Come on! " He drew her toward the door. "But maybe he wanted you to stroke his forehead? Or kneel by his bedside? Even if it was only because he had always read that it's the proper way to take leave ofa father for the last time. Only he couldn't bring himself to ask you. "
"Maybe," she said.
They had stopped for another look at him.
"How horrible it is, all of it! " Agathe said.
"Yes," Ulrich said. "And we know so little about it. "
As they were leaving the room Agathe stopped again and said to
Ulrich: ''I'm springing something on you that can't be of any concern to you, of course, but it was during Father's illness that I decided not to go back to my husband under any circumstances. "
Her brother could not help smiling at the stubbornness with which she said this, for Agathe had a vertical furrow between her brows and spoke vehemently; she seemed to fear that he would not be on her side, and reminded him of a terrified cat whose fright makes it leap bravely to the attack.
"Does he consent? '' Ulrich asked.
"He knows nothing about it yet," Agathe said. "But he won't con- sent! "
Her brother gave her a questioning look. She shook her head im- patiently. "Oh no, it's not what you think. There's no third person involved," she said.
With this, their conversation came to an end for the time being. Agathe apologized for having been so unmindful of Ulrich's hunger and fatigue, led him to a room where tea had been laid out, then went herself to fetch something that was missing from the tray. Left
738 · THE MAN WITH0UT QUALITIES
to himself, Ulrich used the opportunity to concentrate on whatever he could recollect about her husband, the better to understand her. Professor Hagauer was a man of medium height with a ramrod bear- ing and plump legs in baggy trousers, rather fleshy lips under a bris- tly mustache, and a fondness for florid neckties, probably as a sign that he was no common schoolmaster but one who was future-ori- ented. Ulrich felt his cold misgivings about Agathe's choice re- awaken, but that Gottlieb Hagauer, with candor shining from his brow and eyes, would harbor secret vices was entirely out of the question. "He's the very model of the industrious, capable person, doing his best for humanity in his own field without meddling in mat- ters beyond his scope," Ulrich decided, remembering Hagauer's writings, as well, and falling into not entirely agreeable thoughts.
Such people can first be recognized for what they are even in their school days. They study not so much conscientiously-as it is called, confusing the effect with the cause-as in an orderly and practical fashion. They lay out every task beforehand, just as one has to lay out every piece of tomorrow's clothing, down to the last collar button, the night before if one wants to dress quickly and without a hitch in the morning. There is no chain of thought they cannot fix in their minds by using half a dozen such laid-out studs, and there is no deny- ing that the results do them credit and stand up to scrutiny. This takes them to the head of the class without their being perceived as prigs by their classmates, while people like Ulrich, who may be far more gifted but are given to overdoing a bit here and falling a bit short there, get gradually left behind in some imperceptibly fated way. It occurred to him that he was secretly somewhat in awe-Of these favored types, because the precision with which their minds worked made his own romantic enthusiasm for precision seem a bit windy. "They haven't a trace of soul," he thought, "and they're good- natured fellows. After the age of sixteen, when adolescents get worked up about intellectual problems, they seem to fall behind a little, not quite able to catch on to new ideas and feelings, but here, too, they work with their ten studs, and the day comes when they're able to prove that they have always understood everything, of course without going to any untenable extremes, and in the end they are the ones who introduce the new ideas into practical life when for every- one else those ideas have faded away with their long-past adoles-
Into the Millennium (The Criminals) · 739
cence, or have become lonely eccentricities. " And so, by the time Agathe came back into the room, Ulrich could still not imagine what had actually happened to her, but he felt that entering the lists against her husband, even if it was unfair, was likely to offer him a most reprehensible pleasure.
Agathe seemed to see no point in trying to explain her decision rationally. Outwardly her marriage was in the most perfect order, as was only to be expected in the case of a man of Hagauer's character. No quarrels, hardly any differences of opinion; if only because Agathe, as she told Ulrich, never confided her opinion to him on any subject. Of course no vices: no drink, no gambling, not even bachelor habits. Income fairly apportioned. Orderly household. Smooth social life as well as unsocial life, when they were alone.
"So if you simply leave him for no reason at all," Ulrich said, "the divorce will be decided in his favor, provided he sues. "
"Let him sue! " Agathe said defiantly.
"Wouldn't it be a good idea to offer him a small financial compen- sation i f he'll agree to a friendly settlement?
/> "The young Madame gave orders for tea to be served in half an hour," the well-trained old man replied, with a servant's politely blank expression giving discreet assurance that he understood noth- ing beyond his duty.
Spontaneously Ulrich glanced up at the windows, supposing that Agathe might be standing there observing his arrival. He wondered whether she would be agreeable, becoming uneasily aware how awk- ward the visit would be if he happened not to like her. That she had neither come to meet his train nor met him at the house door was distinctly in her favor, however, showing a certain rapport offeeling: rushing to meet him, after all, would have been as uncalled for as it would have been for him on arrival to rush to his father's coffin. He left word for her that he would be down in half an hour, and went to his room to get himself in order. The room he was to stay in was in the mansard-roofed second story of the main house and had been his
734 ; THE MAN WITH0UT QUALITIES
childhood room, now curiously supplemented by the addition of a few random pieces for an adult's comfort. "It was probably the best they could do as long as the body is still in the house," Ulrich thought, settling in among the ruins of his childhood a little awk- wardly, yet also with a rather warm feeling that seemed to rise like mist from the floor. A5 he started to change it occurred to him to put on a pajama-like lounging suit he came across while unpacking. "She might at least have come down to say hello when I got here," he thought, and there was a hint of rebuke in his casual choice of dress, even as he continued to feel that his sister's reason for acting as she did was likely to be a congenial one, so that he was also compliment- ing her by his unforced expression of ease.
The loose lounging suit of soft wool he put on was patterned in black and gray squares, almost a Pierrot costume, gathered at the waist, wrists, and ankles; he liked its comfort, which felt pleasant after that sleepless night and the long train journey, as he came down the stairs. But when he entered the room where his sister was wait- ing, he was amazed at his costume, for by some mysterious directive of chance he found his appearance echoed in that of a tall, blond Pierrot in a pattern of delicate gray and rust stripes and lozenges, who at first glance looked quite like himself.
"I had no idea we were twins! " Agathe said, her face lighting up with a smile.
2
CONFIDENCES
They did not greet each other with a kiss but merely stood amicably facing each other, then moved apart, and Ulrich was able to take a good look at his sister. They were of matching height. Agathe's hair was fairer than his and had the same dry fragrance as her skin, the fragrance that was the only thing he liked-about his own body. In-
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stead of being all bosom she had small, finn breasts, and her limbs seemed to have the long, slender spindle shape that combines natu- ral athletic ability and beauty.
"I hope you're over your migraine," Ulrich said. "It doesn't show. "
"I never had migraine; it was just the simplest thing to say," Agathe explained. "I couldn't very well send you a long and compli- cated message through the seiVants. I was lazy, that's all. I took a nap. In this house I've got into the habit of sleeping every chance I get. I'm basically lazy--out of desperation, I think. And when I heard you were coming I thought, 'Let's hope this is the last time I feel sleepy,' and I gave myself up to a sort of sleep cure. I thought it over carefully and then, for the butler's convenience, decided to call it migraine. "
"Don't you go in for any sports? " Ulrich asked.
"Some tennis. But I detest sports. "
As she spoke, he studied her face again. It did not seem very like
his own, but perhaps he was mistaken; maybe it was like the same face done in pastels and in a woodcut, the difference in the medium obscuring the congruence of line and plane. There was something in this face he found disturbing. After a while, he realized that he sim- ply could not read its expression; what was missing was whatever it is that enables one to draw the usual inferences about the person. It was an expressive face, but nothing in it was emphasized, nothing combined in the way that normally suggests traits of character.
"How did you happen to dress like that? " Ulrich asked.
"No special reason. I thought it would be nice. "
"It's very nice! " Ulrich laughed. "But positively a conjuring trick of
chance! And Father's death doesn't seem to have greatly upset you either? "
Agathe rose slowly on her toes and then just as slowly sank back on her heels.
"Is your husband here yet? " her brother asked, just to say some- thing.
"Professor Hagauer is coming for the funeral. " She seemed to rel- ish the occasion to pronounce that name so formally and to dissociate herself from it as if it were some strange object.
Ulrich was at a loss how to respond. "Oh yes, so I was told," he said.
Again they looked at each other, and then they went, as the proper next step, into the little room where the body lay.
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The room had been kept artificially dark for a whole day; it was drenched in black. Flowers and lighted candles glowed and scented the air. The two Pierrots stood straight as they faced the dead man, as ifwatchinghim.
'Til never go back to Hagauer," Agathe said, just to get it out. One could almost think she wanted the dead man to hear it too.
There he lay on his bier, as he had directed: in full evening dress, the pall drawn halfway down his chest to expose the stiff shirtfront with all his decorations, his hands folded without a crucifix. Small, hard-ridged brows, sunken cheeks and lips. Stitched into the horri- ble, eyeless corpse's skin, which is still a part of the personality and yet already something apart: life's traveling bag. In spite of himself, Ulrich felt shaken at his very core, deep beneath any feeling or thought; but nowhere else. If he had had to put it into words, he would only have been able to say that a tiresome, loveless relation- ship had come to an end. Just as a bad marriage debases the people who cannot get free of it, so does every burdensome bond meant to last forever when the mortal substance shrivels away from under it.
"I would have liked you to come sooner," Agathe went on, "but Papa wouldn't have it. He made all the arrangements for his death himself. I think he would have been embarrassed to die with you looking on. I've been living here for two weeks now; it's been horrible. "
"Did he love you, at least? " Ulrich asked.
"Whatever he wanted done he told old Franz to take care of, and from then on he gave the impression of someone who has nothing to do and has no purpose in life. But every fifteen minutes or so he'd lift up his head to check whether I was still in the room. For the flrst few days, that is. Then it was only every half hour, then every hour, and during that frightful last day it happened only two or three times. And all that time he never said a word to me except when I asked him something. "
As she spoke, Ulrich was thinking: "She's really hard. Even as a child she could be incredibly stubborn, in her quiet way. And yet she seems to be amenable enough. . . . " And suddenly he thought of an avalanche. He had once almost lost his life in a forest that was being devastated by an avalanche. It had been no more than a soft cloud of
Into the Millennium (The Criminals) · 737
powdery snow, and yet the irresistible force behind it gave it the im- pact of a toppling mountain.
'W as it you who sent me the telegram? " he asked.
"That was old Franz, of course. It was all settled beforehand. He wouldn't let me take care of him, either. He certainly never loved me, and I don't know why he sent for me. I felt miserable and shut myself up in my room as often as I could. It was during one of those times that he died. "
"He probably did it to prove that you were in the wrong," Ulrich said bitterly. "Come on! " He drew her toward the door. "But maybe he wanted you to stroke his forehead? Or kneel by his bedside? Even if it was only because he had always read that it's the proper way to take leave ofa father for the last time. Only he couldn't bring himself to ask you. "
"Maybe," she said.
They had stopped for another look at him.
"How horrible it is, all of it! " Agathe said.
"Yes," Ulrich said. "And we know so little about it. "
As they were leaving the room Agathe stopped again and said to
Ulrich: ''I'm springing something on you that can't be of any concern to you, of course, but it was during Father's illness that I decided not to go back to my husband under any circumstances. "
Her brother could not help smiling at the stubbornness with which she said this, for Agathe had a vertical furrow between her brows and spoke vehemently; she seemed to fear that he would not be on her side, and reminded him of a terrified cat whose fright makes it leap bravely to the attack.
"Does he consent? '' Ulrich asked.
"He knows nothing about it yet," Agathe said. "But he won't con- sent! "
Her brother gave her a questioning look. She shook her head im- patiently. "Oh no, it's not what you think. There's no third person involved," she said.
With this, their conversation came to an end for the time being. Agathe apologized for having been so unmindful of Ulrich's hunger and fatigue, led him to a room where tea had been laid out, then went herself to fetch something that was missing from the tray. Left
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to himself, Ulrich used the opportunity to concentrate on whatever he could recollect about her husband, the better to understand her. Professor Hagauer was a man of medium height with a ramrod bear- ing and plump legs in baggy trousers, rather fleshy lips under a bris- tly mustache, and a fondness for florid neckties, probably as a sign that he was no common schoolmaster but one who was future-ori- ented. Ulrich felt his cold misgivings about Agathe's choice re- awaken, but that Gottlieb Hagauer, with candor shining from his brow and eyes, would harbor secret vices was entirely out of the question. "He's the very model of the industrious, capable person, doing his best for humanity in his own field without meddling in mat- ters beyond his scope," Ulrich decided, remembering Hagauer's writings, as well, and falling into not entirely agreeable thoughts.
Such people can first be recognized for what they are even in their school days. They study not so much conscientiously-as it is called, confusing the effect with the cause-as in an orderly and practical fashion. They lay out every task beforehand, just as one has to lay out every piece of tomorrow's clothing, down to the last collar button, the night before if one wants to dress quickly and without a hitch in the morning. There is no chain of thought they cannot fix in their minds by using half a dozen such laid-out studs, and there is no deny- ing that the results do them credit and stand up to scrutiny. This takes them to the head of the class without their being perceived as prigs by their classmates, while people like Ulrich, who may be far more gifted but are given to overdoing a bit here and falling a bit short there, get gradually left behind in some imperceptibly fated way. It occurred to him that he was secretly somewhat in awe-Of these favored types, because the precision with which their minds worked made his own romantic enthusiasm for precision seem a bit windy. "They haven't a trace of soul," he thought, "and they're good- natured fellows. After the age of sixteen, when adolescents get worked up about intellectual problems, they seem to fall behind a little, not quite able to catch on to new ideas and feelings, but here, too, they work with their ten studs, and the day comes when they're able to prove that they have always understood everything, of course without going to any untenable extremes, and in the end they are the ones who introduce the new ideas into practical life when for every- one else those ideas have faded away with their long-past adoles-
Into the Millennium (The Criminals) · 739
cence, or have become lonely eccentricities. " And so, by the time Agathe came back into the room, Ulrich could still not imagine what had actually happened to her, but he felt that entering the lists against her husband, even if it was unfair, was likely to offer him a most reprehensible pleasure.
Agathe seemed to see no point in trying to explain her decision rationally. Outwardly her marriage was in the most perfect order, as was only to be expected in the case of a man of Hagauer's character. No quarrels, hardly any differences of opinion; if only because Agathe, as she told Ulrich, never confided her opinion to him on any subject. Of course no vices: no drink, no gambling, not even bachelor habits. Income fairly apportioned. Orderly household. Smooth social life as well as unsocial life, when they were alone.
"So if you simply leave him for no reason at all," Ulrich said, "the divorce will be decided in his favor, provided he sues. "
"Let him sue! " Agathe said defiantly.
"Wouldn't it be a good idea to offer him a small financial compen- sation i f he'll agree to a friendly settlement? "
"All I took away with me," she replied, "was what I would need during an absence of three weeks, except for a few childish things and mementos from the time before Hagauer. He can keep all the rest; I don't want it. But for the future he's to get nothing more out of me-absolutely nothing! "
Again she had spoken with surprising vehemence. One could per- haps explain it by saying that Agathe wanted to revenge herself on this man for having let him take too much advantage of her in the past. Ulrich's fighting spirit, his sportsmanship, his inventiveness in surmounting obstacles, were now aroused, although he was not espe- cially pleased to feel it; it was too much like the effect of a stimulant that moves the superficial emotions while the deeper ones remain quite untouched. Groping for an overview, he gave the conversation a different turn:
"I've read some of his work, and I've heard of him too," he said. "As far as I can gather, he's regarded as a coming man in pedagogy and education. "
"Yes," Agatha said. "So he is. "
"Judging by what I know of his work, he's not only a sound educa- tor but a pioneer of reform in higher education. I remember one
740 · THE MAN WITH0UT QUALITIES
book ofhis in which he discussed the unique value ofhistory and the humanities for a moral education on the one hand, and on the other the equally unique value of science and mathematics as intellectual discipline, and then, thirdly, the unique value ofthat brimming sense of life in sports and military exercise that makes one flt for action. Is that it? "
"I suppose so," Agatha said, "but did you notice his way with quo- tations? "
"Quotations? Let me see: I dimly remember noticing something there. He uses lots of quotations. He quotes the classics. Of course, he quotes the modems too. . . . Now I've got it: He does something positively revolutionary for a schoolmaster-he quotes not merely academic sources but even aircraft designers, political flgures, and artists of today. . . . But I've already said that, haven't I? " He ended on that uncertain note with which recollection runs into a dead end.
"What he does," Agatha added, "with music, for instance, is to go recklessly as far as Richard Strauss, or with painting as far as Picasso, but he will never, even if only to illustrate something that's wrong, cite a name that hasn't become more or less established currency in the newspapers, even ifit's only treated negatively. "
That was it. Just what he had been groping for in his memory. He looked up. He was pleased by the taste and the acuity shown in Agathe's reply.
"So he's become a leader, over time, by being among the fust to follow in time's train," he commented with a laugh. "All those who come after him see him already ahead of them! But do you like our leading flgures yourself? "
"I don't know. In any case, I don't quote them. "
"Still, we ought to give him his due," Ulrich said. "Your husband's name stands for a program that many people today regard as the most advanced. His achievement represents a solid small step for- ward. His rise cannot be long in coming. Sooner or later he will have at least a university chair, even though he has had to toil for his living as a schoolteacher, while as for me, all I ever had to do was go straight along the course laid out for me-and today I've come so far that I probably wouldn't even get a lectureship. "
Agathe was disappointed, which was probably why her face took
Into the Millennium (The Criminals) · 741
on a blank, porcelain-smooth, ladylike mask as she sweetly said: "Oh, I don't know; perhaps you ought to keep on his good side. "
"When do you expect him? " Ulrich asked.
"Not before the funeral; he has no time to spare. But under no circumstances is he to stay in this house--I won't have it! "
"As you like," Ulrich decided unexpectedly. "I shall meet him at the station and drop him off at some hotel. And if you want, I'll tell him, 'This is where you stay. ' "
Agathe was surprised and suddenly elated.
"That will make him furious, because he'll have to pay; he was of course counting on staying here with us! " Her expression had in- stantly changed and regained the look of a wild and mischievous child.
"What is the situation, actually? " her brother asked. "Does the house belong to you, me, or both of us? Is there a will? "
"Papa left a big package for me that's supposed to contain all we need to know. " They went to the study, which lay beyond the deceased.
Again they moved through candlelight and the scent of flowers, through the field of vision of those two eyes that no longer saw.
