Doctor Faustus (46 page)

Such an attitude does not speak for conscious strength. And Institoris was in fact not a strong man; one realized it in the aesthetic admiration he showed for everything bursting with exuberant vitality. He was blond and dolichocephalic, rather small and very good form, with smooth hair, parted and slightly oiled. A blond moustache drooped over his mouth, and behind the gold-rimmed glasses the blue eyes wore a gentle, high-minded expression, which made it hard to understand—or perhaps precisely did make one understand—that he respected and revered brute force, but of course only when it was beautiful. He belonged to a type bred in those decades—the kind of man who, as Baptist Spengler once aptly put it, “when consumption glows in his cheeks, keeps on shrieking: ‘How stark and beautiful is life!’ “

Well, Institoris did not shriek, on the contrary he spoke rather softly, with a lisp, even when he celebrated the Italian Renaissance as a time that “reeked of blood and beauty.” He was not consumptive, had at most, like nearly everybody, been slightly tubercular in his youth. But he was delicate and nervous, suffered from his sympathetic nerve, in his solar plexus, from which so many anxieties and early fears of death proceed, and was an habitue of a sanatorium for the wealthy in Meran. Surely he promised himself—and his doctors promised him—an improvement in his health resulting from the regularity of a comfortable married life.

In the winter of 1913-14 he approached our Inez Rodde in a way that made one guess it would end in an engagement. However, the affair dragged on for some time, into the early years of the war: doubt and conscience-searching on both sides probably induced a long and careful testing, to see whether they were truly born for each other. But when one saw the “pair” together in the Frau Senator’s salon, to which Institoris had correctly sought an introduction, or in public places, often sitting apart and talking, it was just this question which seemed to be at issue between them, whether directly or not, and the friendly observer, seeing something like a trial engagement in the offing, involuntarily discussed the subject too within himself.

That it was Inez upon whom Helmut had cast his eye might surprise one at first, but one understood it better in the end. She was no Renaissance female—anything but that, in her temperamental sensitiveness, with her veiled glance, full of melancholy and distinction; her head drooping on the slender, extended stalk and the little pursed-up mouth that seemed to indicate a feeble and fluctuating love of mischief. But on the other hand, the wooer would not have known how to cope with his own ideal either; his masculine superiority would have been found sorely wanting—one only needed to imagine him paired with a full and rounded nature like the Orlanda’s to smile and be convinced. And Inez was by no means without feminine charm; it was understandable that a man on the look-out might have fallen in love with her heavy hair, her little dimpling hands, her aristocratic air of setting store by herself. She might be what he needed. Her circumstances attracted him: namely, her patrician origin, on which she laid stress, though it was slightly breathed upon by her present transplanted state; the faint suggestion that she had come down in the world, and thus threatened no superiority. Indeed, he might cherish the thought that in making her his he would be raising and rehabilitating her. A widowed mother, half-impoverished, a little pleasure-seeking; a sister who was going on the stage; a circle more or less bohemian: these were connections which did not, in combination with his own dignity, displease him, especially since socially he lost nothing by them, did not endanger his career, and might be sure that Inez, correctly and amply supplied by the Frau Senator with a dowry of linen, perhaps even silver, would make a model housewife and hostess.

Thus things looked to me, as seen from Dr. Institoris’s side. If I tried to look at him with the girl’s eyes, the thing ceased to be plausible. I could not, even using all my imagination, ascribe to the man, unimpressive as he was, absorbed in himself, refined indeed, with an excellent education, but physically anything but commanding (he even had a tripping gait), any appeal for the other sex; whereas I felt that Inez, with all her maiden reserve and austerity, needed such an appeal. Added to this was the contrast between the philosophical views, the theoretic posture towards life, assumed by the two—which might be considered diametrical and exemplary. It was, to put it briefly, the antithesis between aesthetics and ethics, which in fact largely dominated the cultural dialectics of the time and was to some extent embodied in these two young people: the conflict between a doctrinaire glorification of “life” in its splendid unthinkingness, and the pessimistic reverence for suffering, with its depth and wisdom. One may say that at its creative source this contrast had formed a personal unity and only through time fell out and strove against itself. Dr. Institoris was in the very marrow of his bones a man of the Renaissance—one feels like commenting “Good God!”—and Inez Rodde quite explicitly a child of pessimistic mofalism. For a world that “reeked of blood and beauty” she had no use at all, and as for “life” she was seeking shelter from it in a strictly orthodox, modish, economically well-upholstered marriage, which should protect her from all possible blows of fate. It was ironic that the man—the manikin—who seemed desirous to offer her this shelter raved about beautiful ruthlessness and Italian poisoners.

I doubt that they, when they were alone, discussed any controversies of world-wide bearing. They talked of things nearer at hand and simply tried to see how it would be to be engaged. Philosophical discussion as a social diversion belonged more to the larger group; and I do remember several occasions when we were all sitting together, perhaps round an alcove table in a ballroom, and the views of the two clashed in conversation. Institoris might assert that only human beings with strong and brutal instincts could create great works; and Inez would protest, contending that it had often been highly Christian characters, bowed down by conscience, refined by suffering, their view of life marked by melancholy, from whom had come great things in art. Such antitheses I found idle and ephemeral; they seemed to do no justice to actual fact, the seldom happy and certainly always precarious balance of vitality and infirmity which genius obviously is. But in this discussion one side represented that which it was, namely sickliness, the other that which it worshipped, namely strength; and both must be allowed to have their voice.

Once, I recall, as we sat together (the Knoterichs, Zink and Spengler, Schildknapp and his publisher Radbruch were also of the party) the friendly difference arose not between the lovers, as one tended to call them, but amusingly enough between Institoris and Rudi Schwerdtfeger, who was sitting with us, very charming in his huntsman’s costume. I no longer clearly remember the discussion; anyhow the disagreement arose from a quite innocent remark of Schwerdtfeger’s, about which he had surely thought little or nothing. It was about “merit,” so much I know; something fought for, achieved, accomplished by willpower and self-conquest, and Rudolf, who praised the occurrence warmly, and called it deserving, could not in the least understand what Institoris meant by denying any value to it and refusing to recognize any virtue that had to sweat for it to that extent. From the point of view of beauty, he said, it was not the will but the gift that was to be praised; it alone could be called meritorious. Effort was plebeian; aristocratic and therefore alone meritorious was solely what happened out of instinct, involuntarily and with ease. Now, the good Rudi was no hero or conqueror, and had never in his life done anything that did not come easy to him, as for instance his capital violin-playing. But what the other said did go against the grain with him, and although he dimly felt that the subject had something “higher” about it, out of his own reach, he would not let himself be talked down. He looked Institoris in the face, his lip curled angrily, and his blue eyes bored into the other’s, first the right and then the left, by turns.

“After all, that is just nonsense,” he said, but in a contained, rather subdued voice, betraying that he did not feel so sure of his argument. “Merit is merit, and a gift isn’t a merit. You are always talking about beauty, doctor; but after all it is beautiful when somebody triumphs over himself and does something better than nature gave him to do. What do you say, Inez?” he turned appealingly to her with his question, in perfect innocence, for he had no idea of the fundamentally opposed nature of her views and Helmut’s.

“You are right,” she answered, a faint glow rising in her cheeks. “At least I think so. A gift is pleasing; but the word ‘merit’ implies admiration of a different kind, not applicable to a gift nor to the instinctive at all.”

“There you have it!” cried Schwerdtfeger triumphantly, and Institoris laughed back: “By all means. You went to the right shop.”

There was something strange here; nobody could help feeling it, at least for the moment; nor did the flush in Inez’s cheek immediately subside. It was just in her line to disagree with her lover in all such questions. But it was not in her line to agree with the boy Rudolf. He was utterly unaware that there was such a thing as immoralism, and one cannot well agree with a thesis while not understanding its opposite—at least not before it has been explained to him. In Inez’s verdict, although it was logically quite natural and justified, there was after all something that put one off, and that something was underlined for me by the burst of laughter with which her sister Clarissa greeted Schwerdtfeger’s undeserved triumph. It surely did not escape this haughty person with the too short chin when superiority, on grounds which have nothing to do with superiority, gave something away and was just as certainly of the opinion that it gave nothing away.

“There!” she cried. “Jump up, Rudolf, say thank you, hop up, laddy, and bow! Fetch your rescuer an ice and engage her for the next waltz!”

That was always her way. She always stood up for her sister and said “Up with you!” whenever it was a matter of Inez’s dignity. She said it to Institoris, too, the suitor, when he behaved with something less than alacrity in his gallantries, or was slow in the uptake. Altogether, out of pride she held with superiority, looked out for it, and showed herself highly surprised when she thought it did not get its due. If
he
wants something of
you
, she seemed to say, you have to hop up. I well remember how she once said: “Hop up!” to Schwerdtfeger on Adrian’s behalf, he having expressed a wish—I think it was a ticket for Jeanette Scheurl to the Zapfenstosser orchestra—and Schwerdtfeger made some objection. “Yes, Rudolf, you just hop along and get it,” said she. “For heaven’s sake, have you lost your legs?”

“No, no,” said he, “I only, certainly, of course I—but—“

“But me no buts,” she cut him short, condescendingly, half farcically but also half reproachfully. And Adrian as well as Schwerdtfeger laughed; the latter, making his usual boyish grimace with the corner of his mouth and shrugging his shoulder inside his jacket, promised that he should be served.

It was as though Clarissa saw in Rudolf the sort of suitor who had to “hop”; and in fact he constantly, in the most naive way, confidingly and unabashedly sued for Adrian’s favour. About the real suitor who was courting her sister she often tried to worm an opinion out of me—and Inez herself did the same, in a shyer, more refined way, drawing back almost at once, as though she wanted to hear, and yet wanted to hear and know nothing. Both sisters had confidence in me; that is, they seemed to consider me capable of just evaluations of others, a capacity, of course, which, if it is to inspire full confidence, must stand outside any situation and view it with unclouded eye. The role of confidant is always at once gratifying and painful, for one always plays it with the premise that one does not come into consideration oneself. But how much better it is, I have often told myself, to inspire the world with confidence than to rouse its passion! How much better to seem to it “good” than “beautiful!

A “good” man, that was in Inez Rodde’s eyes probably one to whom the world stands in a purely ethical relation, not an aesthetically stimulated one; hence her confidence in me. But I must say that I served the sisters somewhat unequally and expressed my opinions about Institoris in a form proper to the person who asked for them. In conversation with Clarissa I spoke far more as I really felt; expressed myself as a psychologist about the motives of his choice and his hesitations (anyhow the hesitation was not all on one side), and did not scruple to poke a little fun at his “Miss Nancy” ways and worship of “brute instinct.” She seemed to concur. When Inez herself talked to me, it was not the same. I deferred to feelings which
pro forma
I assumed in her, without actually believing in them; deferred to the reasonable grounds on which in all probability she would marry the man, and spoke with sober regard of his solid qualities, his knowledge, his human decency, his capital prospects. To give my words adequate warmth and yet not too much was a delicate task; for it seemed to me equally a responsibility whether I strengthened the girl in her doubts and depreciated the security for which she yearned, or on the other hand encouraged her to give herself while cherishing such doubts. I even had some ground for feeling, now and then, that I ran more of a risk by encouraging than by dissuading.

The truth was that she soon had enough of my opinions about Helmut Institoris and went on with her confidences in a general way, asking my opinion about certain other persons in the circle, for instance Zink and Spengler, or, for another example, Schwerdtfeger. What did I think about his violin-playing, she asked; about his character, whether and how much I respected him, what shade of seriousness or humour my regard showed. I answered as best I could, with all possible justice, quite as I have spoken of Rudolf in these pages, and she listened attentively, enlarging on my friendly commendation with some remarks of her own, to which again I could only agree, though I was rather struck by her insistence. Considering the girl’s character, her confirmed and mistrustful view of life, her ideas were not surprising, but applied to this particular subject I must say they rather put me off.