Doctor Faustus (79 page)

Not only did I look with disfavour on the whole affair. I will go further in my confession and set down that I was tempted to remain away myself. Yet against that course was my anxious sense of duty, the feeling that I must, willy-nilly, be present and watch over everything. And so on that Saturday afternoon I betook myself with Helene to Munich, where we caught the local train for Waldshut-Garmisch. We shared the compartment with Schildknapp, Jeanette Scheurl, and Kunigunde Rosenstiel. The rest of the guests were scattered in different coaches, with exception of the Schlaginhaufen pair, the Suabian—speaking old rentier and the former von Plausig, who together with their friends from the opera made the trip by car. They arrived before we did, and the car did good service in Pfeiffering, going to and fro several times between the little station and Hof Schweigestill and conveying the guests by groups, such of them, that is, as did not prefer to walk. The weather held, though a storm rumbled faintly on the horizon. No arrangements had been made to fetch the guests; and Frau Schweigestill, whom Helene and I sought out in the kitchen, explained to us in no small consternation that Adrian had not said a word to prepare her for the invasion. Now in all haste, with Clementine’s help, she was making sandwiches for these people, to be served with coffee and sweet cider.

Meanwhile the baying of old Suso or Kaschperl, jumping about and rattling his chain in front of his kennel, seemed never to stop; he became quiet only when no more guests came and the company had gathered in the Nike salon, whither the servants hastily fetched chairs from the family quarters and even from the sleeping-chambers above. In addition to the guests already named, I mention a few more of those present, at random and from memory: the wealthy Bullinger, Leo Zink, the painter, whom neither Adrian nor I really liked and whom he had presumably invited along with the departed Spengler; Helmut Institoris, now a sort of widower; the clearly articulating Dr. Kranich; Frau Binder-Majorescu, the Knoterichs, the hollow-cheeked jester and academy portrait-painter Nottebohm and his wife, brought by Institoris. Also there were Sixtus Kridwiss and the members of his discussion group: Dr. Unruhe, the researcher into the strata of the earth, Professors Vogler and Holzschuher, Daniel zur Hohe, the poet, in a black buttoned-up frock coat; and to my great annoyance even that quibbling sophist Chaim Breisacher. The professional musical element was represented, in addition to the opera singers, by Dr. Edschmid, the director of the Zapfenstosser orchestra. To my utter astonishment—and probably not only to mine—who should have found his way hither but Baron Gleichen-Russwurm, who, so far as I know, was making his first social appearance since that affair with the mouse, and had brought his wife with him, a full-bosomed, elegant Austrian dame. It appeared that Adrian, eight days beforehand, had sent an invitation to his estate, and most likely the so fantastically compromised descendant of the poet Schiller had joyfully seized upon the unique opportunity to reinstate himself in society.

Well, so all these people, some thirty, as I said, at first stood about expectantly—in the salon, greeted each other, exchanged their feelings of anticipation. Rüdiger Schildknapp, in his everlasting shabby sports clothes, was surrounded by females. Women, in fact, formed the majority of the guests. I heard the voices of the dramatic singers rising euphoniously above all the rest; the clear, asthmatic articulation of Dr. Kranich; Bullinger’s swaggering tones, the assurances of Kridwiss that this gathering and what it promised was “
scho’enorm wichtich
,” and zur Hohe’s concurrence: “
Ja wohl, man kann es sagen
,” as he pounded with the balls of his feet. The Baroness Gleichen moved about, seeking sympathy for the obscure fatality that had befallen her and her husband: “You know about this
ennui
we have had,” she was saying to all and sundry. From the beginning I had observed that many of the guests did not notice Adrian’s presence and spoke as though we were still waiting for him, simply because they did not recognize him. He was sitting at the heavy oval table in the centre of the room, where we had once talked with Saul Fitelberg; he had his back to the light, and was dressed in his everyday clothes. But several guests asked me who the gentleman was, and when, at first in some surprise, I set them right they hastened with an “Oh, really!” of sudden enlightenment to greet their host. How he must have changed, under my very eyes, for that to be possible! Of course, the beard made a great difference, and I said so to those who could not feel convinced that it was he. Near his chair the woolly-headed Rosenstiel stood erect for a long time, like a sentinel; this was why Meta Nackedey kept as far off as possible, in a remote corner of the room. However, Kunigunde had the decency to leave her post after a while, whereon the other adoring soul occupied it straightway. Open on the rack of the square piano against the wall stood the score of
The Lamentation of Dr. Faustus
.

I kept my eyes on my friend, and while talking with one and another of the guests did not miss the sign which he gave me with his head and eyebrows, to the effect that I should have people take their seats. I did so at once, inviting those nearest me, making signs to those farther off, and even bringing myself to clap my hands for silence, that the announcement might be made that Dr. Leverkühn would now begin his lecture. A man knows by a certain numbness of the features that he has gone pale; the drops of perspiration which may come out on his brow are deathly cold as well. My hands, when I very feebly clapped them, shook as they shake now when I set myself to write down the horrible memory.

The audience obeyed with fair alacrity. Silence and order were quickly established. It happened that at the table with Adrian sat the old Schlaginhaufens, Jeanette Scheurl, Schildknapp, my wife and myself. The other guests were irregularly bestowed at both sides of the room, on various kinds of seats, the sofa, painted wooden chairs, horsehair arm-chairs; some of the men leaned against the walls. Adrian showed no sign of gratifying the general expectation, mine included, by going to the piano. He sat with his hands folded, his head drooped to one side, looking straight in front of him, yet hardly with an outward gaze. He began in the now complete hush to address the assembly, in the slightly monotonous, rather faltering voice I was familiar with; in the sense of a greeting, it seemed to me at first, and at first it really was that. I must bring myself to add that he often mis-spoke-and in my agony I dug my nails into my palms—and in correcting one mistake made another, so that after a while he paid no further attention, but simply passed them over. Anyhow, I need not have been so agonized over his various irregularities of pronunciation, for he used in part, as he had always enjoyed doing in writing, a sort of elder German, with its defects and open sentence-structure, always with something doubtful and unregulated about it; how long ago is it, indeed, that our tongue outgrew the barbaric and got tolerably regulated as to grammar and spelling!

He began in a low murmur, so that very few understood his opening sentence or made anything out of it. Perhaps they took it as a whim, a rhetorical flourish; it went something like this: “Esteemed, in especial dear and beloved brethren and sisters.”

After that he was silent for a little, as though considering, his cheek resting against one hand that was supported by the elbow on the table. What followed was also taken as a whimsical introductory, intended to be humorous; and although the immobility of his features, the weariness of his looks, his pallor contradicted the idea, yet a responsive laugh ran through the room, a slight sniff, a titter from the ladies.

“Firstly,” said he, “I will exhibit to you my thankfulness for the courtesy and the friendship, both undeserved by me, ye have vouchsafed in that ye are come hither into this place, afoot and by wagon, since out of the desolation of this retreat I have written to and called you, likewise had you written to and called by my leal famulus and special friend, which yet knoweth how to put me in remembrance of our school-days from youth up, since we did study together at Halla; but thereof, and of how high-mindedness and abominacyon did in that study already begin, more hereafter in my Sermoni.”

Some of them looked over at me and smirked, who out of emotion was unable to smile, feeling that our dear man did not look as though he thought of me with any such particular tenderness. But just the fact that they saw tears in my eyes diverted most of them; and I remember with disgust that at this point Leo Zink loudly blew his big nose, the butt of most of his own jokes, to caricature my perceptible emotion. His performance elicited more titters. Adrian seemed not to notice.

“Before aught else,” he went on, “must I pray” (he said “play,” corrected it, and then went back again to his mistake) “and beg you not to take it amiss or crosswise that our hound Praestigiar, he is called Suso but of a truth is named Praestigiar, did demean himself so ill and make so hellish a yauling and bauling that you have for my sake undergone stress and strain. It were better we had handed each of you a whistle we have pitched so high that only the hound can hear it and understand from afar off that good and bidden friends are coming, coveting to hear in what manner of life under his guard I have lived these many years.”

There was another polite laugh at his words about the whistle, but it sounded strained. He continued, and said: “Now have I a friendly Christian request to you, that ye may not take and receive in evil part my homily, but that ye would rather construe it all to the best, inasmuch as I verily crave to make unto you, good and sely ones, which if not without sin are yet but ordinarily and tolerably sinful, wherefore I cordially despise yet fervidly envy you, a full confession from one human being to another, for now the houre-glasse standeth before my eyes, the finishing whereof I must carefully expect: when the last grain runs through the narrow neck and he will fetch me, to whom I have given myselfe so dearly with my proper blood that I shall both body and soul everlastingly be his and fall in his hands and his power when the glass is run and the time, which is his ware, be fully expired.”

Again here and there somebody tittered or sniffed; but others shook their heads and made disapproving noises as though the words had been in bad taste. Some of the guests put on a look of dark foreboding.

“Know, then,” said he, at the table, “ye good and godly folk” (he said “god and goodly”), “with your modest sins and resting in Goodes godness, for I have suppressed it so long in me but will no longer hide it, that already since my twenty-first year I am wedded to Satan and with due knowing of peril, out of well-considered courage, pride, and presumption because I would Avin glory in this world, I made with him a bond and vow, so that all which during the term of four-and-twenty years I brought forth, and which mankind justly regarded Avith mistrust, is only Avith his help come to pass and is divel’s work, infused by the angel of death. For I well thought that he that Avill eat the kernel must crack the nut, and one must today take the divel to favour, because to great enterprise and devises one can use and have none other save him.”

A strained and painful stillness now reigned in the room. Only a few listened unperturbed; there Avere many raised eyebrows, and faces wherein one read: “What is all this and what is it leading up to?” If he had but once smiled or put on a face to explain his words as a mystification got-up by the artist, matters Avould have been halfway made good. But he did not, he sat there in dead earnest. Some of the guests looked inquiringly at me, as if to ask what it all meant and how I would account for it. Perhaps I ought to have intervened and broken up the meeting. But on Avhat pretext? The only explanations were humiliating and extreme; I felt that I must let things take their course, in the hope that he would soon begin to play and give us notes instead of words.

Never had I felt more strongly the advantage that music, which says nothing and everything, has over the unequivocal word; yes, the saving irresponsibility of all art, compared with the bareness and baldness of unmediated revelation. But to interrupt not only went against my sense of reverence, but also my very soul cried out to hear, even though among those who listened with me only very few were worthy. Only hold out and listen, I said in my heart to the others, since after all he did invite you as his fellow human beings!

After a reflective pause my friend went on: “Believe not, dear brothers and sisters, that for the promission and conclusion of the pact a crosse way in the wood, many circles and impure conjuration were needed, since already St. Thomas teacheth that for falling away there needs not words with which invocation takes place, rather any act be enough, even without express allegiance. For it was but a butterfly, a bright cream-licker, Hetaera Esmeralda, she charmed me with her touch, the milk-witch, and I followed after her into the twilit shadowy foliage that her transparent nakedness loveth, and where I caught her, who in flight is like a wind-blown petal, caught her and caressed with her, defying her warning, so did it befall. For as she charmed me, so she bewitched me and forgave me in love—so I was initiate, and the promise confirmed.”

I started, for now came a voice from the audience: it came from Daniel zur Hohe the poet, in his priestly garment, pounding with his feet and hammering out his words: “It is beautiful. It has beauty. Very good, oh, very good, one may say so!”

Some people hissed. I too turned disapprovingly towards the speaker, though privately I was grateful for what he said. His words were silly enough; but they classified what we were hearing, put it under a soothing and recognized rubric, namely the aesthetic, which, inapplicable as that was and however much it angered me, did make me feel easier. For it seemed to me that a sort of relieved “Ah-h!” went through the audience, and one lady, Radbruch the publisher’s wife, was encouraged by zur Hohe’s words to say: “One thinks one is hearing poetry.”

Alas, one did not think so for long! This aesthetic interpretation, however conveniently offered, was not tenable. What we heard had nothing at all in common with zur Hohe the poet’s tall tomfooleries about obedience, violence, blood, and world-plunder. This was dead sober earnest, a confession, the truth, to listen to which a man in extreme agony of soul had called together his fellow-men-an act of fantastic good faith, moreover, for one’s fellow-men are not meant or made to face such truth otherwise than with cold shivers and with the conclusion that, when it was no longer possible to regard it as poetry, they very soon unanimously and audibly came to about it.