Rosshalde (8 page)

“Oh, did that hurt? Forget it.”

“No, you were almost right, I think. Today I'd like to have one more good happy day with you, we'll go for a drive this afternoon and I'll show you a beautiful piece of country. But first we've got to straighten things out a bit. Yesterday it all came down on me so suddenly that I lost my head. But today I've thought it all over. I think I understand now what you were trying to tell me yesterday.”

His manner of speaking was so calm and friendly that Burkhardt's misgivings were dispelled.

“If you understood me, everything is all right and there's no need to start all over from the beginning. You told me how it all came about and how things stand now. Now I see that your only reason for going on with your marriage and household and your whole mode of life is that you don't want to part with Pierre. Am I right?”

“Yes, exactly.”

“Well, how do you see the future? I believe you intimated last night that you fear to lose Pierre too in time. Or am I mistaken?”

Veraguth sighed heavily and raised his hand to his forehead; but he continued in the same tone: “That may be so. That's the sore point. Then you think I ought to give the boy up?”

“Yes, I do. Your wife isn't likely to let you have him and it will cost you years of struggle.”

“That may be. But you see, Otto, he's all I've got. I'm living among ruins, and if I died today, no one but you and a few journalists would care. I'm a poor man, but I still have this child, I still have this darling little boy whom I can live for and love, whom I suffer for and with whom in happy hours I can forget myself. You understand that, don't you? And you want me to give him up.”

“It's not easy, Johann. It's a bad business. I can't see any other way. Look, you've forgotten what the outside world is like. You sit here buried, engrossed in your work and your unhappy marriage. Take the step, break away from all that; you'll open your eyes and see that the world has thousands of wonderful things to offer you. You've been living with dead things too long, you've lost your contact with life. Of course you're attached to Pierre, he's a delightful child; but that's not the main point. Be a little cruel for once and ask yourself whether he really needs you.”

“Whether he needs me…?”

“Yes. What you can give him is love, tenderness, feeling—things that children in general need less of than we old people suppose. And on the other hand the child is growing up with a father and mother who are almost strangers to each other, who are actually jealous of each other on his account. He isn't being educated by the good example of a happy, healthy home, he's precocious, and he'll grow up to be a misfit. —And one day, forgive me, he will have to choose between you and his mother after all. Don't you see that?”

“Perhaps you're right. You're definitely right. But at that point I stop thinking. I'm attached to the child, I cling to his love, because I haven't known any other warmth or light in a long time. Perhaps he will let me down in a few years, perhaps he will disappoint me or even hate me some day—as Albert hates me; once when he was fourteen he threw his jackknife at me. But for a few years I can still be with him and love him, I can take his little hand in mine and listen to his little bright bird-like voice—I still have that. Now tell me: must I give that away? Must I?”

Burkhardt shrugged his shoulders sadly and frowned. “You must, Johann,” he said very softly. “I believe you must. It doesn't have to be today, but soon. You must throw away everything you have and wash yourself clean of the past; otherwise you will never again be able to face the world as a free happy man. Do what you can. If the step is too much for you, stay here and go on living this life—I'll still be your friend, you'll still have me, you know that. But I should regret it.”

“Give me some advice. I can see nothing but darkness before me.”

“I'll give you some advice. This is July; in the fall I shall be going back to India. Before I go, I shall come back here; by then I hope your bags will be packed and you'll be ready to go with me. If by then you've made your decision and say yes, so much the better. But if you haven't made up your mind, come with me and get out of this air for a year, six months if you prefer. With me you'll be able to paint and ride horseback, you'll be able to hunt tigers too and fall in love with Malay women—some of them are pretty—in any case, you'll be away from here for a while, you'll have a chance to see if it isn't a better life. What do you think?”

Eyes closed, the painter rocked his large shaggy head with its pale face and indrawn lips.

“Thank you,” he cried with half a smile. “Thank you. You're very kind. In the fall I'll tell you if I'm coming. Please leave the photographs here.”

“You can keep them. But—couldn't you make up your mind about the trip today or tomorrow? It would be better for you.”

Veraguth rose and went to the door. “No, I can't do that. Heaven knows what will happen between now and then. For years I haven't been without Pierre for more than three, four weeks. I believe I shall go with you but I don't want to say anything now that I might regret.”

“Well, we'll let it go at that. You'll always know where to reach me. And if one of these days you wire three words, saying you're coming, you won't have to stir a finger about the trip. I'll attend to everything. Just take some shirts and underwear and painting materials, plenty of those; I'll have everything else sent to Genoa.”

Veraguth embraced him in silence.

“You've helped me, Otto. I'll never forget it. —Now I'll send for the carriage, they're not expecting us for meals today. And let's not do anything but enjoy a fine day together, as we used to on our summer vacations. We'll drive through the country, look at a few beautiful villages, and lie in the woods. We'll eat trout and drink good country wine out of thick glasses. How marvelous the weather is today!”

“It hasn't been any different in ten days,” Burkhardt laughed. And Veraguth laughed with him.

“Oh, it seems to me the sun hasn't shone like this for years!”

Chapter Seven

A
FTER BURKHARDT'S DEPARTURE
the painter was overcome by a strange feeling of loneliness. The very same loneliness with which he had lived for years and years, to which by long habituation he had hardened and almost desensitized himself, assailed him like a strange new enemy, moving in on him from all sides to stifle him. At the same time he felt more cut off from his family than ever, and even from Pierre. He did not know it, but the reason was that he had spoken of these things for the first time.

At times he even became acquainted with the wretched, humiliating feeling of boredom. Until then Veraguth had lived the unnatural but consistent life of a man who, having immured himself of his own free will, had lost interest in life, which he endured rather than lived. His friend's visit had pierced his wall; through a hundred chinks the sound and glitter, the fragrance and feel of life penetrated to the lonely man; an old spell was broken, and as he waked, the call from outside rang loudly and half painfully in his ears.

He flung himself furiously into his work, starting two large compositions at almost the same time. He began his day with a cold bath at sunrise and worked without pause until noon; after a short rest he revived himself with coffee and a cigar, and sometimes awoke at night with palpitations and a headache. But drive and discipline himself as he would, he carried with him, obscured by only the lightest of veils, the awareness that a door was open and that one quick step could carry him to freedom whenever he chose.

He did not think about it, he deadened his thoughts with constant work. His feeling was: you can go at any time, the door is open, your shackles can be broken—but it will cost you a hard decision and a heavy, heavy sacrifice—so don't think about it, above all don't think about it! The decision which Burkhardt expected of him, and which inwardly he had perhaps already made, was lodged in his mind like a bullet in the flesh of a wounded man; the question was only whether it would work its way out of the suppurating sore or become more and more firmly embedded. It festered and ached, but it did not yet hurt him enough; the pain he feared from his sacrifice was still too great. So he did nothing; he let his hidden wound burn, and all the while he was desperately curious to know how it would all end.

In the midst of his affliction he painted a large composition; the plan had long been present in his mind, but now suddenly it fascinated him. At first, some years ago, he had taken pleasure in the idea, then it had come to seem more and more empty and allegorical, and at length to repel him altogether. But now he saw the whole picture clearly; the allegory was forgotten, and he set to work with the vision fresh before him.

There were three life-sized figures: a man and a woman, each self-immersed and alien to the other, and between them, playing, a child, tranquilly happy and without suspicion of the cloud hanging over him. The personal significance was clear, but the man neither resembled the painter nor the woman his wife; the child, however, was Pierre, though a few years younger. He painted this child with all the charm and nobility of his best portraits; the figures at either side sat in rigid symmetry, severe sorrowful images of loneliness, the man heavily brooding, his head resting in one hand, the woman lost in suffering and dull emptiness.

Life was none too pleasant for Robert, the servant. Herr Veraguth had grown strangely irritable. He could not bear the slightest sound in the next room when he was working.

The secret hope that had come alive in Veraguth since Burkhardt's visit was like a flame in his breast; repress it as he might, it went on burning, coloring his dreams at night with an alluring, exciting light. He tried to ignore it, to banish it from his thoughts, he wanted only to work with peace in his heart. But he found no peace. He felt the ice of his joyless existence melting and all the foundations of his life tottering; in his dreams he saw his studio closed and empty, he saw his wife traveling away from him, but she had taken Pierre with her, and the boy held out his thin arms to him. Sometimes in the evening he sat for hours alone in his uncomfortable living room, immersed in the Indian photographs; then at length he would thrust them aside and close his tired eyes.

Within him two powers carried on a hard struggle, but hope was the stronger. Over and over again he had to repeat his conversations with Otto; with ever increasing warmth the repressed desires and needs of his vigorous nature rose up from the depths where they had so long lain frozen and imprisoned, and this upsurge, this spring thaw got the better of his old illusion, the sick illusion that he was an old man who could do no more than endure life. The deep, potent hypnosis of resignation had been broken, and through the breach poured the unconscious instinctual forces of a life long curbed and cheated.

The more clearly he heard the voices, the more he trembled inwardly in dread fear of the final awakening. Time and again he closed his dazzled eyes as every feverish fiber of his being rebelled against the necessary sacrifice.

Johann Veraguth seldom showed himself in the manor house, he had nearly all his meals brought to the studio and often spent his evenings in town. But when he did meet with his wife or Albert, he was quiet and gentle and appeared to have forgotten all his hostility.

He seemed to take little interest in Pierre. Formerly he had lured the child to the studio at least once a day and kept him there or gone out into the garden with him. Now whole days would pass without his seeing the child or craving his presence. When the boy crossed his path, he kissed him thoughtfully on the forehead, looked into his eyes with absent sadness, and went his way.

One afternoon Veraguth went to the chestnut grove. A balmy wind was blowing, and a warm rain slanted down in tiny drops. Music resounded from the open windows of the house. The painter stopped still and listened. He did not know the piece. It sounded pure and grave in its strict, well-constructed, well-balanced beauty, and Veraguth listened with thoughtful pleasure. Strange, this seemed to be music for old people; it sounded so adult and forbearing, with none of the Bacchic frenzy of the music he had loved beyond everything else in his youth.

Quietly he stepped into the house, mounted the stairs, and appeared soundless and unannounced in the music room, where only Frau Adele noticed his coming. Albert was playing and his mother stood listening at the piano; Veraguth sat down in the nearest chair, bowed his head, and went on listening. From time to time he looked up and let his eyes rest on his wife. This was her home, in these rooms she had spent quiet disillusioned years as had he in his studio by the lake, but she had had Albert, she had grown with him, and now their son was her guest and friend, he was at home with her. Frau Adele had aged slightly, she had learned to live quietly and had found contentment; her expression had grown rigid and her mouth somewhat set; but she was not uprooted, she lived secure in her own atmosphere, and it was in her atmosphere that her sons were growing up. She had little exuberance or impulsive tenderness, she was lacking in almost everything that her husband had sought in her and hoped for, but around her it was home, there was character in her face, in her presence, in her rooms; this was a soil in which children could grow up and gratefully thrive.

Veraguth nodded as though with satisfaction. Here there was no one who could lose by it if he disappeared forever. In this house he was not indispensable. He would be able to build a studio anywhere in the world and surround himself with activity and his passion for work, but it would never be a home. Actually he had known that all along, and it was just as well.

Albert stopped playing. He felt, or he saw in his mother's eyes, that someone had entered the room. He turned around and looked at his father with surprise and mistrust.