Three Women in a Mirror (25 page)

“Who ever told you our lives were rational?” asked Aunt Vivi.

On seeing her to the door, I asked her to give the banker a palatable version of my madness.

“I am delighted you have seen reason at last,” she replied, then took her leave.

 

In the weeks that followed I tried to control myself. For several hours a day I managed, but then I immediately lost all the benefit of my efforts by speaking to a merchant or an antique dealer. In reality, I could resist temptation as long as it was not there before my eyes. To my great disappointment, I saw in myself certain features belonging to Aunt Clémence, Vivi's sister, the one who weighs more than two hundred pounds: between meals she convinces herself she is on a diet then she stuffs her face uncontrollably at meal time.

Calgari? Should I go back to that unscrupulous seducer? While I was beginning to think I might not be able to get better on my own, I was not convinced that “psychoanalysis” or one of its magi could help me.

Then came the second incident, Herr Gustav Mahler's symphony.

Franz adores music. Or rather he adores going to places where music is played. This is not meant as criticism, just elucidation: his family has a box at the opera and regularly attends concerts by the Philharmonia in the same way that they maintain a house with many servants: it is just part of their hereditary ritual. When you are born a Waldberg, you are born a music lover; dancing to Strauss waltzes is passed on from father to son, and you analyze the qualities of the diva and of your thoroughbreds with equal passion. From early childhood, Franz was brought up on Mozart, Beethoven, and Weber; in the evening to lull him to sleep his mother sang
Lieder
by Schubert and Schumann; renowned pianists have left their imprint on the keyboard of their Erard, Liszt among them. Therefore, no matter the program or the performer, Franz is prepared to listen; at the same time, he comes away from the event so calm, so unchanged, that I sometimes wonder if he was even mindful of the music.

I, on the other hand, give myself so much to music—no doubt because I am not as used to it—that it can have disturbing effects on me.

And that is what happened, one evening last May at the Philharmonia. Gustav Mahler was conducting one of his own works. Like most of the audience, my presence there was skeptical, because we thought we knew what to expect: this young, charismatic director of the Opera was also a major performer—that ought to be enough, no? Did he actually expect us to believe he was incarnating the new Bach or the next Brahms? During the week he was already a conductor of renown: was this Sunday composer now scandalously abusing his power to inflict his music upon us? Like all the listeners around me, I was in a suspicious state of mind as I took my seat to listen to his latest Symphony.

And from the very first notes he had my attention. Enter the woodwinds, and I was no longer myself, I became immersed in his fervent, bucolic, sorrowful world, a world beset by a violence that grows ever stronger but does not spill over, that is filled with a lingering remembrance, a moving, uneven landscape where a sudden adagio offers a soothing grace, like the sun breaking through the clouds to gild a valley hitherto in shadow.

As the opus progressed, I left my own breathing behind to embrace the composer's; I soared with the violins, breathed deeply with the cellos, then the tutti left me gasping, until I could exhale again on the harp's pearly notes. Your everyday Hanna, the one who cannot get over her phantom pregnancy, the one who is beleaguered by petty thoughts: that Hanna disappeared. Another Hanna, new and free, was swimming upon musical waves, letting herself flow with the current, docile and happy.

I felt as if I had gone inside one of my paperweights. What do my crystal globes offer me other than what this music was bringing me? A chance to be rid of myself, to withdraw from a hurtful world and enter one that I admire, to flee the time that enslaves me in order to reach the time I can enjoy. I was filled with wonder. I had left reality behind for beauty.

With the last chord, I applauded wildly, and that was when the most extraordinary thing happened: I lost consciousness.

I passed out like a rag doll—as they told me afterward—literally collapsing upon myself. I ended up in a heap on the floor.

At least with my fainting spell I was unaware of the cold reception the Viennese public had reserved for Mahler's work. Unlike me, they had despised it.

If they could not stand the symphony, neither could I, in my way, since it was my enthusiasm that had brought on my fainting fit.

When I opened my eyes, I saw two faces: Dr. Teitelman, and Dr. Calgari. A rude awakening. One of them viewed me as a malingerer while I viewed the other as an imposter.

Franz was observing me closely over their shoulders.

From the gilt on the ceiling I understood that they had laid me down in the foyer.

Teitelman was taking my pulse. Calgari handed me a glass of sugary water. After the drink revived me somewhat I smiled at my husband.

“Are you all right, my angel?” said Franz worriedly.

My smile spread across my face, which reassured him.

He immediately turned to Teitelman.

“Well, doctor, do you think that could be why?”

“There is a chance. If we see that Hanna has no pain in her abdomen or liver, then that could well be why.”

He examined me, and I did not react. He concluded, “Yes, that must be it.”

“My darling, you are surely pregnant!”

My face twitched with concern. Teitelman noticed—particularly as he had been waiting for it. He took it on himself to curb Franz's enthusiasm: “Let's not get carried away. We must not draw our conclusions too hastily.”

“As you like, Dr. Teitelman. As for me, I'm sure of it.”

And Franz rushed out to bring our carriage closer to the entrance.

Once Franz was gone, Teitelman gave me a stern look.

“If you go on feeling nauseous, Frau von Waldberg, come to my office, so that we may verify the good news. You must expect me to make a more exhaustive examination than last time. You do know what I mean, naturally?”

At that he took his leave, curtly, and went out.

Calgari, sitting not far away, was observing me with interest. I very nearly started raging against him, to tell him to go away and leave me alone. What right did he have to go on sitting there by me?

But I felt his presence so filled with compassion that I remained silent. It was as if he had read my thoughts, there with my husband and my doctor.

“It was the music, wasn't it, that overwhelmed you?”

I nodded.

Then he said, “I was sitting not far from you. Two or three times during the concert I glanced your way: you seemed upset.”

In a few words I explained to him what I had felt. He nodded.

“You have an elite soul, Frau von Waldberg; the power of a message to excite is greater in you than in anyone I know. You should know that in spite of our misunderstanding the other day, I am still prepared to receive you. I know you took me for a quack, and yet this evening only this quack was able to see this change in you. The joy of immersing oneself in art. The fear of returning to one's flesh. And the greatest fear of all: that of having—or not having—another living flesh inside one's own.”

I looked away. What a ninny I am! I am never content. I was hurt that Franz did not understand me, yet displeased that Calgari did.

He went away, then the servants came to help me to the carriage.

Since then, Franz has once again been lavishing the same ardent consideration on me as during my nine months of fallacious conception. I find his gaze so irritating that I call it “the eyes of the rooster for the laying hen,” and the love with which it shines, moreover, seems particularly suspect.

 

Now I have reached, dear Gretchen, the final incident that induced me to go back on my prior position. It happened this evening.

It was more than an incident, it was an altercation at which I was present, a quarrel that shocked me so greatly that deep inside, some supreme resistance gave way.

Earlier in the day, at the home of the Countess Clam-Gallas, there was a turbulent conversation about art in Vienna. Following Mahler's concert, which had so greatly disappointed the music lovers, the aged gentlemen around the table began tearing apart contemporary artists, and accused the arts of being decadent.

Franz, who is always an optimist, protested by giving several examples of successful artists, and reminded them that it is difficult to measure the façade of a building as long as one has one's face right up against it. They were having none of it, and brought out their arguments the way one draws a gun. It was a battle between the veterans and the rising generation. And since the young people—Franz and myself—were well-behaved, the old fogies let fly. There was nothing worth tuppence in Vienna! A desire for originality produced cringe-inducing works; an excessive striving for depth caused artists to rush to the gutter where all one could see of human nature was what was ugly, vicious, morbid, and cruel. In painting, the Secession movement did not represent an advance but a decline: a return to mythological horrors, monsters, and individuals of indeterminate sex; any use of perspective had vanished. Gustav Klimt was a decadent individual who ought to be imprisoned for his utter lack of talent, interned for perversion. Joseph Hoffman and Koloman Moser deserved similar treatment. And if Mahler was trying to compete with them in the domain of morbid agitation, well, he was succeeding. As for the men of letters, they were sinking deeper and deeper into the muck. How could anyone see that Arthur Schnitzler person as anything but a pornographer? No decent mother would ever take her daughter to the theater to see
La Ronde
. And as for Freud, Schnitzler's sententious double, he was the worst of all, with his “psychoanalysis” that so impressed young people in awe of woolly minded obscurity. Schnitzler and Freud, moreover, two physicians who claimed to be literary men, went rummaging in the bowels of the spirit the way they dissected entrails: they wrote with a scalpel. The conclusion? Their works had no more life than a corpse in formalin; they stank; they were atrocious; they were base. Why? Because they were the works of Jews. Even those who happened not to be Jewish had become “Jewified,” which was even worse. Wagner had said as much, he was a seer who held the Jews to be the destroyers of our values. While these gentlemen allowed Jews to become bankers and proprietors—why not?—they jeered at their intervention among the artists.
Vade retro, Satanas!
If no one reacted soon, they would destroy civilization.

And there, suddenly, like a player breaking out of a huddle, the word “psychoanalysis” burst out. They set about vigorously destroying the method and its creator with great lashings of sarcasm. What, beneath conscious thought there was such a thing as
unconscious
thought? How could Freud know that? If your thoughts were unconscious, then how could you ever become conscious of those thoughts! By definition! What a simpleton! Then the gentlemen went on to qualify Freud as sexually obsessed, because Freud had located the expression of libidinous desire in many—if not all—aspects of human behavior. Smoking was sucking at the breast . . . Taking a bath was being back inside one's mother . . . of course! They found his theory about censorship particularly amusing: censorship was a guardian of propriety that tolerated certain desires and sent the others bouncing around one's body or in the fringes of the soul! All these goings-on without our awareness? Oh, honestly, how could there be a reigning authority that was conscious and unconscious at the same time? It was pure tomfoolery! A contradiction in terms. You may as well talk about a soluble fish!

They sniggered.

I was passionate about the very things they were making fun of. This psychoanalysis they were tearing to pieces: I had just understood it. I could see the point. Or at any rate, the point for me and my problems.

Moreover, the fact that they tossed everything Jewish onto the same rubbish heap has compelled me to look more kindly now upon everything that is Jewish. If I can appreciate Mahler, perhaps I will learn to like Freud?

I underwent a sort of revolution that night.

To be sure, I won't go to see Dr. Freud, because if word got around, I would lose face in my social circle; but tomorrow, I want you to know, I will make another appointment with Dr. Calgari.

Your cousin, who will soon be better, without a doubt.

 

Hanna

What do you have planned, Anny? To stay a star or end up a shooting star?”
Johanna's cold, nasal voice came through the curtain of the dressing room where Anny was trying on evening gowns. The actress was breathless, perspiring, and she pressed her forehead against the mirror, hoping these spasms racking her belly would go away.

Thinking this meant yes, Johanna went on fussing: “Anyone can be successful, because it's just dumb luck. But repeated success requires intelligence.”

“And maybe some talent, too?”

Anny was trying to avoid the diatribe that Johanna was about to inflict on her.

“Talent for what?” asked the shark, annoyed.

“Well, for an actor, the talent to act. Forgive me, Johanna, if I've said something obscene.”

“Obscene, no. Stupid, yes. Since when do you need talent to have a career in the movies? Looks and a good agent are all you need. Look at Lassie, the faithful dog; we all gobbled up those films without ever imagining for a moment that the mutt had any talent. And anyway, they didn't use just one collie to play that role.”

Anny pressed her hands against her stomach. She was afraid she was about to throw up. Or pass out. In some corner of her brain that was still working, a distant inaccessible recess surrounded by barriers, she was speaking sharply to Johanna, saying things like, “I apologize for not being a dog,” or “Johanna, veterinary Hollywood agent,” or even, “If you go on attacking me, I'll bite you.” Alas, her trembling lips couldn't come out with anything.