Hermann Sudermann

“ Tearless sobs shake his frame. Before his eyes everything is aflame--aflame with a blood-red light as if the whole world were set on fire. Now it is all suddenly made clear as day to him! What dawned mysteriously within him in yonder midsummer night, what flashed like lightning through his brain on that evening when Trude broke down sobbing in the middle of her song--all now arises before him like a glowing ball of fire. Every flame speaks of hate; every ray flashes with torturing jealousy through his soul, every gleam pierces his heart with fear and guilty consciousness. ”

“ SALOME
Master, what harm shall wrath do one, who is a jubilation and a feast day? And if thou camest to me in flames of fire, I would not mourn my youth for the length of two moons.... I would stretch out my arms and cry, "Destroy me, flame; take me up!"
JOHN
[After a pause.] Go!
SALOME
I am going. [She rushes into the arms of Herodias, who enters.] Mother!
SCENE IX The same. Herodias and her women.
SALOME
Forgive me, mother, and let me stay with thee.
HERODIAS
Thou who lookest at me so imperiously, art thou the man who stirreth up the people against me?
JOHN
I am he whom thou hast summoned. ”

“ Lilly saw as little of the riot of blossom out of doors, the white foam of the cherry-trees, the red glory of the hawthorn, as she had done when she swept the golden dust that sprang from Frau Asmussen's bookcases. Frau Laue did not care to take walks and expose herself to temptation. For to see a park and not collect plants, a garden gate, and not thrust your hand through it to pick flowers, was to her an altogether inconceivable act of self-restraint. Lilly would not go out without her, for she dreaded being alone in a crowd. ”

“ I see a pallid, bearded countenance with high cheek-bones, and emaciated cheeks.... The mouth, delicate and gentle as a girl's, is drawn in a quiet smile. A bitterness that has grown into love, into renunciation, even into joy, shines in this smile.
And at the sight of it I feel warm and free.
And then I see his eye which is round and sharp as though open through the watches of many nights. With moveless clearness of vision he measures the distances, and is careless of the way which his foot finds without groping. In this look lies a dreaming glow which turns to waking coldness. ”

“ I grew a stranger to you--in sorrow and misery I have to think of you, and the consciousness of guilt appals me when the soughing wind whispers your name in my ear. Between us there stands a wild phantom with flaming eyes--terrible and distorted, its hair encircled by snakes--stretching out its claw-like hands towards me, and separating me from you for ever. If it were no phantom, but flesh and blood, if what I committed were a sin, a crime, I would wrestle with it, I would overcome it with the last strength of my failing energy, or allow myself to be strangled in its bloody grip. ”

“ Like a palace of dazzling marble the White House, with its balconies and gables, rose before his eyes. Deep silence enshrouded the manor-house; only here and there a dog barked and relapsed into silence directly.
He stood before the trellised gate, not knowing how he had come there. He grasped the bars with both hands and looked in. The wide yard lay yonder before him, bathed in the light of the moon; the big farm-wagons, which were ranged in a row before the stables, stood there in black outline; a white cat crept along the garden fence; everything else lay in deep sleep. ”

“ When Trude says, "Hans, let us sing," they sit down demurely side by side on the veranda or saunter slowly along the river, and when Martin has lighted his pipe and is ready to listen, they warble forth their songs into the gloaming. These are delightful, solemn moments. The birds in the trees twitter in their slumber, a soft breeze wafts through the branches and the mill-weir with its dull rushing sings the accompaniment. How quickly their mood changes! They have begun so merrily, but the melodies grow sadder and sadder, and the sound of their voices more and more mournful. ”

“ Leo sat cowering in his seat. He felt as if a heavy cold stone rested on his head, so that his neck involuntarily bent under the burden. His breast seemed to contract. He fumbled nervously with the white waistcoat which still gleamed as immaculately fresh as in the early morning sunshine, but to his distorted vision there were now daubs of yellow dirt upon it. He felt as if he must defend himself, or, at any rate, speak to some human being. So he bent down to Elly and whispered, with a faint smile--
"The old fellow makes it warm for us with his curses." ”

“ Gentlemen, take off your hats! I stood there as if somebody had knocked me on the head. A thoroughbred, gentlemen, a thoroughbred! A figure like a young queen's, her hair loose, in a thousand wavelets and ringlets, golden brown, like the mane of a Barbary steed. Her throat full, white and voluptuous. Her bosom not too high, and broad and curving at the sides. In a horse, we call it a lion's chest. And when she breathed, her whole body seemed to breathe along with her lungs, so strongly did the air pulsate through that glorious young body. ”

“ Grey dawn pierced the chinks of the library shutters. Lilly jumped out of bed and threw up the window. The street looked like a big bowl of milk, the mist of early autumn rose so densely from the ground. The damp soft vapour cooled her burning cheeks, and she held out her arms as if bathing in it. Her thin summer dress, which she had washed and ironed with her own hands the night before, hung on the whitewashed wall like a blue cloud. She had never made herself so smart as she did to-day; for a picnic so fraught with fate she must be worthily adorned. ”

“ I try to cry out but my throat is paralysed.
I want to pray but instead of thoughts the lightnings of madness shoot through my brain.
I feel only one thing that threatens to dissolve all my body into a stream of flame and that penetrates my whole being with immeasurable might: "I must live ... live...!"
There, in my sorest need, I think of the faery who upon my desire brought me by magic to my grave.
"Thea, I beseech you. I have sinned against the world and myself. It was cowardly and slothful to doubt of life so long as a spark of life and power glowed in my veins. ”

“ All of them were noble and good, sparkling with merry wit, full of eagerness to do little friendly services; golden souls, each awaking a new hope and bringing a new delight.
She felt her cheeks flaming, her eyes shining, with the intoxication of the hour. And now and then she would see, as if reflected in a mirror, a response to her own happiness in the eyes she looked into. This was no longer a strange Lilly, an animated puppet, but it was herself, the real Lilly, who laughed and made bright repartees as she romped and passed from arm to arm, feeling regret at each transition. ”

“ Those flowers prevent him which Trude has placed at his bed-side, and the leaves of which hang right over the edge of the bed. Pale bluish bunches of lilac and the nebulous white stars of narcissi are mingled together. He turns round, kneels up in bed and buries his face in the flowery depths. Fondly the leaflets kiss his eye-lids and his lips.
Suddenly he listens. From underneath the floor, as it were from the bowels of the earth, comes a quiet laugh. It is soft as a breath of wind passing over the grass, but so merry, so full of happiness. ”

“ What is the good of clinging to happiness when one has long since forfeited it? Should I not slink about like some poor criminal in her last hours, everlastingly tortured by the fear of betraying myself to him, and yet filled with the desire to proclaim my guilt to the whole world? How could I sleep in the bed out of which I wished her into her grave! ”

“ In the east glimmered the first rosy streak of dawn. A bluish haze suffused the landscape, and above him in the branches began the dreamy twitter of awakening birds. He was in the act of throwing the flowers into the grave, when suddenly he changed his mind, and with a frown cast them aside.
"What need of such fastidious effeminacy?" he asked himself rebukingly. "Dust has no reason to fear meeting dust."
Then he seized the spade, and shutting his eyes, began with zest to shovel the dark earth over the beloved body. ”

“ When the last waggon had crossed, Leo's enjoyment began. He loosened the curb, in order to gallop the quicker after the receding carts. His limbs, numb from cold or wet, thawed, a tingling sensation of welcome warmth pervaded his body and winged his thoughts. So long as the race lasted, all trouble was forgotten. The early morning cramp of worry--a symptom which once had been unknown to his robust physique--grew less, and finally disappeared. The first suggestion of light that lay on the earth--dreamy and full of promise--found for a few moments a reflection in his soul. ”

“ Gusts of snow whirl about my forehead. Next moment the light is wholly lost. Dawn breaks through the night. A warm wind meets us and blows upon the strings so that they tremble gently and lament like a sleeping child whose soul is troubled by a dream of loneliness.
"Look down!" cried my faery, turning her laughing little head toward me.
Bathed in the glow of spring I see an endless carpet of woods and hills, fields and lakes spread out below me. The landscape gleams with a greenish silveriness. My glance can scarcely endure the richness of the miracle. ”

“ A game of hide-and-seek with herself, a long-drawn draught from an unfailing fount of expectancy, anticipation, delicious aftertaste and joyous recollections. Each day brought new pleasures and untold wealth.
Sometimes when Lilly threw open the shutters in the morning and the fresh red September air flowed in over her she felt as if God had spread a mantle of sunny gold over the heavens to wrap both of them in, so snug and close that the whole world disappeared, leaving no one but themselves behind, pressed against each other in laughter and drunk with all that light. ”

“ When Martin reached home on that morning, when he found the whole house quiet, as quiet as a mouse, he took the key of the mill from the wall and slunk off to that melancholy place which he had built up as the temple of his guilt. There his people found him at midday, pale as the whitewashed walls, his head bowed upon his hands, muttering to himself incessantly: "Retribution for Fritz! Retribution for Fritz!" The phantom, the old terrible phantom, which he had thought was laid for evermore, has cast itself upon him anew and is twining its strangling claw about his neck. ”

“ In the middle of the terrace a flight of dilapidated steps, flanked by two pock-marked nymphs in sandstone, led down to the garden. The glass doors of the garden salon were open, and the hanging lamp with its three sconces lighted the table, from which supper had been cleared away, and sent a warm red glow across the terrace as far as the venerable heads of the nymphs, whose fragile profiles it touched with gold.
Leo walked as softly as the crunching gravel and his own vigorous footsteps would allow, towards the light. ”

“ And behold: the boards of the coffin fall from me like a wornout garment. The earth rolls down on both sides of me and unites beneath me in order to raise my body.
I open my eyes and perceive myself to be lying in dark grass. Through the bent limbs of trees the grave stars look down upon me. The black crosses stand in the evening glow, and past the railings of grave-plots my eyes blink out into the blossoming world.
The crickets chirp about me in the grass, and the nightingale begins to sing anew. ”

“ The world wagged on, calmly, merrily, busily, as if nothing had happened, as if nowhere on the ocean of life a lost happiness was drifting every minute farther and farther away, as if no forsaken and abandoned human child cowered in a corner, staring with despairing eyes helplessly at the floor.
Frau Laue tapped at her lamp-shades, the fried potatoes frizzled in the fat-lined pan; the stove in the lobby smoked, and the frowsy poor-people's odour exhaled a welcome to all who came within its radius. She did not cry her heart out of her body, as she had done after her expulsion from the castle. ”

“ O dearest parents, don’t cease to strive, And as you had work and cares all your life, A life so hard and a life so long, So will at last from Heaven descend A day of rest when care has an end. We boys are young, and we can strive, Our courage is still fresh in life. We know how to fight with care and need, And where luck’s flower is blooming so sweet. Soon we return, and when we are there, We laughingly turn her out, gray Dame Care. ”

“ A small gleaming white sandbank, shaded by a huge canopy of alder branches, formed a charming nook, above which the brook murmured and babbled as it came tumbling down to join the water of the bay in a circle of foam.
Leo's first glance fell on the snow-white boat, which a long, polished chain, stretching over the sand, fastened to an alder-stump.
So she was waiting for him. The clouds of mist that floated about between the dripping boughs of the trees, and became immovable veils around their trunks, wrapped the interior of the island in impenetrable grey. ”

“ Gray, gray, gray. An aged woman. So she seems, for she creeps along by the help of a crutch. But over her face is a veil which falls to the ground over her arms like the folded wings of a bat.
I begin to laugh, for spirits have long ceased to inspire me with reverence.
"Is your name by any chance Thea, O lovely, being?" I ask.
"My name is Thea," she answers and her voice is weary, gentle and a little hoarse. A caressing shimmer as of faintly blue velvet, an insinuating fragrance as of dying mignonette—both lie in this voice. The voice fills my heart. ”

“ The sunflowers in the labourers' cottage gardens were already drooping their scorched heads, and the asters showed signs of having suffered from the first severe nip of frost. Yet the air was balmy and sweet-scented as spring, and larks made a babel in the fields.
"To-day, to-day!" thought Lilly, and stretched herself in a vague longing for private talk and jubilant pranks.
It seemed as if her thoughts had been heard, for Anna von Schwertfeger asked suddenly, "What is the matter with you to-day?"
"I hardly know myself," Lilly answered, blushing. "I just feel as if to-day were a festival." ”

“ A dim inkling of her guiltiness towards him dawned on her as she saw this giant so crushed in body and soul. To make good the harm that she had done and to drown her own compassion, she could think of nothing better to do than to kiss him. And she kissed every bit of his face which she could reach. She kissed his hair, his hands, his throat. Then she drew his head down on her lap, and unlocked his hands with caressing fingers.
He lay like a man asleep, with closed eyes and relaxed muscles. His breath came in short, heavy gasps, and she kissed him long and passionately on the lips. ”

“ There was a half-ruined chapel in a tropical forest, on the high altar of which a herd of monkeys were gambolling; in a monotonous desert background a group of stubborn-eyed camels drew round the dead body of a lion, sniffing it; best of all was the nude figure of a woman loaded with chains, her white limbs shining out in relief from a rugged barren rock, and round her head swooping a horde of red-eyed vultures. There was much else that showed restrained strength and wealth of imagination; but the woman in chains remained Lilly's favourite. ”

“ I acquiesce calmly in all the youth of the neighbourhood flocking to pay her court, and to hear her confess to me in her sweet, shamefaced way what fools men make of themselves for her sake affords me a sort of secret satisfaction. I give her whims carte-blanche, whether she builds artistic ruins in the park, or gallops over the meadows by night, or swims in the river in the moonlight, or when the sun is shining shuts the shutters and lies in bed by lamplight till evening, it is all the same to me. ”

“ It was as if her girlhood's modesty, which the sensuality of her old husband had so rudely outraged, had come back to throw a merciful shroud over her trembling soul. And all the wealth of golden thoughts and virginal sensations, the fairy-tale glamour that common things irradiated, the amusing importance of every tiny event, the delightful expectancy of hoping for she knew not what--all this was girlish, and reminded her of long-vanished and forgotten days.
If she had but known a single human being to whom she could have confided all this happiness and folly, how glad it would have made her! ”

“ But Lilly was content with the forty or fifty marks a month that her work brought in. Her new craze for lamp-shade making led her on to higher aims. The dried grasses, or grass flowers, as Frau Laue called them, specially took her fancy. Their slender graceful stalks, the delicacy of their veinings, the melancholy charm with which they drooped, reminded her of little forest trees, weeping willows beside brooks, ashes bending over marble tombs, or palms waving yearning fronds on torrid rocks.
She dreamt of starting a new kind of art. ”

“ This horror often came upon Lilly so powerfully that she had to run out of doors, no matter where—out into the world, into the arms of life.
Before an hour had elapsed she was back again. The streets frightened her. The painted prostitutes who brushed her shoulders, the young fellows hunting for game who trotted behind her, the unconcerned brazenness with which each and every one elbowed his way—all this filled her with apprehension and made a coward of her.
A dim feeling told her she would never again be equal to that lusty independence which takes pleasure in fight. ”

“ Sometimes spring finds him barren and clogged, like ground that cannot recover from the ravages of winter. And, again, spring carols deceptive songs of liberation and redemption in a man's heart, as if it was in its power to liberate and redeem. But the most beautiful manifestation of spring is when we are scarcely aware of it, because its budding and sprouting is but symbolic of the jubilant stirring of spring within us, the widening and growth of our being spiritually.
Such a spring now dawned for Lilly. ”

“ Lilly did not awaken to real life until evening came, when the world endeavoured to throw off the heat it had absorbed during the day, when dusty yellow vapours rolled on the turbid water of the canal, and beyond the chestnuts, the leaves of which were already beginning to wither, the red glow of the heavens melted into one with the winking lights of the street lamps. ”

“ Exciting tales would be told of their own adventures, in which, amid blithe sinning, marital fidelity asserted its modest worth.
The afternoon would decline pale and perspiring as a fever patient. A hot breeze would blow in through the window. The varnish of the rosewood furniture would reek, the walls of the houses opposite would shine as if polished with wax, and Mrs. Laue, munching her cheese cake, would again repeat the tale of her stale virtues.
When at last she took leave Lilly would groan and sink on her bed, burying her face in the close-smelling pillows. ”

“ Lilly struggled against sleep.
She saw as through a veil the thin blond hair waving over her mother's forehead in the morning breeze, saw the pointed nose, red with weeping, turn now to the right, now to the left, according to the direction from which a sound came; saw the nightgown fluttering like a white flag, and the lean legs incessantly rubbing against each other in nervous agitation. ”

“ On Friedrichstrasse the people thronged as in the daytime.
Young men rejoicing in the chase followed close upon the heels of their laughing quarry.
The lamplight shone on the silk stockings of damsels as they tripped along.
"Those who have once been completely submerged in this world," thought Lilly, with a shudder of envy, "no longer trouble themselves with questions of honour and death."
Alas, beyond that brilliant whirl came quiet and darkness again, in whose shelter a person may die as he will. ”

“ Konrad took the oars and Lilly seated herself at the stern. All kinds of water-flowers rose with a swish lightly to the surface as the boat cut through a carpet of sedges. Mingled with the young green of the sprouting reeds were the brown battered remnants of last year's growth; stately bulrushes bordered the banks, and the water flag planted her golden tents between them. Like huge dense walls of purple, the park's wealth of timber rose high against the sky. ”

“ Thus Lilly's soul became enveloped in a veil of intoxication and ravishing dreams. She felt as if she were seated in a sapphire-blue haze, which a far-off glow shot with purple threads. She heard music, hot and wild, storming on in angry dissonances like armies of mænads tearing down all obstacles in their way. She felt herself climbing steep craggy rocks, getting higher and ever higher. She fought against dizziness, and dared not look back for fear of being dashed to pieces in the abyss below. ”

“ Lilly stared into space. The remnants of the precipitate meal littered the table; the dark carved furniture cast black-edged rays from out of the room's wintry twilight; the brass chandeliers gleamed palely. All was as usual, and yet nothing was there, nothing but an awful, all-devouring void, an abyss which drew her into its bosom with the enticements of grappling hooks and huge tongs. ”

“ Without speaking, he quietly took her umbrella, while a slight malicious smile flitted over his imperturbable countenance.
Softly, white doors flew back before her, lights with rosy shades like magic flowers shed soft radiance, lovely barenecked ladies with diamond tiaras looked down smiling on her from gilded oval frames.
How quiet and beautifully warm it was in these spacious rooms; on that thick soft carpet one might lie down and go to sleep.... If only that feeling of fear would not clutch at her throat, her brain, her temples, gripping them as in a vice. ”

“ As he glanced sideways at Lilly, there was such a droll, wicked twinkle playing under the light lashes that she burst into a fit of light laughter. He joined in with his dear old noiseless giggle that shook him like an earthquake. So they stood still and both laughed till they cried; and Lilly forgot all about her exalted duties as chatelaine and her mission of salvation. Then, instinctively, their footsteps turned together into the most deserted and overgrown part of the park, where its bounds were lost in a dense thicket of birches. It grew darker at every step. ”

“ Sometimes when her glance fell on the mirror while she was undressing and she beheld the image of a human being consecrated by beauty, round, slim, with long-lashed, yearning eyes and a mouth ripened by kisses, glad astonishment seized her at the thought: "Is that myself?" And she was overcome by a transport compounded of consciousness of her youth and readiness for love.
The world was there just to press her to its heart. Then even that dingy work-a-day existence became a blessing, because it keyed up her energies to intoxication and flight. ”

“ She landed in Berlin, the harbour for all wastrels and wrecks. In that world where oblivion lays its hands in blessing on the heads of righteous and unrighteous alike; where eternal hopes illumine drab days of depression like firework sparks; where grief for the past is soon changed into an eager expectation of coming happiness; where the great god, Luck, holds sway as lord and master--in that world of the unknown and stranded, where only those who are old and poor together sink hopelessly, into that world crept Lilly on her hands and knees. ”