Jakob Wassermann

“ Crammon, contemplating the photograph on which Eva appeared dancing with a basket of grapes, began again: “Sweetest Ariel, they are all harlots, all, all, all, whether shameless and wild or fearful and secretive: you alone are pure—a vestal, a half-ghost, a weaver of silk, like the spider, who conquers the air upon her half-spun web. Let us drink, O friend! We are made of dirt, and must be medicined by fire!”
He drained his glass, rested his head upon his hand, and sank into melancholy contemplation.
Suddenly Christian said: “Bernard, I believe that we must part.” ”

“ I am only human, and I must know woman’s love, or I shall freeze to death or be turned to stone or utterly destroyed. Yet I am a Christian, and it is hard for a Christian who bears a certain image in his heart to give himself up to woman. Help me to find a woman, brother, I beseech you.”
Christian looked out upon the dark sea. “How can I help him?” he thought, and felt all the coldness of the world and the confusion of mortal things.
While he stood and reflected he heard from afar across the dunes a cry, first dulled by the distance, then nearer and clearer, and then farther away again. ”

“ One night they sat in a wine cellar at Mainz, drinking a vintage that was thirty years old and had a rare bouquet. Crammon, who was a connoisseur through and through, kept filling his glass with an enchanted air. “It’s sublime,” he said, and began eating his caviare sandwich, “simply sublime. These are the realities of life. Here are my altars, my books of devotion, my relics, the scenes of my silent prayers. The immortal soul is at rest, and the lofty and unapproachable lies in the dust behind me.”
“Talk like a decent man,” said Christian. ”

“ Randolph von Stettner said to Christian.
Captain von Griesingen sighed: “How should one despise them? They torment us and they flit temptingly about us! Think of all that is desirable in the world—women, horses, wine, power, fame, money, love! There is a dealer of jewels in Frankfort, named David Markuse, who has a diamond that is said to be worth half a million. I have no desire for that special object. But the world is full of things that are possessed and give delight.” ”

“ They throbbed with the yearning to become and to be another man. Ivan Michailovitch, in a sudden flash of intuition, saw and understood. At first he had suspected that here was but a lordly whim, or that it was at best but the foolish and thoughtless defiance of a too swiftly ardent proselyte that urged this proud and handsome man to his words. He recognized his error now. He understood that he heard a cry for help, and that it came from the depth of one of those decisive moments of which life holds but few.
“What is it that I am to demand of you, Christian Wahnschaffe?” ”

“ Without turning she said: “You say no one can penetrate him. There is nothing to penetrate. There is an abyss, dark and open.”
“It may be that you are right and that he is like an abyss,” Ivan Becker answered softly, “but who will have the courage to descend into it?”
Another silence fell upon them. “Speak, Ivan, speak out at last the thought in your mind!” Eva cried out into the night. And every fibre of her, from the tips of her hair to the hem of her gown, was tense with listening.
But Becker did not answer. Only a terrible pallor came over his face. ”

“ But to Christian there seemed something corrupt in its music, as corrupt as the half-shut, angry, melancholy eyes with their contempt of mankind; as corrupt as the well-chiselled, waxen face, that could pass for eighteen, yet harboured all the experiences of an evil old age; as corrupt as the long, pale, sinuous, nerveless hand or the sweetish, weary, clever smile.
The Maelbeeks, Wiguniewski, the Captain, and Tavera had settled down to a game of baccarat in the adjoining room. ”

“ A Russian is capable of committing the most cruel murder, and of shedding tears, within the next hour, at the sound of a melancholy song. He is capable of all wildness, excess, and horror, but also of magnanimity and self-abnegation. No transformation is swifter or more terrible than his, from hate to love, love to hate, happiness to despair, faithfulness to treachery, fear to temerity. If you trust him and yield yourself to him, you will find him pliant, high-souled, and infinitely tender. Disappoint and maltreat him—he will plunge into darkness and be lost in the darkness. ”

“ Eva spoke her melodious German, with its slightly foreign intonation. Turning to Christian she went on: “Perhaps it makes no difference, Eidolon, whether you have it or I. It is like a heart that ambition has turned to crystal. But you are not ambitious. If you were, we should have met here like two birds swept by a storm into the same cave. The preciousness of the stone almost makes it ghostly to me, and I would permit no one to give it to me who was not conscious of its significance. And who is there? What do they give one? ”

“ Crammon said, with the same mockery.
“Or the only one whom he considers his equal,” Johanna said, with a childlike frown.
Christian was wondering: “Why does she laugh so often? Why are her hands so pudgy and so very pink?” Johanna felt his disapproval, and was as though paralysed. And yet Christian felt himself drawn toward her by some hidden power.
Why should he resist? Why be so ceremonious? Such was his thought, as Johanna arose, and he, with unobtrusive glances, observed her graceful form that still possessed the flexibility of immaturity. ”

“ Then the cathedral at Rouen lured her; next the famous roses of a certain Baron Zerkaulen near Ghent; then an excursion into the forest of Ardennes, or a sunset over the Zuyder Zee, or a ride in the park at Richmond, or a Rembrandt at The Hague, or a festive procession in Antwerp.
“Do you never get tired?” Christian asked one day, with that unquiet smile of his that seemed a trifle insincere.
Eva answered: “The world is big and youth is brief. Beauty yearns toward me, exists for me, and droops when I am gone. Since Ignifer is mine, my hunger seems insatiable. ”

“ She opened her lids, and fear and horror burned in her eyes when she observed a figure in her room; her features became distorted with fury, and her mouth rounded itself for a cry. Then she saw who the intruder was, and with a sigh of relief slid back among the pillows. Her face reassumed its expression of stubbornness and of enforced yielding. She watched, not knowing what to make of this visit, and seemed to wonder and reflect. She drew the covers up under her chin, and smiled a shallow, flattered smile.
Involuntarily Christian’s eyes looked for the red riband and the silver brooch. ”

“ CHRISTIAN’S REST I
Crammon found the forties to be a critical period in a man’s life. It is then that in his mind he sits in judgment upon himself; he seeks the sum of his existence, and finds blunder after blunder in the reckoning.
But these moral difficulties did not very much influence either his attitude or the character of his activities. He found his appetite for life growing, but he found loneliness a heavier burden than before. When he was alone he was overcome by a feeling which he called the melancholy of the half-way house. ”

“ It was the cry of a soul in need. But Eva did not or would not heed it. She had built of her love a soaring arch. She thought it had fallen, and no abyss seemed deep enough for its ruins to be hurled. She had neither ears now nor eyes. She had decided her fate even now; and though it frightened her, to recede was contrary to her pride and her very blood. A sovereign gesture silenced Christian. “Enough!” she said. “Of all the ugly things between two people, nothing is uglier than an explanation that involves the emotions. ”

“ He ached to lose himself in the darkness, far from men. He was afraid for the first time in his life that he would shed tears. Never, in all his conscious memory, had he wept. His whole body was shaken by an emotional tumult such as he had never known, and he repressed it only by using his utmost energy. Just as he was about to touch the knob of the door, a lackey opened it, and Maidanoff and Eva appeared on the threshold. Christian stood quite still; but every vestige of colour left his face. ”

“ Her gestures revealed a gentle glow of tenderness.
On their way back she seemed pale. “You are cold,” Eva said, and wrapped the robe more firmly about her friend.
Johanna squeezed Eva’s hand gratefully. “How dear of you! I shall always need some one to tell me when I’m hot or cold.”
This melancholy jest moved Eva deeply. “Why do you act so humble?” she cried. “Why do you shrink and hide and turn your vision away from yourself? Why do you not dare to be happy?” ”

“ After the incident with Christian Wahnschaffe, as Susan crouched at Eva’s feet and, as so often, embraced the girl’s knees, she thought: Ah, he has breathed into her an irresistible soul, and made her beautiful and radiant.
But always she harboured a superstitious fear. She trembled in secret lest the irresistible soul should some day flee from Eva’s body, and the radiance of her beauty be dulled, and nothing remain but a dead and empty husk. For that would be a sign to her that Lucas Anselmo was no more. ”

“ Crammon bent his head far forward, and laid his chin on the ivory handle of his stick. His pipe remained artfully poised in one corner of his mouth, and did not move as he spoke. “You don’t mean to assert, my dearest boy, that your conscience doesn’t require some additional motive for the trip,” he began, like a father confessor who is about to use subtle arguments to force a confession from a stubborn malefactor, “and you’re not going to try to make a fool of an old boon-companion and brother of your soul. One owes something to a friend. ”

“ It seemed to him as though Letitia, pointing to Eva, were saying: “What do you seek of her? She knows nothing of you, but weaves at the web of her own life. She is ambitious, and can give you no help in your suffering; and it is only to forget and deaden the pain of your soul that you are wasting yourself upon her.”
Christian was astonished to find Letitia so wise. He was almost inclined to smile at her wisdom. ”

“ He prayed that those two might silence the disquiet that overcame him in her very embraces and made him, at the end of every ecstasy, yearn for its renewal.
That slender, passionate body throbbed toward him. Yet he heard the lamentation of an alien voice: What shall we do?
“Why did you bring this man?” Eva asked him far in the night, between sleep and sleep. “I cannot bear him. There is always sweat on his forehead. He comes from a sinister world.”
There was a bluish twilight in the room that came from the blue flame of a blue lamp, and a bluish darkness lay beyond the windows. ”

“ Susan said to Christian: “We are to dance here, and have offers. But we don’t like the Prussians. They seem an arid folk, who save their money for soldiers and barracks. I haven’t seen a real face. All men and all women look alike. They may be worthy, no doubt they are; but they seem machine-made.”
“Eva herself is a German,” Christian rebuked the woman’s spiteful words.
“Bah, if a genius is cast forth from heaven and tumbles on the earth, it is blind and cannot choose its place. Where is Herr von Crammon?” ”

“ Skilfully and equivocally chosen as they were, the sense and purport of Szilaghin’s words were very clear to Eva. Yet she was tempted to oppose her own flexibility to his eel-like smoothness of mind, despite the hidden threat of the situation. She assumed a smile, as impenetrable as Szilaghin’s forehead and large pupils, and answered: “Yes; I am going to Heyst. I must rest. Life in this land of hidden madmen has wearied me. It is too bad that I must be deprived, dear Prince, of a mentor and sage like yourself.” ”

“ And he spoke to me: ‘Take of their superfluity; clothe your sensitiveness in armour; let them not intimidate you, nor the breath of their insolently beautiful world drive you into the cloudy closets of your torment.’ And with his cunning fingers he guided the little, jumping ball for me. The light of the lamps seemed to cry, the rouge fell from the cheeks of the women, the spittle of poisonous greed ran down the beards of the men. I won, Christian Wahnschaffe, I won! ”