Thomas Mann

“ Wherever he went there was holiday, there the people were transfigured and glorified, there the grey work-a-day world cleared up and became poetry. The starveling became a sleek man, the hovel a homely cottage, dirty gutter-children changed into chaste little maidens and boys in Sunday clothes, their hair plastered with water, a poem on their lips, and the perspiring citizen in frock-coat and top-hat was moved to emotion by the consciousness of his own worth.
But not only he, Klaus Heinrich, saw the world in this light, but it saw itself too, as long as his presence lasted. ”

“ Doctor Veit was always dressed in black, and carried a book dangling down his thigh, with his index-finger thrust between its leaves.
Klaus Heinrich felt that Albrecht did not care much for him, and he saw that it was not only because of his inferiority in years. He himself was tender-hearted and prone to tears, that was his nature. He cried, when any body "looked sadly" at him, and when he knocked his forehead against a corner of the nursery table, so that it bled, he howled from sympathy with his forehead. But Albrecht had faced Death, yet never cried on any condition. ”

“ It is a well-known fact that the want of actuality for such as me is the seed-ground of all talent, the fountain of inspiration, indeed our suggestive genius. Enjoyment of life is forbidden to us, strictly forbidden, we have no illusions as to that—and by enjoyment of life I mean not only happiness, but also sorrow, passion, in short every serious tie with life. The representation of life claims all our forces, especially when those forces are not allotted to us in overabundant measure”—and Herr Martini coughed, drawing his shoulders repeatedly forward as he did so. ”

“ Mr. Spoelmann, as usual recently, was not present. He was in bed with poultices on. Percival, who lay curled up like a snail close by Imma's chair, beat the carpet with his tail by way of greeting. The gilding of the furniture looked dull, as the park beyond the glass door lay in a damp mist.
Klaus Heinrich exchanged a handshake with the daughter of the house, and kissed the Countess's hand, while he gently raised her from the courtly curtsey she had begun, as usual, to make.
"You see, summer has come," he said to Imma Spoelmann, offering her the rose. ”

“ Look you, there have always been princes and exceptional persons who live their life of exception with a light heart, simply unconscious of their dignity or denying it outright, and capable of playing skittles with the townsfolk in their shirt-sleeves, without the slightest attempt at an inward qualm. But they are not very important, just as nothing is important which lacks mind. For mind, Klaus Heinrich, mind is the tutor which insists inexorably on dignity, indeed actually creates dignity, it is the arch-enemy and chief antagonist of all human good nature. ”

“ Herr von Bühl zu Bühl had done his best to get together an imposing procession—the bridal procession, which passed up Heinrich the Luxurious's staircase and along a covered way into the Court Chapel. Stooping under the weight of years, yet in a brown toupée and with a youthful waddle, he marched, covered with orders down to his waist and planting his long staff in front of him, in front of the chamberlains, who walked along in silk stockings with their feather hats under their arms and a key embroidered on their coat-tails. ”

“ More than once Klaus Heinrich showed in his face the look of pained bewilderment which he had noticed on a previous occasion on the face of the good sister, and yet he felt convinced that it was not Imma Spoelmann's intention to wound his feelings, that she did not consider him humbled because he was not successful in standing up to her, that she rather let his poor answers pass, as if she considered that he had no need of a sharp wit to defend him—it was only she who had. ”

“ Because, Klaus Heinrich, I see in your existence the clearest, most express, and best-preserved form of the extraordinary in the world. I have become your tutor that I might keep your destiny alive in you. Reserve, etiquette, obligation, duty, demeanour, formality—has the man whose life is surrounded by these no right to despise others? Ought he to allow himself to be reminded of humanity and good nature? No, come along, let's go, Klaus Heinrich, if you don't mind. They're tactless brats, these little Stavenüters. ”

“ Halt, Imma, I beg you, don't gallop.... One can't get a word out.... Love, you say. But what sort of love is it? A meadow-love, a casual, superficial love, a love at a distance, which means nothing—a love in full dress with no familiarity about it. No, you've absolutely no reason to be angry because I express myself pleased with it, for I get no good from it; only the people do, who are elevated by it, and that's their desire. ”

“ The Heir Apparent was wearing the uniform of a captain in the Hussar regiment which was called by his name. From his silver-laced collar stretched an unmilitary width of civil stand-up collar, and on it rested his fine, shrewd, and delicate head, with its long skull and narrow temples, the straw-coloured moustache on the upper lip, and the blue, lonely-looking eyes which had seen death. He looked not in the least like a cavalry officer, yet so slender and unapproachably aristocratic that Klaus Heinrich, with his national cheek-bones, looked almost coarse beside him. ”

“ But Klaus Heinrich for the first time noticed his photograph in the shop window. It was hanging next those of artists and great men, men with lofty brows, with a look of the loneliness of fame in their eyes.
People were satisfied with him on the whole. He gained dignity with years, and self-possession under the pressure of his exalted calling. But the strange thing was that his longing increased at the same time: that roving inquisitiveness which Schulrat Dröge was not the man to satisfy, and which had impelled him to chat with the lackeys. ”

“ Albrecht sat upright at the table. He held his thin, strangely sensitive-looking hands crossed on the table-edge in front of the tall, half-empty glass of milk, and his eyelids dropped, and he sucked his underlip against his upper. He answered quietly: “I'm not surprised that so popular a prince as you should be contented with his lot. I for my part decline to express somebody else in my own person—I decline to, say, and you may think it's a case of sour grapes as much as you like. The truth is that I care for the ‘Hi!’ of the people just as little as any living soul possibly could care. ”

“ Miss Imma was to be seen daily by the side of Countess Löwenjoul, followed by a groom and with Percy capering round, riding, or driving a smart four-in-hand through the City Gardens—while the servant who sat on the back seat stood up from time to time, drew a long silver horn from a leather sheath and wound a shrill warning of their approach; and by getting up early one could see father and daughter every morning go in a dark-red brougham, or, in fine weather, on foot through the park of Schloss "Hermitage" to the Spa-Garden, in order to drink the waters. ”

“ For you can't persuade me, dear Jettchen, that honest work can make a man into a Leviathan and a Crœsus. I am convinced that his riches are steeped in the blood of widows and orphans. What do you think, Albrecht?"
"I hope so, Ditlinde, I hope so, for your own and your husband's comfort."
"May be so," explained Jettchen, "yet Spoelmann—our Samuel N. Spoelmann—is hardly responsible for it, for he is really nothing but an heir, and may quite well not have had any particular taste for his business. ”

“ I love the extraordinary in every form and in every sense. I love those who are conscious of the dignity of their exceptional station, the marked men, those one can see are not as other men, all those whom the people stare at open-mouthed—I hope they'll appreciate their destiny, and I do not wish them to make themselves comfortable with the slip-shod and luke-warm truth which we have just heard set to music for three voices. Why have I become your tutor, Klaus Heinrich? ”

“ He saw Imma Spoelmann sitting in a languid pose in her red-gold dress at the table, with a look as of a spoilt child on her face; sitting in comfortable assurance, and uttering remarks with a sting in them, such as were good coin in the United States, where clearness, hardness, and a ready wit were essentials of life. And why? Klaus Heinrich could understand now, and never a day passed that he did not try to realize it better. ”

“ I have always felt myself entirely unsuited to every other branch of human activity. It seems to me that this undoubted and unconditional unsuitability for everything else is the sole proof and touchstone of the poetical calling—indeed, that a man must not see in poetry any calling, but only the expression and refuge of that unsuitability.”
It was a peculiarity with Herr Martini that when he talked tears came into his eyes just like a man who comes out of the cold into a warm room and lets the heat stream through and melt his limbs.
“That's a singular idea,” said Klaus Heinrich. ”

“ The scent of flowers met him, and he heard the soft plash of falling water; but just as the tapestry closed behind him, so wild and harsh a barking was heard that Klaus Heinrich, half deafened for a moment, stopped at the foot of the steps. Percival, the collie, had dashed at him in a fury. He pranced, he capered in uncontrollable passion, he pirouetted, beat his sides with his tail, planted his forefeet on the floor, and turned wildly round and round, and seemed like to burst with noise. ”

“ Countess Löwenjoul on her side supplied food for conversation in a quieter but no less strange way. At first, when her personality and position were not yet known in the city, she had attracted the gibes of the street urchins, because, while out walking alone, she talked to herself softly and deliberately, and accompanied her words with lively and at the same time graceful and elegant gestures. ”

“ He felt inelegant by the side of Prenzlau and coarse compared with Trümmerhauff. Trümmerhauff had the nobility of a wild beast. He had a long pointed nose with a sharp bridge and broad, quivering, thin-walled nostrils, blue veins on his delicate temples and small ears without lobes. He wore broad coloured cuffs fastened with gold links, and his hands were like those of a dainty woman, with filbert nails; a gold bracelet adorned one of his wrists. He half closed his eyes as he whispered.... No, it was obvious that Klaus Heinrich could not compete with Trümmerhauff in elegance. ”

“ Should a horse be got ready for the groom too? No, it was not necessary. Klaus Heinrich said that he wanted to ride alone. Then he gave himself into Neumann's skilful hands for his morning toilette, breakfasted impatiently below in the garden room, and mounted his horse at the foot of the terrace. With his spurred top-boots in the stirrups, the yellow reins in his brown-gloved right hand, and the left planted on his hip under his open cloak, he rode at a walking pace through the soft morning, scanning the still bare branches for the birds whose twittering he heard. ”

“ I should at once go back to my Schloss in Burgundy if the rain did not come through the roofs. The Spoelmanns knew that, and that is why it was so obliging of them to let me live with them indefinitely, my only duty being to put the innocent Imma on her guard against the world. Only of course my health suffers from my having the women sitting at nights on my chest and forcing me to look at their disgusting faces. And that is why I ask you to call me simply Frau Meier,” she said in a whisper, leaning forward and touching Klaus Heinrich's arm with her hand. ”

“ Klaus Heinrich also visited the fair Southern lands, incognito, under a romantic-sounding title. There he would sit, alone, perhaps for a quarter of an hour, dressed in a suit of irreproachable cut, among other foreigners on a white restaurant terrace looking over a dark-blue sea, and it might happen that somebody at another table would notice him, and try, in the manner of tourists, to engage him in conversation. What could he be, that quiet and self-possessed-looking young man? People ran over the various spheres of life, tried to fit him into the merchant, the military, the student class. ”

“ But simultaneously horror seized him, terror at such a destiny, a dread of his "exalted calling," so strong that he turned round and covered his eyes with both his hands —both, the little wrinkled left one too—and sank down at the lonely table and cried, cried from sympathy with himself and his heart—till they came, and wrung their hands and turned their eyes up to heaven and questioned him, and led him away.... ”

“ That common man, whose spirit otherwise cleaved to the dust, who gave a thought to nothing, not even to every-day politeness, beyond what was purely utilitarian, and had come here too with a definite object in view—he felt in his heart that there was something higher than business and his business in particular, and he left the Schloss elevated, purified, with eyes dim with emotion and the smile still on his flushed face.
That was the way in which Klaus Heinrich gave free audiences, that the way in which he exercised his exalted calling. ”

“ Klaus Heinrich turned to another schoolfellow, and the first stepped quickly back. Everybody felt that the really important point was not the essay nor the arithmetic, but the conversation as an event and an undertaking, one's attitude and tone, the way one advanced or retired, the success with which one assumed a sympathetic, self-collected, and refined demeanour. Perhaps it was the consciousness of this which brought the smile to everybody's lips.
Sometimes, when he had the semicircle in front of him, Klaus Heinrich would say some such words as "Professor Nicolovius looks an owl." ”

“ Here all was still and stony; the stair-turrets with their oblique windows, forged-iron balustrades, and fine carvings towered in the corners; the many-styled building stood there in light and shadow, partly grey and weather-worn, partly more modern-looking, with gables and box-like projections, with open porticoes and peeps through broad bow-windows into vaulted halls and narrow galleries. But in the middle, in its unfenced bed, stood the rose-bush, blooming gloriously after a favourable season.
Klaus Heinrich threw the reins to a servant, and went up and looked at the dark-red roses. ”

“ Haven't you told me about your life? You went to school for show, to the University for show, you served as a soldier for show, and still wear the uniform for show, you hold audiences for show, and play at rifle-shooting and heaven knows what else for show; you came into the world for show, and am I suddenly to believe that there is anything serious about you?"
Tears came to his eyes while she said this: her words hurt him so much. He answered gently: "You are right, Imma, there is a lot of fiction in my life. ”

“ Never had more envy attached to the five hundred favoured ones whose names stood on the Court Ball list, never had the bourgeois more eagerly devoured the account in the Courier—those dazzling columns which were written every year by a nobleman who had degenerated through drink, and which were such glorious reading that one felt they gave one a peep into Fairyland, while as a matter of fact the ball in the Old Schloss went off quite modestly and soberly. ”

“ But the most suspicious thing about him was his laugh, a laugh of the eyes in which the mouth took no part, a laugh which seemed to be produced by the wrinkles radiating from the corners of his eyes, or vice versa to have produced those same wrinkles in the course of years. Baron Knobelsdorff was younger than the Finance Minister; he was then in the prime of life, although his close-trimmed moustache and hair smoothly parted in the middle were already beginning to turn grey—for the rest a squat, short-necked man, obviously pinched by the collar of his heavily-laced court dress. ”

“ The room, on whose threshold they had been talking, was small in comparison with its height, with a grey-blue carpet, and furnished with cheery-looking silver-grey furniture, the chairs of which were upholstered in blue silk. A milk-white china chandelier hung from the white-festooned centre of the ceiling, and the walls were adorned with oil paintings of various sizes, acquisitions of Prince Philipp's, light studies in the new style, representing white goats in the sun, poultry in the sun, sun-bathed meadows and peasants with blinking, sun-sprinkled faces. ”