Crammon

“ His mother became anxious, and said: “You look peaked, Christian. Is anything wrong with you?” He assured her that there was nothing. But she knew better, and inquired of Crammon: “What ails Christian? He is so still and pale.”
Crammon answered: “Dear lady, that is his style of personality. Experiences carve his face. Has it not grown nobler and prouder? You need fear nothing. He follows his road firmly and unwaveringly. And so long as I am with him, nothing evil can happen to him.”
Frau Wahnschaffe was moved in her faint way, though still in doubt, and gave him her hand. ”

“ Crammon opened his mouth very wide in his astonishment. “Go now?” he stammered, “at night? Are you quite crazy?”
“I knew you’d scold,” Christian said softly and with a dreamy smile. “But that curiosity torments me so that I’ve simply been turning from side to side in bed.” And in truth his face had an expression of expectation and of subtle desire that was new to Crammon. He went on: “I want to see what she is doing, what her life is like, what her room looks like. One should know about all that. We are hopelessly ignorant about people of that kind. Do please come on, Bernard.” ”

“ Wolfgang’s expression seemed to say: I was quite prepared for it. What else is one to expect?
Crammon had expected to find Christian spoiled and effeminate. Instead he saw a thoroughly healthy blond young athlete, a head and more taller than himself, conscious of his vigour and beauty, without a trace of vanity, and radiant in every mood. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I have time enough,” said Crammon. He swept some things from a chair, sat down, and lit his pipe.
But Christian put down his pen. “I don’t know what’s the matter with me,” he said angrily, without looking at Crammon, “I can’t get two coherent sentences down on paper. However carefully I think it out, by the time it’s written it sounds stiff and silly. Have you the same experience?”
Crammon answered: “There are those who have the trick. It takes, primarily, a certain impudence. You must never stop to ask: Is that correct? Is it true? Is it well-founded? ”

“ Crammon said to Christian: “The countess has made a great catch—a person from overseas. Quite fitting.”
“Do you like the man?” Christian asked, uncertainly.
“God forbid that I should think evil of him,” Crammon replied, hypocritically. “He is from so far away, and will go so far away again, that I cannot but find him congenial. If he takes that child Letitia with him, he shall be accompanied by my blessings. Whether it will mean her happiness, that is a matter I refuse to be anxious about. Such remote distances have, at all events, something calming. The Argentine, the Rio de la Plata! ”

“ Crammon answered. “Anyhow, you’re of age. You can use several times that much without any one hindering you.”
Christian threw back his head, and drew the salty air deep into his lungs. “I wonder what little Letitia is doing,” he said.
“I think of the child myself at times. She shouldn’t be left entirely to that old schemer,” Crammon replied. ”

“ On their journey Wahnschaffe told Crammon about his family: his sister Judith, his older brother Christian, his mother, who had the most beautiful pearls in Europe. “When she wears them,” he said, “she looks like an Indian goddess.” [25] His father he described as an amiable man with unseen backgrounds of the soul.
Crammon was anxious to get as much light as possible on the life and history of one of those great and rich bourgeois families which had won in the race against the old aristocracy. ”

“ Voss continued to play the part he had selected. He agreed and bowed, rubbed the toe of one of his boots against the sole of the other, picked up Crammon’s stick when the latter dropped it; but as he seemed determined not to be the first to yield, Crammon at last took pity on the silent wonder and torment in Christian’s face. He waved his well-gloved left hand and withdrew. He seemed to swell up in his rage like a frog. “Softly, Bernard,” he said to himself; “guard your dignity, and do not step into the ordure at your feet. Trust in the Lord who said: Vengeance is mine.” ”

“ Crammon was encouraged. “What has Ariel to do with your misery? He looks behind him to see if men kiss the print of his feet. He demands joy and glory, not blood and force.”
“Ariel’s feet are dancing over open graves,” Ivan Michailovitch said softly.
“Your dead are safe at peace,” Crammon answered. “With the living we shall know how to deal.” ”

“ One evening, at all events, the unexpected happened. Crammon learnt that the burning of the barn was the real cause of his morbid melancholy.
According to her custom, Clementine had gone to bed early. Christian, Crammon, and Franz Lothar sat silently together. Suddenly—without any external impetus—Franz covered his [104] face with his hands, and deep sobs came from his breast. Crammon sought to soothe him. He stroked his hair and grasped his hands. In vain. The sobbing became a convulsion that shook the man’s body violently. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Crammon murmured in his vexation. “What do you mean exactly by renunciation? What is it to lead to?”
[305]
Christian said almost to himself: “I believe that one must cast one’s ring into a well.”
“If you mean by that that you intend to forget our wonderful Queen Mab, all I have to say is—the Lord help you in your purpose,” Crammon answered.
“One holds fast and clings because one fears the step into the unknown,” Christian said.
Crammon was silent for a few minutes and wrinkled his forehead. Then he cleared his throat and asked: “Did you ever hear about homœopathy? ”

“ When Crammon had ended, Judith came up to him and stroked his cheeks. “That was charming, Crammon. I want you to be rewarded.”
Crammon laughed in his deepest bass voice, and answered: “Then I ask as my reward that you four ladies return to-morrow morning to the castle, and leave my friend Christian [123] and me to each other’s silence. Isn’t it true, Christian, dear boy? We like to brood over the mysteries of the world.”
“The brute!” they cried out, “the traitor! The base intriguer!” But it was only a jesting indignation. Their return had really been set for the next day. ”

“ It always gives me a yearning for soap and water. You can use the time to chat a bit. Afterwards we’ll have supper.”
She rustled out, not without having cast a severe glance at Crammon.
Crammon asked thoughtfully: “I wonder why she called this building the Villa Ophelia. There are many inexplicable things in life. This is one of them.”
Letitia laughed. She regarded him with a mixture of irony and shyness. But as she stood before him in her frock of soft, pale yellow silk, her neck and bosom radiating an ivory shimmer, Crammon found it difficult to sustain his self-pity. ”

“ It was during these days that Denis Lay had arrived in Paris. Crammon had expected him and now welcomed him with ardour. “He is the one man living who is your equal and who competes with you in my heart,” Crammon had said to Christian. ”

“ Crammon’s way of sitting there with his legs crossed, showing his grey silk socks, had something about it so secure and satiated, that it reminded one of an animal that basks in the sun and digests its food. Christian’s disgust at his words quieted, and was replaced by a gentle, almost compassionate tenderness. He said: “It is so hard to renounce. You can talk about it and imagine it; you can will it and even believe yourself capable of it. But when the moment of renunciation comes, it is hard, it is almost impossible to give up even the humblest of things.” ”

“ Crammon returned. “Everything is settled,” he said in a business like way. “The car will be ready in fifteen minutes. Now let us go and say farewell to our poor friend.”
Christian followed him. A porter led them to a dim storeroom in which the body had been placed until the morrow. A white cloth had been wrapped about the head. At the feet crouched a cat with spotted fur.
Silently Crammon folded his hands. Christian felt a cold breath on his cheeks, but there was no stirring in his breast. When they came out into the open he said: “We must buy a new car in Frankfort. ”

“ One night Crammon entered a tavern in the outer boulevards. It was called “Le pauvre Job.” He looked about him for a while and then sat down near a table at which several young men of foreign appearance were conversing softly in a strange tongue.
It was a group of Russian political refugees whose meeting place he had discovered. Their chief was Ivan Michailovitch Becker. Crammon pretended to be reading a paper while he observed his man, whom he recognized from a photograph which Prince Wiguniewski had shown him. He had never seen so fanatical a face. ”

“ Crammon moved his chair nearer to Christian’s, laid a hand on his knees, and whispered astutely: “I’ve got something for you, dear boy. I’ve made an exquisite find. There’s a woman in your horoscope, as the sooth-sayers put it. Some one is yearning for you, is immensely taken with you, and dying of impatience to know you. ”

“ When, late that afternoon, Crammon returned to the hotel, he learned to his bitter amazement that Christian had left.
He could not compose himself. It seemed to him that he was the victim of some secret cabal. “They all leave me in the lurch,” he murmured angrily to himself; “they make a mock of me. It’s like an epidemic. You are through with life, Bernard Gervasius, you are in every one’s way. Go to your cell and bemoan your fate.”
He ordered his valet to pack, and to secure accommodations on the train to Vienna. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Crammon also came often. He loved to talk to Lorm of past days, and Lorm was glad to remember and to smile. He also smiled when he was told how numerous were the inquiries after him; that telegrams came uninterruptedly from all the cities of the land, and showed how profoundly his image and character had affected the heart of the nation. He did not believe it; in his innermost soul he did not believe it. He despised men too deeply.
[385]
There was but one human being in whose love he believed. That was Judith. ”

“ In the corridor the head-waiter Ferdinand was leaning alone and somewhat wearily against the frame of a mirror. A tender intimacy of two decades bound Crammon to this man, who had never in his life been indiscreet, in spite of the innumerable secrets he had overheard.
“Bad times, Ferdinand,” Crammon said. “The world is going to the deuce.” ”

“ Crammon asserted that Amadeus Voss was paying his attentions to Johanna Schöntag. Johanna was annoyed, and tapped him with her long gloves. “I congratulate you on your conquest, Rumpelstilzkin,” Crammon teased her. “To have a monster like that in leash is no small achievement. I should advise muzzling the monster, however. What do you think, Christian, wouldn’t you advise a muzzle, too?”
“A muzzle?” answered Christian. “Yes, if it would keep people from talking. So many talk too much.” ”

“ Judith’s wedding. The chauffeur had been indiscreet. Then Crammon, in his brotherly concern, had made inquiries, and the rumours that had reached the castle had all been confirmed.
One morning, when they were both at Christian’s Rest, Crammon entered his friend’s room and said: “I can’t hold in any longer. The sorrow of it gnaws at me. You ought to be ashamed, Christian, especially of your secretiveness. You join fugitive disturbers of the peace and hurlers of bombs, and then you confuse the innocent poor by your brainless generosity. What is it to lead to?” ”

“ When Christian crossed the reception room of the hotel he saw Crammon sitting sadly in a chair. Christian stopped and [380] smiled and held out his hand. “Did you sleep well, Bernard?” he asked.
“If that were my only difficulty I should not complain,” Crammon answered. “I always sleep well. The troubles begin when I’m awake. Age with his stealing steps! The old pleasures no longer sting, the old delights are worn out. One counts on gratitude and affection, and gets care and disappointment. I think a monastery would be the best place for me. ”