The Fairy Tales of Hermann Hesse (14 page)

One time, however, while he was on a sea voyage, he noticed the young wife of an ambassador, an austere, slender lady of Nordic nobility, standing amidst many other distinguished ladies and cosmopolitan men. She was clearly the most striking person among them, proud and quiet, without peer. While he was observing her, he noticed that her glance seemed to touch him too, fleetingly and indifferently. It was as though he now felt for the first time what love was, and he became determined to win her love. From then on, he was always near her and within sight of her, and because he himself was constantly surrounded by women and men who admired him and sought his company, he and the beautiful austere lady were always kept apart, at the center of attention of the other travelers, like a prince and princess. Even the husband of the blond lady treated him with deference and endeavored to please him.

It was practically impossible for Augustus to be alone with this remarkable woman until the ship sailed into the port of a southern city, and all the voyagers disembarked for a few hours to walk around
the foreign city and feel some earth under their feet once again. Augustus did not budge from the side of his beloved and eventually succeeded in drawing her into a conversation amid the hustle and bustle of a lively marketplace. There were numerous small, dark alleys connected to the marketplace, and it was into one of these alleys that he led her, for she had no reason not to trust him. Yet when she suddenly found herself alone with him, without her companions, she became timid, while Augustus fervently took her reluctant hands into his and implored her to remain on land and to flee somewhere with him.

The young lady turned pale and kept her eyes fixed on the ground. “Oh, this is not very gentlemanlike,” she said softly. “Allow me to forget what you’ve just said!”

“I’m not a gentleman!” exclaimed Augustus. “I’m a lover, and a lover knows nothing but his beloved and has no other thought than to be with her. You’re such a beautiful woman! Come with me, and I’ll make you happy.”

She looked at him earnestly and reproachfully with her bright blue eyes. “How could you know that I love you?” she whispered dolefully. “I can’t lie—I do love you and have often wished that you were my husband, for you are the first man whom I’ve loved with my heart. Oh, how can love go so far astray! I had never thought it possible for me to love a man who’s not pure and good. But I prefer a thousand times to remain with my husband than to go off with you, even though I do not love him very much. You see, he is a gentleman and full of honor and chivalry, qualities that you lack. And now don’t say one more word to me, but bring me back to the ship. Otherwise, I’ll call some people to protect me from your intrusive behavior.”

No matter how much Augustus begged and protested, she turned away from him, and she would have walked off alone if he had
not run after her and accompanied her silently to the ship. Once he was there, he had his suitcases brought ashore and did not say goodbye to anyone.

From then on the fortunes of this well-beloved man declined. He came to hate virtue and honor and trampled them underfoot. He took pleasure in seducing virtuous women with all the magic wiles at his disposal, and he exploited unsuspecting men whom he quickly won as friends, only to discard them with contempt. He reduced women and girls to poverty, then denied having anything to do with their downfall, and he sought out young men from noble families, whom he led astray and corrupted. He tried out every sort of pleasure to the point of exhaustion, and there was no vice that he did not learn and then abandon. But there was no longer any joy in his heart, and nothing in his soul responded to the love that he attracted everywhere he went.

Cynical and morose, he lived in a beautiful country mansion by the sea, and he tormented the women and friends who visited him there with wild whims and malicious acts. He took pleasure in humiliating people and showing them how much he despised them. Satiated, he felt sick and tired of being sought, demanded, and given love, which did not interest him. He sensed the worthlessness of his dissipated and decadent life and of the way that he had always taken and never given anything. Sometimes he fasted for a while, just to be able to feel a voracious desire again and to satisfy his appetite.

News spread among his friends that he was sick and needed peace and quiet. Letters came, but he never read them, and people who were worried about him asked his servants how his health was. He sat alone, however, deeply troubled, in his mansion overlooking the sea. His life lay ravaged and empty behind him; it was barren and
without a trace of love, like the gray, undulating water of the sea. He looked hideous as he sat hunched over in his easy chair at the high window and held himself to account. White gulls drifted in the wind on the beach. He followed the course of their flight with a vacuous look, devoid of joy and interest. Only his lips smiled harshly and maliciously as he finished his thoughts and rang for his servant, whom he ordered to send invitations to his friends to attend a party on a particular day. His intention was to horrify and mock them by confronting them on arrival with an empty house and his own corpse. Indeed, he had decided to end his life with poison before they came.

On the evening when the party was to take place, he sent all the servants from the house, so it became completely quiet in the large rooms. Then he went into his bedroom, mixed strong poison into a glass of Cyprus wine, and raised it to his lips. Just as he was about to drink it, there was a knock at the door. When he did not answer, the door opened, and a little old man entered. He went straight to Augustus, carefully took the glass out of his hands, and said with a very familiar voice, “Good evening, Augustus. How are you?”

Surprised, annoyed, and somewhat ashamed, Augustus smiled mockingly and said, “Why, Mr. Binsswanger, are you still alive? It’s been a long time, and you truly do not seem to have grown any older. But you’re disturbing me at this moment, my dear man. I’m tired, and I was just about to take a sleeping potion.”

“So I see,” his godfather responded calmly. “You want to take a sleeping potion, and you’re right. It’s the last sort of wine that can still help you. But before you drink it, let’s have a little chat, my boy. And since I’ve traveled so far, you won’t be angry at me if I refresh myself with a small drink.”

Upon saying this, he took the glass and raised it to his lips, and before Augustus could prevent him, he lifted it high and drank it all in one quick gulp.

Augustus turned deathly pale. He rushed over to his godfather, shook him by the shoulders, and cried out in a shrill voice, “Old man, do you know what you have just drunk?”

Mr. Binsswanger nodded his wise gray head and smiled. “It’s Cyprus wine, I see, and it’s not bad. You don’t seem to be suffering from a lack of good wine. But I have little time, and I don’t want to keep you unnecessarily long if you’ll just listen to me.”

Confused, Augustus kept looking at his godfather with horror in his bright eyes, expecting him to collapse at any moment. Meanwhile, his godfather sat down comfortably in a chair and nodded kindly to his young friend.

“Are you worried that the drink of wine will harm me? Just relax! It’s nice of you to worry about me—I would never have expected it. But now let’s talk as we used to in the old days! It seems to me that you’ve had your fill of the easy life. I can understand that, and when I leave, you can refill your glass and drink it down. But before that, I must tell you something.”

Augustus leaned against the wall and listened to the kind, pleasant voice of the ancient little man. The familiar voice from his childhood brought back to life shadows of the past that he could picture in his mind. Profound shame and sorrow gripped him, as if he were actually viewing his innocent childhood.

“I drank your poison,” the old man continued, “because I’m the one responsible for your misery. You see, when you were baptized, your mother made a wish, and I fulfilled it even though it was a foolish wish. You don’t need to know what it was. It has become a
curse, as you yourself have realized. I’m sorry that it turned out this way, and it would make me happy if I could live to see you sitting with me at home by the fireplace once more and listening to the angels sing. It will not be easy, and at the moment it may seem impossible to you that your heart could ever become healthy and pure and cheerful again. But it is possible, and I want to ask you to try it. Your poor mother’s wish cost you dearly, Augustus. How would it be now if I granted you another wish, any one you want? I don’t think that you’ll want money and possessions, nor power or the love of women. You’ve had enough of all this. Think about it carefully, and when you believe you know the right magic that will make your ruined life better and beautiful and that could also make you happy once more, then wish it for yourself.”

Now Augustus sat deep in thought and did not respond. He was too tired and too much in despair, but after a while he said, “Thank you, godfather Binsswanger. However, I believe that my life is so tangled that there’s no comb in the world that could ever smooth it out. Its better for me if I do what I intended to do when you came in. But I want to thank you nevertheless for coming.”

“Yes,” said the old man discreetly. “I can understand that it’s not easy for you, Augustus. But perhaps you can still reconsider. Perhaps you can recall what you were missing most of all. Or perhaps you can remember the early days, when your mother was still alive and you occasionally came to me in the evening. Weren’t you sometimes happy then?”

“Yes, but that was long ago.” Augustus nodded, and the picture of his radiant youth came back to him from afar, a faint reflection, as though from an antique mirror. “But that can’t return. I cannot wish to be a child again. Why, then everything would start all over again!”

“You’re perfectly right. That would make no sense. But think once more about the time when we were all together at home and about the poor girl whom you used to visit as a student at night in her father’s garden, and think about the beautiful blond lady with whom you once traveled on a ship, and think about all those moments when you’ve ever been happy, when life seemed to be good and precious. Perhaps you can recognize what made you happy during those times and can wish for it. Do it, my boy. Do it for me!”

Augustus closed his eyes and recalled his life as one looks back from a dark corridor to a distant point of light from where one has come, and he saw once again how everything had once been bright and beautiful around him and had gradually become darker and darker until he stood in pitch-blackness and could no longer be happy about anything. And the more he contemplated and remembered, the more beautiful and lovable and desirable the distant small spot of life seemed to glisten at him, and finally he recognized it, and tears burst from his eyes.

“I’ll try it,” he said to his godfather. “Take away the old magic. It hasn’t helped me at all. In its place, give me the power to love people!”

Weeping, he knelt before his old friend, and as he sank to the ground, he could feel love for this old man burning within him, and he struggled to express it in forgotten words and gestures. But his godfather, that tiny man, took him gently into his arms and carried him to his bed. There he laid him down and stroked his hair from his feverish brow.

“Everything’s all right,” he whispered softly to Augustus. “Everything’s all right, my child. Everything will turn out well.”

Augustus felt totally worn out by fatigue, as if he had aged
many years in one instant. He fell into a deep sleep, and the old man silently left the forsaken house.

The next day, Augustus was wakened by a wild tumult that resounded throughout the house, and when he got up and opened the bedroom door, he found the hall and all the rooms filled with his former friends, who had come to the party and found the house abandoned. They were angry and disappointed, and when he went toward them to cajole them as usual with a smile or a joke, he suddenly felt that he had lost the power to do so. No sooner did they see him than they all began simultaneously to yell at him, and when he smiled helplessly and stretched out his hands in self-defense, they fell upon him in rage.

“You crook!” one person cried. “Where’s the money you owe me?” And another: “And the horse that I loaned you?” And a furious pretty woman: “The entire world knows my secrets now that you’ve blabbed about them. Oh, how I hate you, you monster!” And a hollow-eyed young man screamed with a distorted face: “Do you know what you’ve made of me? You’re Satan, the corrupter of youth!”

And so it continued, each person heaping insults and curses on him, and each one was justified, and many hit him, and they left broken mirrors behind when they departed and took many precious articles. Augustus got up from the floor, beaten and dishonored. Then he went into his bedroom and looked into the mirror in order to wash himself, and he regarded his wrinkled and ugly face, the red eyes oozing with tears, and blood dripping from his forehead.

“I deserved it,” he said to himself and washed the blood from his face. No sooner had he cleared his mind a bit than the tumult began once more in the house, and people came storming up the stairs: the moneylenders who held the mortgage on the house; a
husband whose wife he had seduced; fathers whose sons he had enticed into a life of vice and misery; servants and maids whom he had dismissed; and policemen and lawyers. One hour later, he sat handcuffed in a patrol car and was being taken to jail. Behind the car people yelled and sang songs mocking him. Through the window of his cell, a guttersnipe threw a handful of dirt that landed on his face.

The city was full of reports of disgraceful crimes committed by this man, whom so many people had known and loved. He was accused of every possible sin, and he did not deny a single one. People whom he had long ago forgotten stood before the judges and made accusations about things that he had done many years ago. Servants, to whom he had given presents and who had stolen from him, revealed his secret vices. Every face was full of disgust and hate. Nobody came to speak in his behalf, praise him, or exonerate him. In fact, nobody recalled anything good about him.