The Sleepwalkers (23 page)

So they remained until they heard the Baron’s voice in the next room. “We must go in,” said Elisabeth. Then they entered the brightly lit salon, and Elisabeth said: “We are engaged.” “My child!” cried the Baroness, and with tears enfolded Elisabeth in her arms. But the Baron, whose eyes were not less wet, cried: “Let us be joyful and give thanks to God for this happy day,” and Joachim loved him for those heartening words, and felt committed to his keeping.

Out of the apathetic doze into which his weariness declined amid the rattle of the droshky wheels as he drove home, the thought emerged more clearly that his father and Bertrand had died that day, and he was almost amazed to find no announcement of their death awaiting him in his flat, for that would have fitted in with the return of punctiliousness to his life. In any case one should not conceal a betrothal from even a dead friend. The thought continued to haunt him and next morning strengthened into something like certainty, if not a certainty of their death, a certainty of their non-existence at least: his father and Bertrand had departed this life, and even although he was partly to blame for their death, he remained sunk in quiet indifference and did not even once find it necessary to decide whether it was Elisabeth or Ruzena of whom he had robbed Bertrand. The task had been laid upon him to catch Bertrand from behind, to keep an eye upon him, and the path along which he was bound to pursue him had now come to an end, the mystery was annulled; all that remained was to say farewell to his dead friend. “Both good news and bad news,” he said to himself. He had plenty of time; he stopped the droshky to order bouquets for his fiancée and the Baroness, and without haste proceeded to the hospital. But when he entered the hospital no one made any reference to the catastrophe; he was conducted in the usual manner to Bertrand’s room as if nothing had happened: it was only when he met the Sister in the corridor that he learned that Bertrand had indeed had a bad night, but was now feeling better. Joachim repeated mechanically: “He’s feeling better … yes, that’s gratifying, very gratifying.” It was as if Bertrand had betrayed and deceived him yet again, and this became a firm conviction when he was greeted by the gay words: “I take it you can be congratulated to-day.” How does he know that? Joachim asked himself, and in spite of his annoyance was almost proud that his suspicions were, in a way, justified by his new character as prospective bridegroom: yes, he
said, he was happy to be able to announce his engagement. Bertrand seemed, however, in a softened mood. “You know that I like you, Pasenow,” he said—Joachim felt this as importunity—“and so it’s with all my heart that I wish luck to you and your bride.” Once more his words sounded warm and sincere, yet mocking: he—the man who always knew everything beforehand, he who had actually willed it and brought it about, although merely as the instrument of a higher power—was evading the issue, now that he saw his work accomplished, with a smooth and cordial congratulation. Joachim felt somehow exhausted; he sat down by the table in the middle of the room, looked at Bertrand, who was lying blond and almost girlish in his bed, and said gravely: “I hope that everything will turn out well,” and Bertrand replied lightly with that offhand certainty which always laid its soothing and yet disquieting spell on Joachim: “Let me assure you, Pasenow, that everything will turn out for the very best … at least for you.” Joachim repeated: “Yes, for the best …” but then he looked perplexed: “Why for me only?” Bertrand smiled and waved the question away with a faintly contemptuous gesture: “Oh, we … we’re a lost generation,” yet he explained himself no further, only adding abruptly: “And when’s the wedding to be?” so that Joachim forgot to ask more, and at once said: well, there was still some way to go; his father’s illness, above all, had to be considered. Bertrand eyed Joachim, who sat facing him with stiff propriety. “But getting married surely doesn’t involve settling down on the estate at once?” he said. Joachim was shocked: apparently all his trouble had been wasted. After harping on the necessity for taking over the estate, after plunging Ruzena into despair, here was Bertrand now saying that he did not need to settle down on the estate, as if wishing to cheat him of his pride in its possession and even to deprive him of his home! With what devious cunning had Bertrand lured him on, and now he was shaking off all responsibility and actually disdaining the triumph he had scored in pulling him down to his own civilian level, repudiating him even there! It must have been sheer evil for evil’s sake that Bertrand had wrought, and Joachim looked at him with indignant amazement. But Bertrand observed only the question in his eyes: “Well,” he said, “you mentioned not long ago that you were just on the point of getting your captaincy, and you should stay on until you’re promoted. Retired Captain sounds much better than retired Lieutenant”—now he’s ashamed of himself, the Second Lieutenant,
thought Joachim and straightened himself with a little jerk, as if on parade—“and during these few months your father’s illness will have taken a decisive turn of some kind.” Joachim would have liked to point out that married officers seemed to him an anomaly, and that he was longing for his native soil, but he did not venture to say so, remarking merely that Bertrand’s suggested solution fitted in with the heartfelt desire of his future parents to see Elisabeth settled in the new west-end house. “Well, there you are, my dear Pasenow; everything turns out for the best,” said Bertrand, and that was another gratuitous and abominable piece of presumption, “besides, you could certainly speed up your promotion if you were to tell your colonel that you mean to retire from the service as soon as you get your step.” He was right in that, too, but it was annoying to have Bertrand interfering with even military arrangements. Joachim thoughtfully picked up Bertrand’s stick from the table, scrutinized the handle, and ran his finger over the resilient black-rubber bulb at the point of it: a convalescent’s stick. That the man was urging him into a headlong marriage filled him with new suspicion. What was behind it all? Yesterday evening he and Elisabeth had explained to her parents that they did not want to hurry on the marriage, and had enumerated all the obstacles; and now this Bertrand wanted simply to blow the obstacles away. “All the same, we can’t precipitate the marriage,” said Joachim obstinately. “Well,” remarked Bertrand, “I’m only sorry that in that case I must be content with sending you a wire on the happy day, from India or somewhere. For as soon as I’m half set up again I’m going abroad.… This affair has pulled me down a bit.” What affair? The slight wound to his arm? It was true that Bertrand looked ill, and convalescents always needed sticks, but what else had been happening? He shouldn’t really let Bertrand go away until that was all cleared up, and Joachim wondered whether Helmuth, who had faced his enemy openly, hadn’t been much more honourable than himself; was not the issue here the same: explanation or death? But Joachim wanted both of them, and yet neither. His father was right: he was dishonourable, as dishonourable as Bertrand, this friend of his, who could hardly be called his friend still. Yet that was almost gratifying, for it must have been in his father’s mind that Bertrand should not be invited to the wedding.

None the less he listened quietly as Bertrand went on: “One thing more, Pasenow; I have the impression that the estate, except where
your mother looks after it and where it runs itself, is in a fairly neglected condition. In his present state your father could possibly do it a great deal of additional harm. Excuse me for suggesting, as I feel bound to do, that you might have him declared incapable of managing it. And you should engage a good steward; he would anyhow earn his wages. I think you should discuss it with your father-in-law; after all, he’s a landowner too.” Yes, Bertrand was talking like the vilest
agent provocateur
, and yet Joachim had to thank him for the advice, which he could see was just and well meant, and even had to express the hope that they would still see much of each other before Bertrand’s full recovery. “Delighted,” said Bertrand; “and give my humblest respects to your bride.” Then he sank back exhausted on his pillow.

Two days later Joachim received a letter in which Bertrand announced that his health was much improved and that he had shifted into a hospital in Hamburg, so as to be nearer to his business. But they would certainly meet again before he started for the East. Bertrand’s cool assumption that as a matter of course they would have another encounter made Joachim decide to avoid it at all costs. But he suffered from the knowledge that from now on he would have to do without his friend’s sureness and lightness of touch, and his competence in the affairs of life.

Behind the Leipzigerplatz there is a shop which externally can hardly be distinguished from its neighbours, unless it should attract attention because there are no goods displayed in its windows and the eye is prevented from seeing what is inside by opaque-glass screens, beautifully etched with Pompeian and Renaissance designs. But this peculiarity is one which the shop shares with many banking houses and brokers’ offices, and even the posters affixed to the screens, although they are an unpleasant interruption of the designs, have nothing unusual about them. On these posters the word “India” occurs, and a glance at the sign above the door informs one that inside the shop the Kaiser Panorama is on view.

On entering, one advances first into a light and cosily heated room in which an elderly and obviously good-natured lady acts as a kind of cashier behind a small table, selling tickets of admission to the establishment. Most of the visitors, however, pause at the table only to have their books of subscription tickets stamped and to exchange a few friendly words with the old lady. When the aged attendant appears from behind
the black curtains that cut off one end of the room, and with a deprecating little gesture begs one to wait a minute or two, the visitor subsides with a faint sigh into one of the cane chairs and continues his conversation, mistrustfully watching the glass door that leads into the street, and if a fresh client appears regarding him with jealous and ashamed hostility. Then there is heard the faint scraping of chairs behind the curtains, and the man who emerges blinks a little in the light, and departs with a brief salutation to the old lady, going hurriedly, nervously, and without looking at anybody, as if he too were ashamed. The waiting client, however, springs quickly to his feet lest someone should push in ahead of him, breaks off his conversation without more ado, and vanishes behind the protecting curtains. It happens but seldom that clients speak to each other, although many must get to know each other by sight in the course of years, and only one or two shameless old men bring themselves to address the other waiting clients as well as the cashier, and to praise the programme; yet even then they are answered mostly in monosyllables.

Within, however, all is darkness, and one could suppose it an ancient, oppressive darkness that has been accumulating here for years. The attendant takes you gently by the hand and leads you carefully to a seat, a round seat without arms, that is waiting for you. In front of you are two bright eyes that look at you somewhat uncannily from a black screen, and under these eyes is a mouth, a hard rectangle softened by the dull light that fills it. Gradually you realize that you are set before a polygonal construction resembling a temple, and that the screen in front of which you are sitting is a part of it; you observe, too, that to right and left of you sits a worshipper who has applied his eyes to the eyes in the screen before him, and you do the same, after taking a look at the rectangle of light and noting that it says, “Government House in Calcutta.” But as soon as you peer into the open eye, Government House vanishes to the tinkle of a sweet bell and with a mechanical rattle; you can still see it sliding away while another view comes sliding after it, so that you feel almost cheated; but another bell tinkles, the view gives itself a little shake, as if to set itself off to the best advantage, and comes to rest. You see palm-trees and a well-kept path: in the background, where it is shaded, a man in a light suit is sitting on a seat; a fountain throws a congealed, whiplike jet of spray into the air, but you are not content until a glance at the softly lit rectangle informs you: “View in the Royal Park, Calcutta.” Then comes another tinkle,
a sliding past of palms, seats, buildings, masts, a quiver into place, a tinkle of the bell, and in bright sunlight: “View of the Harbour, Bombay.” The man who has just been sitting on the seat in Calcutta Park is now standing in a sun-helmet on the hewn stones of the mole in the foreground. He is propped on a walking-stick and does not move, because he is spellbound by the taut rigging of the ships, by their funnels and cranes, spellbound by the bundles of cotton bales on the quay, and gazes at them spellbound, and his face is in shadow and cannot be recognized. Yet perhaps he will advance into the magic space, enclosed in polished brown, that lies between you and the picture, a space that is but an abstract cube and yet a long journey; perhaps he will step out freely and magically upon the wooden floor, and you will recognize that it is Bertrand, airily and yet terribly warning you that he can never more be crossed out of your life, however far away he may be. But that may be only your imagination, for God has already rung the bell for him, and without a greeting, stiff and motionless, without taking even one step, he slides away again. You peep at your left-hand neighbour to see if that is where Bertrand has gone, but his lit rectangle reports: “Government House in Calcutta,” and you can almost nurse the hope that Bertrand has appeared to you alone, to greet you only. But you have no time to reflect upon it, for when you turn quickly again to your own eyepieces a delightful surprise awaits you: the “Native Mother in Ceylon” is not only lit up by soft golden sunlight but represented in her natural colours; she smiles with white teeth between red lips and may be waiting for the white Sahib who has quitted the West because he despises European women. The “Temple Buildings in Delhi” also glow in all the colours of the Orient at the far end of the brown box: there the bad Christian may learn that even subject races know how to serve God. But did he not once say himself that it would devolve upon the black races to set up the Kingdom of Christ again? You look with horror at the swarm of brown figures, and are not ill-pleased to hear the signal with which they are dismissed, to give place to the “Elephant-hunting Expedition.” Here stand the colossal quadrupeds, one of them gently lifting a forefoot. The square is full of fine white sand, and when you turn your dazzled eyes away for a moment you see above the rectangular title-plate a small button, which you twirl experimentally. At once, to your delight, the picture is suffused by soft moonlight, so that you can expedite the hunters at your pleasure by day or by night.
Well, since the sun-glare no longer blinds you, you seize the opportunity of examining the hunters’ faces, and if your eye does not deceive you it is Bertrand, after all, who is sitting in the howdah behind the dusky mahout, his rifle at the ready in his right hand, promising death. You change the light, and once more it is an utter stranger who smiles at you, and the mahout lays his goad behind the elephant’s ear to give the signal for the prescribed start of the expedition; they slide away into the jungle, yet you hear nothing of the trampling of the herds and the trumpeting of the bulls, but with a faint tinkle and a mechanical rattle landscape after landscape advances of its own accord and vanishes, and if the passing traveller seems to be really the man you are bound to seek for ever, the man you hunger for, the man who vanishes while you are still holding his hand, then the bell tinkles, and before you know where you are you are peering anxiously at your neighbour’s title-plate on the right, and discovering the inscription: “Government House in Calcutta,” so that you know your hour will be over soon. Then you give a cursory look to make sure that the palms of the Royal Park are due to follow, and since they follow on ruthlessly you scrape your chair, the attendant hurries up, and blinking a little, your collar turned up, a poor creature found indulging a pleasure he has never realized, you leave with a brief salutation the room in which others are already waiting, and in which the old lady is selling books of tickets.