The Sleepwalkers (8 page)

He had now a somewhat vague, yet urgent, wish to catch up the man and tell him that he was going to take Ruzena out of the casino and from now on make no secret about her; but he had taken only a few steps when he saw the other waddling hastily into the Stock Exchange. For a moment Joachim remained staring at the entrance: was this the place of metamorphosis? Would Bertrand himself come out now? He considered whether he should take Bertrand at once to meet Ruzena,
and decided no: for Bertrand belonged to the world of the night clubs, and it was from that very world that he must now rescue Ruzena. But that would come all right; and how lovely it would be to forget all about it and wander with Ruzena in a still park beside a still lake. He stood still in front of the Stock Exchange. He longed for the country. The traffic roared round him; above him thundered the trains. He no longer stared at the passers-by, even though he felt that they were foreign and strange. He would avoid this neighbourhood in future. In the midst of the hubbub round the Stock Exchange Joachim von Pasenow held himself stiff and erect. He would be very good to Ruzena.

Bertrand paid him a visit of condolence, and Joachim was again not quite clear whether to regard this as considerate or presumptuous: one could take it as the one or the other. Bertrand remembered Helmuth, who had visited Culm occasionally, though seldom enough, and his memory was extraordinarily exact: “Yes, a fair, quiet youth, very reserved … I fancy he envied us … he couldn’t have changed much later either … and he resembled you.” That, now, was just a little too familiar again, almost as if Bertrand wished to exploit Helmuth’s death for his own advantage; however, it was no wonder if Bertrand remembered all that had to do with his former military career with such astonishing exactitude: one liked to recall happy times that one had lost. Yet Bertrand did not speak at all in a sentimental way, but quietly and soberly, so that Helmuth’s death assumed a more human and natural aspect, and in some way, under Bertrand’s touch, became objective, timeless and endurable. To his brother’s duel Joachim had not really devoted much thought; all the opinions that had been pronounced on it and the comments recurring again and again in the letters of condolence pointed in the same direction: that Helmuth had been tragically caught by the unalterable fatality of his sense of honour, from which there was no escape. Bertrand however began:

“The most extraordinary thing is that we live in a world of machinery and railways, and that at the same time as the railways are running and the factories working two people can stand opposite each other and shoot at each other.”

Bertrand had no sense of honour left, Joachim told himself, and yet his remarks seemed natural and illuminating. But Bertrand went on:

“That may be, of course, because it’s a question of sentiment.”

“The sentiment of honour,” said Joachim.

“Yes, honour and so forth.”

Joachim looked up—was Bertrand laughing at him again? He would have liked to reply that one must not judge such things merely from the standpoint of the city man; out there in the country people’s feelings were less artificial and meant more. Really Bertrand did not know anything about it. But of course one could not say such things to one’s guest, and Joachim silently held out his cigar-case. But Bertrand drew his English pipe and leather tobacco-pouch from his pocket:

“It’s extraordinary that it should be the most superficial and perishable things that are actually the most persistent. Physically a human being can adapt himself with incredible quickness to new conditions of life. But even his skin and the colour of his hair are more persistent than his bony structure.”

Joachim regarded Bertrand’s fair skin and far too wavy hair and waited to see where all this was going to lead.

Bertrand noticed at once that he had not made himself clear enough:

“Well, the most persistent things in us are, let us say, our so-called feelings. We carry an indestructible fund of conservatism about with us. I mean our feelings, or rather conventions of feeling, for actually they aren’t living feelings, but atavisms.”

“So you consider that conservative principles are atavistic?”

“Oh, sometimes, but not always. However, I wasn’t really thinking of them. What I meant was that our feelings always lag half-a-century or a full century behind our actual lives. One’s feelings are always less human than the society one lives in. Just consider that a Lessing or a Voltaire accepted without question the fact that in their time men were still broken on the wheel—a thing that to us with our feelings is unimaginable. And do you imagine that we are in a different case?”

Well, Joachim had never bothered his head over such things. Perhaps Bertrand was right. But why was he saying all this to him? He was talking like a writer for the newspapers.

Bertrand went on:

“We take it quite as a matter of course that two men, both of them honourable—for your brother would not have fought with a man who was not honourable—should of a morning stand and shoot at each other.
And the fact that we put up with such a thing, and that they do it, shows how completely imprisoned we all are in conventional feeling. But feelings are inert, and that’s why they’re so cruel. The world is ruled by the inertia of feeling.”

The inertia of feeling! Joachim was struck by the phrase: was he not himself full of inertia, was it not a criminal inertia that had prevented him from summoning enough imagination to provide Ruzena with money in spite of her objections, and to take her out of the casino? He asked in alarm:

“Do you actually describe honour as inertia of feeling?”

“Oh, Pasenow, you ask too embarrassing questions.” Bertrand had assumed again the winning smile with which he always bridged over differences of opinion. “It seems to me that honour is a very living feeling, but none the less all obsolete forms are full of inertia, and one has to be very tired oneself to give oneself over to a dead and romantic convention of feeling. One has to be in despair and see no way out before one can do that.…”

Yes, Helmuth had been tired. But what did Bertrand want? How was one to rid oneself of convention? With dismay Joachim saw the danger that like Bertrand one might begin to let everything slide if one began to transgress convention. Certainly in his connection with Ruzena he had already slipped through convention in the strict sense, but now he must not go any further, and honour itself demanded that he should be true to Ruzena! Perhaps Helmuth had vaguely surmised this when he warned him against returning to the estate. For then Ruzena would be lost. So he asked abruptly: “What do you think of the state of German agriculture?” almost hoping that Bertrand, who always had practical reasons for what he said, would also warn him against taking over the estate.

“Hard to say, Pasenow, especially for anyone who knows so little about agriculture as myself.… Of course we still have the feudal prejudice that, as we all live on God’s earth, those who cultivate it have the most stable existence.” Bertrand made a slightly disdainful gesture, and Joachim von Pasenow felt disappointed, yet relieved as well, at the thought that he belonged to this favoured caste, while Bertrand’s insecure business existence was only, as it were, a preliminary step to a more stable life. Apparently he regretted after all that he had quitted the regiment; as an officer in the Guards he could easily have married an
estate. But that was a reflection worthy of his father himself, and Joachim dismissed it and merely asked whether Bertrand intended to adopt a settled life later on. No, Bertrand thought he would hardly be able to do that now: he wasn’t a man who could endure living in one place for very long. And then they talked about Stolpin and the shooting there, and Joachim invited Bertrand to come down for the shooting in autumn. And suddenly the door-bell rang: Ruzena! Joachim thought, and he looked at Bertrand almost with hostility. Bertrand had been sitting there now for two hours, drinking tea and smoking, and his visit could no longer, by any stretch, be called a mere visit of condolence. Yet at the same time Joachim had to admit that it had been himself who had pointed to the armchair and produced the cigars and induced Bertrand to stay, although he should have known that Ruzena would be certain to come. Of course now that the thing had happened there was no turning back: naturally it would have been more in order if he had consulted Ruzena first. She would probably feel put out, probably she herself desired the secrecy which he was now preparing to infringe, perhaps in her simple goodness she wished to avoid any chance of her disgracing him—perhaps, indeed, she wasn’t quite equal to social occasions; but he was no longer capable of judging that, for when he tried to call up her image all that he saw was her face and her loosened hair on the pillow beside him. He remembered the fragrance of her body, but could hardly tell any longer how she looked when she was dressed. Well, after all Bertrand was a civilian, and himself wore his hair too long, and so it could not matter very much to him. So Joachim said: “Look here, Bertrand, I’m just having a visit from a nice girl; may I invite you to have supper with us?” “How romantic!” replied Bertrand; of course he would be delighted if he was not in the way.

Joachim went out to greet Ruzena and prepare her for the news. She was visibly disconcerted to find a stranger present. But she was amiable to Bertrand, and Bertrand was amiable to her. Joachim indeed was displeased by the assumption of friendliness with which they treated each other. It was decided that they should dine at home; the valet was sent out for ham and wine, and Ruzena ran after him; he was to bring apple-tarts and cream too. She was delighted to be allowed to preside in the kitchen and make potato-puffs. A little later she called Joachim out to the kitchen; he thought at first that she only wanted to show herself in her huge white apron, the cooking-spoon in her hand, and
was preparing to appreciate this touching picture of housewifely loveliness; but she was leaning against the kitchen door sobbing; it was almost like another occasion when as a little boy he had gone to the great kitchen to seek his mother, and one of the maids—probably she had just been given notice—was sobbing so bitterly that he longed to cry with her, but was restrained by a feeling of shame. “Now you not love me no more,” Ruzena sobbed on his shoulder, and although they kissed each other more passionately than ever, she would not be comforted. “Is finished, I know, is finished …” she kept on repeating, “but go back now, must cook.” She dried her tears and smiled. But he went back unwillingly, and it was unwillingly that he thought of Bertrand in the other room; of course it was childish of her, childish to think that their love was finished simply because of Bertrand, yet nevertheless it was real feminine instinct, yes, real feminine instinct, one couldn’t call it anything else, and Joachim felt suddenly dejected. For even though Bertrand in his cynical way received him with the words, “She’s charming,” and awakened in him the grateful pride of King Candaules, the menacing thought remained unshaken: if he went back to Stolpin Ruzena would be lost to him, and then it would all be over. If Bertrand had only dissuaded him at least from having anything to do with agriculture! Or did Bertrand want—and perhaps even against his own convictions—to force him into a country life simply to get him out of Berlin and then win Ruzena, whom in spite of everything he probably regarded as his legitimate property? But that was unthinkable.

Ruzena, followed by the valet, entered with the big tray. She had taken off her apron, and sitting between the two men at the little round table played the grand lady, and in her sing-song, staccato voice made conversation with Bertrand, whom she encouraged to talk of his travels. The two windows were standing open, but in spite of the dark summer night outside, the soft paraffin lamp over the table reminded Joachim of winter and Christmas and the security of the little living-rooms behind the shops. How strange that he should have forgotten all about the lace handkerchiefs which, in a fit of vague longing, he had bought for Ruzena that evening! They were still lying in the chest of drawers, and he would give them to her now if Bertrand were not here and if she were not listening so intently to those stories about the cotton plantations and the poor negroes whose fathers were still slaves—yes,
really, actual slaves whom one could sell. What? Were the girls sold too? Ruzena shuddered and Bertrand laughed, laughed easily and pleasantly: “Oh, you mustn’t be afraid, little slave-girl, nothing will happen to you.” Why did Bertrand say that? Was he hinting at buying Ruzena or getting her as a gift? Joachim could not but think of the resemblance between slave and Slav and reflected that all negroes were alike, so that one could hardly tell one from another, and it seemed to him again that Bertrand was trying to entangle him in a maze and to remind him that Ruzena could not be distinguished from her Italian-Slav brother. Was that why Bertrand had conjured up the picture of the black hordes? But Bertrand was only smiling at him, and he was fair, almost as fair as Helmuth, though without the beard, and his hair was wavy, far too wavy, instead of being brushed stiffly back; and for a moment everything was confused again and one did not know to whom Ruzena belonged by rights. If the bullet had found him instead of his brother, then Helmuth would have been sitting here in his place, and Helmuth would also have had the strength to protect Elisabeth. Perhaps Ruzena would have been a little beneath Helmuth; all the same he himself was nothing more than his brother’s deputy. Joachim was dismayed when this became clear to him, dismayed at the thought that one individual could deputize for another, that Bertrand should have a soft little bearded deputy, and that from this standpoint even his father’s ideas were excusable: for why Ruzena in particular, why himself in particular? why not Elisabeth when it came to that? it was all indifferent in some way or other, and he understood the feeling of weariness that had driven Helmuth to his death. Even if Ruzena was right and their love was nearing its end, yet now suddenly everything had receded to a great distance in which Ruzena’s face and Bertrand’s could scarcely be told from each other. The convention of feeling, Bertrand had called it.