Her response to my evasion was a wry smile; Within any actor or within me, she asked.
An actor, yes, any actor, I said.
No, there was nothing primal in what she did, she said reflectively, but I had the feeling she was wondering about my refusal to give her a straight answer; True, she went on, she was unschooled and uncouth, but also intelligent enough to know a lot about a lot of things; and then her face reverted to her sarcastic smile.
Did Sieglinde tell me, by any chance, she asked, that she sometimes let herself go completely and was capable of doing the most dreadful things? she could have, of course, they were so close she knew all about her gutter behavior.
I looked at her quizzically, but she only nodded, perhaps wanted to go no further; she put her hand lightly on my arm.
There were only two people in her life, she said, everything else was just one big stupidity, no matter what she did, she'd always go back to them, and they would never let her go.
I know, I said.
We looked at each other for a long time, a little as we had looked at the landscape before, because I did know what she'd meant and she could be sure I knew; this was the moment when she neutralized not only Frau Kühnert's emotion-driven maneuvering but also my machinations, the emotional dishonesty with which I tried to further Melchior's interests.
Two human beings were standing in a landscape breathing with a life infinitely greater than theirs, and they understood each other, not with their minds or emotions, for in this understanding the central function was assigned to that naturally accepted given to which we hadn't paid much attention before, neither intellectually nor emotionally, namely, that she was a woman and I was a man.
The moment exceeded our abilities and intentions, alluded to our natural differences and the one and only possibility of reconciling them, and thus, overriding all our efforts to remain composed, terribly embarrassed us both.
She didn't let the embarrassment deepen but quickly removed her hand from my arm, gave her shoulder a funny little shrug — at once a coy gesture of surrender and withdrawal — turned, and, now completely in a different time dimension than the city we'd left behind, but also turning away from the landscape, she continued walking along the trail toward the distant woods.
Table d'Hôte
Despite my valiant protest, my fiery and effervescent senses are at the mercy of raw forces we usually refer to as base or dark and, if I'm permitted a rather common term, downright obscene, and even in more refined terms they are no less than filthy, evil, deserving of the greatest contempt and harshest punishment; let's hasten to add that all this is not without justification, for everything I'll be compelled to talk about now is indeed related to the unclean end products of bodily functions as well as to the relief and gratification accompanying them; but no less justified is the question: do or do not these raw forces live inside us as do our discriminating moral sensibilities, whose inevitable task it is to fight them? but whether I consider the impure a part of me or alien to me, whether I accept the challenge and take up arms against it or with a weary shrug submit to it, it does exist — whatever I do, I cannot but continually feel its undeniable power, like some pornography of divine origin; if I manage to keep it at bay when awake, then it assails me, treacherously, in my dreams, flaunting its infinite power over my body and soul, there is no escaping it, and to try is to fail, as I learned on the night of my arrival in Heiligendamm, and let that be a lesson! no matter how much I was trying to be rid of my many worries that night — my foolish reflections on my artistic work, the dark yet exciting memories of my parents and my childhood, the arduous and unsettling journey, the equally unsettling though tender and touching farewell to Helene — no matter how much I tried to escape into a long, deep, restful, purifying sleep, it startled me again, although this time rather gently, not treating me as cruelly as at other times when it would appear, let's say, in the image of a naked man offering me his erect phallus, but announcing itself in a most innocent dream image, its appearance no more than a gentle reminder of my helplessness.
Loud, strange footsteps were reverberating in a familiar, wet street; the night, mysterious and flecked with the glimmer of gas lamps, enveloped me as smoothly, softly yet firmly, as only a loving woman's embrace or a dream can, and so I sank with it, hardly against my will, surrendering completely to the beauty of the darkness accentuated by the golden halos around the lamps; and since this nocturnal street scene was not far from turning into a person, yes, from becoming Helene herself, although nothing indicated directly that the scene was her embodiment, still, quite freely, without fear or reticence, my senses and emotions blended into and spread throughout this scene as if it were Helene, as though I were belatedly bestowing on her the very feelings which while awake — overwhelmed by the force of circumstances — even at the wildest moments of our ecstasy I was compelled to withhold from her and of course from myself as well.
It was as though the greatest good, the highest, most complete and splendid good was about to overpower me, and I had to hand over everything I had; indeed, it had already taken everything from me, devoured me, I was it and it was me, yet still it had more to give and so did I, much more skill; it was on the way to this good that my strong footsteps were resounding, this was the street of the good, the night, dark, and lights of the good, and I felt that the more I gave the more I had left to give; and it was all very good, even if my footsteps seemed to echo back to me from a cold, hollow space.
But from here I could see it, for the nature of the good now made itself visible; and I simply slipped out, emerged from the bothersome noise of my footsteps, to reach it; now I could feel that there was something better than the good, and whatever was waiting for me could only be better, for if I could walk right through all this good so easily and freely, then redemption, for which I had yearned so while lying at the bottom of my suffering, and that unpleasant clatter of footsteps had to do with suffering, could now come to pass without special fuss or ceremony.
And the love, oh, the love granted me now was great indeed; to love the cobblestones of the street as the cambered light highlighted and absorbed each and every one of them, to love the raindrops ready to fall from the branches, to love those sinister footfalls, too, and the gas jets dancing over the water collected at the bottom of the glass globes, to love the darkness for allowing me to see the light, and the cat that scurried by like an unexpected shadow, to love the soft tracks its paws left behind in the night, to love the glistening surface of the slender, finely wrought lampposts and the sound of that rusty creak the ear could hardly register in this loving daze.
And the eyes searched in vain.
For it was like a bubble, could burst any moment.
The creaking sound grew stronger, and leaving the clatter of my feet behind me on the stones, I was headed toward it; a metal door would make such a rusty sound when creaking in the wind, but there was no wind! I was hoping this would be the last clatter, after which nothing more could disturb the thick silence of the dark, but I was still walking and each step produced a new sound.
And then I saw myself approaching.
How could I spare the darkness from these noises?
There I was, standing behind the steel door blown open by the wind, standing in the stench and following intently the sound of those footsteps.
The wind slammed the door shut with a harsh grating sound, hiding me behind it, but the next instant it flew wide-open and I once more saw myself waiting there.