Did you know that Schlegel wanted to write a sequel to his story? Sophie said, poking at Hans’s sex with her finger. Apparently he planned to continue the story from Lucinde’s point of view rather than that of Julius. It is odd that she scarcely has a voice in the novel. Sometimes I think that if Schlegel had written the second part of Lucinde, his life, and perhaps ours, would have been different. But didn’t his wife Dorothea, publish a novel at the same time? Hans asked, pinching her stomach. Yes, replied Sophie, and despite writing about a young girl who wishes to defy her family and see the world, the book was finally entitled Florentin, after its peripatetic young hero. They say Dorothea also planned to write a sequel called Camilla, a woman’s story narrated by a woman. She never finished it. Silence. That’s the story of literature.
The thing is, said Hans, trying to lead her on, Lucinde is about marriage isn’t it? Absolutely not, Sophie hastened to reply, it’s about the union of two people in love. Yes, he insisted, but the characters who love one another are husband and wife. My sweet, she said, disappointed, your brain becomes a little confused when it comes to men and women. This novel is about love, a different kind of love, and the fact that it happens within a marriage is simply to make the passion more natural, to give it an everyday feel. Some of us women readers, you know, are fed up with tragic love affairs and impossible desires, that’s why I think Schlegel was right to place his story in the ordinary setting of a marriage. Call me curious, Hans ventured, but can the same be said of your marriage?
Sophie stood up without saying a word. She crouched over the chamber pot and, for a few moments, all that could be heard was the wistful trickle of urine. She went back and perched on the edge of the bed, her back to Hans. He feared she was more offended than he’d expected, but just when he was about to offer an apology, she murmured: I’ve postponed the wedding. What? Hans gave a start. She repeated the words in an identical voice. Hans felt bewildered, ecstatic, terrified. How long for? he probed. Until December, she replied, until Christmas. He knew he mustn’t speak. Sophie sat for a long time, naked on the edge of the bed, listening to the sound of her own breathing. At last she turned around and lay down again, her head resting on Hans’s belly, and, having casually discovered the cobwebs in the rafters, she began to talk.
After listening to her, Hans thought the time had come to pose the obvious but awkward question he had been carefully avoiding. He did not want any ties, nor was he asking for any. But that fact was since he had met Sophie he felt strangely rooted, and he looked on with astonishment as his stay in Wandernburg lengthened. And given that he was still there, perhaps carrying on behaving as if he had just arrived was a mark of weakness, not of freedom. Sophie, he said gently, how could you have become engaged to Rudi? Why are you still with him?
Sophie was aware that Hans was not in the habit of asking this type of question, and she decided to be relatively frank with him. Look, she said, I’m not in love with Rudi, and I won’t try to pretend I am either to you or to myself because that would be pointless. But I never resisted the marriage. Rudi adores me and I am increasingly fond of him. This is less than I had hoped for, but a lot more than many women can boast. And, well, fantasy aside, such a marriage secures any woman’s future; it will make my father happy and solve our financial worries. Not that I sought Rudi out, to begin with I had no interest in him. But my father began inviting him to the house more frequently, and then he joined our salon. One day he confessed he was in love with me and told me that was the only reason for his coming to the house (I can’t blame him for that, thought Hans), I didn’t take it very seriously, but he swore he would keep coming until I began to love him or refused him entry, which of course I would never have done. And time continued to go by, sometimes it can be as simple as that, can’t it? I never said yes or no to him, I accepted his flattery, my father begged me to consider his proposal, and I thought about the needs of my family, and the fact that in any event I had never fallen in love with anyone. I was attracted to a lot of men, certainly, and would meet with them in secret, but I admired none of them. They didn’t seem sufficiently sensitive or intelligent, I suppose that was my youthful vanity. Finally I decided that if I weren’t going to love a man I’d do better to marry one who was rich and kind. You may think this conformist, but I prefer to call it pragmatism. Rudi has promised that, providing I bear him children and am a good wife, he will never try to prevent me from studying or pursuing my music or travelling. (But couldn’t you aspire to a different sort of marriage? said Hans.) I’m not chasing dreams, I want reality, we women too often confuse love and expectation. At any rate, Rudi is young and handsome. (Is he, really?) Of course he is, are you blind? And although he might seem dull to you, he respects my tastes, he is tolerant with me, and he couldn’t have been more persistent. (Tell me, how did Master Wilderhaus woo you?) Well, you can imagine, he showered me with gifts, took me out to dinner, that sort of thing, but above all he wrote to me. His letters were so passionate I almost envied him, I wanted to be in love the way he was, to be in love with his love. He told me how he saw me, and it was strange, because the more qualities he found in me the less I recognised myself in his descriptions. I swear, I even began to refer to his letters in order to know how I should behave, don’t look at me like that, Hans! It didn’t bother me, I knew perfectly well that when a man portrays his beloved he is portraying his desires. Now please let’s drop the subject and enjoy the news. I’m not getting married until December and that’s what matters.
What matters, Elsa said standing beside the carriage, is what happens later, you understand, she has a future and she shouldn’t throw everything away. But don’t you think they get along very well? Álvaro said, restraining her. I don’t think anything, Elsa replied, gesturing to the driver to wait, he’s your friend so of course you’d say that. One fine day he’ll go back where he came from, and my mistress will have to pick up the pieces. I doubt it, said Álvaro, besides, like I said, it’s nobody’s concern but theirs. You’re wrong, said Elsa, this concerns a whole family, not to mention those of us working for them. How funny, said Álvaro, suddenly you sound as if you cared about their family.
Elsa leant forward, gave him a swift kiss and said: I must go, I’ll arrive late at the fountain.
Steps, we’re off, position yourself, together, turn, faster, more lively, cross over, step back, together again, waist, hand, very good, legs closer together, one-two, one-two-three, much better, don’t forget the arms, wait, not like that, too late now, more lively, shoulders, clumsy you! I love it, heels and stop, cross over and we change, not too fast, your foot with mine, I’m waiting, are you following? Up, lean forward, turn, wait, what are you doing? … Hey, where are you going?
Decidedly, the waltz was not made for Hans.
The dancers at the Apollo Theatre saw him leave the floor in mid-dance, and watched Sophie follow him, unable to stop laughing. Earlier, they had seen them join in a square dance, and more than one had noticed that she, an impeccable dancer and a rather sensible young woman, had been distracted by the young stranger’s whispers and had lost her rhythm in a most unladylike fashion. Hans and Sophie ran up the marble staircase, crossed the gallery and sat down at an empty table, opposite some gaslit chandeliers in the form of grapevines. Never had Sophie acted so boldly, so openly, in public. And never had she felt so indifferent to what others might think — the summer was one big dance floor and she intended to enjoy herself on it until it was closed. And even as her situation became increasingly vulnerable, her feelings gave her a sense of invulnerability.