Frédérique tells Max that his sporting number wasn’t in the best taste, he replied that it was as well it was just a number because the whole thing could end in tears.
*
The great Waldhaus Seminar ended with two motions and a summary of conclusions. In the end, Hans turned down the Presidency of the Association for the United States of Europe.
People found the way Madame Hellström had sung during her recital at the closing ceremony rather odd, fortunately Stirnweiss had also been there, her voice rather husky, but it all went off very nicely, well sung, expressive, lively.
The first of the motions put off plans for the political union of Europe until the Greek calends, the other invited the League of Nations to take responsibility for setting up a committee on European affairs.
The philosophers went their separate ways smiling. By the morning they all left, Professor Regel was fully himself again, a telegram had arrived from Berlin.
‘He’s turned it down, turned the job down, ah! what a man! Merken has refused the Berlin chair, he says it’s mine, such generosity!’
In the vast lobby, Regel has paid a vigorous tribute to Merken, Merken said:
‘I shall go back to the country, philosophy thrives under a sun which sets on slopes green with vine and forest, the soil alone can shape the true power of will, it’s there that the body of the people and the body of ideas are made whole again.’
In Hans’s view, Merken’s refusal did him honour. Merken replied that he refused to think of himself as a democrat, there had been an unfortunate concatenation of circumstances but it was not the business of philosophy to take advantage of circumstances. Regel was very moved:
‘Erna, Professor and Madame Merken have offered you an outstanding position, I shall be sorry to lose you.’
To Merken and the others, he also added:
‘Unlike you, I am not a man of the soil, I take the view that it is the air of great cities which makes us free, I shall sell my estate in Pomerania, I shall move to Berlin, you know my passion for the industry of men, for their ventures, I shall buy shares to support our factories, the economy, the Stock Exchange, the market, all growing healthily, tomorrow we shall live in an age of magnificent cities!’
The previous evening, things had got somewhat out of hand, dances and chases along corridors smelling pleasantly of beeswax, night cream, larch wood, Virginia tobacco, the great perfumes, the tyranny of beautiful women, rat-a-tat-tat on a door, you either got an answer or you didn’t, people went looking for each other, others were sent to look in the lounge, the library, smoking room, terrace, the paths and drives in the grounds, the billiard room, music room, eagerly they went, a man looking for a woman who was looking for a man just as in farce, then a culminating movement, the pairing-off of lovers, they make haste but proceed tastefully, in evening dress, words had been exchanged as they danced, I’d like to ask you two little questions, very little ones, ask away, feel free:
‘Where and when?’
‘If I gave you a quick answer you’d be the first to pull a face.’
‘Me? Not at all.’
‘In that case, straight away, darling, and in your room, for instance. Any objections? Somebody might come and knock on the door? Fixed something up with someone else? For later? You’re surely not going to suggest we use the garage? I think you’re cute but not cute enough for me to want to agree to a session of gymnastics on the bonnet of a car, oh, I’m no prude, I did it once, but never again, so, since it’s chilly outside, it’s your room or nothing, you can sort it out with your wife, you’re best placed to know if she’ll come looking for you before eight in the morning, and I shan’t make a sound, I can control myself, if you hesitate for one more second it’ll be because you’ve made another arrangement, and if you have then so have I.’
A smart alec walking along a corridor which wasn’t his, a sports jacket in his hand.
‘Have you seen the hotel’s housekeeper? I’ve got a little sewing job for her.’
‘If you’re looking for the housekeeper, you won’t find her before tomorrow morning, on the other hand I know someone else who was asking after you on the third floor, she wants to return a book of yours, no, not that way, to go back down to the third floor you have to go via the small stairs, otherwise the main staircase will take you directly to the third floor in the left wing, but the person who’s looking for you is in the right wing, and when you go down the small stairs turn left.’
Lilstein is sixteen, he looks two years older, he is standing outside Lena’s door, he must be mad to be doing this, if she asks you in what’ll you do? Jump on her? Or will you say please I beg you? And what if she’s with someone? If she’s alone invite her to have a last drink downstairs, and she’ll say no thanks, good night, see you in the morning, no, not downstairs, she might say come in, or slam the door in your face, you’re about to ruin everything with a knock on a door, my boy, what on earth are you thinking of? You should be in bed, are you really that keen to be called ‘my boy’? How beautiful she is! Be clear with yourself, is there the smallest objective reason why she should ask you in? It’s not a question of objective reason, the whole time you were walking together she kept reaching for your arm, to make you walk slower, to speak to you, to point out an ibex, each time a slight pressure on your arm, calling you my boy, but it was to cover up the pressure on your arm, what is a woman who squeezes a man’s arm trying to say? The real question is to find out if in her eyes you are a man, her, now or never!
She’ll never forgive you for turning up at her door, Lilstein has just knocked on Lena’s door, two little taps, light, casual, friendly, ah, Lena, I was beginning to think we’d never find time to spend five minutes together, that’s the tack, light, friendly, chirpy, but there’s no reply, Lilstein now knocks loudly enough for her to hear, and more loudly again so that she’ll hear even if she’s with someone, don’t care if it does disturb them, no reply, she isn’t in, hasn’t come up to bed yet, or else she’s already with somebody, he goes back down the main staircase, glances round as he reaches each floor, returns to the lounge, does not see her, I saw her just this minute someone tells him, she seemed to be heading for the garage, or out on to the terrace.
Lilstein finds no one on the terrace. He goes into the library which is lit only by a large desk lamp and the fire in the hearth. He doesn’t see anyone, at last spots Madame Merken in a corner, she is looking up at the topmost shelves. Lilstein doesn’t like the woman, he has no wish to be asked to reach down a book for her, he leaves, closing the door quietly behind him. Madame Merken is thinking in the library at the Waldhaus, it’s the right time for it, semi-darkness. Madame Merken has a nickname, they call her the tank, there are many reasons why, a tank with big green eyes, they stare, slow and oily, thick eyebrows, she has sensed that someone had come in and then gone out again closing the door behind them, good, she prefers being alone, she has no wish to know where her husband’s got to, she doesn’t care what other people are doing this evening, she is meditating upon greatness, the poetry of greatness, epic deeds, the heroes of legend, the heroines of legend, the future, her thoughts are interrupted by another intruder, makes more noise, a Frenchman, it’s young Moncel, all scowls, he’s short, thin as a rake, flat hair, steel-rimmed glasses, always wears dark grey, voice reedy but forceful, he has come to the library to be alone, he likes thinking out loud, by himself, surrounded by all these books.