They all stood up to go into the house. Fräulein Bork took one last look at the sea and said in a mournful, lilting tone: “The Countess Doralice was also once just such a poor little fortress.”
The Generalin turned around in the doorway: “Please, Malwine, do not weave my analogies into your poetry; that is not why I make them. And one more thing, I would ask that in the future you no longer make Madame Grill the object of your talents as an apologist. Her behaviour cannot be defended.”
Upstairs in the chamber under the gables that served as their bedroom, Lolo and Nini were still standing by the window and looking out at the night. The moon-dappled sea, the sound of wind and wave did not calm them, but rather excited them almost painfully, and the couple down below stepping into the shining columns formed by the breaking waves belonged to the excitement and mystery out there that unleashed a strange fever in the blood of both girls.
Downstairs on a bench in front of the kitchen sat Frau Klincke, cooling her hot cook’s hands in the sea breeze. Standing before her, Ernestine gestured toward the beach below and said: “No, Frau Klincke, I don’t believe for a minute that those two are married.”
Hans Grill and Doralice strolled along the shoreline. They walked without difficulty on sand that had been dampened and smoothed flat by the waves. From time to time they paused and gazed at the gently bobbing pathway of light cast by the moon on the water.
“Nothing, nothing at all today,” said Hans, making a gesture with his hand as if he wanted to push aside the sea. “It played coy today, making itself small and sweet in order to please.”
“Don’t let it bother you,” implored Doralice.
“Yes, yes, I’ll drop it,” replied Hans impatiently.
As they moved on again, Doralice clung tightly to Hans’ arm. She could walk most easily this way – it was a strong arm, and she briefly thought about another more fragile and ceremonial arm that had been solemnly offered to her, and on which she would never have dared to lean.
“Are you tired?” asked Hans.
“Yes,” she replied wistfully, “these long bright days make me tired, I think.”
“We haven’t actually done very much during these long bright days,” observed Hans.
“We’ve done nothing,” continued Doralice, “but lie on the sand and look at the sea. And yet, I could do all sorts of things, things which I would otherwise never do, unheard of things, nothing is stopping me. It was different on our trip, when we did the things recommended in the guide book, but here novelty is required and perhaps that makes one tired.”
“Certainly, certainly,” began Hans in his enthusiastic way. “A free man has possibilities, of course, endless possibilities; it does not matter if he acts or does not act – nothing compels him, nothing pushes him, nothing binds him, what he does or does not do is his own responsibility, and that can be exhausting, oh yes, that can be exhausting.” And Hans laughed a loud “Ha! Ha!” over the water. “Free men, free love, and then it does not matter if an elderly Englishman in London said something to us through his nose that we did not understand, it has no hold on us. So, free men, free love, free…” He stopped suddenly and asked: “Why are you laughing?”
Doralice had tilted back her head to look up at Hans, and now she was laughing. The thin, very red lines of her lips parted slightly, and for a moment her little white teeth gleamed in the moonlight. Bathed in light, her face was very beautiful, with its childlike oval shape, grey-blue eyes that shimmered with a strange colour in the moonlight, and light blonde hair tousled by the wind. Yes, Doralice always had to laugh when Hans reeled off his big words, each word sounding as if it came from the newspapers or a boring book; but when Hans articulated them, there was something youthful, something lively about them – the words sounded as if they tasted good to him as they issued from between his healthy white teeth.
“Oh, no reason,” said Doralice, “continue to speak of your free men.” But Hans had become touchy: “My free men – that isn’t something to laugh at.” And then he fell silent.
“You are entirely correct,” replied Doralice, in order to appease him. “Perhaps I do become weary when nothing binds me. Back home in the country, during the rye harvest, the reapers are followed by girls who tie up the grain into sheaves. The work is very tiring, and to avoid becoming too fatigued, they tie cloths tightly around their waists. Perhaps it was like that for me back then, but now, when nothing ties me down…”
“Nonsense,” interrupted Hans, “I don’t understand why you make any comparisons to that place – it goes without saying, we do not speak of that place.”
“No, we do not speak of that place,” repeated Doralice.
They now came to the small house belonging to the coastguard. A loud male voice was booming through the open window, and it was answered by a female voice, passionate and scolding. Below on the beach stood Privy Counsellor Knospelius, a small, strangely bent figure, who was standing so close to the water that his misshapen shadow was basking in the waves. When Hans and Doralice drew closer, he greeted them, swept off his Panama hat,4 grey hair fluttering in the wind, he smiled and the regular-featured, beardless face looked like a big, pale boy’s face. “Good evening,” said Hans. The Privy Counsellor laughed silently and pointed with a strangely long thin finger at the coastguard’s house. “They are quarrelling again,” observed Hans.
“There are always lively goings-on in this house,” replied the Privy Counsellor enigmatically. “They live life fully until their eyes droop. I enjoy listening to them.”
“Yes, hmm!” said Hans, “good evening,” and they walked on.
“What did he say?” asked Doralice uneasily. Hans shrugged his shoulders. “Probably crazy. Little hunchbacks of that sort are usually a bit mad. Do you know him then?”
Doralice thought for a moment. “Certainly, I know him. I remember, it was a large social gathering, it was late, everyone was tired and waiting for the carriages. Then suddenly this little man sat down close to me. His feet did not reach to the floor, but as with children, they dangled from the chair. He looked quite boldly into my eyes, as one otherwise never does, and said: ‘I have noticed, Frau Countess, that now, when everyone is already sleepy, your eyes are still wide awake, you are still waiting.’ I made what was probably a very stupid face and asked: ‘For what?’ Then he laughed in exactly the same way that he laughed just now, and said: ‘You are waiting for something to happen, something to come. Oh, you do not give up, you remain at your post.’ I found it quite eerie, and I was happy when the carriages were announced a moment later.”
“I don’t know why you hold on to all of these memories – they aren’t edifying,” replied Hans grumpily.
“There is nothing I can do about it,” Doralice replied defensively. “I obviously don’t have another set of memories, and the old ones follow me wherever I go. All of a sudden Privy Counsellor Knospelius is standing in front of me on the strand, and over there Generalin von Palikow5 and Baroness Buttlär are moving into the Bull’s Inn – my old life at every turn. Do you know what I would like? If only we could hang a hammock out there over the sea, just high enough so that the waves did not reach it, but close enough so that if I allowed my hand to dangle I could touch the white foam, and then, you see, I think I wouldn’t be troubled by any memories nor would I encounter any Knospeliuses or Palikows.
Hans stopped and thought for a moment. “You know,” he said, “we will do that.” He seized hold of Doralice, took her in his arms and cried: “Lie there like a child in the arms of its godfather during baptism,” and then he began to walk slowly into the sea. Doralice lay motionless and looked up at a sky made pale by moonlight. The motion of the waves, the murmur of the water, the golden flowing and flickering all around, all of this seemed to be rocking and swinging her, and then it felt to her as if she were falling, falling into a light-filled chasm, and yet the light supported her and held her.
“Keep going, further, further, now we are amidst the waves, entire
ly surrounded by them, the stupid land is left behind,” said Doralice, who spoke as if asleep, and then laughed softly – a clear, high peal of laughter, like that of a child on a swing. She let her hands dangle, grabbed at the foam of the waves and snapped her fingers as if she were commanding small dogs to jump. “See how they want to leap up to me,” she cried. “Come, come – no, that is too high.” Hans was standing with the water over his knees and smiling, his face red with exertion. But gradually he grew tired; it was not easy to remain steady in the water, and he moved slowly back to the shore. With a satisfied: “Well, that was a feat,” he set Doralice back down on the sand. She swayed a little on her feet, as if intoxicated, and raised her hand to her eyes – everything around her still seemed to be swaying gently. She had to lean on Hans. “You see,” she said, “I can no longer tolerate the stupid land.”
“You will get used to it,” he replied. “The land will taste sweet to us now – a warm room and red wine. I am cold and wet.”
“Yes, let’s go,” said Doralice quietly. “We don’t belong in the sea, of course. But you must be very strong, to be able to hold me that way.”
“Aren’t I,” replied Hans proudly, “and you know, the way I was holding you, when I think about it, that was actually symbolic, in the middle of the waves, and I was holding you.”
But Doralice replied tiredly: “Oh no, it would be better if it were not symbolic.”
Hans looked at her with surprise and then murmured, a little touchily: “As you wish, then.”
The Wardein farmyard was surrounded by a number of low thatched buildings: the hog shed, the stables, and the granary, in which the fisherman’s family was now living, as well as the farmhouse itself, which Hans Grill had rented. The heat of the day seemed to linger in the enclosed space, the air was heavy with the smells of straw, of fish drying on lines and of damp nets. Through the small open windows they could hear the even breathing of sleepers, somewhere a rooster on his perch flapped his wings and in the shed a pig grunted in its dream. And here, quite suddenly, the exhilaration of space and light left Doralice, causing an almost bodily pain, and when she walked through the door, which was so low that Hans had to duck, she complained: “And so we slink back into our hole.”
“Yes, indeed,” responded Hans enthusiastically, “it will do us good.” In the small sitting room a kerosene lamp was burning on a table, and Doralice was struck by the ugliness and impurity of the light, which filled the whitewashed room and made it look sleepy and commonplace. Hans was bustling about. “Delightful, just delightful,” he said, “sit down in that wicker chair, I’ll be right back.” He disappeared, then came back wearing felt slippers, going to and fro, fetching glasses and red wine, filling the glasses, finally sitting down at the table opposite Doralice, rubbing his hands, his face beaming. He looked very young, his face reddened by the fresh air and his beard and short curly hair both honey-coloured, the brown eyes blazing with pure friendliness. “Delightful,” he repeated, “this is the good life, just the two of us sitting here with the lamp burning. I have my red wine and, what’s more, a beautiful wife.”
Doralice leaned back in the wicker chair and closed her eyes. “Oh, no” she said wearily, “please don’t refer to me as a wife. That sounds like, oh, I don’t know, like potato soup and loose-fitting blue jackets with white polka dots.”
Hans blushed. “No, no,” he said, “you are not a wife. Even though wife is a beautiful word, but as you please.”
They both fell silent for a while. From the next room they could hear the snoring of old Agnes, a distant relative of Hans Grill who was taking care of the house for them. Agnes had a strangely mournful and disgruntled manner of snoring. By day she performed her duties with quiet efficiency, but her old face, in which the wrinkles stood out like cracks in yellowed varnish, habitually wore an expression of patient, haughty submissiveness. But now it seemed to Doralice as if the old woman were, in her raucous slumber, expressing all of the bitterness that she harboured against her. Doralice pressed her narrow, too-red lips firmly together, and as she lay there in a dark blue dress with a broad white sailor’s collar, her forehead entirely covered by damp blonde hair, she looked like a little girl who had just been scolded. No, listening to the rumbling there, in the adjoining room, soon became intolerable. Everything, everything turned sad, became meaningless, she did not know any more why she was sitting here, why… and Hans? She opened her eyes and looked at him. He was sitting with his head sunk on his breast, smoking his short pipe, and taking quick sips of wine.
“Are you angry because I told you not to call me a wife?” asked Doralice, trying to smile. Hans raised his head quickly and began to speak, but he had to start over several times – he was agitated and the words got stuck in his throat. “Wife or not a wife, that does not matter – it is the tone, the tone. Whenever you use that tone, you are suddenly very distant, very strange, it instantly blots out everything we have been through together. I was looking forward to a cosy evening, just the two of us sitting here together, laughing and happy, and then you say something and that tone is there, and it immediately becomes cold, strange and awkward, as if we were back at the castle sitting down to breakfast with the old Count at a table covered with white napkins folded into little tents.”
Doralice listened to him eagerly; the agitated voice, the tumbling words pleased her. She wanted him to continue speaking. “How does this tone sound?” she asked.
“How does it sound?” Hans responded passionately. “When something does not taste good to you, you push away the plate and say angrily: ‘I do not want that’. That is the same tone you just used, as if you were shoving me aside and our entire shared history. You can do that if you wish, you have that right – just say the word.”
Doralice smiled now – a beautiful radiant smile. She raised her arms upwards and stretched herself: “Oh, Hans, that is complete nonsense. I am simply tired. Do you think it isn’t taxing to hover between the sky and the sea?”
Hans looked at her with astonishment and then he began to laugh, his loud, slightly uncouth laugh. “So, you found that tiring. What about me? Do you think it’s easy to remain steady in the water while holding a lady above the waves, playing the role of a hammock?”
“Ah,” replied Doralice, “but you are so very strong.”
Pleased, Hans leaned back in his chair, poured himself some wine, and tingled with pleasure, as if he had successfully bypassed some danger.
“And all of this,” explained Hans, as he jabbed the air with his pipe like a professor, “stems from the fact that we live without constraints, we lack a sense of rootedness, we do not obey social convention. That is what makes us touchy and unsure of ourselves. We cannot live in unbounded space. I cannot stand in the moonlight and hold you between the sky and the sea forever. And so we must organise our lives, with regular activities and a permanent household. We need ordinary, everyday life – this permanent holiday is making us ill.”
“You could take up painting again,” suggested Doralice.
“Of course, I will,” replied Hans heatedly. “Did you think I was going to sit idly and live off your money?”
“Of course not, but talk of money is so tiresome.”
“All the same I will work. I also know what I will paint; I have been studying my models, both of you.”
“Both of us?”
“Yes, you and the sea. You must be together in one picture, a synthesis of you and the sea, do you understand?”
“Yes,” replied Doralice, “but perhaps you should attempt to paint the sea first. You have always said that you are unable to paint me.”
This irritated Hans once again. “Yes, back there I was certainly unable to paint you. I was intoxicated by you. One needs, of course, to approach a model with a certain degree of objectivity.”
“Do you now view me objectively?” asked Doralice with surprise.
“Yes,” replied Hans, “but I’m only making gradual progress, and for that reason we need s
ome sobriety, a kind of self-made respectability in which we can wrap ourselves. You spoke dismissively of potato soup earlier, but I would argue that no life, even the most perfect one, is possible without at least a few hours in the day that smell of potato soup.” He laughed and looked at Doralice triumphantly, proud of his observation.
Doralice sighed: “Phew, how will I be able to breathe: cramped, imprisoned and smelling of potato soup? That’s the sort of world Agnes would create.”
“Oh, please,” said Hans touchily, “whoever is unable to breathe can always leave. We are free individuals who have chosen to join ourselves together – our freedom allows us to make that choice, but neither of us is bound by it.”
Doralice raised her eyebrows and said rather sleepily: “Oh, let’s not talk of freedom again. It is quite nice to know that the door is always open, but you don’t need to point it out constantly. Freedom would then become, you know, almost as boring as the ‘manners, my dear’ back home.”
Hans looked at Doralice in dismay. He wanted to say something but he swallowed his words. He got up and began to pace around the room, moving quickly, stamping on the floorboards with his felt slippers. Doralice followed him curiously with her gaze. Now he was angry, soon he would unleash a passionate speech; she looked forward to it, she loved it when the heated words bubbled up out of him and his face took on the expression of an angry boy. She had liked that about him back there, in that world of constant self-discipline. But the outburst did not occur this time, he continued to pace rapidly and silently about the room. Suddenly he stopped before Doralice, dropped down so that both knees hit the hard floor, laid his head on Doralice’s knee and began to wail softly: “How can you accuse me – me – of pointing at the door? Because if you went out that door, then it would all be over, nothing would have any purpose, I would have no purpose, the whole world would have no purpose.”
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