But now Knospelius could no longer bear to remain at his window; he had to go out, had to join in. Klaus was standing behind him, already holding his hat and walking stick. As the Privy Counsellor put on his hat he looked up at Klaus’ unsmiling face and said: “You probably think that all of those people down there are sinners.”
“We are all sinners, if your Excellency will permit me to say so,” replied Klaus without batting an eye.
“But surely there are differences,” objected Knospelius.
Klaus shrugged his shoulders almost imperceptibly: “Some folks are not afraid of being sinners while the rest of us are afraid.”
“Yes, yes, I understand,” replied the Privy Counsellor, who then walked down to the beach.
Once there, he set about enthusiastically greeting everyone present, going up to the group around the Generalin, asking how they had slept, referring to Lolo as “our tragic Columbine,” turning then to Hilmar and Doralice, who were still standing next to each other, rubbing his hands, acting as if he were the sea’s host and had to greet his guests. He beckoned to Hans Grill, who sauntered over slowly. “Good morning, Master. What’s this? Out catching fish last night, and now once again roaming among the boats, that is what’s called living by the sweat of one’s brow.” Yes, Hans was going to row out to sea again. He laughed: “I belong to the sea now – when I am away from it, I become restless. It’s something like the thirst of a drunkard. Are you coming with me, Doralice?”
No, Doralice didn’t want to come along. The sea was too grey for her today, she was going to walk up into the birches and lie in the heather.
“Ah, I understand,” responded Knospelius, “a grey sea is not the proper attire, so to speak, for your soul today. Take me with you, Master, my soul is a match for a sea of any colour.”
Someone called to Hilmar from the other group – Nini was finished bathing and they wanted to go home. But Lolo waved to him: “No, please stay, you want to go sailing,” she cried. “I’ll see you later.” Somewhat hesitantly Hilmar remained behind, gazing after the retreating family. He saw Doralice climbing up the dunes to reach the birches and Hans and the Privy Counsellor making their way down to the boats. Lost in thought, he picked up small stones and began to skim them over the waves. His face once again bore that obstinate, determined expression, which gave him a grim beauty. Suddenly he turned around and quickly began to climb the dunes with a gently swaying stride, with the cheerful, enterprising gait that little Hilmar had probably already had when he escaped from the nursery and fled down to the village street in the twilight. He made straight for the birch grove.
He found Doralice sitting in the heather, leaning back against the trunk of a birch tree; a book lay open in her lap, she was not looking at it, but was bending her head backwards and squinting with half-closed eyes up at the tops of the birches, her face as peaceful as the face of a person who listens to a lullaby and then waits for sleep to come. And all around her rang out the eager, incessant chirping of field crickets. Hilmar cleared his throat softly. Doralice looked up. She was not particularly surprised, she only raised her eyebrows slightly and said: “Oh, it’s you. Did you follow me here? Didn’t you want to go sailing?”
Hilmar was a bit self-conscious. “Yes… uh, I did follow you here. You don’t mind, do you?” He sat down on a tree stump opposite Doralice. “I lost all interest in sailing. Since you were not out on the sea, the sea seemed utterly meaningless to me.”
“Ah,” said Doralice, who had sunk back into her relaxed position again. “A young attaché once told me that he considered it impolite to be alone for a moment with a young woman without making a declaration of love to her.”
Hilmar blushed. “Nonsense,” he replied. “I am certainly in no mood to be polite right now, but I came up here all the same because I believed you would grow bored.”
“I see, and why did you think I would get bored?” asked Doralice.
“Well, because,” said Hilmar, “because I saw that you had only that book there with you, and I assumed that on this oppressive, somewhat melancholy day the fate of the young Miss with the excessively pink cheeks and the excessively golden hair, who is grief-stricken for an entire volume because she allowed herself to be kissed by a gentleman in the park, would also make you melancholy.”
Doralice smiled faintly.
“Why don’t we smoke a cigarette?” suggested Hilmar. Yes, Doralice accepted a cigarette, let him light it for her, and then they both smoked silently and listened to the shrieking of the field crickets. Finally Doralice remarked: “Weren’t you going to keep me amused?”
“Yes, oh yes,” replied Hilmar hesitantly, as if he were reluctant to disturb his peaceful contemplation of the fair creature before him. “But there are moments in life that are so pleasant that they can only be spoiled by speech. For example, as a child I would have considered it an act of desecration to talk while I ate cherry cake.”
Doralice did not smile in response. A strange excitement suddenly brightened her eyes and curved the thin red line of her lips and her voice grew deeper and trembled slightly as she said: “It’s probably also because you don’t find it easy to speak to me. What is there to talk about? All of the threads connecting me to my former life have been broken. So all you can do is either talk about the weather or make a declaration of love to me.”
Hilmar slapped his knee with the palm of his hand: “Didn’t I just tell you that lying in the heather by yourself on such an oppressively grey day wasn’t good for you? What can I talk about? I have a whole world of things to say to you, the most incredible things. So we don’t need to talk about how Baroness Marowitz is doing or what liaison Countess Patky is currently pursuing, though if you like, we could also talk about such things.”
Doralice did not appear to be listening properly, she looked past him, attending to her own agonising thoughts. “And,” she began, “what are they saying about me down there – the others?”
“Nothing,” cried Hilmar impatiently. “What is there to talk about? They no longer speak of it.”
“They no longer speak of it,” repeated Doralice. “So I am like a person who has died and been forgotten.”
“As if anyone could forget you,” snorted Hilmar.
Doralice was lost in her thoughts for a moment, pale and sorrowful, then she asked softly: “Do you know the graveyard by the sea?”
No, Hilmar was not familiar with it, he was not especially interested in graveyards. “The Privy Counsellor showed it to me,” continued Doralice, “great pieces of the graveyard are being washed away by the sea. The coffins and the dead protrude from the sand. The Privy Counsellor says that on stormy nights the sea fetches away the coffins. The silent gentlemen set out on their journey, he says.”
“That little monster,” cried Hilmar, “why did he show you that? He’s trying to frighten you.”
“I am not in most respects afraid of being dead,” replied Doralice, “and perhaps I have no reason to remain alive. It’s just that being dead sounds so terribly like being alone, and… I can’t be alone.” She was sitting there, half upright, propped up by one hand in the heather, her face was grave, although her lips were now smiling; an infinitely lonely, chilling smile and her eyes were filling with tears.
“You’re crying,” spluttered Hilmar. A sudden surge of emotion choked him with pain: “You mustn’t be alone.” He slid from his seat down to the grass, lying outstretched there, as one stretches out on the edge of a brook to take a drink, and pressed his lips to Doralice’s hand, which was resting in the heather. The hand remained motionless for a moment, then it was pulled away, a slight blush spread over Doralice’s face and her voice was once again alert and full of life: “What do you think you’re doing? Get back up. I am in no way alone.”
Hilmar pulled himself up, he was now kneeling in the heather, every line of his face and his body appeared tense with immense excitement. “As for you being alone, every moment that you are alone is a terrible waste for someone
else – for one of the rest of us. I know that now. But life is full of such insane waste. What are our lives but the constant and foolish neglect of utterly precious moments?”
Doralice listened to him, she listened to him sympathetically, the passion of his words warmed her pleasantly. Then she said in a motherly tone: “Get back up and go home. I must go too; Hans will be waiting for me.” Hilmar obeyed. He stood there for a moment irresolutely – something was at work and battling inside of him – then turned abruptly and ran down the slope. Doralice smiled as she looked after him. She got up, drew her hand across her eyes and set out for home, comforted and calm once more.
Hans was already waiting impatiently for Doralice. He was pacing around the laid table with great strides and cursing under his breath… “I am a bit late, are you angry?” she asked as she entered. He smiled good-naturedly: “Yes, I was very angry, but now that you’re here that doesn’t matter any more. Agnes! The soup. I am hungry – come, let’s sit down.” Agnes brought the soup, very grave, because she at least had not forgiven Doralice’s tardiness. She filled the soup plates and then, as on every other day, positioned herself near the table so she could see if Hans ate heartily.
“Now then,” Hans began the conversation cheerfully, “how did you like your solitude up in the heather?”
“It was lovely there,” answered Doralice, “Baron Hamm wandered by and we chatted for a bit.”
“Oh?” Hans appeared to give all of his attention to his soup. “What did he say then?”
“Oh, nothing much,” replied Doralice. She could have told him what had transpired up there, she realised, but what would have been the point? Hans would of course have said that it did not affect them, and then he would have spoken of a higher law and of freedom. Hans leaned back in his chair and began: “Yes, these people understand very well how to speak without actually saying anything. I noticed this last night as well. Now and then a good joke, a clever remark, but mostly just filler, as with young roast pigeons – very little meat and a lot of stuffing.”
“Well, they’re obviously not going to talk like school-masters,” observed Doralice with slight irritation.
“No, I am not demanding that either,” said Hans soothingly. “I am not, by the way, attacking these people. In their own way, they are certainly very nice, clever people. Perhaps you just have to get used to their ways.”
Doralice said nothing in reply. It annoyed her that he was suddenly playing the role of an even-tempered and fair-minded man. Why did he not express contempt for such people as in earlier days? Agnes took the soup plates and went to fetch the roast chicken.
“Does Agnes have to stand here and watch over you as you eat?” asked Doralice.
“Does that bother you?” answered Hans. “I should perhaps tell her not to do it, but I fear that it is the great joy of her life to watch me eating.”
“Oh, in that case,” replied Doralice and then added thoughtfully: “She doesn’t love me, she never looks at me to see if I am savouring my food.”
Hans laughed: “Poor Agnes uses up her entire capacity for love on me, but she will grow attached to you in time, as with everything that belongs to me. She is like a dog that is not fond of its master’s walking stick and yet guards and defends it.”
“It’s not especially pleasant to be your stick,” remarked Doralice. Then Agnes returned with the chicken. The conversation began to falter. Doralice asked after the boat trip and what the Privy Counsellor had said. “The Privy Counsellor talked about me,” replied Hans. “He told me what sort of man I am.”
“What sort of man are you then?” Doralice looked up curiously.
“It seems that I am a very good fellow,” reported Hans, “but like all very good people, I live with certain misconceptions.”
“Oh dear, that little squirt,” replied Doralice impatiently. Over coffee Hans lit a cigarette and then grew sleepy. He stretched, yawned discreetly, the night at sea still lay heavily on him. Finally he stood up. It would be best if he lay down for a little while, he said.
Doralice moved her chair to the open window. Outside it had begun to rain, a fine, heavy rain that drew a lead-coloured curtain before the window. The room was filled with a sober grey light. Agnes cleared away the dishes, stomping back and forth, shutting doors, then she was also gone. Doralice slowly shifted her head to and fro on the backrest of the chair, as was her habit when she felt lonely. To be sure, the rain, the grey light in the cramped room, the midday meal watched over by Agnes’ joyless gaze, the utterly pointless daily routine, all of that was sad, and Doralice knew that she too would soon grow sad, yet she still felt strangely detached from it all. It was a sadness and a daily routine that did not belong to her, which passed her by. She felt like a traveller who had been left behind at some railway station in the middle of nowhere and who was now sitting in the ugly waiting room, trapped for a brief moment in a melancholy life that did not belong to her. Because soon the train would come and the station with its grey boredom would sink below the horizon and be forgotten. And yet, what could possibly be coming? In Doralice’s mind the words that she had heard that morning rang out: “Every moment that you are alone is an insane waste for one of the rest of us.” Hans was not afraid of this waste, he was not afraid of missing out on something, he went to take a nap. How sure he was of her! How certain that he had his whole life ahead of him to spend with her, a whole life. A whole life! The words rang out monotonously inside of her, keeping time with the raindrops outside that were, with their gentle patter, eagerly conversing with the great, fateful voice of the sea. How passionately he had knelt before her up there! What had he said about riding? “You think of only one thing, you want only one thing, and so strongly that you are surprised when the goal does not come to meet you halfway.” It was a strangely powerful sensation to feel another person’s yearning and desire tugging at her so fiercely. She had also felt this with Hans at the castle, back when he was not yet so philosophical, when he came upon her like a storm and like an improbable, delightfully risky adventure. And now something like that was close at hand again. But no, she couldn’t want that, it would greatly surprise her if she were capable of wanting that. Now suddenly she was tormented by the solitude, by the grey day with its uneventfulness and by the unfamiliar possibilities that she was sensing within herself. “Something must be done,” she thought, and then she jumped up, already knowing what she had to do. She walked across the parlour and into her bedroom, where the great trunks that Count Köhne had sent after her were standing. She opened one of them, a heavy whiff of jasmine wafted towards her – this had been the perfume that the Count had loved on her. “The more advanced in years I become,” he used to say, “the more I move backwards through the seasons when it comes to my preferences for scent. I have now arrived in early summer.” There lay all of the clothes that Doralice had not thought about for a year. She turned them over thoughtfully, running her hand over the velvet, the crepe, the silk, and the touch of them aroused something like a feeling of joy within her. There was the blue dress that she had loved so much. She took it out, soft peacock-blue silk, a piece of old embroidery sewn into the bodice, greenish-and-reddish-gold threads on a cream-coloured background. Doralice spread it out over a chair, contemplated it, and then she began to undress slowly, taking off the dress she was wearing and putting on the peacock-blue one. Now she was finished, standing there in the grey light, and the gentle gleam of the silk and the gold around her gave her a pleasing sense of excitement. She returned to the sitting room, sat back down in her chair and waited for Hans. This had to have some effect on him as well, it had to bring back memories of earlier days for him too. She waited for a long time. Hans was thorough when it came to his afternoon naps, and it was already beginning to get dark when she heard him stirring in the bedroom. Finally he came out. He advanced a few steps and asked: “Why does it smell so sweet in here – like an enchanted castle?” When he noticed her, he said: “Oh, you have made yourself beautiful. I know
that dress.” That sounded a bit flat and Doralice became self-conscious. She explained herself: “It was quite fusty and grey here, and so I put this on. I thought it would please you as well.”
Hans sat down on a chair, pulled at his beard and, looking past Doralice, gazed out the window. “Oh, certainly, very beautiful, very beautiful,” he said distractedly. “Just tell me this, do you want to bring back the memories that come with that dress?”
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