“And you are never done with that thought,” interjected Hans.
“That can happen,” confirmed Knospelius, “look over there at our pairs of young lovers, who walk so silently side by side in the darkness; they speak perhaps three words to each other in the course of an evening. They have all the time in the world to speak their mind. It is a question of tempo. The content of love stories is always the same, but while some are spread out over several years, others must run their course in a few days. A question of tempo, nothing more. There is, for instance, an Indian myth about a blessed island: the people there live happily, as is customary on such islands; they have everything that they could desire. It is a distinguishing feature of the countryside of this beautiful island that the trees bear maidens, beautiful maidens who bloom in the morning and then wilt and die in the evening. Now, I tell myself, if an islander plucks one of these beautiful fruits in the morning, his love story can only last until the evening, and yet I believe that this romance will be just as fulfilling as, for example, the romance of Zibbul’s son and Stibbe’s daughter, who have been walking silently on the shore with each other every evening for seven years. And what is more, my pair of island lovers will scarcely have the feeling that they have been compelled to act with undue haste. A question of tempo.” The Privy Counsellor paused and drew strongly on his cigar.
Then Doralice could be heard, her voice mournful but at the same time irritated, as if she were quarrelling with someone: “Ah, yes, the girls, they will surely understand that they have to pack all of their love into one day, but men are so terribly slow to understand. And so if something comes between them in the morning, these poor girls will have to die without the men ever having talked things out with them.”
Knospelius tittered and Hans said: “Perhaps nothing ever comes between lovers on this blessed island.”
“Of course it does,” replied Knospelius, “it is unavoidable. I am to be sure no authority in these matters; no one has ever been in love with me. What I mean is that it must be a situation that is heavy with responsibility. Let’s say that someone falls in love with me, sees in me her ideal, and I become, as it were, the storehouse for this perfect, magnificent Knospelius. But then I have to manage and govern this ideal. This will of course lead to frequent errors in judgment. I will feel as if someone had lent me a rare and costly volume and I have to live in constant fear that something might happen to the valuable book. But it is possible after all that the men on the blessed island are quicker on the uptake and the girls less eager for heart-to-heart conversations than ours. That would certainly speed up the proceedings.”
The light from the lighthouse could already be seen clearly in the distance and it inspired Hans to head for home, since he still wanted to sail out with Steege. At home Agnes had already prepared their supper. Hans barely took the time to eat before hurrying into his room to change clothes. Doralice stood at the window and looked out into the white dawn of the moon. She heard Hans come back into the room; he came up behind her, placing his hands on both of her shoulders: “Am I really so slow to understand?” he asked. That sounded tender, almost timid. Doralice leaned her head back so that it rested against Hans’ chest. Her heart was beating very fast and her eyes were hot with tears. “You don’t understand,” she said sorrowfully, “you don’t speak, you don’t say anything.”
“Oh, child,” replied Hans, “talking is a tricky business, I say something and it comes out hard, sour and ugly and it is unfair and inconsiderate, and that of course isn’t what I wanted to say at all.”
“It can be hard, it can be unfair and inconsiderate,” cried Doralice passionately, “just not this, anything but this! I could die from all of this fairness and consideration.”
Hans leaned over her and kissed her firmly on the lips: “Good, good,” he said in his usual friendly, eager tone, “tomorrow we will say everything to each other that we were shouting at the sea today. But for now, good night.”
Doralice stood at the window for a long time and the warm tears that ran down her cheeks comforted her like a kindly caress. At last she decided to go to bed; she was looking forward to sleep, she was tired, as if an arduous but successfully completed task were now behind her.
Around midnight Doralice was awakened by a loud noise that resounded in the room around her. The sea was roaring furiously, so furiously that it was as if the little house were in the midst of the waves. At the same time it seemed as if all of the objects in the room were in motion: the articles on the washstand clinked, the wash jug hummed softly to itself, the door rattled. Outside above the roof heavy objects seemed to be hurtling through the air and now and then there came a whistle, a boisterous, mocking whistle, as if somewhere out there a street urchin was scampering through the air. Or a wail was heard, shrill and despairing, and then suddenly all of this was drowned out by the powerful rolling and crashing of thunder. Doralice leaped out of bed and ran to the window of the sitting room. The night was utterly black and filled with wild turmoil, lightning blazed and its blue light revealed for a brief moment the strangely transformed sea. The waves rose up out of the sea like great black walls, walls that swayed and toppled, and they were entirely covered as if by bluish snow. Doralice was frightened, nothing more, she had no thoughts other than the fear that drives us to hide, to slink away, to call for help. The room filled with light, Agnes was standing there, lamp in hand, and the yellow eyes of the old woman stared at Doralice angrily. Then Doralice understood. “Hans,” she murmured.
“Yes, to be out on the water in this weather,” scolded Agnes, “I’ve never heard of such a thing, and with that drunkard Steege, who is too lazy to keep his boat in good trim.” Agnes then began to bustle about, continuing to curse under her breath as she went to and fro. She fetched a cloak, wrapped Doralice in it, forced her to sit down in an armchair, fetched a blanket to cover her, and when this was done she herself sat down on a chair, folded her hands in her lap, stared unblinkingly and angrily into the light of the lamp and gently rocked her upper body back and forth. From time to time she murmured to herself: “He will certainly be home any minute now, the crazy boy. As if we didn’t already have enough fish, and to go out with that Steege!”
Sitting their quietly and listening to the noises outside was excruciating, Doralice could not bear it, she had to do something. “I am going to the Wardeins,” she said. Agnes shrugged her shoulders. “What can they do?” she said. But Doralice went outside, crept along the wall to avoid being knocked over by the storm, and then stepped into the Wardeins’ living quarters. Frau Wardein had lit a small lamp and, clad only in a short night dress, she was moving about the room, securing the shutters, dousing the last embers on the hearth, attending to the dishes rattling and clattering on the shelf. When Doralice entered, Frau Wardein looked at her calmly and gravely and then turned silently back again to the tasks at hand. Doralice stood there breathless from her passage through the storm and said softly: “Oh, Frau Wardein, this wind.”
“It doesn’t look good,” replied Frau Wardein, “but what can we do?”
Doralice sat down on a chair and waited for the woman to say something else, something that would comfort her. Then the deep voice of Herr Wardein could be heard coming from the big bed: “I warned everyone, but they wanted to be smarter than Wardein. Now Stibbe has that big new boat, it will probably come through the storm, and as for Steege… well, he and his old tub of a boat have been helped out by the devil many a time.”
This harsh voice, which spoke roughly and familiarly of the terrible things outside, made Doralice feel better. The children in bed began to cry and their mother had to scold them and slap them. Grandmother Wardein had sat up amidst her pillows and was staring out the window as if her eyes could see far out into the darkness. “An ill wind, an ill wind,” she muttered. Doralice still sat there, she could not make up her mind to go. The cramped room filled with ordinary life in the midst of the terrible things out-of-doors gave her a sense of security. But Frau
Wardein seemed to be finished with her chores, she stood by her bed, yawning and looking at her. Doralice had to go, she was no longer wanted here. She went back across to her sitting room, where Agnes was sitting next to the lamp and gently rocking her upper body back and forth.
Doralice pressed herself shivering into her chair again and covered herself in blankets. It was agonising and exhausting to listen continuously to the confused sounds outside, these sounds that became more and more meaningful the longer she listened to them, turning into ghastly shapes in her mind. Whenever the mocking whistle of the street urchin rang out, she saw clearly a little monster with a yellow freckled face and red hair, wearing grey baggy clothes, sauntering impudently through the dark air with his hands in his pockets. The loud wails belonged to a tall woman with long flowing grey hair. Her eyes were bright yellow, like sand, she opened her mouth wide – a great black hole in her white face. And in the midst of those apparitions and horrors, in the midst of that howling darkness was Hans, that was where she had to search for him in her thoughts, where she had to wait for him. Doralice rose from her chair, as if she were throwing off an unbearable burden. Agnes had also grown restless, she began to brew tea on the spirit stove. This distracted both of them. And then the tea drinking and the lighting of a cigarette brought a fleeting moment of forgetfulness and deep contentment. But the hard work of waiting and worrying had to be taken up again immediately. When Doralice’s thoughts, weary from the tension, began to wander, images instantly appeared in her mind, colourful living dream images. She saw the beach yellow in the sunshine, the Generalin in her white piqué dress struggling against the wind, Lolo standing there, a slender red slash in a green-blue sea, and Hans coming slowly through the sunshine towards Doralice. “Wonderful, wonderful,” he said in his warm-hearted, enthusiastic way, “you waited for me, very good.” And Doralice felt now that everything would be fine again, felt this with such a strong and warm shudder of joy that she rose from her chair with a start and looked blankly at the pale face of Agnes, rocking gently back and forth. No, these dream images had to be real life and this room with the pale Agnes and the howling black night outside were merely the terrors of an inconceivable dream. And she fled back to the dream images, living within them, until the joy that they brought awakened her once more.
The day dawned, tentatively and meagrely. There was a heavy thunderstorm; it shrouded the countryside and the house like an impenetrable dust-grey spider web. The light was having a hard time establishing itself. “Was this actually a new day?” thought Doralice, this weary, sorrowful stupor, interrupted by sudden jolts of fear, when a full awareness of the wretched, incomprehensible task of waiting came back to her. She got dressed as usual, Agnes made tea again and later she fried some eggs on the spirit stove, because she thought that due to the storm they could not easily light a fire on the hearth. People arrived, the Wardeins and Frau Steege; they stood about the room and conversed in loud voices. Frau Steege, pale and sleep-deprived, with uncombed hair and red, tear-stained eyes, was weeping quite loudly and babbling as if in a fever. Of course if a man throws away all of his money at the tavern, he cannot buy a new boat, and he cannot keep the old one in good repair either. But he never listened to her. Just yesterday morning she had told him that she’d had a bad dream; she had dreamed that Steege was standing in his boat and that the boat was completely full of cod, filled to the rim. To dream of cod, though, meant bad luck and to dream of flounder meant good luck. But he never listened to her.
“To dream of cod means bad luck and to dream of flounder means good luck,” repeated Mother Wardein gravely, “that is true.” When the women had gone the Privy Counsellor arrived. He was stiff and formal and his features were rather pinched and contorted, as if his face were painful. He said that Doralice could rely on him, he would see to all necessary measures. As soon as it was possible people would sail out. He had sent a man on horseback down the coast to the lighthouse. Then he sat there drumming his fingers on his knee, searching for something to say, something from the heart, but he found nothing. So he merely remarked: “You should wrap yourself in a fur cloak, one gets chilly at such times.” After sitting silently for a while he left.
Towards evening the rumour spread that the fisherman Stibbe had returned. The room was again filled with women; Frau Stibbe reported that her husband had parted company with Steege early on, since the weather had appeared suspect to him. On the way home, though, he had been caught up in the thunderstorm, it had become so dark that he could not see his own hand in front of his face, and what a storm it turned out to be! It was very fortunate that he had reached the bay behind the lighthouse so soon, and then… well, a good boat was always a good boat. If he had not had the new boat, who knows how he might have fared. He knew nothing of the fate of Steege and Hans. The women were all talking at the same time, Frau Steege was weeping again and Agnes finally sent them all out of the house.
The evening closed in; Doralice and Agnes sat opposite each other; Agnes rocked herself gently and moaned softly; Doralice attempted to flee to some distant, peaceful recess of memory in her mind or she listened unthinkingly to the sound of the storm and the sea. Night fell, Agnes led Doralice to her bed and Doralice sank into a deep sleep; but from time to time something penetrated through the deep sleep, something that was hard to bear, and waking up was the only escape. Doralice opened her eyes. The room was light; on the chair at the end of the bed Agnes sat wrapped in shawls. The small yellow face looked strangely peaceful, almost cheerful, the soft lines of the toothless mouth twitched and formed a half-smile. When Agnes saw that Doralice was awake, she began to speak. She spoke as if she were continuing a story that she had already begun: “And at the time we were preparing the wedding feast for Cousin Anne, but, no, that rascal was up to mischief! You see, we had a big beautiful goose that had been shoved into the oven and was roasting there. In the meantime there were many other things to do, and then when we thought the goose must be done we looked in the oven, but the goose was gone. There was a hue and cry and searching high and low, but it was gone, it seemed like magic to us. At some point it occurred to me that I hadn’t seen Hans and the other boys for a while – they had disappeared into thin air like the Jew at Michaelmas.44 But I didn’t think anything of it. Only later, long after, did Hans admit to me that he, the infernal rascal, had stolen the goose from the oven and had then devoured it in the hayloft with the other boys. I had to promise him that I wouldn’t tell anyone, and up until today I have kept my promise. But that was something, to steal a goose from the oven and to eat it!”
Agnes’ laugh sounded warm and comforting amidst the whistling and moaning of the wind.
The storm had subsided during the night. The rain, though, persisted for the whole of the morning and only ceased in the afternoon. Doralice went down to the beach, hurriedly, as if someone were waiting for her there, the waves had ploughed up the sand, her feet sank deep into seaweed. Under an iron-grey sky the sea was white with foam like boiling milk. The gulls were quite agitated, shooting to and fro and quarrelling with their shrill, scolding voices. It was wild and savage, but at least one could breathe here. Behind her Doralice heard the hurried steps of bare feet running over the seaweed. It was Frau Steege, who caught up with her and joined her. She talked and lamented without pause: “No, they won’t be returned to us now, Mother Wardein says so too. There must be a place far out there from which they can never come back. On the bottom there must be fissures and caves or, who knows, something else that holds them there. The Wardeins’ Mathis also never came back.” And as both of the pale-faced women walked hurriedly along the shore, they looked searchingly out to sea with wide, fearful eyes. When darkness fell Frau Steege had to return home to her children. It was only with great reluctance that Doralice decided to go indoors as well; the violent conditions outside overwhelmed her thoughts, but inside the house the feeling that someone was missing was waiting for her, the disappointment of those moments when she pricked up her ears yet a
gain and convinced herself that she had heard the familiar voice, the familiar step. Again and again it seemed to her as if she were reaching for a warm and familiar hand, only to recoil in horror when she realised that the hand had grown cold and strange.
Agnes served up supper, standing close by and watching Doralice as she ate, and all the while tears ran down the cheeks of both women. Late in the evening the Privy Counsellor arrived accompanied by his servant Klaus, who was holding a great stable lantern. Knospelius sat opposite Doralice, he did not know what to say. He could not speak now of former ministers or Turkish cafés. But Doralice could at least weep and lament and that made her feel better: “As he left he said to me: ‘Until tomorrow then,’ that is when he was going to tell me everything that he had refused to talk about for all that time… and now…”
“Dear God,” said Knospelius with raised eyebrows: “Even when we do speak, we still take our secret with us.”
“What secret?” asked Doralice, her eyes growing large and round with astonishment.
Irritation flickered across Knospelius’ face: “Nothing, nothing, it is just an old saying, and you know, when one is not sure of the right thing to say, one falls back on platitudes. Besides,” he continued hesitantly – he was not accustomed to offering consolation and also not accustomed to feeling such strong compassion – “besides,” he went on, “we don’t really want to learn anything new about those who are close to us, they are just supposed to confirm for us again and again how well we already know them. We don’t want to discover anything about them that we don’t already know.”
“I wanted to know if he still loved me as in the old days,” Doralice said simply. To this the Privy Counsellor had no answer. He leaned his head back and closed his eyes, the beautiful, tear-streaked face opposite him moved him too deeply.
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