My Marriage

by Jakob Wassermann

  Ganna accepted the advantage that was offered her. The fact that Bettina and I were flouting the bourgeois order represented a triumph for her. Her martyred expression appealed to the sympathy of others. If she had been a little less assiduous in creating a following, a Ganna party, then she would have had even more followers. Inevitably, there were circles in which Bettina was vilified. Cold glances brushed her; tongues wagged behind her turned back; slanders flung up in the air like rubbish when a wind strikes it. Every second or third day some bossy missive of Ganna’s, some peremptory note, was delivered to her. She ignored them. She refused to dignify them with her attention. With hasty stride she walked on, her ankle spattered by a little filth. What did it matter? The local ladies didn’t invite her to their jours and cut her when they meet; doesn’t bother her. She barely notices. Sometimes she feels a little jab; a person has their pride, they know who they are, but it’s soon overcome. The sight of a flower bed, half an hour on the violin are enough to cause her to forget it altogether. She is not the sort to lower her eyes in front of people. She has no comprehension of meanness, no ear for gossip. A timid acquaintance feels obliged to counsel her to be careful; surely there was no need for her to appear in public with me so much. She replies: ‘Why not? How else are we going to get people used to us?’

  It remained the place where we were vulnerable. We should have been more discreet, more considerate, more thoughtful. We shouldn’t have rubbed Ganna’s nose in our happiness. That only stung and provoked her. We made ourselves guilty, incurred an obligation that in later years was called in, in full, and with usurious rates of interest. If Ganna still had any sense then of womanly dignity, we choked it mindlessly, and in the intoxication of being-there-for-each-other we didn’t listen to the voice of reason. Of course, I had long since despaired of Ganna, thoroughly and comprehensively despaired, I should long ago have given up the idea of making her any sort of helpmeet; isn’t that how things had been for fifteen, sixteen, seventeen years now; and shouldn’t I, either by determination or by kindness, with every conceivable sacrifice have cleared things up instead of—through weakness and timidity and a conscientiousness born of cowardice—dragging myself along at the side of a woman to whom I had nothing more to give—or she me—or to become. And Bettina in her loftiness, her aversion to everything murky, divided, difficult or grim, shut her eyes and walked wilfully past. Yes, it took boldness, it took strength, there was a noble stubbornness to it, but it accomplished nothing and didn’t help. It merely sowed more destruction.

  The way individuals live together. The truth of each individual is only the truth of his own narrow perspective. The entirety of mankind and of human qualities is always seen through a prism, where its colours are broken. Observation is so utterly different from experience; there is no hope of fusing their contradictions, as the I and the not-I have been foes from the world’s beginning.

  The case of Klothilde Haar

  No question, it was the Klothilde Haar episode that finally killed off whatever hope there was of my achieving peace with Ganna. The months leading up to summer 1919 that I spent with her were sheer nightmare.

  While the Dual Monarchy was collapsing and being torn to shreds; while Germany was racked by revolutions and contorting itself into cramps; while the charnel smell wafting over from the battlefields was poisoning the cities and the influenza epidemic seemed set to mow down whatever was left of youth and life; while hunger drove desperate men to crime and disappointment turned former willing sacrifices to bandits; while a new world came into being in the east and the old one killed itself off in the west with paper deals: while all these other things were going on elsewhere, Ganna in her little domestic state was turning things on their heads, piling discord upon discord, and making the lives of her loved ones into a private inferno, for the sole reason that she had the crazy obsession that Klothilde Haar was my and Bettina’s creature, paid and instructed to supplant her, Ganna, in every way.

  Mlle Haar had joined our household shortly after Doris’s birth. She was a woman in her mid-thirties, a chilly, morose creature, neither very industrious nor especially trustworthy. But at the outset, Ganna had been unable to find sufficient praise for her qualities, mainly because Mlle Haar absolutely doted on the baby. I have to say such passions are not unusual among carers; it doesn’t mean they have a scrap of affection for any living being.

  Circumstances forced me to take a hand in the household; the difficulties were such that Ganna could not deal with them on her own. I had made the mistake of ignoring Ganna’s objections and according certain freedoms to Mlle Haar. For instance I had given her the keys to the larder and negotiated with her over the supplies of flour, sugar, rice and fat that she had purchased on my instructions. I could no longer stand to see the children going without proper sustenance; Ganna seemed to be quite incapable of laying in provisions—the acquisition of a kilo of butter was entirely beyond her in her unworldliness.

  Once it turned out that Mlle Haar had connections to the black market, and offered to use them on our behalf, I grasped the opportunity with both hands and paid the asking price. This was enough to enrage Ganna because to her, in her lack of wants verging on asceticism, any expenditure on food and drink that went beyond the satisfying of basic hunger and thirst struck her as superfluous, if not criminal. In addition, the man who liaised between Mlle Haar and the black marketeers was himself her lover, a fellow by the name of Wüst, who had been in a reserve posting for every day of the war until it ended and now, like so many others, was looking to make a living. In the evening, under cover of darkness, he would lug into the house whatever he had managed to wangle in the course of the day; and then Mlle Haar would present me with the bill, an inflated one to be sure, barely sweetened by her unpleasant crooked smile.

  The intercession and covert wheeling and dealing of Wüst had a poisonous effect on Ganna. She hurled foul accusations at Haar. Who for her part was not short of a word or two in reply. In the end, she threatened to sue Ganna for defamation. I told Ganna: ‘You mustn’t allow that to happen.’ She replied that a common thief like that would hardly go to law; why would she anyway, and lose out on the fat spoils I had, with my typical spinelessness, let her get away with. Haar, who always listened at every door, took sadistic pleasure in such scenes. She had conceived such a ferocious hatred for Ganna that it gave her another reason to cling onto her job, so as to relish the torments of her enemy. I in turn could not bring myself to send her packing, because at that time of the cessation of all idea of service I would have had no easy job in finding another nanny to look after the baby, whatever the rest of her qualities were. In addition, I was thrilled to have someone in the house who cooked properly and kept the household ticking over on a reasonable basis.

  Distressing rows between Ganna and Haar became more frequent. Even at night they would suddenly begin; the screeching reached as far as my desk, forcing me to plug my ears with cotton wool. When Herr Wüst slunk into the house in the gloaming, heavily laden, Ganna would be lurking in wait for him and welcome him with insults. One day, when I was out of the house, the fellow had the nerve to lay hands on her; Ferry rushed over in defence of his mother; he was very strong; he knocked him over, tightened his hands round the man’s throat, they rolled around on the floor, and in the meantime Ganna called the police. Mlle Haar refused to leave the house without a written declaration of honour from Ganna. Ganna claimed Mlle Haar had stolen a crate of eggs. Mlle Haar complained to me; I told Ganna that, to the best of my recall, the eggs had been eaten. Ganna foamed with rage. Never in the history of the world had there been anything like this, she wailed, her own husband in alliance with the servants and their pimps—this was worse than anything I normally and daily did to her. But she knew, anyway, the heart of the conspiracy was Lady Merck, who had expressly taken on Haar and her fancy man to wreck her, Ganna’s, life; it was clear as day, the sparrows were shouting it from the rooftops. ‘Ganna,’ I appealed, shaking her. ‘Ganna!’ I drew
her next door. ‘Ganna! Wake up! You can’t be serious!’ She looked at me blankly and replied: no, no, she was quite serious, she had evidence. ‘Evidence? What kind of evidence? Evidence for nonsense like that?’ She stayed mute and truculent.

  The Haar business had got around the neighbourhood. One night a stone was thrown through Ganna’s window; another time the front door was smeared with excrement. Once, I was passing through a cluster of men; when I was past them, a high voice called out: ‘Chuck it in her face, the bitch!’ I locked the door behind me and the cry seemed to fill the hall, the stairway the rooms; and when I sat down at my desk I saw it written on an empty sheet of white paper: ‘Chuck it in her face, the bitch!’

  Poetry

  I didn’t mention any of this to Bettina. I couldn’t bring myself to. Shame sealed my lips. To condemn Ganna was tantamount to condemning myself. But nor can I claim that Bettina knew nothing about it. What did she need gossip for? My silence was as transparent to her as tissue paper. I’m not the sort of man who can keep a secret. My moods, my experiences, even my thoughts are in plain view. Friends have often made fun of my futile attempts at discretion. And Bettina sensed what was happening in my life before I had even crossed the threshold. She didn’t need to ask me any questions. There was no point. What she wanted was to help me get over my depression and anxiety. It wasn’t her view that two people who love each other should spend all their time wailing and moaning. Better to ease it away. At that time, nothing so terrible could happen to her that it quite clouded over her sky; there was always a ray of sunshine somewhere. If you pulled yourself together, remained true to your better nature, didn’t give yourself airs, then the powers could be reconciled. With violin in hand, it might even be possible to secure some improvements from them; enough to live by for a while to come.

  I can’t express how much it meant to me, this belief in a way out, in destiny, in the victory of goodwill over life’s glooms and travails. I watched her in astonishment and not a little envy. Everywhere were people who were well disposed to her and others whom she did everything to help: a poor seamstress for whom she found work; a friend who had returned from the war ill and infirm, and whom she tended and fed. She was always on her way somewhere or other to do something helpful and purposeful—not like a do-gooder, that wasn’t her at all, but more like someone who sees it as a challenge, almost a game, quietly to iron out some of the little kinks in fate. And for all that, I know no one who was as regularly and maliciously misunderstood, with her bonny blitheness and her honesty. It often gave me pause. Perhaps it was because she was too quick with words, too certain of her judgement and fearlessly coming forth with her own brave truths. Of course that was bound to upset a lot of people. It’s a good thing to have someone you can think about without being at loggerheads with them. An inexhaustible wealth of perspectives, when she would talk to me about her day, material for conversations deep into the night.

  At that time I wrote a whole string of sonnets for her.

  The decision

  And then, in the autumn, the great convulsion in my life began.

  It was a mild day in October. We were returning from a hike in the mountains and sat down on a bench not far from the main village street, glad of the isolation that, along with the autumn, had returned to our beloved valley. We spent a long time gazing silently across the meadows, where the evening fogs were boiling up, when Bettina asked me whether I had given any thought to what would come of us during the winter ahead. I looked at her in consternation. It wasn’t immediately clear to me what she meant. ‘Well, what should be any different?’ I asked. She lowered her eyes. She said if that was my answer, then I might as well forget her question. I realized then that this wasn’t a trivial question popped at a peradventure, and now I did know what she was getting at. I had a bad conscience. I stammered a few scraps of phrases: I could understand . . . I’d often thought about it, of late . . . Then I fell silent. Bettina felt her way cautiously forward. Did I think it was right for us to carry on living with blindfolded eyes? . . . Was it proper that I went back to Ganna again, as I had every previous year?

  ‘Do you think it’s good? I’m not sure,’ she said.

  ‘What? What aren’t you sure of, Bettina?’

  She plucked up all her courage. ‘I’m not sure I can do it. I’m afraid I can’t go on,’ she whispered.

  I stared at the ground. My lips formed the words that were even now unthinkable:

  ‘Leave Ganna? Is that what you mean?’

  Bettina had never explicitly raised the issue, but over the past few days I had had a sense that she was waiting for some initiative from me to relieve her. Only she couldn’t force herself to prompt me. Even now the yearning, the inner necessity for a decision were contained only in her agitated features, her expressive eyes. I had the feeling: now of all times, I mustn’t fail, everything is at stake.

  ‘What about the children?’ I asked. She laid her hand on mine.

  ‘The children, yes. It’s hard, I know. But I can tell myself, you’ve seen two grow up under your care . . .’

  ‘Doris needs me, Bettina.’

  ‘Of course she does. Well, you won’t lose her, will you? I’m sure she’ll want to spend as much time with us as possible.’

  I heard only half of what she was saying, and that half with trepidation. I reproached myself for having let the children down. What is there more destructive than the presence of a mother taut as a wire, harassed, contradictory, at war with herself and mankind, ignorant of people? All the inner alarms are tripped, tenderness becomes a burden, punishment arbitrary, self-will fails to encounter the opposition it secretly hoped for, the kernel of the personality shrivels and, with some dim sense of its imperilment, conceals itself behind protective layers that don’t allow it to develop, but merely indurate it. And now I’m to leave them altogether, when the only thing shielding them from the worst was my presence?

  Bettina said softly:

  ‘I’m sure you know what you’re doing. I’m just making a suggestion. The past four years have helped both of us to mature. It no longer feels right to me, to have our relationship as a sort of open secret. It’s no longer true and it’s no longer defensible.’

  ‘Of course I agree with you, Bettina. But Ganna will never agree to a divorce, never.’

  ‘This isn’t about a divorce,’ Bettina replied gently, ‘it’s about an act of cleansing, my darling. At least, for now.’

  ‘What?’ I asked in astonishment, ‘you could . . . you would agree . . . in front of everyone . . .?’

  She smiled. The cat was out of the bag.

  ‘Even if I stop short of the official legal step,’ I insisted, ‘do you have any idea of what we’re letting ourselves in for?’

  She nodded. She knew.

  ‘And where would we live? There? Not possible. She would . . . No, you don’t really have any idea . . .’

  She had thought about it all. She detailed her plan to me. We would stay in Ebenweiler. We would keep out of sight. There was an old Court Councillor, Wrabetz, who owned a spacious and comfortable villa which she would let out to us for an affordable rent for the winter months. In spring, admittedly, we would have to move out to a farmhouse, and in autumn return to the villa. She explained it all to me with calm certainty, the way you lead a child’s thinking, while all the time indicating to me that she knew herself to be led entirely by me.

  My glance erred between two visions, the one blissful, the other hopelessly grim. I felt paralysed. My years came over me to warn me. Forty-six years and the whole of my life; to turn them upside down, I said to myself, so radically that not one stone would be left on another. Instinctively I looked for counter arguments. I pointed out to her shyly that she wasn’t at liberty either. She made one of her astonishing gestures that made all speech unnecessary; in this case, it meant I will be free on the day I have to be free for you. That slayed me. I said I would write to Ganna, this very day. She seemed to approve, but I could tell right aw
ay that she didn’t approve. I asked her what objections she might have to such a course. She said her objection was obvious: I needed to speak to Ganna. Definitely, I conceded, but it was better if she was prepared; that would take the edge off her shock. Above all, she needed to see it in black and white that divorce was at issue. Bettina didn’t understand my anxiety.

  ‘Aren’t you in charge of your own life?’ she asked. ‘Who has a stronger claim than you?’

  ‘All the same. It’ll be ghastly.’

  Bettina said it was wrong—yes, positively dangerous—to awaken any false hopes in Ganna; I mustn’t make any more promises. She kept saying ‘in my view’ when she was talking of the solution to a problem, but I had long since discovered that this view of hers was almost invariably the correct one to take, and in fact the only solution. If for no other reason than that I would have to see Ganna, to prepare the needful next steps in my house, she enjoined me (and with that it was also settled where I would stay during my time in the city) to stay not in a hotel but with a mutual friend, for the sake of appearances. This plunged me into a new round of terrors. It was so brusque, so precipitate and final in its consequences. (As if it could have been anything other than final!) If a true Alexander-Bettina axis was to be created, then it wasn’t possible for me to return to my former home, to resume living there as Ganna’s husband. Otherwise Ganna would never have believed that I was serious. I said:

  ‘You’re right, Bettina. You’re completely right. There’s no more putting this off.’

  In spite of that, I continued to fight the idea privately. I didn’t have the courage to follow her advice and beard Ganna without a preparatory letter. I was in favour of a gradual approach. I was no Gordian like my namesake. What Bettina had in mind was something terribly simple: to make me happy, to be happy with me, to take some of the weight off my shoulders. Strangely though, I felt wrong-footed. I had never seriously contemplated detaching my life from Ganna’s. It didn’t matter that it had felt to me like a failed life for some time now, and that I even under stood it to be such. It must have been my innate antipathy to action that kept me from taking a clear decision. There are two types of human beings, the doers and the procrastinators, and I am a typical case of the latter. Associated with that is a certain phlegmatism that, while it isn’t absolutely identical with spinelessness, does tend to be associated with certain other negative qualities, such as attachment to comfort and habit. Novelty has an alarming quality for us. Please, no changes, no new battles in my day-to-day life, we say to ourselves, the old ones are bad enough. A philistine loyalty to things can also play a part; the house that has become a haven; the bed one has become attached to; the old brown desk with its ink-spattered green baize and its dozen or so familiar knick-knacks. Some relationships that are even stronger. Take my daughter, little Doris, who was so attached to me that her whole world seemed to revolve around me. How to break it to the four-year-old that her father was moving to a different house to be with a different woman? Might it not cost me the love of my little princess? Might she not forget all about me? Wouldn’t it become a trauma for her?