With these words the young man rose to his feet, threw back his long hair with a toss of his head, offered his hand to Herzfeld, bowed to me, and turning his back on us, walked off without another word.
I was left stunned, half amazed and half sickened. But Herzfeld, seizing me by the arm and shaking me hard, said, ‘Wake up, and let’s go. Don’t you see that we’re alone now?’ We hurried off.
Carlotta was waiting for me, but she was not very talkative that evening and in no mood for laughter, and she went to bed early.
III
Three days later Carlotta was her old self, more cheerful than ever. Only very occasionally, with a smile of compassion, did I think about Karl Gulz, of whom I had said nothing to my sensitive darling.
I put the finishing touches to a large painting, which was already in its huge frame. Every now and again I stepped back from the canvas to look at it with gratification. I took a mirror and, turning round, stood for a while happily contemplating in it the reflection of the painting. Then rushing over to Carlotta, to kneel before her and kiss her hand, I said to her, ‘You’ve revealed to me my artistic talent: either this painting is all your work, or you yourself are a creation of my mind.’ And for the thousandth time I scrutinized her, from her forehead to her pink toenails, with a long, searching look, though my eyes were full of sincere respect and the purest admiration.
The sunlight shining directly through the large window, catching the painting in its brightness, made the gold of the frame glisten, and illuminated Carlotta’s divine body with a light full of reflections that, without the vulgar contrasts of an exaggerated chiaroscuro, allowed a fine appreciation of those graceful curves and that most delicate colouring. The modelling of the limbs had been done with a graver. Where the bones were not enveloped in solid muscle and flesh, and their ivory tint showed through beneath the skin (at the patella for instance, and between the ulna and humerus, and at the ileum and clavicle, and on the frontal bone); and in the delicate tracery of those slightly bluish veins on that pink complexion, (which had cost me immense pains of the sweetest kind) my palette had reached such perfection that I was enraptured. Carlotta bewitched me even more in my painting that in reality. I was so carried away with conceit that for a few moments that the woman herself seemed to me to be the living copy of my own handiwork. Half jokingly and half mystically, with my arms raised to heaven like those entreating figures in the catacombs, I declaimed in a loud voice a verse containing what I believe to be the definition of such a splendid creature – a verse by Terence, from The Eunuch:
‘Color verus, corpus solidum et suci plenum.’
But meanwhile Carlotta had risen and very quietly come up behind me, throwing her arms round my shoulders and placing her hands over my mouth. I turned round at once, but she had already run to her room, locking the door behind her. A quarter of an hour later, she reappeared, wearing her pink dress.
The Arethusa in my painting was an exact likeness of Carlotta. I had completed this life-size portrait and the background landscape in just two months, working four hours a day, since I wanted to paint only with the sun in the room. And during those two months the sun been good enough to oblige me every day. The canvas was broader than it was tall. A patch of blue sky was visible between the leaves and branches of a tamarind grove, but the foreground was cast in diffused and almost luminous shadow, and there, like a gentle brook amidst the green clover, tender myrtle and red roses – ‘What beautiful thing exists without the rose?’ – lay the body of the nymph. To save her from the amorous pursuit of Alpheus, Diana turned her into a fountain, but Love, more ingenious than the goddess, at once taught her pursuer to turn himself into a river. And the waters of the fountain and river mingled together, and thus conjoined beneath the salt sea waves, welled up again, as the clearest of fresh water, upon the shores of Sicily. This elegant myth appealed to me in those days, and echoing blessed Anacreon, I kept repeating these of his verses:
‘I would like to be a necklace round your lovely neck,
Or a girdle close round your bosom;
Or turn into a simple shoe,
If your foot would only tread upon me.’
Alpheus had done even better. And I wanted to depict the two lovers who became one. But when I set to work, I had first of all excluded Diana, and then left out Alpheus. And gradually the legend was reduced to a single name. Upon that name, moreover, I brought all my love and creative talent to bear. I conjured Arethusa as Faust had conjured Helen.
The nymph reclined in her grassy riverbed, her limbs following the earth’s contours. With her left arm stretched out on the ground, supporting her head, her hair flowed down like waves of gold, and her right hand was tucked beneath her chin, while her bosom softly pressed down upon the brightly coloured flowers. And from her raised shoulder, the line of her body dipped deeply, in an ineffable curve, then rose again along her rounded haunch and continued in short planes and delicate sweeps, down to her feet.
On her face was an expression of newfound love, a mixture of serenity and sadness: a smile and a sigh.
‘Bravo, my artist,’ said Carlotta. ‘I’m very proud to look so beautiful. But you must paint me again, a hundred different ways – dressed as an odalisk, a nun, a vestal virgin, Eve – in the countryside, in the dense groves of the Brühl Valley, where you won’t have me posing on a boring divan covered with faded green cloth, but in the tall, emerald-green grass.’
‘Yes, and what if someone came by?’
‘Let them. Don’t you want to put this Arethusa of ours on show in the Exhibition?’
‘Yes, of course. It’s to be the foundation-stone of my renown. But who knows? Men, and especially artists, are so prone to deluding themselves …’
‘You monster! After all, you said that I’d done this painting for you. I don’t want my skills called into question, you know. Now, if you want to display Arethusa for all to see, and say that Arethusa is actually me …’
‘That’s a different matter,’ I replied curtly.
But Carlotta, who saw me frown, said with a ringing laugh, ‘Can’t you take a joke?’ Then without a pause, she went on, ‘When are we going to the country?’
‘The painting’s finished. Once I’ve put a coat of varnish on the roses, I’m going to write my name in the corner, here, over this stone.’
‘Oh, no, you’re not. I want to write your name myself.’
‘You can, if you like. Then I shall send the painting to the Exhibition early tomorrow morning, and set off for Mödling before midday.’
‘On your own?’
‘On my own, if you don’t mind. I shall quickly look for a little country house round there. It’ll take me three days at most. Meanwhile, you can pack the trunks, see to my paints, canvases and paint-brushes. I’ll come and fetch you, and we’ll leave straightaway. Are you happy with that?’
‘Yes. But do please find me a country house in the Brühl Valley, one with a lovely green pergola beside it. Oh God, if only you could find a jasmine pergola! And you will write to me from Mödling tomorrow evening, won’t you?’
‘I’ll write to you, my lovely goddess. But you write, too, and post the letter early, the day after tomorrow, so that when I get back to the inn that evening I’ll hear your voice saying good-night to me.’
And as we went on talking in this vein, I continued to add some final touches to the painting, while she first came and stood behind me, then went and stretched out on the divan, now getting up to look at her flowers on the balcony, and now skimming through some books and newspapers. And so the evening passed, and the next morning I sent the painting to the Exhibition, as planned, and left for Mödling.
The thought of spending the summer and autumn months with Carlotta in an isolated country villa, in the midst of a lovely wooded and mountainous landscape, filled me with joy. What fine plans I made for idleness and activity! How I reconciled in my imagination blissful indolence and zealous work! Sometimes I envisaged a Theocritan idyll: white goats
beneath an oak, and bagpipes, and a painted jug filled with wine, and honey and honeycombs. And then I conceived of a hundred subjects for new paintings: the Nibelungen, the Bible, mythology, allegory, history. I did not stop to dwell on anything. My imagination raced on, like a wagon in which I was a passenger, its fancies speeding past like telegraph poles. Yet there was a common thread running through all these vagrant thoughts: the desire for beauty.
While lunching at Mödling, I enquired about houses for rent in the vicinity. There were several still available in the direction of Laxenburg and Baden, but I focused my attention on a villa consisting, I was told, of eight elegantly furnished rooms, with a garden and pergolas, and situated outside the quiet village of Teufelsmühle, in the very Brühl Valley so close to Carlotta’s heart. I ordered a carriage for the following morning, and wrote two jubilant pages to my Arethusa.
When I came out of the inn to go for a walk before bedtime, I saw the snow on the peak of Mount Schneeberg glistening in the setting sun. Walking very slowly, humming to myself, allowing free rein to my imagination, and staring up at the sky – a sky extending through a range of infinitely subtle shades to the mysterious blue of night – I entered the narrow mountain-gorge called, as so often, Klausen. The pinkish limestone rocks, half bare, half covered with shadowy plants, loomed increasingly large in the darkness, until they seemed enormous, closing in and bearing down upon me more and more. As the shadows deepened, my thoughts, previously so cheerful, grew dejected and gloomy, until, goodness knows why, the lugubrious spectre of Karl Gulz invaded my mind. I hurried back to the inn, gulped down three or four glasses of beer, and being tired, fell asleep straightaway.
The next day, like the nightingale, I woke up singing. I had never felt my heart brimming with more resolute hope. My body and mind were fresh and nimble, bright and lively. The atmosphere around me was one of smiling happiness. While I was waiting for the carriage, first strolling along the road, then stretching out on the grass, the three leaves of a three-leafed clover seemed to me sublime; and a pebble, picked out in the shadow of the inn by a ray of sunshine, I thought a miracle. I had never been so alive to colour as I was then. In the greenness of a leaf, in the smooth, ultramarine blue of the sky, in the stains on the walls, I detected a refined art that had the same effect on me as Beethoven’s music. The thousand graduations of colour each in itself revealed something new, suggested an idea, or roused a feeling within me. My sharpened vision had discovered a series of secret correlations with my spirit. Sorrow makes the poet, but joy makes the artist.
The villa near Teufelsmühle was truly charming. The Greek-style facade had a pronaos of four columns supporting a pediment, with a garlanded harp in bas-relief in the middle of the typanum. Stretching away on either side of the portico were the two wings of the building, not quite so high, with five windows in each. The view at the front was over a courtyard surrounded by handsome iron railings, and at the back of the white house lay the garden, in which flowers of every kind grew in the shade of the trees. I went running in search of the densest thickets and the most hidden paths, then sank onto a stone seat or rough wooden bench, and thought to myself, ‘Here, she and I shall read together, exchanging a kiss between one page and the next.’ Or, ‘I shall take my easel and she her embroidery, and as we work, our talk will be of love, age-old but ever new!’
The good old caretaker and landlord’s agent followed after me as best he could, calling out, ‘Young man, a little more slowly, please. Look at that tree. Look at those plants. Look at the wonderful jet of water from this fountain. Come and see the amazing stalactites in this cave.’
I let him talk, and just carried on. But there was no way of avoiding it: I had to be good enough to enter the cave and admire the stalactites, since the old man had apparently staked all of his pride on what he had said.
The house was as clean and quiet inside as outside. ‘This will be Carlotta’s bedroom,’ I said, entering a room with a cheerful, blue, floral-patterned wallpaper. There were two windows looking out over the garden and a big french-window on the side: from this room, you could surely see the sun rise and set. It also had an adjoining Turkish-style bathroom, with stained-glass windows that gave the light a quality of sensual unreality; and at the far end, behind a curtain, was the bathtub.
‘There isn’t a jasmin pergola here?’ I asked the old man.
‘There is,’ he replied. ‘And if you had only followed me slowly and attentively, I would have pointed it out to you.’
Then, throwing wide open the outside door of the room that I already decided should be Carlotta’s, he ushered me into an elegant and secluded pergola, framed out of delicately scented summer jasmin. I picked one of the soft, white flowers and put it in my wallet, intending to give it to Carlotta when I told her I had found our love-nest. Within a few minutes the contract had been settled and the deposit paid.
‘Until the day after tomorrow,’ I called out to the caretaker as I climbed into the carriage.
‘Don’t worry, I’ll be here waiting for you,’ he replied with a deep bow.
And the horse set off at an exuberant trot, while the coachman, merrily cracking his whip, sang some crazy song, and I filled my lungs with air, my chest swelling with joy.
IV
When I got back to the inn at Mödling I found a letter from Carlotta. It read as follows:
‘My Beloved,
Come home, for pity’s sake! Come home at once! If you haven’t found the villa, take me with you anyway. We’ll stay at the inn together for a few days, and leave most of our things behind in Vienna in the meantime. If you only knew how sad and frightened I feel when I can’t cling to your arm! I need you to laugh at my silly turns. I need to hear you scold me sweetly, and sometimes even a little crossly, for these dismal fancies that from time to time torment my mind. I need you to clasp me tightly to your chest and say to me, “Baby!” Then I feel ashamed of myself and pull myself together.
You know everything about me, save how trivial the cause that has given rise to my fears. I shall steel myself to write of it: but promise me never to speak of what sometimes oppresses me, since I want to love you with a carefree heart and with a smile on my lips – not that I need to ask you this, you’re so good and generous to me. Five days ago, in the Prater that evening, I promised to tell you why I clung to you, trembling, when a tall, thin man passed in front of the bench where we were sitting. But sensing that it would upset me to talk about it, you didn’t mention it again. You were content to believe that the man had never done me any harm, never tried to make any advances, never spoken to me before: and that is the truth.
However, one evening five months ago, before I came to live with you, I went with two of my girlfriends and two friends of theirs to the Diana-Saal. That huge beer-hall was so crowded downstairs that it was impossible to find anywhere to sit. We went upstairs – you know what it’s like there, with a gallery running all the way round the hall and very large stalls, like separate compartments, opening on to it. Every table was taken. We had already gone almost full circle, slowly and without success, when I saw a lot of young men turn to look at me as we passed one of the stalls, and one fellow, in order to get a better look, had risen to his feet. You know how women have that ability to notice everything in a flash, without seeming to, out of the corner of their eyes. That young man’s appearance struck me as sinister. His eyes were hidden by the lenses of his spectacles, and his flaxen hair came down to his shoulders; but that youthful face looked to me like the face of a dead man (I’m shuddering now!) – a dead man saying, “I love you.” He spoke a few words to his friends, but I only caught a murmur. Meanwhile, the people sitting in the next compartment got up to leave, and we took their places.
One of the men with us had also noticed the fair-haired young fellow as we passed, and since he knew him by sight, he told us that it was Professor Gulz (I’m trembling, but I want to tell you the whole story), a famous scientist who spent his whole time, night and day, with co
rpses. I’ve always been squeamish, ever since I was a child, and I felt my blood run cold. Yet the orchestra went on with the waltz it was playing. All of a sudden, trumpets and drums gave way to some quieter bars of music, and then a voice, Gulz’s voice, reached my ears. He spoke these words in impassioned tones: “I swear to you, my friends, I swear by a presentiment that I have, and in the name of Science, that the lovely Carlotta” (how was it that he knew my name?) “will end up lying on my marble slab and reveal to my knife the secret of her beauty.” The music became louder again, but in any case I should not have been able to hear anything more, I was so distressed. I begged that we should leave, and we did, going out in the opposite direction from where Gulz and his friends were – they could have had no idea that we were sitting so close, separated only by a low, thin partition.
This incident, I confess, left me with a profound fear of death; an immense horror of corpses; a deep-rooted, truly pathological sensitivity to anything connected, however remotely, with such morbid thoughts. That is why I trembled when I saw Gulz again. Oh God, if that dreadful man’s oath were to come true! Come back, come back at once, my Beloved. Make me frivolous and carefree and reckless once more. I’ve such need for laughter and love. There, in the valley, beneath a jasmin pergola, in a beautiful country house, we’ll both be happy. And then I’ll be cured of this silliness and never again shall I rob you of even a quarter of an hour’s joy, and I’ll be for ever and always “the flighty young lady of the flowery fields”.
It’s already almost ten in the morning. I want to go and post this letter, and then I want to go for a walk by myself, in this lovely sunshine, up along the Danube. Come home, I implore you, come and hold me your arms tomorrow.
Senso (And Other Stories) Page 7