“I will try it! You are right. It is immaterial what I do. Why should I not try what you prescribe?”
What struck me and astonished me in what he had said was its agreement with what my father, in our last meeting, had set forth as his philosophy of life. Life for others, rather than taking one’s self so seriously. The teaching was opposed to my immediate feeling, and it smacked a little of dogma, and of instruction before confirmation, of which I, as every normal young man, thought with aversion and scorn. But in the final analysis it dealt not with opinions and a philosophy of the world, but with an entirely practical attempt to make a hard life more bearable. And I wished to make the attempt.
Full of wonder, I looked into the eyes of this man whom I had never taken seriously, and now accepted as counsellor, yes, even as a physician. But he seemed, indeed, to have something of that love which he recommended to me. He seemed to share my sorrow and to wish me all good. Besides, my feeling had already told me that I was in need of a potent cure, if I were to live and breathe again as others. I had thought of a long stay in the mountains, or of alleviating work, but now I had rather follow my counsellor, for my skill and wisdom were at an end.
When I told my mother that I had planned not to leave her, but hoped she would come to me, and share my life, she shook her head, sadly.
“What are you thinking of?” she parried. “That is not so easy. I have my old habits and cannot make new ones, and you need freedom and must not be burdened with me.”
“We can try it for a while,” I proposed. “Perhaps it will go better than you think.”
At the first I had enough to do not to brood and despair. There was the house and an extensive business with assets and liabilities; there were books and accounts; there was money coming in and money going out. Now it was a question what to do with it all. At the beginning I was disposed to close it up, to sell everything, though that could not be done quickly. Then, my mother clung to the old house. Too, my father’s will had to be executed amid hitches and difficulties. It was necessary that the bookkeeper and notary help me. The days and weeks passed, filled with interviews, with correspondence about money and debts, with plans and disappointments.
I soon found myself muddled with all these calculations and red tape. So I gave them over to a notary and lawyer, and left to them the disentangling of affairs.
I tried, at this time, to make things easier for my mother. I did not talk about business before her. I read to her and drove with her. At times I felt I must go away, and let everything go, but a feeling of shame and a certain curiosity as to what would come of it all restrained me.
My mother thought of nothing but of my father, and she showed her grief in simple, little, half-feminine, to me strange, and frequently hardly suitable, traits. At first I had to sit in my father’s place at the table. Then she found I hardly suited that place, and it should remain empty. Sometimes I could not speak to her enough about my father, and at other times she was silent and looked at me sufferingly if I even mentioned his name. What I missed most was music. I would have given a great deal if I might have played an hour on my violin, but when, after several weeks, I ventured to do it, she sighed and felt that it showed a lack of respect. My unfortunate attempts to win her friendship, and to bring my way of life nearer to hers, came to naught.
So I often suffered and wished to give it up, but I conquered myself and accustomed myself to these irresponsive days. My own life lay broken and dead. But seldom now did the past echo—only, mysteriously, when in dreams I heard the voice of Gertrude, or, when in an empty hour, uninvited melodies rang from my opera. When I returned to Cologne to give up my rooms and to pack my things, everything there seemed changed as though by years. I sought out Teifer, only. He remained faithful to me. I did not dare to ask about Gertrude.
I began, by degrees, a regular, hidden warfare against the restrained, resigned behavior of my mother, which distressed me greatly by its continuance. If I begged her to be candid, to tell me what she desired, and what there was in me that displeased her, she would stroke my hand, smile sadly, and say:
“Leave me alone, child. I am, indeed, an old woman.”
So I began to seek the reason myself, and I was even not ashamed to question the bookkeeper and the servants. Then a medley of things were revealed. The main ones were these. My mother had but one near relation and friend in the city, a cousin, who was a spinster, and who associated with but few people, but who was a most intimate friend of my mother. This Miss Schniebel had not cared at all for my father, and for me she had a most rigid repugnance, so that recently she had not come to the house. My mother had promised her to take care of her, should she outlive my father, and my presence seemed to make the hope vain. When, by degrees, I had gained this information, I made a call upon the old lady, and did my best to make myself agreeable to her.
This game of eccentricities and little intrigues was new to me and rather amused me. Finally, I persuaded Miss Schniebel to come to our house again, and I saw that my mother was grateful. They did everything together now. They tried to prevent the sale of the house, which I desired, and they actually accomplished it. The designs of the old lady aimed at taking my place in the house, and at succeeding to the old armchair, a place which she had long coveted. There would have been room enough for her and for me, only she would have no master of the house near her, and she refused to come to us permanently.
Nevertheless, she came running to us diligently, made herself an indispensable friend in many little things, handled me with diplomacy as though I were a dangerous World-power, and made for herself the place of advisor in the household, a place which I could not dispute with her.
My poor mother took neither one’s part, openly. She was tired and suffered greatly at the change in her life. I came gradually to see how she missed my father. Once, as I went through a room, I came upon her busy in the clothes closet. At first I did not notice her. She was frightened when she saw me and I went away quickly, though I could easily see her looking at the clothes of my father. Afterwards, her eyes were red.
When the summer came, a new battle began. I insisted that my mother go on a journey with me. We were both in need of a change, and I hoped by it to cheer her, and to win more influence with her. She had little interest in travel, but, nevertheless, didn’t oppose me. So much more zealously, therefore, did Miss Schniebel. She insisted that mother should remain there and that I should travel alone.
But I would not give way to any other judgment. I expected much from this trip. I began to feel uneasy in the old home with my poor mother who suffered and was not at peace. So I hoped to make my mother feel better and to master my own thoughts and humors.
I arranged that we should start on our travels towards the end of June. We took short day trips, sailed up Lake Constance, stopped at Zurich, and went over the Bruing Pass to the Berner Oberland. My mother continued to be quiet and tired, was indifferent to the travel, and seemed unhappy. At Interlacken she began to complain that she did not sleep anymore, but I persuaded her to go with me to Grindelwald, where I hoped both she and I might find rest. On this foolish, endless, joyless trip I realized the absolute impossibility of getting rid of one’s misery or of running away from it. There lay the beautiful, green sea, reflecting the ancient and brilliant city; there rose the mountains, white and blue; and the blue-green glaciers, glittering in the sunlight. But we both passed by these, quiet and unmoved, shaming ourselves by being only wearied and oppressed by all this. We took our walks, looked up to the mountains, breathed the balmy, sweet air, and listened to the cow bells tinkle in the meadows. And we said, “ It is beautiful,” and did not dare to look into each other’s eyes.
We stayed at Grindelwald a week. Then, one morning, my mother said to me:
“There is no use, son. Let us return. I would so like to sleep again. And if I should become sick and die, I want to be in
my own home.”
Quietly I packed our trunk, agreeing with her in silence, and we started back on our journey, travelling much more quickly than we had come. But I had not the feeling that I was returning to a home, but rather to a prison. My mother, too, showed but a small degree of liberation.
On the evening of our return I said to her: “What do you think of my continuing the journey alone? I would like to go on to Cologne. You understand I will gladly stay with you whenever I see you need me. But we are both sick and sorrowful and we make each other more so. Take your friend into the home. I know you will be more comfortable with her than with me.”
As was her wont, she took my hand and stroked it gently. She said nothing but looked at me with a smile which said plainly, “Yes, please go.” So with all my endeavors and good resolutions, I had accomplished nothing, except for a few months to torture her and me, and to make her much more of a stranger to me. In spite of our life together, each of us had carried his burden alone, and had not shared it with the other, and each had but sunk the deeper in his sorrow and his illness. My attempts were without results and I knew nothing better than to go, to evacuate, and leave the field to Miss Schniebel.
This I did with speed, and, as I knew no other place, I went back to Cologne. On the journey it came over me that I no longer had a home. The city in which I was born, and in which I had lived the years of my childhood, and where my father was buried, concerned me no more—had nothing to ask of me, and nothing to give me but memories. I had not said it to Mr. Lohe at parting, but his prescription had not helped.
Fortunately I found my old rooms in Cologne empty. It seemed like a sign to me that it was useless to try to break with the past, or to flee from one’s own fate. I lived again in the same house and room, in the same city. I unpacked my violin and brought out my work, and found all as it had been, only that Muoth had gone to Munich, and Gertrude had become his betrothed. I took the business of my opera in hand as if it were the fragments of my earlier life, out of which I would seek to make something. But the music stirred but slowly in my numbed soul, and first awoke when the poet of all my texts sent me a new song.
The melody came to me one evening when I followed the track of my old unrest, when, with shame and a thousand will-of-the-wisps in my heart, I strode around the garden of Gertrude’s house. The words were:
Now have I quenched my tapers one by one;
In at my open window streams the night,
And clasps me soft and lets me be the friend
And brother of its might.
With the same yearning pain our hearts are sore;
Afar the presage of our dreams is sped,
And we speak, whispering of an olden time,
Home in our father’s stead.
This verse struck into my heart and awakened my tones and my life. Painfully glowing, the long restrained and cheated pain resolved itself into tones and rhythm. From the song I found a way to the lost thread of my opera, and after so long a waste, from the feverish delirium of the gushing overflow, soared to the free heights where pain and joy are no more separated, and where all fire and power of the soul are mingled and united in one single, aspiring flame.
The day I wrote my new song and showed it to Teifer, I went home in the evening through an alley of chestnut trees. I was filled with the impetuous vigor for new work. The past months seemed to me like a mask over the eyes—without comfort in their vacancy. Now my gladdened heart beat quickly and could no more understand why it had wished to escape its sorrow. Out of the dust the picture of Gertrude rose before me, and unafraid, I looked into her clear eyes and opened wide my heart to all the pain. Ah, it was better to suffer through her, even to press the spear deeper into the wound, than far from her, and far from my true life, to sentence myself to dusk, and to ghostlike times. Between the black, full tops of the spreading chestnuts, shone the dark blue sky, filled with stars that floated, glowing and golden, shining untroubled in the distance. That was the life of the stars. And the trees bore their buds, and blossoms and scars, naked to the gaze. Whether joy or woe portended, they gave themselves to the great purpose of life. The flies, that live but a day, swarmed giddily toward their death. Each life had its glory and its beauty, and for an instant, I saw and understood, and called it good, and called, also, my life and my sorrows good.
In the course of the autumn my opera was completed. At this time I met Mr. Imthor at a concert. He greeted me heartily, and wondered, somewhat, that he had not known of my stay in the city. He had only heard that my father was dead and that I was living in my native town.
“And how is Miss Gertrude? “ I asked, as quietly as I could.
“Oh, you should come to see for yourself. Her wedding will be in the first part of November, and we surely count on you for it.”
“Thank you, Mr. Imthor. And what do you hear of Muoth?”
“He is well. You know I am not entirely in sympathy with this marriage. For a long time I have wanted to ask you about Muoth. As far as I know him I have nothing to complain about him. But I have heard so many things. He seems to have had much to do with women. Can you tell me anything about it?”
“No, Mr. Imthor. It would be no use. Your daughter would judge severely any rumors against him. Muoth is my friend, and when he finds his happiness, I do not begrudge it to him.”
“Yes, yes. I understand. Will you look in soon upon us?”
“Oh, I expect to. I’ll see you soon again.”
It had not been long since I would have done everything to prevent this marriage for the sake of both. Not because of any envy, or hope that Gertrude would turn towards me; but rather because I was convinced and seemed to have a presentiment that it would not go well with both of them, especially when I thought of Muoth’s self-torturing kind of melancholy, and of Gertrude’s tenderness, and more, when Marian and Lotte came to my mind.
But now I felt otherwise. A convulsion of my whole life, a half-year of inner loneliness, and the conscious parting from my youth, had changed me. I had now the conviction that it was foolish and dangerous to lay one’s hand on the affairs of others, and I had no reason to consider my hand as an aid, or myself as a helper and psychologist. Especially since my endeavors in this direction had all been unfortunate, and had shamed me bitterly. And now, I strongly doubt the ability of anyone, in any way, consciously to mold and to shape his life and that of others. One may win gold and honor and position, but happiness or unhappiness he cannot win—not for himself, nor for others. One can only bear what comes, but bear it, to be sure, in very different ways. Whatever comes to me, I will make no more violent attempts to juggle my life to the sunny side, but rather to accept that which is allotted to me, and to bear it with virtue, and if evil, change it into good.
If life is not dependent on such meditations, and passes over them, still, honestly intended resolutions and purposes bequeath a freedom to the soul and help it to bear the unalterable. At least it appears so to me since I have renounced, and have become indifferent to my own welfare.
That many times, that which one with all his will and toil cannot accomplish, comes unexpectedly, I learned in regard to my mother. I wrote her every month but had been for a long time without an answer from her. If things were not well with her, I would have known, so I thought little of it, and continued to write my letters—short accounts of my days. And every time I sent friendly greetings to Miss Schniebel.
Recently these greetings were no more presented. Both women had things their own way and could not stand the fulfillment of their desires. Particularly, Miss Schniebel. Her good time had gone to her head. Immediately after my departure, she had entered with triumph into the place of her siege and had established herself in our house. There she now lived with her cousin and friend. After long years of poverty, she regarded it as a well deserved fortune to be a member of the family in a stately house
hold and to be permitted to put on airs. Not that she took on costly habits and wished to spend freely, for she had been too long in pressing circumstances, and comparative poverty. Nor did she sleep upon finer linen. On the contrary she began to count the household expenses and believed that it should pay for itself with something to spare. But what she would not renounce were might and power. Both maids must obey her not less than my mother. Too, she knew how majestically to crush servants and workmen, and the postman. And because passion never loses through its fulfillment, gradually she expanded her greed for influence to the things in which my mother was less willing to yield. My mother’s visitors she regarded as her own, and could not endure that anyone should be received when she was not there. She desired that letters, especially those from me, should not be shared with her in the form of extracts, but instead, be given to her to read. And finally she detected in my mother’s house many things were not kept and cared for, and managed, in what she regarded as the right way. Above all, it seemed to her, that the scrutiny over the servants was not keen enough. If, in the evening a maid left the house, or another amused herself too long with the postman, or the cook asked for a free Sunday, she denounced the indulgence of my mother in the most severe way, and held long conversations upon the right conduct of a housewife.
Moreover, it gave her bitter pain to see how often and how grossly the rules of economy were violated. Coal had been carried again to the house! The cook broke too many eggs! And she denounced things with such assiduity and boldness that this was the beginning of the break between the friends. Of course, until now, my mother had seemed pleased with everything, even if she did not always agree. But she was disillusioned about her friend and about the situation which she thought would be so different. Now that old and venerable and long-used customs of the house were endangered; that her daily comfort and domestic peace began to suffer, she could not withhold her objections and armed herself. But she was no match for her friend. There were explanations and little, friendly wrangles. And as the cook gave notice and would only stay with my mother after much labor and many promises—almost apologies—the question of authority in the house came to a real battle. Miss Schniebel, proud of her knowledge, her experiences, her economy, and her housewifely virtues, could not understand that one should not be grateful for all these qualities. She felt so sure she was in the right, that she decided she must be a critic of the domestic management hitherto existing; that she must censure the housewifely skill of my mother. She could no longer conceal her designs. She blamed the housewife of my father, under whose direction and after whose methods things, for so many years, had run smoothly. He had no patience with littleness and cheap economy. He had not begrudged freedom and justice to the requests of the servants. He had hated quarrels with the maids. Now, when my mother spoke of my father, whom, earlier, to be sure, she had occasionally criticized, but who, since his death, had become a saint to her, Miss Schniebel could not be silent. She recalled pointedly how, for a long time, she had wished to speak her mind about the deceased; that it was now time to put an end to all such folly and let reason hold the reins of government. She had, indeed, such consideration for her friend as not to wish to shut out thoughts of the departed, but now that she had mentioned him, herself, she must acknowledge that the late master was guilty of many of the disorders in the house. And she could not understand, now that my mother had a free hand, why they should remain any longer!
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