Royal Highness

by Thomas Mann

  He had no place in the everyday world; a greeting from him, a gracious word, a winning and yet dignified wave of the hand, were all weighty and decisive incidents. Once he was returning in cap and greatcoat from a ride, was riding slowly on his brown horse Florian, down the birch avenue which skirted the waste-land and led to the park and the “Hermitage,” and in front of him there walked a shabbily dressed young man with a fur cap and a ridiculous tuft of hair on his neck, sleeves and trousers that were too short for him, and unusually large feet which he turned inwards as he walked. He looked like the student of a technical institute or something of that sort, for he carried a drawing-board under his arm, on which was pinned a big drawing, a symmetrical maze of lines in red and black ink, a projection or something of the sort. Klaus Heinrich held his horse back behind the young man for a good while, and examined the red and black projection on the drawing-board. Sometimes he thought how nice it must be to have a proper surname, to be called Doctor Smith, and to have a serious calling.

  He played his part at Court functions, the big and small balls, the dinner, the concerts, and the Great Court. He joined in autumn in the Court’s shoots with his red-haired cousins and his suite, for custom’s sake and although his left arm made shooting difficult for him. He was often seen in the evening in the Court Theatre, in his red-ledged proscenium-box between the two female sculptures with the crossed hands and the stern, empty faces. For the theatre attracted him, he loved it, loved to look at the players, to watch how they behaved, walked off and on, and went through with their parts. As a rule he thought them bad, rough in the means they employed to please, and unpractised in the more subtle dissembling of the natural and artless. For the rest, he was disposed to prefer humble and popular scenes to the exalted and ceremonious.

  A soubrette called Mizzi Meyer was engaged at the “Vaudeville” theatre in the capital, who in the newspapers and on the lips of the public was never called anything but “our” Meyer, because of her boundless popularity with high and low. She was not beautiful, hardly pretty, her voice was a screech, and, strictly speaking, she could lay claim to no special gifts. And yet she had only to come on to the stage to evoke storms of approbation, applause, and encouragement. For this fair and compact person with her blue eyes, her broad, high cheek-bones, her healthy, jolly, even a little uproarious manner, was flesh of the people’s flesh, and blood of their blood. So long as she, dressed up, painted, and lighted up from every side, faced the crowd from the boards, she was in very deed the glorification of the people itself—indeed, the people clapped itself when it clapped her, and in that alone lay Mizzi Meyer’s power over men’s souls. Klaus Heinrich was very fond of going with Herr von Braunbart-Schellendorf to the “Vaudeville” when Mizzi Meyer was playing, and joined heartily in the applause.

  One day he had a rencontre which on the one hand gave him food for thought, on the other disillusioned him. It was with Martini, Axel Martini, the compiler of the two books of poetry which had been so much praised by the experts, “Evoë!” and “The Holy Life.” The meeting came about in the following way.

  In the capital lived a wealthy old man, a Privy Councillor, who, since his retirement from the State Service, had devoted his life to the advancement of the fine arts, especially poetry. He was founder of what was known as the “May-combat”—a poetical tournament which recurred every year in springtime, to which the Privy Councillor invited poets and poetesses by circulars and posters. Prizes were offered for the tenderest love-song, the most fervent religious poem, the most ardent patriotic song, for the happiest lyrical effusions in praise of music, the forest, the spring, the joy of life—and these prizes consisted of sums of money, supplemented by judicious and valuable souvenirs, such as golden pens, golden breast-pins in the form of lyres or flowers, and more of the same kind. The city authorities also had founded a prize, and the Grand Duke gave a silver cup as a reward for the most absolutely admirable of all poems sent in. The founder of the “May-combat” himself, who was responsible for the first look-through the always numerous entries, shared with two University Professors and the editors of the literary supplements of the Courier and the People the duties of prize-judges. The prize-winners and the highly commended entries were printed and published regularly in the form of an annual at the expense of the Privy Councillor.

  Now Axel Martini had taken part in the “May-combat” this year, and had come off victorious. The poem which he had sent in, an inspired hymn of praise to the joy of life, or rather a highly tempestuous outbreak of the joy of life itself, a ravishing hymn to the beauty and awfulness of life, was conceived in the style of both his books and had given rise to discord in the Board of Judges. The Privy Councillor himself and the Professor of Philology had been for dismissing it with a notice of commendation; for they considered it exaggerated in expression, coarse in its passion, and in places frankly repulsive. But the Professor of Literary History together with the editors had out-voted them, not only in view of the fact that Martini’s contribution represented the best poem to the joy of life, but also in consideration of its undeniable pre-eminence, and in the end their two opponents too had not been able to resist the appeal of its foaming and stunning flow of words.

  So Axel Martini had been awarded fifteen pounds, a gold breast-pin in the form of a lyre, and the Grand Duke’s silver cup as well, and his poem had been printed first in the annual, surrounded with an artistic frame from the hand of Professor von Lindemann. What was more, the custom was for the victor (or victrix) in the “May-combat” to be received in audience by the Grand Duke; and as Albrecht was unwell, this task fell to his brother.

  Klaus Heinrich was a little afraid of Herr Martini.

  “Oh dear, Doctor Ueberbein,” he said when he met his tutor one day, “what subject am I to tackle him on? He’s sure to be a wild, brazen-faced fellow.”

  But Doctor Ueberbein answered: “Anything; but, Klaus Heinrich, you need not worry! He’s a very decent fellow. I know him, I’m rather in with his set. You’ll get on splendidly with him.”

  So Klaus Heinrich received the poet of the “Joy of Life,” received him at the “Hermitage,” so as to give the business as private a character as possible. “In the yellow room, Braunbart if you please,” he said, “that’s the most presentable one for occasions like this.” There were three handsome chairs in this room, which indeed were the only valuable pieces of furniture in the Schloss, heavy Empire arm-chairs of mahogany, with spiral arms and yellow upholstery on which blue-green lyres were embroidered. Klaus Heinrich on this occasion did not dispose himself ready for an audience, but waited in some anxiety near by, until Axel Martini on his side had waited for seven or eight minutes in the yellow room. Then he walked in hastily, almost hurriedly, and advanced towards the poet, who made a low bow.

  “I am very much pleased to make your acquaintance,” he said, “dear sir … dear Doctor, I believe?”

  “No, Royal Highness,” answered Axel Martini in an asthmatic voice, “not doctor, I’ve no title.”

  “Oh, forgive me … I assumed … Let’s sit down, dear Herr Martini. I am, as I have said, delighted to be able to congratulate you on your great success.…”

  Herr Martini drew down the corners of his mouth. He sat down on the edge of one of the mahogany arm-chairs, at the uncovered table, round whose edge ran a gold border, and crossed his feet, which were cased in cracked patent-leather boots. He was in frock-coat and wore yellow gloves. His collar was frayed at the edges. He had rather staring eyes, thin cheeks and a dark yellow moustache, which was clipped like a hedge. His hair was already quite grey on the temples, although according to the “May-combat” Annual he was not more than thirty years old, and under his eyes glowed patches of red which did not suggest robust health. He answered to Klaus Heinrich’s congratulations: “Your Royal Highness is very kind. It was not a difficult victory. Perhaps it was hardly tactful of me to compete.”

  Klaus Heinrich did not understand this; but he said: “I have read your poem
repeatedly with great pleasure. It seems to me a complete success, as regards both metre and rhyme. And it entirely expresses the ‘Joy of Life.’ ”

  Herr Martini bowed in his chair.

  “Your skill,” continued Klaus Heinrich, “must be a source of great pleasure to you—an ideal recreation. What is your calling, Herr Martini?”

  Herr Martini showed that he did not understand, by describing a note of interrogation with the upper half of his body.

  “I mean your main calling. Are you in the Civil Service?”

  “No, Royal Highness, I have no calling; I occupy myself exclusively with poetry.…”

  “None at all.… Oh, I understand. So unusual a gift deserves that a man’s whole powers be devoted to it.”

  “I don’t know about that, Royal Highness. Whether it deserves it or not, I don’t know. I must own that I had no choice. I have always felt myself entirely unsuited to every other branch of human activity. It seems to me that this undoubted and unconditional unsuitability for everything else is the sole proof and touchstone of the poetical calling—indeed, that a man must not see in poetry any calling, but only the expression and refuge of that unsuitability.”

  It was a peculiarity with Herr Martini that when he talked tears came into his eyes just like a man who comes out of the cold into a warm room and lets the heat stream through and melt his limbs.

  “That’s a singular idea,” said Klaus Heinrich.

  “Not at all, Royal Highness. I beg your pardon, no, not singular at all. It’s an idea which is very generally accepted. What I say is nothing new.”

  “And for how long have you been living only for poetry? I suppose you were once a student?”

  “Not exactly, Royal Highness; no, the unsuitability to which I alluded before began to show itself in me at an early age. I couldn’t get on at school. I left it without passing my ‘final.’ I went up to the university with the full intention of taking it later, but I never did. And when my first volume of poems attracted a good deal of attention, it no longer suited my dignity to do so, if I may say so.”

  “Of course not.… But did your parents then agree to your choice of a career?”

  “Oh no, Royal Highness! I must say to my parents’ credit that they by no means agreed to it. I come of a good stock: my father was Solicitor to the Treasury. He’s dead now, but he was Solicitor to the Treasury. He naturally disliked my choice of a career so much that till his death he would never give me a farthing. I lived at daggers drawn with him, although I had the greatest respect for him because of his strictness.”

  “Oh, so you’ve had a hard time of it, Herr Martini, you’ve had to struggle through. I can well believe that you must have knocked about a good deal!”

  “Not so, Royal Highness! No, that would have been horrid, I couldn’t have stood it. My health is delicate—I dare not say ‘unfortunately,’ for I am convinced that my talent is inseparably connected with my bodily infirmity. Neither my body nor my talent could have survived hunger and harsh winds, and they have not had to survive them. My mother was weak enough to provide me behind my father’s back with the means of life, modest but adequate means. I owe it to her that my talent has been able to develop under fairly favourable conditions.”

  “The result has shown. Herr Martini, that they were the right conditions.… Although it is difficult to say now what actually are good conditions. Permit me to suppose that if your mother had shown herself as strict as your father, and you had been alone in the world, and left entirely to your own resources … don’t you think that it might have been to a certain extent a good thing for you? That you might have got a peep at things, so to speak, which have escaped you as it is?”

  “People like me, Royal Highness, get peeps enough without having actually to know what hunger is; and the idea is fairly generally accepted that it is not actual hunger, but rather hunger for the actual … ha, ha!… which talent requires.”

  Herr Martini had been obliged to laugh a little at his play upon words. He now quickly raised one yellow-gloved hand to his mouth with the hedge-like moustache, and improved his laugh into a cough. Klaus Heinrich watched him with a look of princely expectancy.

  “If your Royal Highness will allow me.… It is a well-known fact that the want of actuality for such as me is the seed-ground of all talent, the fountain of inspiration, indeed our suggestive genius. Enjoyment of life is forbidden to us, strictly forbidden, we have no illusions as to that—and by enjoyment of life I mean not only happiness, but also sorrow, passion, in short every serious tie with life. The representation of life claims all our forces, especially when those forces are not allotted to us in overabundant measure”—and Herr Martini coughed, drawing his shoulders repeatedly forward as he did so. “Renunciation,” he added, “is our compact with the Muse, in it reposes our strength, our value; and life is our forbidden garden, our great temptation, to which we yield sometimes, but never to our profit.”

  The flow of words had again brought tears to Herr Martini’s eyes. He tried to blink them away.

  “Every one of us,” he went on, “knows what it is to make mistakes, to run off the rails in that way, to make greedy excursions of that kind into the festival halls of life. But we return thence into our isolation humbled and sick at heart.”

  Herr Martini stopped. His look, from under his knotted brows, became fixed for a moment and lost in vacancy, while his mouth assumed a sour expression and his cheeks, on which the unhealthy redness glowed, seemed even thinner than before. It was only for a second; then he changed his position, and his eyes recovered their vivacity.

  “But your poem,” said Klaus Heinrich, with some empressement. “Your prize poem to the ‘Joy of Life,’ Herr Martini.… I am really grateful to you for your achievement. But will you please tell me … your poem—I’ve read it attentively. It deals on the one hand with misery and horrors, with the wickedness and cruelty of life, if I remember rightly, and on the other hand with the enjoyment of wine and fair women, does it not?…”

  Herr Martini laughed; then rubbed the corners of his mouth with his thumb and forefinger, so as to wipe the laugh out.

  “And it’s all,” said Klaus Heinrich, “conceived in the form of ‘I,’ in the first person, isn’t it? And yet it is not founded on personal knowledge? You have not really experienced any of it yourself?”

  “Very little, Royal Highness. Only quite trifling suggestions of it. No, the fact is the other way round—that, if I were the man to experience all that, I should not only not write such poems, but should also feel entire contempt for my present existence. I have a friend, his name is Weber; he’s a rich young man; he lives, he enjoys his life. His favourite amusement consists in scorching in his motor car at a mad pace over the country and picking up village girls from the roads and fields on the way, with whom he—–but that’s another story. In short, that young man laughs when he catches sight of me, he finds something so comic in me and my activities. But as for me, I can quite understand his amusement, and envy him it. I dare say that I too despise him a little, but not so much as I envy and admire him.…”

  “You admire him?”

  “Certainly, Royal Highness. I cannot help doing so. He spends, he squanders, he lets himself go in a most unconcerned and light-hearted way—while it is my lot to save, anxiously and greedily, to keep together, and indeed to do so on hygienic grounds. For hygiene is what I and such as I most need—it is our whole ethics. But nothing is more unhygienic than life.…”

  “That means that you will never empty the Grand Duke’s cup, then, Herr Martini?”

  “Drink wine out of it? No, Royal Highness. Although it would be fine to do so. But I never touch wine. And I go to bed at ten, and generally take care of myself. If I didn’t, I should never have won the cup.”

  “I can well believe it, Herr Martini. People who are not behind the scenes get strange ideas of what a poet’s life must be like.”

  “Quite conceivably, Royal Highness. But it is, taken all rou
nd, by no means a very glorious life, I can assure you, especially as we aren’t poets every hour of the twenty-four. In order that a poem of that sort may come into existence from time to time—who would believe how much idleness and boredom and peevish laziness is necessary? The motto on a picture postcard is often a whole day’s work. We sleep a lot, we idle about with heads feeling like lead. Yes, it’s too often a dog’s life.”

  Some one knocked lightly on the white-lacquered door. It was Neumann’s signal that it was high time for Klaus Heinrich to change his clothes and have himself freshened up. For there was to be a club concert that evening in the Old Schloss.

  Klaus Heinrich rose. “I’ve been gossiping,” he said; for that was the expression he used at such moments. And then he dismissed Herr Martini, wished him success in his poetical career, and accompanied the poet’s respectful withdrawal with a laugh and that rather theatrical up and down movement of the hand which was not always equally effective, but which he had brought to a high pitch of perfection.

  Such was the Prince’s conversation with Axel Martini, the author of “Evoë!” and “The Holy Life.” It gave him food for thought, it continued to occupy his mind after it had ended. He continued to think over it while Neumann was reparting his hair and helping him on with the dazzling full-dress coat with the stars, during the club concert at Court, and for several days afterwards, and he tried to reconcile the poet’s statements with the rest of the experiences which life had vouchsafed to him.

  This Herr Martini, who, while the unhealthy flush glowed under his eyes, kept crying: “How beautiful, how strong is life!” yet was careful to go to bed at ten, shut himself off from life on hygienic grounds, as he said, and avoided every serious tie with it—this poet with his frayed collar, his watery eyes, and his envy of the young Weber who scorched over the country with village girls: he left a mixed impression, it was difficult to come to any certain conclusion about him. Klaus Heinrich expressed it, when he told his sister of the meeting, by saying: “Things are none too comfortable and easy for him, that’s quite obvious, and that certainly entitles him to our sympathy. But somehow, I’m not sure if I’m glad to have met him, for he has something deterrent about him, Ditlinde—yes, after all, he’s certainly a little repulsive.”