Steppenwolf

by Hermann Hesse, David Horrocks, Hermann Hesse, David Horrocks

  ‘You’ve been gadding about, Herr Haller. I don’t suppose you got to bed at all last night. You must be feeling pretty weary!’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, and couldn’t help laughing myself. ‘Things got a bit lively last night and since I didn’t want to lower the tone of your home I slept the night in a hotel. I hold the tranquillity and respectability of this place you inhabit in such high esteem that I sometimes feel very much like a foreign body in it.’

  ‘Don’t mock, Herr Haller.’

  ‘Oh, I was only mocking myself.’

  ‘That’s just the thing you oughtn’t to do. I won’t have you feeling like a “foreign body” in my home. I want you to live as you please, get up to anything you like. I’ve had any number of very, very respectable lodgers in my time, gems of respectability, but none was quieter or less of a disturbance to us than you are. Now then, how about a cup of tea?’

  I didn’t say no. I was served tea in her lounge with its beautiful pictures and furniture, venerable objects of a past age. As we chatted a little, the kind woman, without actually asking, got to know this and that about my life and my ideas. She listened to me with that mixture of respect and motherly reluctance to take one wholly seriously that intelligent women reserve for the eccentricities of men. There was also talk of her nephew. In one of the adjoining rooms she showed me the latest thing he had been constructing in his spare time, a wireless set. The industrious young man, utterly fascinated by the idea of wireless communication, sat there of an evening, painstakingly assembling a machine of that sort; going down on his knees to worship the god of technology, the deity who after thousands of years has finally managed to discover and – in a highly imperfect manner – portray things that every serious thinker has always known about and put to more intelligent use. We talked about this since the aunt, who was a little bit religiously inclined, was not averse to discussing such matters. I told her that the ancient Indians had been fully cognisant of the omnipresence of all forces and actions. Technology had merely managed to make people in general aware of a fraction of this truth by constructing, as far as sound waves were concerned, an as yet terribly imperfect receiver and transmitter. However, the principal insight of that ancient body of knowledge, the fact that time was unreal, had so far escaped the notice of technicians. Of course, it too would eventually be ‘discovered’ and engineers would put their eager fingers to work on the problem. They would, perhaps very soon, discover that we are not only constantly surrounded by a flood of current, present-day images and happenings – in the way that now makes it possible to hear music from Paris or Berlin in Frankfurt or Zurich – but that everything that has ever happened is recorded and available in precisely the same way. With or without wires, with or without interfering noises off, we would one day no doubt be able to hear King Solomon or Walther von der Vogelweide speaking.8 And, just like the beginnings of radio today, all this would, I said, only serve to make human beings surround themselves with an ever-more dense network of distraction and pointlessly fevered activity, thus deserting their true selves and destiny. However, rather than holding forth on these familiar topics in my usual embittered tone of voice, full of scorn for modern times and technology, I spoke in a playful, joking manner. The aunt smiled, and we sat for what must have been an hour together, contentedly drinking tea.

  Having arranged to take the remarkable, beautiful girl from the Black Eagle out on Tuesday evening, I had considerable difficulty killing the time in between. And by the time Tuesday finally arrived it had become frighteningly clear to me just how important my relationship with the unknown girl was. Without being the least bit in love with her, I nonetheless thought of nothing but her, expected everything of her, was willing to sacrifice everything for her and lay it at her feet. I only needed to imagine her breaking our date, or possibly forgetting it, in order to realize what a state that would leave me in. The world would be empty again, one day as grey and worthless as the next. Again I would be surrounded by that whole terribly still, death-like atmosphere from which there was no escape except by cutting my own throat. And the last few days had done nothing to make this way out more appealing. The razor had lost none of its dread for me. This was precisely what I found so abhorrent: the fact that I was profoundly, agonizingly afraid of cutting my own throat, dreaded the thought of dying with a force just as wild, tenacious, self-protective and obstinate as if I had been the healthiest of human beings and my life a paradise. Fully aware of my state of mind, I recognized with merciless clarity that what made the pretty little dancer from the Black Eagle so important was this intolerable tension between my inability to go on living and my inability to die. She was the tiny little window, the minute chink of light in the dark cave of my fear. She was my salvation, my one way out into the open air. She had to teach me how to live or teach me how to die. With her firm and pretty hand she had to touch my frozen heart and by such vital contact either make it spring to life again or reduce it to ashes. How she had come by such powers, where she had acquired her ability to work magic, what the mysterious reasons were for her having become so profoundly important to me – these were all imponderables. Not that it mattered, for I had no desire to know. I no longer had the slightest desire for any kind of knowledge or insight. After all, that was precisely what I’d had my fill of. The very fact that I could see my own state of mind clearly and was conscious of it to such a degree was what was causing me the most acute and ignominious torment and shame. I could see this chap, this Steppenwolf creature, before my eyes like a fly caught in a spider’s web. I watched him moving closer to the point where his fate would be decided, watched him hanging there entangled and defenceless, the spider ready to close its jaws around him, but a rescuing hand seemingly just as near. I would have been capable of making the most intelligent and discerning observations about the circumstances and causes of my suffering, my mental ailment, my bedevilment and neurosis. Their mechanisms were quite transparent to me. However, knowledge and understanding were not what I needed. Instead, what I was desperately longing for was experience, decisive action, the cut and thrust of life.

  Although I never once during those few days of waiting doubted that my friend would keep her word, I was nevertheless very agitated and uncertain on the day itself. Never in my whole life have I waited more impatiently for evening to arrive than on that day. And, while my impatience and the tension within me became almost unbearable, at the same time they did me a power of good. For someone like me, accustomed to leading such a sober life, for a long time now never having anything to wait for or look forward to, it was an unimaginably new and beautiful experience. To spend this whole day in a state of utter restlessness, anxiety and eager anticipation; rushing to and fro, picturing to myself in advance our encounter, our conversations and whatever else the evening together might bring; shaving and dressing for it (taking particular care over this with new shirt, new tie, new shoelaces) – all this was wonderful. What did I care who this shrewd and mysterious girl was or how she had managed to get involved with me? It didn’t matter. She existed. A miracle had happened. I had once again found a human being and a new interest in living. All that mattered was to keep the relationship going, to surrender to this magnetic attraction, to follow this star.

  What an unforgettable moment when I saw her again! Sitting at a small table in the old, comfortably appointed restaurant, having needlessly booked in advance by phone, I was studying the menu. In the water jug in front of me were two beautiful orchids that I had bought for her. Though I had to wait quite a while for her I felt sure she would come and was no longer agitated. And now she did come, pausing at the coat stand and merely casting an attentive, somewhat quizzical look of her light-grey eyes at me by way of a greeting. Suspicious, I checked carefully on the waiter’s behaviour towards her. Not a trace of familiarity, thank goodness. No, maintaining just the right degree of aloofness, he was politeness itself. And yet they knew each other; she addressed him as Emil.
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  When I gave her the orchids she laughed in delight. ‘How sweet of you, Harry. You wanted to give me a present, didn’t you, and weren’t quite sure what to choose. Not knowing how entitled you were to go buying me something, you wondered whether I’d be offended, and in the end you opted for orchids, just some flowers, and yet mighty expensive ones. Well, thanks very much, but I ought incidentally to tell you without further ado that I don’t want you buying me presents. I may earn my living from men, but I’ve no desire to be kept by you. But anyway, just look at you! How you’ve changed! I’d hardly have recognized you. The other day you looked like something just cut down from the gallows and now you are already almost a human being again. Have you carried out my orders, by the way?’

  ‘What orders?’

  ‘Can’t you remember anything? What I mean is: have you now learned to do the foxtrot? You said there was nothing you would like more than to receive orders from me, nothing better than to obey them. Do you remember?’

  ‘Indeed I do, and I stick by what I said. I meant it seriously.’

  ‘And yet you still haven’t learned how to dance?’

  ‘What, that quickly? Is it possible in just a few days?’

  ‘Of course. You can learn the foxtrot in an hour, the Boston in two. The tango takes longer, but you’ve absolutely no need of that.’

  ‘But what I do need, after all this time, is to know your name!’

  She looked at me for a while in silence.

  ‘You may be able to guess it. It would please me no end if you could. Just pay attention and take a good look at me. Hasn’t it occurred to you yet that I sometimes have a boy’s face? Now, for instance?’

  So it was. On now taking a close look at her face, I couldn’t help thinking that she was right. It was that of a boy. And as I allowed myself to contemplate it for a minute or so, her face began to speak to me, reminding me of my own boyhood and of my then friend whose name had been Hermann. For a moment she seemed to have changed completely into this boy Hermann.

  ‘You ought, if you were a boy, to be called Hermann,’ I said in amazement.

  ‘Who knows? Perhaps I am a boy, only in disguise,’ she said playfully.

  ‘Is your name Hermione?’

  She nodded, beaming with joy at the fact that I had guessed correctly. The soup was just arriving and, as we started our meal, she began to take a childlike pleasure in everything. Of all the things that I liked and found fascinating about her, the most charming and idiosyncratic was her ability to switch from being deeply serious to extremely funny. Yet she remained entirely herself, just as gifted children do, showing no signs of strain. She was now funny for a while, teasing me about the foxtrot and even giving me the odd kick under the table. She was lavish in her praise of the food, remarked that I had gone to some trouble to look my best, but still found a great deal to criticize in my appearance.

  Amid all this I asked her: ‘How did you manage to look like a boy all at once, and get me to guess your name?’

  ‘Oh, you managed all that on your own. Can’t you get it into your head, my learned friend, that you’ve taken a liking to me and feel that I matter because I’m like a kind of mirror for you, because something in me responds to you and understands you? Actually, all human beings ought to be such mirrors for one another, responding and corresponding to each other in this way, but the thing is that cranks like you are oddities. You easily get led astray, bewitched into thinking that you can no longer see or read anything in the eyes of other people, that there is nothing there that concerns you any more. And when a crank of your sort suddenly discovers a face again that really looks at him, in which he senses something akin to a response and an affinity, it naturally fills him with joy.’

  ‘You know all there is to know, Hermione,’ I cried in amazement. ‘It’s exactly as you say. And yet you’re so utterly different from me! You’re my opposite, after all, you have everything that I lack.’

  ‘That’s how it looks to you,’ she said laconically, ‘and it’s as well it does.’

  And now a heavy cloud of seriousness passed over her face, which really was a kind of magic mirror for me. All at once her whole face spoke only of seriousness now, of tragedy emerging as it were from the hollow, fathomless eyes of a mask. Slowly, as if word after word had to be prized from her lips, she said:

  ‘Mind you don’t forget what you told me, my dear. You told me to give you orders and that you’d be delighted to obey them all. Don’t forget! I must tell you, Harry my boy, that just as you feel that my face responds to you, that there is something in me that comes halfway to meet you and inspires you with confidence, I feel exactly the same thing with regard to you. When I saw you coming into the Black Eagle recently, so weary and absent-minded, almost having departed this world already, I immediately sensed: there’s someone who will obey me; he’s just longing for me to order him about. And I intend to do just that. That’s why I spoke to you, that’s why we’ve become friends.’

  She uttered these words in such deadly earnest, they poured forth from the depths of her soul with such force that I couldn’t fully grasp their meaning. I tried to calm her down, to take her mind off the subject, but she merely shook off my attempt with a twitch of her eyebrows, gave me a forceful look and continued in a tone of voice devoid of all warmth: ‘You’d better keep your word, my lad, I’m telling you, otherwise you’ll be sorry. You’ll receive lots of orders from me, and you’ll obey them – orders that are so appealing, so agreeable that you’ll be only too delighted to obey them. And at the end, Harry, you’ll carry out my final order too.’

  ‘I shall,’ I said, half surrendering to her will. ‘What will you order me to do finally?’ I asked, although, God knows why, I already sensed what she had in mind.

  Trembling, as if suffering a slight fit of shivering, she seemed slowly to awake from her deep trance. Her eyes remained fixed on me. All of a sudden her mood became even more sombre.

  ‘The sensible thing to do would be not to tell you. But I don’t want to be sensible, Harry, not this time, anything but sensible. Listen carefully. You’ll hear what it is, then forget it again. It will make you laugh, then make you cry. Take note, my lad. We’re going to play for high stakes. It’s a matter of life and death, dear brother. And I want to lay my cards on the table even before we begin.’

  How beautiful her face looked as she said this, how ethereal! A knowing sadness lay coolly and clearly on the surface of her eyes, eyes that seemed to have endured every sorrow it is possible to imagine and to have acquiesced in it. Words came from her mouth with difficulty, as if she had a speech impediment. She spoke roughly, as people do whose faces have been numbed by severe frost, yet – in apparent contradiction to the expression on her face and the tone of her voice – between her lips, in the corners of her mouth and in the movements of the tip of her tongue, only rarely caught sight of, all was sweet, playful, free-flowing sensuality and intense carnal desire. A short curl was hanging down on to her smooth, motionless forehead and the corner of her brow where the curl rested was the source from which that wave of boyishness, of hermaphroditic charm flowed from time to time like the breath of life. I listened to her full of anxiety, yet as if sedated, only half there.

  ‘You are fond of me,’ she said, ‘for the reasons I’ve already mentioned. It’s because I’ve made inroads into your isolation, thrown you a lifeline when you were on the very threshold of hell, and reawakened you to life. But I want more from you, much more. I want to make you fall in love with me. No, don’t try to contradict me; let me have my say. I can sense that you’re very fond of me, that you’re grateful for what I’ve done, but you aren’t in love with me. I intend to make you be in love with me. After all, it’s my job: I earn a living by being able to make men fall in love with me. But mark you, I’m not doing this because I find you of all people particularly charming. I’m not in love with you, Harry, any more than you are in love with me. But I
need you, as you need me. You need me now, at this moment, because you are desperately in need of someone to push you into the water and bring you back to life. You need me in order to learn how to dance, to learn how to laugh, to learn how to live. However, I need you for something that is also very important and beautiful – not today, but later. When you are in love with me I shall give you my final order, and you’ll obey, which will be a good thing for you and for me.’

  She lifted one of the brownish-mauve, green-veined orchids a little in the water jar and, bending her head over it for a moment, stared at the flower.

  ‘It won’t be easy for you, but you will do it. You will carry out my order and will kill me. That’s what I have in mind. Don’t ask me anything more.’

  Still gazing at the orchid, she fell silent. Her face relaxed and, like the bud of a flower unfolding its petals, all pressure and tension went from it. Suddenly there was a delightful smile on her lips, whereas her eyes, as if spellbound, remained frozen for a moment. And now she shook her head with its little boyish curl and, taking a sip of water, suddenly became aware again of being in the middle of a meal and tucked into the food with a gleeful appetite.

  Having clearly heard her eerie speech word for word, having even guessed her ‘final order’ well before she uttered it, I was no longer horrified by the statement: ‘You will kill me.’ Everything she said sounded convincing to me, destined to happen. I accepted it without resistance and yet, despite the horrifyingly earnest manner in which she had stated it all, none of it struck me as fully real or serious. One part of my being soaked up her words, believing them; another part, nodding sagely, noted that even the ever so clever, sane and confident Hermione had her semi-conscious moments of wild fantasy. Scarcely had she finished speaking before a layer of unreality and ineffectuality descended on the whole scene.