The Emperor Waltz

by Philip Hensher

  Later, in his room, Christian wrote a letter to his brother Dolphus. He wrote on the heavy cream paper of Frau Scherbatsky, in the same brown ink that compositors and printers used. It was his habit to keep his brother’s letters before him on the desk, addressing point after point in response, and adding a few independent observations and anecdotes as he went. Today he did not trouble to look at what his brother had written last time: he had too much to tell him.

  Dear Dolphus [he wrote],

  Today an important thing happened between me and Adele. I will tell you about it later. But first there was something that happened in class. I do not know quite what it meant, but it seemed important to me. We were told to draw a line, and then a different line – a line as different as could be from the first one.

  I drew a line that was only in my head, and that was only to be seen when you closed your eyes. You see, I saw the first line, the solid one with a single direction, as like Adele – she is reliable, and always there, and you could always trust her. But the other line, that was like me. It was like the line that was completely different whenever anyone else looked at it. Now that I have met Adele, I see that I made no sense in the world until she looked at me and saw what I was. When she is impatient with me, that is because I am not worth anything. When she endures my presence and listens to what I have to say, that is because I have become a good and valuable person.

  I felt that I was like a line that could go in any direction, according to who placed their gaze upon me.

  I am so happy, Dolphus. Yesterday I kissed my Adele, and today I saw her again. She would not kiss me, but I had drawn my two lines in class, and I know when I give her the drawing of the two lines, the straight line that you can see, and the invisible line that could go in any direction, she will understand what we mean to each other. The gaze of love, altering what it falls upon.

  This is the most wonderful thing that has happened to me, and perhaps to anyone who has ever lived. I truly feel that. I send you my fraternal greetings. I am so changed you would not know me.

  Your brother, C. S. T. Vogt

  Christian’s handwriting was so large and swooping, with the modern loops and French shapes he had acquired in the art room at school, that he had used up four of Frau Scherbatsky’s writing sheets. He had the sense that he had written absurdly, with some suggestion of madness, perhaps making his brother think that he had been drunk when he wrote it. He and Dolphus had never spoken like this when they were together, but Christian believed that there was nobody else in the world who would understand what had happened to him. He placed the sheets in an envelope; addressed it in a neater, more compact hand than before; sealed it, and placed it on his bedside table to post in the morning.

  10.

  At that moment there was a soft knock at Christian’s bedroom door. He threw an automatic glance at the letter, as if, even sealed, it could betray him. ‘Come in,’ he said.

  The door opened; it was Neddermeyer. ‘I am sorry to disturb you,’ he said. ‘But there is a young woman here who wants to see you.’

  ‘Here?’ Christian said.

  ‘She is waiting in the hall. A young woman,’ Neddermeyer said, in his precise way, placing the visitor. ‘She said she knows you.’

  Christian got up and followed Neddermeyer out, taking the letter with him. Downstairs, sitting in one of the large hallway chairs, her feet not quite touching the floor, her little white hands resting on the wooden arms too far apart for comfort, was Adele. She had come dressed for a call, although it was nearly nine o’clock; her dark green skirt was in a sort of slippery oilcloth, its folds sticking out stiffly at her knees; her tidy umbrella was at her feet. She looked up as Christian came downstairs, watched from the top of the stairs by Neddermeyer. ‘Good evening,’ she said.

  ‘Hello, Adele,’ Christian said, placing the letter on the table for posting. She seemed in this house a quite different part of his life. Her expression was defiant, her mouth firm; he wondered if it was difficult for her to come to a house like this, and demand admission at nine at night. Then he recalled the widows of Breitenberg. ‘I thought you had to stay at home with Elsa, always.’

  ‘Elsa went to her Maza– her Mazadazana – I can never get the name right. Her spiritual group. She wanted me to go, too, but I don’t think it would suit me.’ There was the noise from upstairs of Neddermeyer softly closing his door.

  ‘I don’t know what it is,’ Christian said. ‘I know that a lot of people belong to it, and they sometimes shave their heads and wear odd clothes and eat nothing but garlic. Does Elsa not eat garlic?’

  Adele waved her hand in dismissal. Christian observed that the door to the sitting room was somewhat open. He could hear the voice of Frau Scherbatsky and, after a moment, the harsher, more grating one of Herr Wolff. Their voices had an artificial tone, though he could not hear what they were saying. They were talking in order to disguise the fact that they were listening to Christian and Adele. Christian sat down in the other chair; it was identical to the one Adele was perched on, and placed on the other side of the fire, facing in the same direction.

  ‘It’s nice to see you here,’ Christian said.

  ‘I can’t talk like this,’ Adele said. It was true. Seated on the chairs, it was impossible to carry on a conversation with the other person, facing rigidly in the same direction, ten feet to the left. Christian attempted to move his chair round, but it was too heavy to move, or perhaps even fixed to the floor. ‘I don’t know what to do,’ he said. ‘I could sit on the floor.’

  ‘Is there nowhere else we can go?’ Adele said. ‘In a big house like this.’

  There was the dining room, but that was now set for breakfast, the next morning; the study, which was full of Frau Scherbatsky’s private papers, and into which he had never gone alone, and which was very much her territory; and then there was the conservatory at the back, which would need special measures to light up, mastered only by Maria with a taper. There were other rooms, but they had not been shown to Christian, and he did not care to wander. Christian stood up and walked awkwardly over to the door to the offices and kitchen, where a small three-legged stool sat, more for ornament than use. He put that down and sat on it, his legs crossed, almost seated on the floor. At least he was facing Adele now.

  ‘This is a strange house,’ Adele said. ‘Nothing in it seems designed to make things more comfortable. Do you like it here?’

  Adele had a penetrating voice, now you came to hear it in unexpected circumstances. Had he ever talked to Adele inside? Their meetings had been outside, walking, waiting outside houses. He had hardly seen her without her coat, and did not know how her voice would sound in an enclosed space. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘It’s very spacious, and I do find it comfortable. I was lucky to find something so very nice.’

  ‘I had to ask three people where you lived,’ Adele said.

  ‘I would have told you tomorrow,’ Christian said. But he braced himself; it was wonderful that Adele had changed her mind about him and had come to find him in his home. It made, surely, a new bond between them.

  ‘I have been thinking about what you said,’ Adele said. She looked at him, and a new quality of tenderness, of pity, entered her face. ‘And tonight seemed a good night to come and tell you, when I was in no hurry and Elsa was busy on her own account.’

  ‘Tell me what?’ Christian said.

  ‘Well, you asked me if I would marry you,’ Adele said. ‘And I have been thinking, and I have decided to accept, and so we shall be married.’

  ‘Oh, Adele,’ Christian said. His mind went over things. It was true that he had asked her to marry him. At the time, it had seemed the most important thing in the world. He had proposed to her in the belief that she would not, could not accept him; that it was a beautiful idea that would never come to pass. As Adele spoke, she answered only a romantic statement that she would listen to, be touched and amused by, that she would say no to. But she had said yes. His eyes were full of her: her steady gaz
e; her steady practical decision. At once he saw the line of women who would have come after this first lesson in love. For one crazed moment he considered saying, ‘I didn’t mean it,’ or ‘I think I’ve changed my mind.’ But it was impossible. After a few seconds, his terror and shock began to ebb away, and what was left behind was the sure knowledge that he did, after all, love this girl. He had held onto it for so many days, and now it was going to be here for him, for ever. With a little difficulty, he pushed himself up off the tiny stool, and stood over Adele. He could embrace her now; but she did not stand up.

  ‘You don’t say anything,’ Adele said. She smoothed down her oilcloth skirt with one hand; it made an odd noise, like a yacht’s sail moving under a breeze. She cocked an eyebrow, turning her head slightly away.

  ‘I don’t know what to say,’ Christian said. ‘There is so much to decide, now.’

  ‘We can marry here, in the spring,’ Adele said. ‘Of course it will not be a large wedding. But I will want my father to come, and your parents will come, too.’

  ‘There is only Father,’ Christian said. ‘My mother died. Like your mother, I think.’

  ‘Yes, that’s true,’ Adele said, extending her hand and looking at her nails. ‘I don’t know if you mentioned that. Do you have any more family? Well, they can come as well, so long as it is not hundreds of people.’

  ‘This is so sudden,’ Christian said, and felt a huge urge to laugh; he could have raised his hand to his throat in a maidenly movement. ‘We have so much to find out about each other.’

  ‘I can’t discuss all this in a hallway,’ Adele said. ‘And your landlady is listening, I have no doubt.’

  ‘Have you discussed any of this with your sister?’ Christian said.

  ‘It was something that Elsa said. But she did not know she was saying it. I took my own meaning from it. And now I have changed my mind, and we are to get married, as you wanted. Goodbye, then, Christian. You may call for me tomorrow. I must go back now – Elsa comes from her spiritual sessions at ten o’clock, or a little afterwards.’

  She wriggled from the chair. Again, her stiff oiled skirt made a slithering sound, a faint watery hiss. It was an outdoors noise of tent and sail. She smiled tightly at Christian, and stood there; he remembered with an outburst of politeness that he had kissed her, and perhaps now might kiss her again, as he would every night and every morning from now on. He kissed her. After a few seconds, she took him by the shoulders, and ended the kiss in a practical, rational way. ‘There is no need to walk me home,’ she said. ‘I know the way very well, it is quite safe. But I shall see you tomorrow. I will not tell Elsa our news just yet.’

  Christian watched her go. As the door shut, Frau Scherbatsky came out of the sitting room. She performed a small cut, but of the most friendly variety; she pretended that she had not seen Christian at all, and headed for her study in an absent-minded way, clucking slightly at the newspaper she held. ‘Frau Scherbatsky,’ Christian said, raising his voice.

  Frau Scherbatsky turned, in a larger than normal way, as if Christian’s presence in the hallway were the most extraordinary thing imaginable. ‘Ah! Herr Vogt!’ she said. Then, with a gesture of vagueness, a wave of the hands in the air denoting that she was deeply occupied by mental concerns and, perhaps, by slight irritation, she continued on her way. He did not know why he had hailed her. He had nothing that he needed to say to her.

  At the evening of the next day, there was a telegram waiting for him on the hall table. It was from Dolphus, his brother: ‘COMING WEIMAR FRIDAY FIVE DAYS STOP ARRANGE BED STOP YOUR BROTHER ADOLPHUS’. Christian could not imagine why his brother was coming to Weimar. Then he remembered that he had written to him, the previous evening, before Adele had come round to accept his proposal of marriage. What had been in it was enough for Dolphus to decide to come immediately. Christian could not recall what he had written. It was so long ago.

  11.

  On a very cold and dark Friday afternoon, a young man sat in a halted train carriage somewhere in Thuringia. The sky outside was dark with snowclouds, a heavy descending grey, like a face held too close. In the last five minutes, since the train had been standing there, fat flakes of snow had begun to fall. It was as if the train had had foresight, and had stopped even before the snowfall began. At another point in the carriage, the voices of two women were talking about the snow, about how they would manage if their husbands were unable to come home. Dolphus had seen them getting on at Jena, and making their way past his compartment, puffing and complaining that there did not seem to be a compartment free. They had been dressed in slippery silk dresses, their fat knees shining, one in blue, one in green; their coats had fur trimmings. They had been making the same observations for five minutes now, drifting through the wall of the compartment, or along the corridor; but I don’t know how we will cope; he is so vague about the house; the children are better than he is, more practical, more reliable, but they are only seven and nine; I don’t know how long this is going to last, I really could not say. In a compartment next to the one where the two women sat, one in green silk, one in blue, sat Dolphus Vogt. He did not quite have the courage to shut the door and draw the curtains. He merely shrank into the corner.

  Dolphus was a young man. He had the appearance of someone of fifteen or sixteen or seventeen at most. This was his first train journey alone, and he had been offered the company of a manservant. He had rejected the offer, and his father had looked at him with an odd, proud, decisive gesture. But now he was travelling on his own, and Dolphus was an anxious boy who could not understand the urge for adventures. He wanted things to stay as they were, and had been rather despatched to Weimar to visit his brother than suggested the journey. His mouth moved, soundlessly. He was practising what he would say when the waiter from the restaurant car came to ask if he would be taking lunch, when the ticket collector arrived. Thank you, his lips silently said, here is my ticket; and his hands quietly went to the outside of his jacket pocket, pressing and establishing that the small rectangle of card was still there since the last time of checking. He wore a green tweed suit with knee-length wool trousers, tightly bound, and bright red woollen socks; over his head in the luggage rack was a brown leather suitcase, quite new, with brass at its corners, Dolphus’s initials, A.F.T.V., embossed in gold on the front.

  The train began to move again. Dolphus pressed his face against the window; it was snowing heavily now. He could feel the cold, draining force of the weather outside, and the steely metallic smell of the air when snow came to transform the world. He closed his eyes. The pressure of the cold glass and the daylight darkness outside together sucked the sensible feeling from his cheek.

  Dolphus knew he was not clever. His father’s insistence that he become an engineer bore heavily upon him, and the reports he brought home from school were burdensome, too. He admired his brother more than he could say, but he had understood as soon as Christian had announced that he was to be an artist and not a lawyer, that his own obligation to follow the plan set out for him since birth could not be shirked. He had always been a hero-worshipper; people had always said to him, quite gently, ‘And if Christian jumped off the top of a building, would you do so too?’ His hero-worship subsequently took the form not of imitating a course of action, but of admiring a fellow, perhaps his brother, perhaps an older schoolmate, then telling himself that there was one path of achievement and excellence now shut off to him. He believed that Christian’s pencil drawings were so clever, of landscapes and imaginary girls, of extraordinary scenarios in which impossible figures were stretched out in impossible interiors or miniature landscapes, that they would astonish Weimar. No one, surely, had ever made such images in the history of the world. Dolphus knew that he could not now set pencil to paper. The lectures of the art master at school, carried out on the top floor with the high, sloping windows forming half of the roof, piled thick with fallen leaves from the Tiergarten behind, were torment to Dolphus; he was always reminded with a shake of the hea
d what his brother was capable of, as if that was a cause of emulation and not of proscription. When Christian renounced the planned career of lawyer, too, he did not leave it open for Dolphus: he made it completely impossible, as if he had cast aside a girl. Dolphus sometimes thought that the law would suit him: he liked getting small things right, and checking things, and making sure of stuff at his own leisurely pace. But he could no longer think of that, any more than he could of taking a girl from his brother’s protection. When the time came, he would go to London to study engineering, just as his father had always wanted. He wondered if Christian would go through his life erasing large possibilities in other lives by his unthinking, free actions.

  There was a small cough from the other side of the compartment. In the corner there now sat a small man with his English bowler hat in his hand, a neat and very clean pair of white leather gloves, a black overcoat and, most impressively, a beautiful and very pure white moustache over a tiny pink mouth. Dolphus had heard nobody come in while he had been resting his eyes. He realized, a second later, that there had been no cough. What had drawn his attention was the sudden silence in the carriage; he could no longer hear the conversation from the women in the next compartment. The door had been closed. The advent of silence had seemed like a cough.

  ‘I hope you do not mind if I join you,’ the man said.

  ‘Not at all,’ Dolphus said nervously. ‘I didn’t realize that we had stopped.’

  ‘Stopped?’ the man said. ‘No, no, we did not stop. I got on some time ago. In fact, I got on when the train started, in Berlin. I think you did, too. I have just changed compartments. To tell you the truth, I grew very weary of the conversation of the two other gentlemen in the compartment where I had been seated.’