A Man in Love

by Martin Walser

  There was no one he could tell how good it felt to survey the predictable moods of his circle. Whether in the cultured corners of Germany or here in the heat of the Bohemian magic cauldron, they needn’t hold back as far as he was concerned. Let them shout it from the rooftops: A scandal! Bad taste! Infamous, dirty old man! A sad end to a great person! He was elated by anything that had to do with Ulrike. He experienced her as an influx of life. More than one unimpeachable observer had told him right to his face how well he looked now, how vibrant, how strong—really handsome. With such effects, how could he help but worship their cause! After all, there was also plenty of unpretentious approval, which he and Ulrike took in just as unpretentiously. Those were the effects they talked about together. “Did you see that stately woman, Excellency, and how she pointed us out to her three children and waved to us herself until her children did, too!” They were even applauded—it was almost theatrical. To be sure, there were others who said that was going too far and turned away demonstratively from the applauders. The Marienbad Promenade had not been so lively in a long time.

  When he brought Ulrike home, the two of them often sat down on the palace’s raised terrace that was bordered with pots of flowers. Ulrike, who couldn’t get interested in rocks, was drawn to flowers as if to a lost homeland. Again and again she would walk along the floral border, smelling the perfume, and then close her eyes and guess which fragrance belonged to which flower. “They have their own majesty,” she said as she sat back down next to him.

  “My favorite majesties are the lupines,” he said.

  “Mine are wolfsbane,” she said.

  And since he was sitting directly across from her, held fast by her gaze, he said that because Marienbad was so American he needed another round of their court etiquette game as an antidote. She nodded in what he took for pleasure.

  And so he began: “First and foremost I owe a debt of thanks to Her Majesty for showing Her humble servant for many a day and in many gratifying ways evidence of Her most amiable notice, such that without delay the hope could arise that the flower—still in its childhood—that I have so tenderly raised from a secret seed may continue to find favor with Her Majesty, the only promise of its happy growth.”

  And Ulrike continued: “Since We love above all else everything that blooms, We wish it happy growth and condescend to measure what has been called into being with an incalculable yardstick, so that Excellency (in the truest sense) can continue to expect Our affectionate interest.”

  Now the church’s six o’clock bells chimed in. It stood halfway up the hill between the Kreuz Spring Promenade in the valley and the incipient ring of palatial hotels. It still seemed too big for this green solitude. As long as the bells were tolling, no one spoke on the terrace.

  Then, carried away somehow, or at any rate less composed than the time and place of their conversation called for, he said, “A trip to Eger with you, Ulrike, wouldn’t that be something! With no audience. You and me from Eger westward, to Haslau and beyond Haslau along the mountain ridge, we would come to the forest they call the Kingdom of Heaven. And there, alongside the high road, is the giant quartz rock where I always sit down and do nothing but look. And to do that with you, Ulrike! Forgive me if my wishes sometimes tend to be immoderate.” Abruptly he rose to go, but turned back again and said, “Until this evening, dear girl,” and gave that gentle bow that was more implied than real. And he walked over to his Golden Grape, walked as well as he could. He knew about difficulties in walking only from hearsay. But the fact that Ulrike might be watching him made his pace uncertain, and so he exaggerated each step. That, however, could look comical. Entering the door across the street, he looked back—surreptitiously, so to speak. The terrace was empty. Ulrike had not watched him go. That didn’t meet with his approval, either.

  He knew he must write something now. And since he felt strong enough at this moment to present Ulrike even to the least sympathetic audience, he wrote to Ottilie. Ulrike must not be mentioned, but all the sentences that emanated his strength were sentences full of Ulrike. Even with all the strength he felt, he was in a conciliatory mood. Peace with Ottilie! A letter to lull to sleep all the bellicose moods engendered by gossip and rumor.

  “It is all succeeding beyond my wildest dreams, gratifying to the heart, the spirit, and the senses, as the saying goes …”

  It wasn’t his style, but if he knew Ottilie at all, she wouldn’t read what was on the paper, but what wasn’t. She had sensed his feelings for Ulrike von Levetzow before he was fully conscious of them himself. Two years ago when he returned to autumn in Weimar from summer in Bohemia, Ottilie was already armed with rumors that at that point were really nothing but rumors. Lacking the courage to confront him with what Caroline von X or Caroline von Y had told her, she had appended a businesslike request to a note informing him about current household affairs: Would he please not enter into this kind of attachment any more, which his advanced age prevented him from conscientiously fulfilling. He had laughed at her. Back then.

  Chapter Four

  DR. REHBEIN TOOK up a position in the middle of the ballroom of the recently completed catering house and opened the celebration of his engagement to Catty von Gravenegg by introducing his guests. First came Grand Duke Carl August, then Goethe—His Excellency Privy Councilor and Minister of State Baron von Goethe. Louder applause than for the Grand Duke. Goethe, sitting at the same table as the Levetzows of course, directly across from Ulrike, looked at her as he was being introduced. She didn’t applaud until she noticed that Goethe was being applauded more than the Grand Duke. She applauded the applause, then looked over at him. Since the ballroom was not especially brightly lit, her eyes were green.

  Dr. Rehbein melted a bit with the heat of his joviality, gratitude, and happiness at being able to greet Napoleon’s stepson Eugène de Beauharnais—former Viceroy of Italy, today Duke of Leuchtenberg and Prince of Eichstätt—and Napoleon’s brother Louis Bonaparte, former King of Holland, today the Count of Saint-Leu. “And how fortunate I am in the knowledge that Julie von Hohenzollern is here among us, too. Out in the world, encounters occur in incomprehension, but in Marienbad, history encounters itself.” Thunderous applause. Dr. Rehbein asked Catty von Gravenegg to join him. She came. Goethe was seeing her for the first time: a big strong girl, tow-colored hair that had never suffered under curlers or curling iron, down to her bare shoulders. The lace-trimmed décolletage of her black dress was an invitation to imagine the entirety of her considerable bosom. Goethe did so and saw right away how ineffective the image was. All he felt was that he belonged entirely to Ulrike. He wished he could show that to her more clearly.

  Dr. Rehbein spoke as only a happy man can. How had he managed to win this girl? “Look at her and look at me.” He belonged in the novella in Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister—“The Man of Fifty.” But Catty was not Hilarie, who first embraces the fifty-year-old and then falls for the wild young Flavio. “I’m only gonna fall once in my life,” Catty was quick to interpose in her Bavarian accent. Loud applause. She didn’t curtsy, she bowed like an actress. They stood there hand in hand, a glorious couple. He in curly black hair, she in a wave of blond, both beaming with happiness.

  Goethe watched Ulrike. Because she had turned toward the middle of the room, he saw her from the side. She always made a very erect impression, as if it was easier for her to look up than straight ahead. What was going through her mind? It had not occurred to him that the difference in age of the couple would become a topic of the engagement party. He looked at the couple again, spellbound, moved by their demonstration of pure happiness. He did not fear being watched himself. It would make sense for the entire room to turn and look at him and Ulrike. Go ahead, be my guest. He was justified in calling the thing that now completely filled him a higher unconcern. Was Ulrike sitting up just a little too straight? Ah, if only she would cast a brief glance this way so he could show her his unassailable unconcern and encourage her to be just as unconcerned as he was. As long
as he could almost reach out and touch her, or at any rate have her visibly sitting there before him, he was invulnerable. Yes, the world is always ready to wound you, but not here. Marienbad was not the world. Give us a quick look this way, Ulrike, so I can see that you’re taking part, see what this heavenly performance of an engagement means to you. Are they playing us? He hoped she was following what was happening in the ballroom with the minimal smile that always meant she had nothing against it. What do you say, Ulrike? Later, when the party continues into the wee hours up in the Klebelsbergs’ palais, we’ll speak at length about every second we’ve witnessed together and ask each other, What did you think of that? And you, what did you think? He was happy through and through that together with Ulrike, he was witnessing a public event so beautifully expressive of its own significance. How wonderful were the warm, cozy sessions with her family. How gloriously engaging their dialogues before the watching public on the promenade. But in the end, an event had to happen that they could experience together! And one that seemed made to order for them. And don’t go comparing the numbers that obtain here with your numbers. If Ulrike can enjoy this event, she can … she can … Ah, Ulrike, look at me for just a second.

  When Dr. Rehbein had come to the end of his informal unceremonious speech—all the more authentic because it sprang from his feelings of the moment—there was more loud applause. Before he regained his seat, with Catty pressed close by his encircling arm, two servants dressed as carpenters brought in a cradle overflowing with colorfully wrapped and probably suggestive gifts. The grand duke came forward and congratulated the couple, gesturing toward the cradle with its contents as his present. Then he laid the couple’s hands together and raised their four joined hands into the air like a trophy—Goethe recalled that ducks were the grand duke’s favorite prey—and announced to the room that he had an interest in seeing his personal physician in good hands. Applause. Goethe clapped energetically and commanded his face to wear a knowing smile. Ulrike turned back toward the table, and Goethe nodded to show her that everything here was taking place to his complete satisfaction. Then dinner was served. Dr. Rehbein requested their attention once more. Since his fiancée was a vegetarian, they would eat no meat this evening. But he could promise them that their caterer, M. Charcot, had assembled and prepared the very finest ingredients from every corner of Europe, as only he could. There would even be meat-flavored dishes, but without meat. A few courageous bravos, including one from Ulrike.

  For Goethe, Catty von Gravenegg was now twice distinguished—or rather, attractive: once for her Bavarian accent and once for her meatlessness. He was justified in thinking himself an expert in means of expression: this young woman, celebrating her own body in every move she made, and on top of that, a vegetarian. He said to Ulrike that he hadn’t known she leaned toward vegetarianism. She raised her eyebrows, threw both hands in the air, and said, “I lean in general, Excellency.” From that moment on, she never addressed him as anything but Excellency. And then in fact they experienced a variety of tastes that could not be equaled by any menu with meat as its main attraction. Frau von Levetzow was delighted by the witty way Dr. Rehbein had worked “The Man of Fifty” into his speech and with the white wine from the Loire proposed a toast to the Man of Fifty. Everyone near enough to hear drank a heartfelt toast to the poet. But not Ulrike. Goethe saw that she shook her head and silently mouthed “No wine.” No alcohol at all, in fact. He put down his glass and thanked everyone who had drunk to him—or rather, to his Man of Fifty. He himself would have loved to drink along with them, he said, but since he couldn’t do anything Ulrike von Levetzow didn’t do and she had decided to close her door to wine, for today he’d close his as well.

  “What about tomorrow?” asked a young man whose appearance suggested he came from far away. Goethe looked at him. Then he looked at Ulrike. Then he said, “Only the noble Ulrike von Levetzow can decide what tomorrow will bring, mein Herr. I’d like to drink to that if I may, Ulrike.” She threw her hands into the air in his direction and cried, “Ja, ja, ja, Excellency.” Goethe took a big swallow.

  Then the party moved up to the Klebelsberg palais. They were greeted beneath the arches of the reddish vestibule by the head of the household, who had arrived from Vienna that noon. An even more attractive man than Dr. Rehbein, Count Franz von Klebelsberg welcomed Goethe with open arms, and in a voice that could only have belonged to a singer, he said that although the privy councilor probably couldn’t stand to hear it any more, he was at that moment exactly forty-nine—he’d be fifty in January—and had discovered the frightful things in store for him from Goethe’s book, which brimmed with the most beautiful details. Without his Amalie von Levetzow, he would flee from that birthday to the North Pole in the hope that there, all dates would be frozen. As soon as Goethe was near enough to be embraced, the count let his arms drop, took a deep bow, and added only, “A very great honor, Excellency.”

  “Franz,” said Ulrike’s omni-observant mother, “settle down.” And so they moved on into the large ballroom that opened out beyond the vestibule.

  The room, finished only a year ago, was a radically Romantic interior with all the necessary decorative excesses. Huge windows into which virtuoso glass cutters had incised floral patterns of differing translucency. In each corner and between every two windows, pairs of red marble columns with nothing to support but acanthus capitals. It was a ballroom of pure playfulness and boisterously dreamy atmosphere. Those who had never been here before congratulated the count. When the spa orchestra began to play, they were immediately in Vienna. Ever since the Congress of Vienna, if you wanted to be modern, young, beautiful, and happy in Europe, you danced the waltz.

  Frau von Levetzow saw how the music affected Goethe. “No problem for the Man of Fifty, Herr Privy Councilor,” she said. Reading his works, she had always remarked that Goethe never allowed the body to take second place to the soul. But now came the crowning glory, the summit: the Man of Fifty gets a Verjüngungsdiener—a valet for rejuvenation, a cosmetic advisor, as it said in the book. “It sounds so businesslike, so reassuring: cosmetic advisor and then valet for rejuvenation. I’d like to give you a kiss for inventing that combination, Herr Privy Councilor.” And she kissed him on the cheek. All he saw was that Ulrike was watching her mother sternly, her high, rounded forehead knit into a frown. But her mother wasn’t yet finished unloading all her high spirits. Goethe’s most beautiful neologism, she said, was the Schönheits-Erhaltungs-Lehrer—the beauty preservation teacher—a verbal bouquet so lovely it all but embraced you! “It tempts readers like me to ask how much is autobiographical …”

  A disapproving “Mama!” from Ulrike was all it took. “Come, Excellency,” she said and stood up. It was clear she was asking Goethe to dance. Pointing to Ulrike, he asked her mother’s forgiveness for his abrupt departure, which couldn’t have been more opportune. On the way to the dance floor she walked close by his side, took his arm, slipped hers through his as she always did wherever she appeared with him in Marienbad. He drew her to him almost impulsively. She turned to look at him and said, “Please forgive her. Frau Amalie von Levetzow est parfois un peu volubile.”

  Goethe had been avoiding balls and tea dances for the past few years. Since the Congress of Vienna, three-quarter time had come to be a creed. Of course, he was interested in what that meant and how it was expressed. Years ago, he’d had a dancing master show him the steps—in his private apartment—in case he ever needed to know them. And that was the case now. A custom that had survived from earlier times was cutting in. A woman or a man was permitted to tear a dancing couple apart by cutting in. He’d always been a dancer. It used to be that, if the nights acquiesced, he would often abandon a partner and pretend to—or probably really did—go crazy as a solo act. Now he was with Ulrike. At once she became a part of him, lying so lightly in his hands and arms and bent outward by the spin. They were one body. He wasn’t the least bit fearful that something could happen. Their eyes were locked together so ti
ghtly that neither she nor he got dizzy. But he was cut in on, and by the young man who had asked “What about tomorrow?” down in the catering house. Now should have been Goethe’s turn to cut in on another couple and get himself a new partner. But he could dance only with Ulrike. The whole world ought to understand that. Back at the table, his dancing skill and condition were admired. He found it offensive, and said so.

  He asked Frau von Levetzow who it was who had cut in on him.

  It was a Herr de Ror, perhaps a Greek, definitely not a Turk. He’d made his money in the Orient trade, was fabulously wealthy, and dealt only in the finest things. In jewelry, not in spices. There wasn’t a queen, princess, or countess in Europe on whom he hadn’t hung a necklace or placed a tiara. The ladies in Paris knew him, as did those in London and Vienna. And besides that, he was also a translator, translated poetry from many languages, especially Oriental ones. It was said he knew seven languages.