The Torch in my Ear, page 17
Since the age of ten, I’ve felt as if I consisted of many characters. But it was a vague feeling. I couldn’t have said which characters were speaking out of me, or why one replaced another. It was a river of many shapes, which never dried up, despite the specificity of newly acquired demands and convictions. I had the desire and the ability to leave myself at the mercy of this river; but I never saw it. Now, in Veza, I had met a person who had found characters in great literature and inserted them for her own multiplicity. She had implanted them in herself, they thrived in her. And whenever she wanted them, they were available. What astonished me were the clarity and definiteness, the fact that nothing mingled with anything accidental, anything that didn’t belong. There was an awareness here, as if those characters were to be read off a higher tablet of the law. They were all inscribed, the pure characters, each sharply delimited and obvious and no less alive than oneself, determined by their veracity alone, not to be snuffed out by any damnation.
It was an exciting spectacle, watching Veza slowly move among her characters. They were her support against Karl Kraus. He could never have touched them; they were her freedom. She was never his slave. It was magnanimous of her to let me be when I came to her in fetters. However, there was something you felt a lot more acutely than her restrained wealth: her mystery.
Veza’s mystery was in her smile. She was conscious of it and could evoke it. But once it had appeared, she was unable to revoke it. It persisted, and then it seemed to be her actual face whose beauty deceived so long as it didn’t smile. Sometimes, she closed her eyes when smiling, her black lashes plunged deep, grazing her cheeks. At such times, she seemed to be contemplating herself from the inside, with her smile as a light. The way she appeared to herself was her mystery; yet, despite her silence, you didn’t feel excluded. Her smile, a shimmering rainbow, reached from her to the observer. Nothing is more irresistible than the temptation to enter another person’s inner space. If he is someone who knows how to place his words, his silence intensifies the temptation to the utmost. You set out to obtain his words and you hope you will find them in back of his smile, where they await the visitor.
Veza’s restraint could not be overcome, for it was permeated with grief. She fed her grief incessantly; she was sensitive to every pain if it was someone else’s pain. She suffered from another person’s humiliation, as though experiencing it herself. She didn’t stop at mere sympathy: she showered the humiliated with praise and gifts.
She bore such pains long after they had been alleviated. Her grief was abysmal: it contained and preserved everything that was unjust. Her pride was very great and could easily be wounded. But she granted the same vulnerability to anyone else and imagined herself surrounded by sensitive people who needed her protection and whom she never forgot.
The Peace Dove
It is astonishing what ten days of freedom can do for you. The days from August 1 to August 10, 1925, when I was all alone, when I staked off my borders against Freud, and also justified myself against my mother’s accusations (without her finding out, so that I was satisfied—a stricter, harder, more valid satisfaction than if anyone else had also taken part in it); when I first spoke into the wind during the day and wrote those words down in the evening—this brief term of freedom, which nourished me for a lifetime, would always remain present for me, if only because I always referred to it, no matter what happened.
While I wrote down my accusation, in sentences so violent that they frighten me today, a face appeared to me, a face that I thought did not belong there, a face whose smile I had missed, which did not smile now, but spoke earnestly and steadfastly about a war that it had waged. It was Veza’s face. It spoke about her freedom. And the haggard old man, whom I had known initially only through her terrible words about him—words all the more terrible because they came unexpectedly from her lips—the haggard old man had lost the war against her. And hard as I tried to expunge his image in my astonishment, the words kept coming from Veza’s lips, strengthening me in what I was doing. During those ten days, she participated in my struggle for freedom with her own struggle for freedom. After my return, I felt driven to her, beginning a never-to-be-exhausted conversation with her, going back again and again, having this conversation in place of the older one, which had degenerated into a power struggle and was now devastated—none of this could have astonished anyone. It consternated only the one person who lost out: my mother.
In September, she was back again, in a different atmosphere. We remained together on Radetzkystrasse for two more months. The fire that had heated us was out. My blowup in July had frightened her; the doctor’s verdict had gone against her. She didn’t attack me, she didn’t tell me what to do. I didn’t criticize her, because I could talk to Veza. I made no secret of my visits to Veza and spoke quite openly, without going into detail, about her literary proclivities. Perhaps I was too open when praising her taste, her judgment, and her excellent literary background. For the moment, my words were taken with no direct reaction. However, my mother was very annoyed about the disturbance of our meals. When Johnnie Ring was driven out of his room by his need to use the bathroom, squeezing behind her chair, she made a disgusted face and wouldn’t return his greeting. On the way back, he began to stutter, embarrassed by her silence. His flatteries half stuck in his throat; she remained silent until he had closed the door to his room behind him.
But then she launched into a diatribe against Vienna, this cesspool of vice, where nothing was right anymore. People lay in bed till noon, or else they were aesthetes, only chattering about books. They went to museums and stood in front of paintings in broad daylight, shameless loafers. It all boiled down to the same thing, no one wanted to work; and then they were surprised at the unemployment when there were no men who stood in the thick of life. And if only it were merely a cesspool of sin. But Vienna had also become provincial. Nowhere in the world did anyone care what was going on in Vienna. All you had to do was say the name, and people made scoffing faces. Even Karl Kraus (whom she normally could not relate to) was cited as chief witness for the inferiority of Vienna. He knew what he was talking about, he knew it thoroughly, and the people he meant all ran to him and laughed at their own sins. Way back when, in the great days of the Burgtheater, everything had been different, Vienna had still been a city that counted. Perhaps it had been due to the Kaiser, after all. Say what you like about him, he had been a man with a sense of duty. Even at an advanced age, he sat over his documents day after day. But now? Did I know one single person here who didn’t think first and foremost about his pleasure? And a mother was supposed to raise young people to become men in such a city? It was absolutely hopeless. Now in Paris, yes, in Paris, it would be totally different!
I had the feeling that this sudden hatred of Vienna was aimed at a specific person, whom she didn’t name. I felt uneasy, although she very carefully spared me any accusations. It struck me as suspicious that she included museums in the catalogue of sins for the first time and attacked people for standing around in front of paintings. No one ever mentioned Veza without comparing her to a painting. And since the most diverse paintings were cited, a small museum had been assembled. During one of these angry attacks against Vienna, Veza’s name might suddenly spring out. What would I do then? At the very first insult against this woman, I would leave the apartment, forever.
But before things reached that pass, Mother retreated to Menton on the Riviera in early winter. From there, she wrote me pleading letters. She described her isolation among the people: they didn’t like her at the hotel, people distrusted her, women feared her gazes, especially when they sat with their husbands in the dining room. These letters impressed me, for her descriptions contained something of her old strength. There were also detailed accounts of all sorts of physical complaints. Although I had known the often fictitious nature of these complaints since Arosa, I took them no less seriously. The ultimate high point of her letters, the culmination of everything, consisted of outbursts of hatred so blind and wild, that I began to fear for Veza’s life.
For now her letters openly named Veza. She ascribed the basest motives to her, spewed the most uninhibited and disgusting things about her: Veza had recognized my weakest side, my love for books, and was shamelessly exploiting it by not talking to me about anything else. She said that Veza was a woman and had nothing to do: she could afford to lead an aesthete’s life. If Veza wasn’t sickened by it, then that was her business. But to pull in a young man preparing for the struggle of life was criminal. Veza was doing it out of sheer vanity, merely to have a new victim in her coils. For what could a laughably young creature like myself mean to a woman with her experience? I would have a terrible awakening when it was the next man’s turn. I was so innocent and naïve, said my mother, that she could only be alarmed when thinking about me. She was determined to save me. We had to get out, get out of Vienna! In this cesspool of Johnnies and Vezas—it was no coincidence that Veza was his cousin—there was no place for us.
Mother said she was planning to move to Paris with my brothers, who would go to school there and later to the university. It was plain we could no longer live together. At twenty-one, I would have to go my own way. But there were enough cities—for instance, in Germany—where the atmosphere wasn’t contaminated by aesthetes, and I could continue my studies. She no longer feared that I would drop out of chemistry: I had already endured two years of it. What she feared was Vienna, where I was sure to perish in one way or another. I should by no means imagine that Veza was the only one. Vienna had thousands like her, unscrupulous pleasure-seekers, who, to indulge their vanity, thought nothing of driving mothers and sons apart, and as soon as they got tired of the sons, they would dump them. She knew about countless cases of this sort. She had never spoken to me about these things so as not to mislead me about women. But now, it was time for me to know what the world was like—it was quite different from books.
As long as she was in Menton, until March, I replied to her letters. I knew she was all alone, and I was unsettled by her complaints about the distrust shown her on all sides. Her insulting comments about Veza, which made up half of each letter, struck me hard. I was afraid they could intensify into a physical attack, and I made a rather hopeless attempt to change her attitude. I told her about other things that were happening in Vienna, discussions with the woman working next to me in the laboratory, a Russian émigré, whom I liked very much. I told her about a dwarf who had come and, in his loud, resolute way, had dominated the entire room; about every single reading given by Karl Kraus—now, she had, after all, officially recognized him as the despiser of Vienna and could no longer turn away at the mention of his name. I made it quite clear, in every letter, that I was determined to remain in Vienna. I repelled her attacks against Veza and made an effort not to take them too seriously. A few times, not too often, I wrote indignant letters, as the deeply offended person that I actually was throughout this period. She would then relent and bridle her hatred for perhaps a week. But after two letters, she started in again, and I was no further than before.
Her condition worried me, but I was a lot more concerned about Veza. I knew how sensitive she was: she felt responsible for everything going on around her and for many other things, too. Were she to learn even a smidgen of what my mother felt and wrote about her, she would break with me and refuse to see me again under any circumstances. As long as I didn’t breathe a word of it, everything went well. Every week, a letter from Menton upset me. I made sure not to see Veza on those days, so she wouldn’t notice anything.
We had given up the apartment at the beginning of the year; my brothers moved in with a family, I rented a room. In March, Mother went to Paris, where close relatives and many good friends of hers were living. She looked around and then scheduled the move for summer. She announced she would arrive in Vienna at the end of May. She planned to stay one month in order to take care of everything. After six months, it was time we finally had a talk.
I was scared upon learning of this imminent arrival. Things were getting serious. I had to protect Veza from my mother at any cost; they were not to meet on any account. Nor was Veza to find out about my mother’s hatred, which would have upset her and changed everything between us. I couldn’t tell how I’d act toward my mother until she arrived. She wanted to stay in a rooming house near the Opera, not in Leopoldstadt, where Veza lived; so a chance encounter of the two women was not to be feared. I had time to prepare Veza. She was not to find out any more than was absolutely necessary, just enough to go along with my wish that she avoid my mother, that was all.
Thus, I owned up to Veza that Mother would like it if I left Vienna. She had been told it was better for me to transfer to one of the large German universities, study with a world-famous chemist, and try to have him as my doctoral advisor. Vienna didn’t have such a high-ranking man at this time. My later career as a chemist was largely dependent on my dissertation. This didn’t mean, Mother said, that I couldn’t come back to Vienna later on; no one could tell anything about the future. Now Mother had, of course, noticed there was something keeping me in Vienna. I had written her that I didn’t want to leave Vienna under any circumstances. She was now coming, determined to make a last-ditch attempt, and would do everything in her power to change my mind. She wouldn’t succeed. I was totally indifferent to chemistry; I had no intention of becoming a chemist. Veza knew best what I wanted to be and what I intended to do, come what may.
Then, why was I so nervous, she asked. If I didn’t want to leave, nobody could force me.
“That’s not it,” I said. “You don’t know Mother. If she wants something, she’ll do anything to get her way. She’ll visit you and talk to you about it. She’ll convince you it would be best for me if I left Vienna. She’ll manage to talk you into getting me to leave. I could never forgive you for that. She’ll drive us apart. I’m horribly scared that you’re going to talk to her.”
“Never. Never. Never. She’ll never succeed!”
“But I am scared, and when she’s here, I won’t have a moment of peace. I just tremble at the thought of her coming. You’ve got the highest opinion of her intellectual gifts, her will power. You have no idea of what she can do. Neither do I. It comes to her on the spur of the moment, and suddenly you see how right she is, and you promise her anything and then—what’s to become of us?”
“I won’t see her. I promise. I swear it. Nothing can happen. Will that put your mind at ease?”
“Yes, yes, it will. But only then.”
I told her not to accept a single call or letter from her; she had to avoid her, cleverly and warily. Mother would be living in the First Bezirk, anyhow. She wouldn’t be hard to avoid. But if, contrary to our expectations, a letter did come to her from Mother, then Veza absolutely had to hand it over to me unopened. I became hopeful when I saw how quickly she believed me. She would not only hand me any letter of Mother’s unopened, but, if I so wished, she wouldn’t read it after me and never answer it.
Mother came. And in the very first conversation, I realized that she too was eager to avoid any confrontation. She wanted to maintain her image of the “enemy” repulsively intact. She felt her image would dissolve without a trace once she saw Veza in the flesh. From my letters, which she had reread one after the other in Paris, she concluded that I would not leave Vienna right away under any circumstances. She believed that I cared even more about Karl Kraus than about Veza. In Menton, where she had felt excluded because she didn’t know anyone, she had taken it for granted that I saw Veza every day. In Paris, where she had her relatives and her many friends, she was no longer so certain. Her distrust had ramified, becoming more subtle: she read all sorts of things between the lines of my letters, things she had never noticed before. I had written to her about my neighbor in the laboratory, the one who reminded me of Dostoevsky. I had said it was sheer delight talking with her about him. I even liked going to the laboratory because of her. Now Mother was struck by the words “sheer delight,” which she hadn’t at all heeded when she’d gotten the letter in Menton. She thought of my standing in the laboratory all day long. During the tedious procedures that were part of quantitative analysis, there was endless time for talking.
“Do you ever see Eva,” she now asked, “your Russian girl in the laboratory?”
“Yes, of course. We nearly always eat together. You know, once we start talking about Ivan Karamazov, whom she hates, we just can’t stop. We go and eat together at Regina’s and keep talking about him, then back down Währingerstrasse to the Institute, and we never stop talking for an instant, and then we stand in front of our flasks, and what do you think we talk about then?”
“Ivan Karamazov! That’s just like you people! Naturally, she’s all for Alyosha! I’ve begun to understand Ivan. For the past few years, I’ve come to consider him the most interesting of the brothers.”
She was so happy about the existence of my colleague that she began to converse about literary characters, just like old times. She remembered my jaundice on Radetzkystrasse, over a year ago. It was the only part of that period that I looked back on fondly. I had been in bed for several weeks and read through all of Dostoevsky, all the red volumes, from start to finish.
“You ought to be grateful for your jaundice,” she said, “otherwise you couldn’t pass muster now with your Eva.” The “your” gave me a jolt. It was as if she had placed her in my arms with her own two hands. (I really did like Eva; this had led to conflicts in me.) But, in a sudden fit of cunning, I let it pass. For I sensed how sharply Mother was observing me. I even said:
