The Play of the Eyes, page 23
I took H. there, he enjoyed nightclubs after a hard day’s work. The place was packed, not a table to be had. Marion caught sight of me; she broke off her song before the last verse, welcomed me effusively and led us to a table. “These are good friends of mine, they’ll put you at your ease. I’ll introduce you.” Two chairs were produced from somewhere and we squeezed ourselves in. H., usually so high and mighty, had no objection; to my surprise he didn’t seem to mind sharing a table with strangers. He liked Marion, but he liked the table even more. Marion introduced H. and me. And then in her warmest Hungarian manner: “This is my friend Irma Benedikt, with her daughter and son-in-law.”
“We’ve known you for ages,” said the lady, “from seeing you pass our house. You always look the other way, like your Professor Kien. My daughter is only nineteen but she has already read your book. Perhaps a little young for it, but she’s been talking about it day and night. She tyrannizes us with your characters, she imitates them. She calls me Therese. She says that’s the worst thing she could possibly say to me.”
The woman seemed open and unassuming, almost childlike at, I should guess, forty-five, neither snobbish nor decadent, the opposite of everything the name of Benedikt had stood for in my imagination. I was rather alarmed at the thought that the characters of Auto-da-Fé practically lived in her house, as she put it. I had looked the other way to avoid all contact with its inhabitants, who, I was convinced, gave off some sort of infection, and now it turned out that Kien and Therese, who were a lot less sociable than I, seemed to feel at home there. The son-in-law, a big clod not much younger than the mother, didn’t say a word, his features were as smooth and well groomed as the suit he was wearing, he didn’t once open his mouth, and he seemed put out about something. Though it didn’t dawn on me for quite some time, the nineteen-year-old daughter who had read Auto-da-Fé too soon was his wife, but wished she weren’t, for she sat with her back turned to him and didn’t address a single word to him. They seemed to have quarreled and now they were carrying on their quarrel in silence.
There was a brightness about her; she tried to say something and her eyes became brighter and brighter. She made several tries, and as not a word came out, I looked at her longer and perhaps more intensely than usual. Thus it could not escape me that she had green eyes. They did not captivate me, for I was still under the sway of Anna’s orbs.
“She’s not usually so quiet,” said Frau Irma, her mother, while the wooden son-in-law nodded from the waist up. “She’s afraid of you. Say something to her, her name is Friedl. That will break the spell.”
“I’m not the sinologist,” I said. “There’s really no need to be afraid of me.”
“And I’m not Therese,” she said. “I’d like to be your pupil. I want to learn to write.”
“It can’t be learned. Have you written anything?”
“She does nothing else,” said her mother. “She’s run away from her husband in Pressburg [Bratislava] and come home to us in Grinzing. She has nothing against her husband but she doesn’t want to keep house, she wants to write. Now he’s here to take her back. She says she won’t go.”
The mother brought out these indiscretions in all innocence; she sounded almost like a child speaking of an older sister. As though to confirm the intention imputed to him, the clod put his hand on Friedl’s shoulder.
“Take your hand away,” she snapped. While issuing this brief command she looked in his direction. Then she turned to me, beaming—or so it seemed—and said: “He can’t arrest me. He can’t do a thing to me. Am I right?”
This marriage was over before it had begun, and what had happened seemed so irrevocable that I felt no embarrassment. I didn’t even feel sorry for the clod. How quickly he had removed his hand. This creature radiant with expectation wasn’t for him, she was a good twenty years younger. Why had she married him?
“She wanted to get away from home,” said Frau Irma, “and now she never stirs out of the house. But that’s because of our illustrious neighbor.”
It was meant in jest, but it sounded serious, so serious that H. had enough. He was used to being the center of attraction, and now someone had usurped his role. He called attention to himself in his brutal way by coming to the forlorn husband’s assistance.
“Have you ever thought of giving her a good thrashing?” he asked. “That’s what she wants.”
But this was too much even for the luckless husband, and in a disagreement between men he could take care of himself. “What do you know about it?” he rasped. “You don’t know Friedl. Friedl is special.”
With that he suddenly had everyone on his side and H.’s attempt to get attention had failed. But Frau Irma, who had entertained any number of musicians as well as artists in her house, knew what was proper. She turned to the conductor and said apologetically that she had not been to any of his concerts, because her poor head simply couldn’t follow modern music.
“That can be learned,” said H. encouragingly. “You just have to begin.” Whereupon Friedl nonchalantly turned the conversation away from him.
“I’m interested in learning to write. Will you take me as a pupil?”
She was back where she had started. I had to give her the same answer a little more fully. I told her I had no pupils and didn’t think writing could be learned. Had she tried anyone else?
“No living writer,” she said. “I’d like to learn from a living writer.”
What was her favorite reading?
“Dostoevsky,” she said without a moment’s hesitation. “He was my first teacher.”
“You couldn’t very well show him your work.”
“No, I couldn’t. Anyway, it wouldn’t have done any good.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s exactly like what he writes. He wouldn’t have noticed that it’s not by him. He would have thought I’d copied it somewhere.”
“You don’t think much of yourself, do you?”
“I couldn’t think less of myself. With you that wouldn’t happen. No one could copy from you. No one can write as angrily as you.”
“Is that what you like about my writing?”
“Yes, I like Therese. That’s what all women are like.”
“Are you a woman hater? I’m nothing of the kind, you know.”
“I’m a housewife hater, that’s what I am.”
“She’s thinking of me,” said her mother, and again her tone was so charmingly simple that she almost won my heart, even if she was married to a Benedikt.
“She can’t possibly be thinking of you, gnädige Frau.”
“Oh yes, I am,” said Friedl. “It’s deceptive. Wait till you hear her talking to the chauffeur. She’ll sound entirely different.”
H. got up to go. He saw no reason to spend the night in a bar listening to family squabbles. But it was rather embarrassing, although I was pleased in a way by the young creature’s extravagant devotion to me in the presence of witnesses. No one had ever set such high hopes on me, an author whose book expressed nothing but horror.
I was glad to be going. Frau Irma asked me to come and see her; after all, we were neighbors. Friedl said something about Himmelstrasse, she seemed distressed that we were leaving and apparently placed her hopes in Himmelstrasse, the street that went down to the streetcar. That was the only word I understood in her last sentence. The clod neither stood up nor said goodbye. He had a right to be rude, because H. didn’t offer to shake hands with anyone.
Outside he said to me: “Cute chick. And already so screwy. A pretty mess you’ve got yourself into, C.” But he hadn’t finished with me yet. Before we separated he said: “Four sisters, I hear. You can expect the worst. All you need to do is write something nasty enough and you’ll have four sisters on your neck.” I’d never had so much sympathy from him. Himmelstrasse was beginning to interest him and he made a note of our new half-empty apartment.
The Exorcism
It was amazing how often I ran into Friedl from then on. I’d take my seat in the empty No. 38 streetcar, look up, and there she’d be sitting across the aisle from me. She always rode as far as Schottentor, just as I did. I went to the Schottentor Café. When I entered, she was already there, sitting at a table with friends. She greeted me, but stayed with her friends and didn’t disturb me. On the way back, she was already in the car, this time in a corner, a little farther from me, but not so far that I wasn’t exposed to her glances. I buried myself in a book and paid no attention to her. But when I started up the hill in Grinzing, she was suddenly by my side. She greeted me and hurried past. Up until then I had received little attention from women, and from young girls none at all, so I thought nothing of these frequent encounters. But all of a sudden Himmelstrasse seemed infested with her and her sisters. One of these had the gall to introduce herself with the words: “I beg your pardon, I’m Friedl Benedikt’s sister.” “Oh!” I said, without raising my eyes until she had passed. But usually it was Friedl herself who turned up. She came running, she was always in a hurry. The sound of her light footfalls became familiar to me. Not once did I get to the streetcar stop without her overtaking me and passing me by. Her greeting was not obtrusive, but there was always a note of supplication in it, which I noticed without admitting it to myself. If she hadn’t been so unassuming, I’d have been angry, for it happened just too often, two or three times a day, and seldom did a day pass when she didn’t come running past me or toward me or take the same car.
I was always deep in thought, but she didn’t often disturb me. I didn’t mind her running through my thoughts, because she didn’t stop running or take up too much room.
And then one day she rang up. Veza, who had been expecting her to call, picked up the phone. Could she speak to me? Veza thought it wisest to ask her to tea, without even consulting me. “Come and have tea with me,” she said. “C. never knows in advance whether he’ll be busy or not. Just come and see me and maybe he’ll have time for us.” I was rather annoyed at being presented with a fait accompli. But Veza convinced me that it was all for the best. “You can’t go on living in this state of siege. Something must be done. And there’s nothing you can do until we get to know her a little. Maybe it’s just a crush. But maybe she really wants to write and thinks you can help her.”
So I went and joined them while they were drinking tea in Veza’s small, paneled room. I had barely sat down when Friedl spilled her whole cup of tea on the table and floor. In that rather dainty room it seemed most ill-bred, as though she weren’t even capable of holding a teacup properly. Instead of apologizing, she said: “No breakage. I’m so excited that you’ve come.” “It’s nothing to get excited about,” said Veza. “He always comes to tea. He likes this room. It’s just that one can’t make appointments for him.” “It must be wonderful,” Friedl said to her with no sign of embarrassment, as if I weren’t there, “to be able to talk to him.” “Don’t you talk at home?” “Oh yes. They never stop. But what they say doesn’t interest me. My parents are always giving receptions. Nothing but famous people. If you’re not famous, you don’t get invited. Don’t you think famous people are boring?”
It soon became clear that she wasn’t at all as I had imagined a daughter of that house. She didn’t regard her father as a father, she paid so little attention to him that she wasn’t even rebellious. He seemed to have opinions on everything under the sun; he spread himself too thin, if I understood her right, so that nothing had weight for him. He jumped from one thing to another and thought he was impressing people, but he only seemed silly. He was good-natured, he was fond of his children, but they didn’t interest him. He didn’t want to be bothered with them and left them entirely to their mother. They did as they pleased, and attended the constant dinner parties only singly and not very often. What Friedl had to say of her home was frank and vivid, but her language was so primitive one would never have imagined that she wanted to write, let alone that she had ever written anything.
She took some papers out of her handbag. Would I care to read something of hers? It was very bad, she knew that, and if I thought it was pointless for her to write, she would give it up. She never showed her father anything, he talked everything to death, and when he was done you knew less than before. He didn’t know anything about people. Anyone could talk him into anything and they all cheated him. She wanted awfully to study writing with me.
It appealed to me that she felt repelled by the flabbiness of her home. It was also plain that she was pursuing me for the sake of her writing and for no other reason. Veza thought so too. I took Friedl’s papers and began to read. “You won’t take me as a pupil,” she said rather despondently. “It’s not good enough. But tell me at least if I should give it up or if there’s any point in my going on with it.”
This obsession with writing as well as her desire to hear the truth from me must have appealed to me, though I wouldn’t have admitted it. For I went straight to my room and read her pages. I couldn’t believe my eyes: she had copied fifty whole pages of Dostoevsky and represented them as her own work. The story was exciting in a way, but rather empty; I had never seen it; it must have been a discarded draft.
I hated having to see her again and tell her. If only for Dostoevsky’s sake, I couldn’t just let it go at that. What annoyed me most was her lack of respect for him. But I was also vexed that she should think I wouldn’t notice. It was obvious; no one who had ever read a single book by Dostoevsky could fail to notice; you didn’t have to be a writer or a professor. I told her just that when she stood before me on the landing two days later. I was so annoyed that I wasn’t going to ask her into my room.
“Is it very bad?” she asked.
“It’s neither bad nor good,” I said. “It’s Dostoevsky. Where did you get hold of it?”
“I wrote it myself.”
“Copied it, you mean. Which of his books did you take it from? After the first paragraph one knows who wrote it. But I’ve never read the book you took it from.”
“It’s not from any book. I wrote it myself.”
She stuck obstinately to her story and I got angry. I harangued her and she listened. She seemed to enjoy it. Instead of confessing, she kept right on denying; she made me so furious that I lost self-control and began to shout. She wanted to write? What did she think writing was? Did she really think it began with stealing? What’s more, so clumsily that any idiot would notice. And quite aside from the disrespect she was showing a great author, what was the sense of it? Everybody learns to read and write. Could it be the influence of journalism that she’d absorbed since childhood from the Neue Freie Presse?
She was radiant, she was savoring every word. “Oh,” she cried out, “how wonderful it is when you shout! Do you often shout like that?” “No,” I said. “Never. And I won’t say another word to you until you tell me where you got that from.”
Luckily Veza came in just then; she saw me looking apoplectic on the landing, and she saw Friedl waiting happily for more words of rage. I don’t know what would have happened next without Veza’s intercession. As she told me later on, she suspected that I was accusing the girl unjustly, though she couldn’t make out why Friedl seemed so happy about it. She took Friedl into her paneled room. To me she said: “I’ll clear this up. Calm yourself. Go out for an hour and come back.”
I took her advice. It turned out that the fifty controversial pages had really been written by Friedl; they had not been copied. Not for nothing had they struck me as empty. Not for nothing had I been unable to say which of Dostoevsky’s books they came from. They came from none. Friedl had devoured all Dostoevsky and could write nothing else. She wrote like Dostoevsky but she had nothing to say. What could she have had to say at the age of nineteen? In a state of incredible emptiness she turned out page after page; her output looked like Dostoevsky but was not a parody. She was possessed in a way known to us from the stories of hysterical nuns. I had recently read the story of Urbain Grandier and the nuns of Loudun. Just as they were possessed by Urbain Grandier, so Friedl was possessed by Dostoevsky, no less a devil and no less complicated than Grandier.
“You’ll have to play the exorcist,” said Veza. “You’ll have to cast out Dostoevsky. Luckily he’s dead, so he can’t be burned at the stake. And all four sisters aren’t possessed with him, only one, the others aren’t interested. Even so, it won’t be easy.”
From then on Veza, who was sufficiently independent-minded to defend herself against any influence that ran counter to her inclinations or judgment, took the girl in hand. She thought her gifted, though in an unusual way. Whether she would ever do anything worth mentioning, Veza thought, would depend on whose influence she came under. The girl was making a desperate effort not to resemble her father, not to be a cultural potpourri or a social center; she was in constant motion, a bundle of human contradictions, and could be influenced only by the one person to whom, thanks to some inexplicable whim, she felt drawn. Since Auto-da-Fé had come her way, this person was me. Did I think it right to disavow the influence of my own book? “You like to take walks. Take her with you now and then. She’s light and gay, the opposite of what she writes. She gets comical ideas. I think she has a gift for the grotesque. Make her tell you about the dinner parties at home. They’re very different from what Die Fackel would lead one to think. They’re more like Gogol.”
“Impossible,” I said, but Veza knew my weakness. The idea that this charming, cheerful creature had grown up in a Gogol-like atmosphere and was now possessed by Dostoevsky, who “like all of us was descended from The Overcoat,” struck me as a highly original version of a well-known literary phenomenon. Just that, I thought, might give me a chance to free her from her “devil.” Veza had thought up a gratifying role for me; there was nothing I would not have undertaken for the greater glory of Gogol. I also felt that in her tactful way Veza was making her peace with Auto-da-Fé, for it, too, “like all of us was descended from The Overcoat.” To my relief, she was no longer quite so worried about the fate of the book. She recognized the book’s effect on Friedl, took it seriously and asked me to help.
