The Play of the Eyes, page 25
She added that, knowing nothing about music, she could not report the conversation in detail. Why wouldn’t I come and listen for myself? Her mother would be so glad to invite me, but she didn’t dare. I seemed so standoffish; they all thought I was like Kien in my novel, a grumpy misogynist. “I’m always telling her what amusing things you say. But my mother says: ‘He despises us. I can’t understand why he goes walking with you.’”
After various attempts Friedl finally inveigled me into accepting an invitation. Of the three leading lights of the Viennese décadence at the turn of the century—Schnitzler, Hofmannsthal and Beer-Hofmann—only the last was still alive. Having written very little, he passed as the most exclusive. For decades he had been working on one play. It seems he was never satisfied with it and no one could persuade him to finish it. In Vienna in those days there was something puzzling about such parsimony. One wondered how with so little work to show he had come by his lofty reputation. I imagined that he avoided all “noxious” company and associated only with his equals. What did he do now that the two others were dead? And then I heard from Friedl that he was a frequent guest in her house, a corpulent, sociable old man with a beautiful wife who was about twenty years younger than he and seemed even younger than that. This sounded tempting, but what overcame all my resistance was the latest coup. Emil Ludwig, the success story of the day, who wrote a whole book in three or four weeks and boasted about it, had announced his intention of visiting the Benedikts in order to make the acquaintance of the revered Richard Beer-Hofmann. Everyone, said Friedl, was looking forward to this confrontation, it was sure to be great fun and I really mustn’t miss it. She had persuaded her mother to invite me, I could expect her phone call that same day. My curiosity was aroused, I thanked her and accepted.
Instead of the maid, it was Friedl who opened the door; she had seen me from the window. As though addressing a fellow conspirator, she said: “They’ve both come. They’re already here!” In the drawing room her father welcomed me in a few effusively flattering words, relevant to nothing in particular. He hadn’t read my book yet, it had been going the rounds—the young ladies, his wife—just today he had finally wrested it away from them. There it was—he pointed at the table—and this time he would hold on to it; he would start reading it this very afternoon, he was fortifying himself by conversing with the author before embarking on this perilous adventure; he had heard that my book was exciting but wicked—one wouldn’t suppose that from a glance at the author. I was rather taken aback by his apparent inoffensiveness, and he felt the same way about me. After what he had heard about Auto-da-Fé, he expected a poète maudit.
He took me over to Beer-Hofmann, the most distinguished of his guests, the man who wrote no more than two lines a year. The portly old gentleman kept his seat and said ponderously: “Young man, I shall not stand up, I’m sure you don’t expect me to?” I uttered a few syllables of acquiescence, such as he no doubt expected, and already I was being led to a weedy, explosive little man. He took no notice of my hand, so I didn’t have to hold it out to him, and a moment later I could hear him overwhelming Beer-Hofmann with foaming admiration. This was Emil Ludwig, protesting how long—since his infancy?—he had admired Beer-Hofmann. The word “master” emerged several times from the flood, also “perfection,” even “finish”—a rather tactless word to a man who claimed to require decades for a play of average length. Beer-Hofmann wagged his head thoughtfully, he was definitely listening, he didn’t miss a word, he seemed exceedingly self-assured, and who would not have felt secure in the presence of this promiscuous interviewer, this most prolific and best-selling of writers—as self-assured as a heavy-weight confronted by a featherweight—but the corpulent old gentleman cannot have felt really at ease, for the contrast between his dignified verbal constipation and the weedy little man’s published logorrhea was too glaring—after all, other people were listening. He finally interrupted the sycophantic whining and said regretfully but firmly: “It’s too little.”
He had written so little that he had to say that, and who could have answered him? There were perhaps a dozen persons in the room and all held their breath. But even to that Emil Ludwig had an answer, this time a single sentence: “Would Shakespeare have been less Shakespeare if he had only written Hamlet?”
This bit of effrontery left everyone speechless. Beer-Hofmann stopped wagging his head. To this day I cherish the hope that Beer-Hofmann, for all his self-assurance, did not give himself credit for a Hamlet.
During luncheon, which soon followed, Emil Ludwig, after so much self-effacement, turned his attention to Number One; he praised his fertility, his fluency, his far-flung experience, his highly placed friends and admirers all over the world. He knew everyone from Goethe to Mussolini. Stirringly he contrasted Goethe’s—as he put it—simple dwelling in Weimar with the enormous reception hall of the Palazzo Venezia in Rome. Traversing the breadth of the hall, which he likened to an imperial continent, he had come tripping up to Mussolini, who was resolutely waiting for him behind his vast desk at the far end of the room. Mussolini knew who was approaching. When after his long march Ludwig finally reached the desk (which was probably the biggest desk in the world, bigger than his own in Ascona), he was welcomed with flattering words, which his modesty forbade him to repeat. Instinctively recognizing Ludwig’s importance, Mussolini had favored him with several long interviews, which were published in all the world’s leading newspapers and, it goes without saying, in book form. But that was in the past. Since then seven or eight new books had appeared, the most recent being The Nile. But Ludwig didn’t stop at that, he burbled on, sometimes in rather veiled terms, about his next three or four projects. And after that? No, he had no more to say, after all he was not the only guest of honor. “And our healthy self-esteem—only scoundrels are modest—has not made us forget the man at this festive board who stands for the priceless Young Vienna group of the turn of the century, the sole surviving representative of an undying tradition, and the greatest.”
This was pretty steep, but it was the opinion of this assembly, and possibly what Beer-Hofmann thought of himself. For otherwise he would have found it hard to justify his withdrawal from the world. Later on I was more than once to hear him intimating that Hofmannsthal had too often given in to the seductions of the world; he regarded Hofmannsthal’s whole connection with Salzburg, his libretti, his interest in opera, as an aberration. In his heart of hearts he must have loathed Emil Ludwig, as did all those sitting at the table with the exception of the host—but it cannot have left him unmoved to be proclaimed the greatest of the Young Vienna three.
It did not take Ludwig long to get back to himself. He owed it to Vienna to show himself at the opera, and he had reserved a box for that same evening; but he did not wish to go alone, he wished to be accompanied by the most beautiful of the four daughters of the house. Friedl sat across the table from him, listening to him with apparent interest. She didn’t interrupt him, she didn’t once laugh; he felt admired by her, and indeed it was she who by her deceptive attentiveness encouraged him to go on with his endless effusions about himself. And so he asked her to attend the opera with him. She was well aware of my dislike for the man. I am sure she asked herself whether it would impair her standing with me if she accepted. Her instinct no doubt told her that her standing could not be very high, since she was the daughter of an accursed house. And she relied on the ridiculous behavior that was to be expected of Ludwig at the opera and on the lively report she would entertain me with. She accepted Ludwig’s invitation and told me all about it on our next walk.
Ludwig had kept jumping up in his box to make himself visible to as many people as possible. He had serenaded Friedl with arias, humming them at first, but then singing louder and louder. The occupants of the neighboring boxes were furious, but that’s just what he had been counting on. He heeded no protests, he seemed in a trance, captivated by his young companion. The rest of the audience had started looking at the box instead of the stage. When at length someone went out and asked the attendant to do something about the objectionable noises, he discovered the identity of this little man who kept jumping up, leaning over the front of his box, singing and gesticulating. Why, it was Emil Ludwig in person! The news spread like wildfire and when it was certain that the whole house knew, the noises suddenly stopped. I forget what the opera was, but Friedl told me that when it was over he bowed instead of clapping and took the applause for himself. It was only after she remarked on the impropriety of his behavior that he had morosely clapped once or twice.
“I am looking for my peers”
On my second visit to the Benedikts’ something happened which transformed this erstwhile abode of the Devil into an Oriental theater. I had climbed the outside steps and rung the bell when I heard hurried, slightly stumbling steps behind me; surprised, because such steps could hardly belong to an adult guest, I turned around. Who should be standing there before me but the breathless “Japanese girl,” as I called her in my thoughts, the girl whom I had been seeing on Himmelstrasse for months, with the open coat, the strand of black hair over her face, in violent mimetic motion, as in one of Sharaku’s portraits of actors or in a Kabuki play. Another guest? This young girl? I was so overcome at the thought that I forgot to bid her good day. She nodded but said nothing. Friedl opened the door as she had the first time and laughed when she saw us standing side by side on the doormat. “Oh, Susi,” she said. “Susi, this is Herr C. This is my youngest sister, Susi.”
I had good reason for embarrassment, but she too felt awkward. Though I meant nothing to her, she was well aware that we had been seeing each other day after day on Himmelstrasse. She wasn’t a guest, she had come from school and was late as usual; hence her breathless haste. When a moment later she vanished up the stairs, Friedl said in surprise: “So you’ve seen Susi often. You never told me.”
“I didn’t know who it was. You said your youngest sister was fourteen.”
“She is. But she looks eighteen.”
“I thought she was Japanese.”
“She does look exotic. No one knows how she got into our family.”
Then I entered the drawing room. But for a while I felt rather uncomfortable. It had finally dawned on me that I had sought these meetings on Himmelstrasse; I had always gone down at the same time and made sure not to miss her as she came out of Strassergasse. A fourteen-year-old schoolgirl on her way home from school. Her breathlessness, her excitement, which had communicated themselves to me, had meant nothing: just a schoolgirl afraid of being late for lunch. True, the Japanese actors, whom I had not forgotten, contributed to this impression, as had my love for Sharaku’s woodcuts. But why did she look like an actor in one of those woodcuts? She was fascinatingly foreign-looking, and Friedl, who embodied the lightness and exuberance of Vienna, couldn’t bear comparison with her inexplicable beauty. I felt this so strongly that I never mentioned it; none of the sisters ever found out that from then on it was the thought of this youngest sister and her secret that attracted me more and more to the house.
I asked Friedl whether she could hear several things at once; if, for example, she was sitting in a crowded café and people were talking, arguing and singing all around her. She said she didn’t see how it was possible to listen to more than one thing at a time without missing something. I explained that if you had one, two, three or four voices ringing in your ears, the interplay among them produced the most surprising effects. The voices paid no attention to one another; each started off in its own way and proceeded undeviatingly like clockwork, but when you took them in all together, the strangest thing happened; it was as though you had a special key, which opened up an overall effect unknown to the voices themselves.
I promised to give her a demonstration; she would just have to try it a few times, at first she would listen through my ears as it were, and after a while she would be able to do it by herself, it would become an indispensable habit.
Late one night I took her to a café on Kobenzlgasse, where people went after the Heurigen had closed and the last No. 38 streetcar had left Grinzing. The crowd was more mixed than at the Heurigen. The first to arrive were those for whom midnight had come too soon and who wanted to round out their evening. Then came locals who had been serving wine until then and who now after work wanted to relax in a different, but not foreign, atmosphere. These set the tone; the Heurigen clientele were no longer in the majority, they no longer received special attention. Little by little, as the night advanced, they ceased to be active participants and became mere onlookers. The Heurigen singers, to whose songs they had drunk and in which they had joined, gave way to genuine Grinzingers, figures more original and more striking than anything one was likely to find in the best of the Heurigen. Here more could happen in an hour than elsewhere in a whole evening.
It was fairly late when we got there. I had wanted Friedl to get the full effect of many discordant voices while her expectation was still at its height. The café was packed, smoke and noise hit us full in the face as we entered. There wasn’t a seat available, but when they saw Friedl, whose entrance was like a breath of fresh air—she leapt into the tumult like a cat, her eyes sparkled—the people somehow made room and forced seats on us instead of our having to fight for them. “I don’t understand a thing,” said Friedl. “I hear it all but I don’t understand a word.” “Hearing is half the battle,” I said. “Soon something will happen that will straighten everything out.”
I was counting on the arrival of a man whom I had seen and heard a few times. Thus far he had always come on Saturdays and then I had thought about him all week. Sure enough, the door soon opened, admitting a gaunt, rather tall figure with a dark birdlike head and piercing eyes. With a hopping step he made his way to the middle of the room, not actually pushing but clearing a path for himself with his elbows. Then, raising his hands in supplication, he began to whirl about and to chant the words: “I am looking for my peers. I am looking for my peers.” The “my” had a lofty ring like a potentate’s “I” or “we.” His hands clutched someone who was not there, a “peer” no doubt. Over and over again he whirled, letting no one approach his hands, chanting all the while: “I am looking for my peers”—the mournful, insistent cry of a long-legged bird.
“Why, that’s Leimer,” said Friedl. She knew him, but how had she recognized him? She knew him by day, she had never seen him at night when he went among men with his majestic plaint. His days were spent at the Grinzing swimming pool, which belonged to him and his brothers and sisters. He would guide customers to their cabins or sit at the cashier’s desk. Sometimes, when he was in the mood, he gave swimming lessons. He could afford his moods, because the pool was a popular attraction, often so full that customers had to be turned away. People came from all over Vienna to the Grinzing swimming pool; the Leimers were believed to be one of the richest families in Grinzing if not the richest. They owed their prosperity to their energetic mother, who toward the end of the past century—when she was still young and beautiful—had stationed herself in the path of the Emperor Francis Joseph’s carriage and tossed a petition through the window, in which the Leimer family requested permission to draw the water needed for the installation of a swimming pool. The aqueduct carrying the finest mountain water to Vienna had just been built, and the enterprising woman had struck while the iron was hot. The emperor had granted her petition, and thanks to his favor the Grinzing swimming pool and the Leimer family had flourished.
This was generally known, for everyone went to the swimming pool. What was not known to the daytime public was the way in which the emperor’s favor had affected one member of the family in this emperorless period. “I am looking for my peers!” Thus written out, this monarchistic plaint may sound ridiculous. It did not sound ridiculous when accompanied by the movements of this man who chanted it late at night, always slowly and always drawing out the syllables to maximum length.
Full of longing for his peers, he circled between the tables and around the narrow middle area; he spoke to no one, no one spoke to him, not for the world would he have interrupted his chant. No one made fun of him. No one tried to divert him from his search. All had witnessed his act before and despite his seriousness it didn’t seem to bother anyone. As lord of so much water, he was a respected figure, but his dance introduced a somber note into the café. He made his way to the door and his chant died down. He was gone, but the chant still echoed in one’s ears.
Then a winegrower sitting beside me said: “The Frenchman’s coming.” Another, across from him, took up the words and repeated them with enthusiasm. This was something new to me, something I didn’t understand and couldn’t explain to my companion. People at the other tables also seemed to be expecting “the Frenchman.” I knew of no Frenchman in Grinzing, but the locals all seemed to know what they meant, in their mouths the word suggested one of the seasons. When Friedl had heard the cry a few times—“The Frenchman’s coming! The Frenchman’s coming!”—she was so excited by its air of expectancy that she turned to the jolly drunk beside her—though she hardly wanted to encourage him, as she was having to ward off his attentions—and asked: “When is this Frenchman coming?” and he replied: “He’s coming, he’s coming. He’s coming right now.”
A moment later a blond giant appeared; he seemed to be a head taller than anyone else in the bar. A young woman clung fast to him and a whole retinue followed. “The Frenchman’s here! The Frenchman’s here!” That was the Frenchman, but his whole retinue consisted of locals. The woman was another Leimer, the sister of the man who had been looking for his peers. The giant led his retinue in, it was amazing how many people poured into the place that was already full. They all sat down at a long table; the people who had been there before had evacuated it and squeezed their way into seats at other tables. The Leimer sister was still beside the Frenchman, still clinging to him, but now it was clear that she was holding him back from something that hadn’t happened yet and that she didn’t want to happen. I now learned that she was his wife, that she had married him in France. She came home to Grinzing once a year and brought her Frenchman with her. He was a sailor on a submarine, though no one knew for sure whether this was still the case or whether it had been in the last war. I was puzzled and looked at him in amazement: such a big man in a submarine; I had always thought they picked little fellows.
