The Play of the Eyes, page 26
Everyone spoke to him. He understood no German and the people at his table seemed to take no interest in anyone else. They didn’t talk to one another, they talked only to him. They kept asking him questions he couldn’t answer, they shouted at him to make him understand, it didn’t help. He remained totally mute, he didn’t even say anything in his own language, I’d never seen such a big silent Frenchman. The less he said, the more they shouted at him. People at other tables tried to goad him into saying something. At first his wife, who was acting as his interpreter—that was why she was clinging so close to him—pulled herself up to his level and attempted a few lip movements. But she soon gave up. It was hopeless; maybe her French wasn’t good enough, but even if she had known it as well as her mother tongue, she couldn’t have made any headway against that barrage of shouts. She clung tighter and tighter to his arm. The jumbled shouts rose to a roar. From all sides people were bellowing at the Frenchman. Even at our table the noise was deafening.
I could see him well and I kept my eyes glued to him. I was almost going to shout something at him in his own language, but the excitement had risen to such a pitch that my intervention couldn’t have done much good. Suddenly he jumped up and roared: “Je suis français!” With a sweep of his arms he pushed aside all the people near him, took a gigantic leap that carried him over the table and landed on a pile of bodies. Assailed on all sides, he went on bellowing: “Français! Français!” With incredible strength he plowed through the heap, an amazing feat even for a man of his size. People had fastened on to him in clusters; clearing a way to the door, he dragged them with him. He had lost his wife, she was far behind with the retinue. She was doing her best to push through the hostile crowd that had fastened on to his arms and legs and refused to let him go. When he had fought clear, she managed to follow, but I couldn’t see what happened in the street. Some returning eyewitnesses reported that his wife was taking him home. As a brother-in-law, he belonged to the swimming pool; no one seemed to question that.
Afterwards in the café no one spoke of anything else. Evidently the Frenchman came every year. The locals always knew he was coming, they were waiting for him and every year it ended the same way. I asked some of them why the Frenchman had suddenly jumped up like that. He did it every time; that was all they knew. At first he always sat there as silent as a carp. Did he understand what people were shouting at him? No, not a word. Why did they keep trying? That was part of the fun. Did he always bellow the same thing? Yes, always “Je suis français!” They tried to imitate his pronunciation. You had to hand it to him, he was strong. But nobody could mess around with them.
I wondered how long a man squeezed in among strangers could be expected to listen to foreign, totally incomprehensible talk before going berserk.
A Letter from Thomas Mann
It was a long handwritten letter in the careful, well-balanced style known to us from his books. It said things that were bound to surprise and delight me. Exactly four years earlier, I had sent Thomas Mann the manuscript of my novel in three black linen binders—a trilogy, he must have thought—accompanied by a long dry letter explaining my plan for a “Human Comedy of Madmen.” It was a proud letter, containing hardly a word of homage, and he must have wondered why I had written it to him rather than someone else.
Veza loved Buddenbrooks almost as much as Anna Karenina; when her enthusiasm rose to such heights, it often deterred me from reading the book. I had read The Magic Mountain instead, its atmosphere was familiar to me from what my mother told me about the Waldsanatorium in Arosa, where she had spent two years. The book had made a deep impression on me, if only because of its reflections on death, and although I felt differently about these matters, I thought the book offered a scrupulous treatment of them. At that time, October 1931, I saw no reason not to appeal first to Thomas Mann. I hadn’t read Musil yet, and my only possible objection might have been that I had already read some things by Heinrich Mann, who was more to my liking than his brother. The astonishing part of it, in any case, was my self-confidence. This first letter didn’t include the slightest homage to Thomas Mann, though having read The Magic Mountain, I might well have expressed my admiration. But it seemed to me that one look at my manuscript would suffice, and he would have to go on reading; I was convinced that a pessimistic author—as I thought him to be—would find this book irresistible. But the enormous package was returned unread with a polite letter pleading lack of sufficient time and strength. It was a hard blow, for who else would consent to read so depressing a book if he declined? I had expected not mere approval, but something more like enthusiasm. I felt sure that the right kind of statement from him, betokening conviction rather than a mere desire to be helpful, would clear the way for my book. I saw no obstacle in my path, and that may be why I took so presumptuous a tone.
His letter declining to read my manuscript was his answer to my presumption; it was probably not unjust, for he had not read the book. For four years my manuscript went unpublished. It is not hard to imagine how that affected my outward circumstances. But it meant still more to my pride. I felt that by declining to read my book he had abased it, and I accordingly decided to make no further attempt to publish it. Then little by little, as I won a few friends for it with my readings, I was persuaded to try a publisher or two. These attempts were fruitless, just as I had expected after the blow Thomas Mann had dealt me.
But now in October 1935 the book had appeared and I was determined to send it to Thomas Mann. The wound he had dealt me was still open. He alone could heal it by reading the book and admitting that he had been wrong, that he had rejected something deserving of his esteem. The letter I wrote him now was not impertinent, I merely told him the whole story and thus effortlessly put him in the wrong. He wrote me a long letter in return. He was too conscientious and upright a man not to make amends for the “wrong” he had done. After all that had happened his letter made me very happy.
Just then a first review of the book appeared in the Neue Freie Presse. It was written in a tone of lavish enthusiasm, but by a writer whom I did not take seriously, who could not be taken seriously. Still, it had its effect, for when I went to the Café Herrenhof that same day (or possibly the day after), Musil came up to me. I had never seen him so cordial. He put out his hand, and instead of merely smiling he positively beamed, which delighted me because I had been led to believe that he didn’t permit himself to beam in public. “Congratulations on your great success,” he said, and added that he had only read part of the book, but that if it went on in the same way I deserved my success. The word “deserved” from his lips almost made me reel. He uttered a few more words of praise, which I shall not repeat because, in view of what happened next, he may have withdrawn them since. His praise deprived me of my reason. I suddenly realized how eagerly I had been waiting for his opinion, possibly no less than I had been for Sonne’s. I was intoxicated and befuddled. I must have been very befuddled, for how otherwise could I have made such a gaffe as I did then?
The moment he stopped speaking, I said: “And just imagine, I’ve had a long letter from Thomas Mann.” He changed in a flash, he seemed to jump back into himself, his face went gray. “Did you?” he said. He held out his hand partway, giving me only the tips of his fingers to shake, and turned brusquely about. With that I was dismissed.
Dismissed forever. He was a master of dismissal. He had ample practice. Once he had dismissed you, you stayed dismissed. When I saw him in company, which happened now and then in the next two years, he was polite but never addressed me, never entered into a conversation with me. When my name was mentioned in company, he said nothing, as though he didn’t know who I was and had no desire to find out.
What had happened? What had I done? What was the unpardonable offense that he could never forgive? A moment after he, Musil, had accorded me his recognition I had uttered the name of Thomas Mann. I had spoken of a letter, a long letter, from Thomas Mann immediately after he, Musil, had congratulated me and explained his congratulations. He was bound to assume that I had sent the book to Thomas Mann, as I had to him, with a similar respectful inscription. He had no knowledge of what had gone before, he didn’t know that I had sent Thomas Mann the book four years before. But even if he had known the whole story, he would have been no less offended. Musil was touchier in his self-esteem than anyone else I have known, and there can be no doubt that in my euphoric befuddlement I stepped on his toes. It was understandable that he should make me repent it. My penance was very painful to me, I never really got over his dismissal of me in the most exalted moment I had ever known with him. But because it was he who imposed my penance, I accepted it. I realized how deeply I had wounded him in the state of euphoria that goes hand in hand with sudden recognition, and I felt ashamed.
He must have thought that I held Thomas Mann in higher esteem than him. And this he could not accept from someone who had stated the contrary everywhere. As he saw it, respect had to be based on intellectual considerations, otherwise it could not be taken seriously. He always attached importance to a clear decision between himself and Thomas Mann. If someone like Stefan Zweig had been involved, someone who owed his reputation to sheer bustle, the question of a decision would never have arisen. But Musil knew quite well who Thomas Mann was, and what exasperated him most was that Thomas Mann’s prestige was so much greater than his own. In his own way, he (unbeknownst to me) had courted Thomas Mann at about this time, but with the feeling that he himself had every right to wrest Thomas Mann’s fame away from him. All Musil’s letters suggesting help from Thomas Mann sound like demands. It was a very different matter when a young writer, who had assured him of his sincerest reverence, should, a moment after Musil had set his stamp of approval on this young writer’s work, mention the name of the man whom Musil aspired to supplant, and whose entrenchments he was still trying in vain to storm. Such an action cast suspicion on all my previous expressions of reverence. I had committed a crime of lèse-majesté, and deserved to be punished by banishment.
It made me very unhappy to have Musil turn away from me. Seeing the purely physical act at the Herrenhof, I knew that something irreparable had happened.
After that I couldn’t answer Thomas Mann’s letter. Its effect on Musil paralyzed me. For a few days I couldn’t even bring myself to pick it up. I delayed my thanks so long that to write a simple note of thanks seemed out of the question. Then I went back to the letter and read it with all the greater pleasure. As long as I failed to answer it, my pleasure remained fresh. Every day I felt as if I had just received it. Perhaps after waiting for four years I wanted to make Thomas Mann wait a while too, but this is an idea that came to me only recently. Friends who had heard about Thomas Mann’s letter asked me what I had written in answer, and all I could say was: “Not yet, not yet.” A few months later they asked: “How will you explain yourself? What explanation will you give for waiting so long to reply to such a letter?” And again I knew no answer.
In April 1936, after more than five months, I read in the newspapers that Thomas Mann was coming to Vienna to deliver a lecture on Freud. This seemed the last chance to make good my omission. I concocted the most effusive letter I have ever written; how else could I account for what I had done? I think it would embarrass me to read that letter today. For by the time I got around to writing it, I had read the work of a writer who meant more to me than Thomas Mann: the first two volumes of The Man without Qualities had appeared. I was really grateful to Thomas Mann, that wound had healed. He had said things in his letter that filled me with pride. Though I didn’t admit it to myself, I had done the same as Thomas Mann: made good an omission. He had read Auto-da-Fé and given his opinion of it. I had replaced my presumptuous first letter with another, improving on the homage that I had owed him then.
I think it gave him pleasure. But the circle did not fully close. In my letter I wrote that I should be delighted to meet him during his stay in Vienna. He was invited to the Benedikts’ for lunch. There he asked after me and said he would have been glad to see me. Broch, who was present, said I lived nearby and offered to run over and get me. I was out when he came, I had just gone to meet Sonne at the Café Museum. And so it came about that though I heard Thomas Mann lecture I never met him personally.
Ras Kassa. The Bellowers
One night a party of Indians came to a Heurigen on Kobenzlgasse. Five or six luxurious limousines unload outside, some thirty people, all Indians, come in, they want a whole room to themselves; the people sitting in the first room leave their seats and obligingly move into the second room. Youngish Indian men in fashionable European clothes, rings on their fingers sparkling with jewels, beautiful women in saris, every one of them dark-skinned, not a single white among them. Standoffish. Smiling but firm, they insist in English—none of them can speak German—on having a room to themselves.
Once they are all seated, the Heurigen musicians come in from the other room and prepare to sing for them. The Indian spokesman signals a decided no; they want to play their own music. A chirping is heard from one corner, a strange dark sound, all present fall silent. Then a singing that strikes the locals as gloomy, a kind of dirge here in a Heurigen. Is that what they’ve kept still for? What is it? they ask when the song is over. With a friendly smile the spokesman explains; “An Indian low song.” No one understands. What’s a low song? The atmosphere has become strangely tense since the Indians started supplying their own music. Heads appear in the doorway. None of the locals has entered the Indians’ room, but people start pushing in from outside. Low song? Low song? Then someone, it may have been me, hits on the solution: love song, an Indian love song. Disappointment. “A love song? Call that a love song? The Heurigen music has to stop for that? Is that what they call a love song in their country?”
The Indians had expected applause. Instead they sense the hostility in the air. Shouts that seem to come from the Heurigen songs that feel offended and supplanted. The Indians hesitate, maybe they hadn’t chosen the right song. They try another. The singer doesn’t get very far, to unpracticed ears it sounds like the first. Locals from outside, who have been inspecting the big limousines with hatred, crowd into the room. The Indian spokesman is still smiling, but he is obviously uneasy as the inferiors come closer. The women are still seated, but huddled together, and they’ve stopped beaming, the voices of the intruders are getting louder and rougher; one Indian is still chirping. No one is listening. Suddenly someone in the middle of the room roars angrily: “Ras Kassa!”
Ras Kassa is an Abyssinian chief who is still resisting the Italians. Mussolini has invaded Abyssinia, which is fighting bare-handed, so to speak, against Italian tanks and bombers. Ras Kassa’s picture is in all the papers. Everyone admires him for his bravery. His skin is dark. Apart from his dark skin, he has nothing in common with these Indians at the Heurigen. But once shouted, his name becomes a battle cry. The Indians understand it despite the Viennese pronunciation, but take it as some sort of threat. The chirping and singing are submerged by the rising tumult. The Indians stand up and head, first hesitantly, then more and more hurriedly, for the door. No one stops them from leaving. A few more shouts of “Ras Kassa.” A crowd has gathered around the big cars. Admiration for so much wealth gives way to disgust at so much luxury. Hesitant hostility, not yet active but on the verge. Its slogan is Ras Kassa, which has now become an insult, something one would hardly have expected during the Abyssinian war. Everyone’s sympathy, one might have thought, was with the weak, the victims of aggression, who had taken up arms in a hopeless struggle. “Ras Kassa! Ras Kassa!” The Indians vanish into their cars. All dark-skinned people are Ras Kassa now. The Indians drive away.
* * *
Often at night I went into the garden that extends far down the slope at the back of the house. In the early summer, the air was shot through with luminous trails, glowworms, I tried to follow them with my eyes, but lost them, there were too many. There was something sinister about their numbers, as though they had been sent by a secret power determined to abolish the night. I was fascinated by their light, but as their numbers swelled, it became overpowering. I was glad they stayed close to the ground, that they didn’t rise higher or go farther afield.
I heard a bellowing in the distance, it came from all sides, too far away to be threatening, from the general direction of the village. It was the bellowing of drunks in the Heurigen, their songs which merged and could not be kept apart, not a howling of wolves, a sound between laughing and crying. It was the voice of a special variety of animal, which favored this locale, an animal that was content to sit there and wallow in self-pity; there was no great threat in its bellowing; it seemed, rather, to express a longing for happiness. Even people without the slightest aptitude for music could bathe in this fountain of youth and, as part of the Heurigen animal, bellow along with the rest.
Every night I listened to it from the garden of the house on Himmelstrasse. I could feel justified in living here as long as I took in this total bellowing. It filled me with a kind of despair, which, however, did not exclude the feeling that I overcame it by facing up to it.
This was a credible exemplar of what I later called a feast crowd. When I went down with friends and sat in one of the garden cafés, we became part of it in our way. We didn’t bellow, but we drank and boasted. Other people were boasting at other tables. All sorts of things were said and all sorts of things were tolerated. Funny things and outrageous things, but we were free to be just as outrageous. The general tendency was toward expansion, but no one encroached on anyone else, there was no fighting; crude as people’s desires might be, no one seemed to begrudge anyone else his expansion. The drinking, which never ceased, was the magic elixir of expansion, and as long as one drank, everything increased, there seemed to be no obstacles, prohibitions or enemies.
