There was no littleness, no meanness, and no real coarseness. But
he was a great talker, and relentless towards his audience.
Hannele was attracted to him by his talk. He began as soon as
dinner appeared: and he went on, carrying the decanter and the
wine-glass with him out on to the balcony of the villa, over the
lake, on and on until midnight. The summer night was still and
warm: the lake lay deep and full, and the old town twinkled away
across. There was the faintest tang of snow in the air, from the
great glacier-peaks that were hidden in the night opposite.
Sometimes a boat with a lantern twanged a guitar. The clematis
flowers were quite black, like leaves, dangling from the terrace.
It was so beautiful, there in the very heart of the Tyrol. The
hotels glittered with lights: electric light was still cheap.
There seemed a fullness and a loveliness in the night. And yet for
some reason it was all terrible and devastating: the life-spirit
seemed to be squirming, bleeding all the time.
And on and on talked the Herr Regierungsrat, with all the witty
volubility of the more versatile Austrian. He was really very
witty, very human, and with a touch of salty cynicism that reminded
one of a real old Roman of the Empire. That subtle stoicism, that
unsentimental epicureanism, that kind of reckless hopelessness, of
course, fascinated the women. And particularly Hannele. He talked
on and on--about his work before the war, when he held an important
post and was one of the governing class--then about the war--then
about the hopelessness of the present: and in it all there seemed a
bigness, a carelessness based on indifference and hopelessness that
laughed at its very self. The real old Austria had always
fascinated Hannele. As represented in the witty, bitter-
indifferent Herr Regierungsrat it carried her away.
And he, of course, turned instinctively to her, talking in his
rapid, ceaseless fashion, with a laugh and a pause to drink and a
new start taken. She liked the sound of his Austrian speech: its
racy carelessness, its salty indifference to standards of
correctness. Oh yes, here was the grand geste still lingering.
He turned his large breast towards her, and made a quick gesture
with his fat, well-shapen hand, blurted out another subtle, rough-
seeming romance, pursed his mouth, and emptied his glass once more.
Then he looked at his half-forgotten cigar and started again.
There was something almost boyish and impulsive about him: the way
he turned to her, and the odd way he seemed to open his big breast
to her. And again he seemed almost eternal, sitting there in his
chair with knees planted apart. It was as if he would never rise
again, but would remain sitting for ever, and talking. He seemed
as if he had no legs, save to sit with. As if to stand on his feet
and walk would not be natural to him.
Yet he rose at last, and kissed her hand with the grand gesture
that France or Germany have never acquired: carelessness, profound
indifference to other people's standards, and then such a sudden
stillness, as he bent and kissed her hand. Of course she felt a
queen in exile.
And perhaps it is more dangerous to feel yourself a queen in exile
than a queen in situ. She fell in love with him, with this large,
stout, loose widower of fifty, with two children. He had no money
except some Austrian money that was worth nothing outside Austria.
He could not even go to Germany. There he was, fixed in this
hollow in the middle of the Tyrol.
But he had an ambition still, old Roman of the decadence that he
was. He had year by year and without making any fuss collected the
material for a very minute and thorough history of his own
district: the Chiemgau and the Pinzgau. Hannele found that his
fund of information on this subject was inexhaustible, and his
intelligence was so delicate, so human, and his scope seemed so
wide, that she felt a touch of reverence for him. He wanted to
write this history. And she wanted to help him.
For, of course, as things were he would never write it. He was
Regierungsrat: that is, he was the petty local governor of his town
and immediate district. The Amthaus was a great old building, and
there young ladies in high heels flirted among masses of papers
with bare-kneed young gentlemen in Tyrolese costume, and
occasionally they parted to take a pleasant, interesting attitude
and write a word or two, after which they fluttered together for a
little more interesting diversion. It was extraordinary how many
finely built, handsome young people of an age fitted for nothing
but love-affairs ran the governmental business of this department.
And the Herr Regierungsrat sailed in and out of the big, old room,
his wide coat flying like wings and making the papers flutter, his
rather wine-reddened, old-Roman face smiling with its bitter look.
And of course it was a witticism he uttered first, even if Hungary
was invading the frontier or cholera was in Vienna.
When he was on his legs, he walked nimbly, briskly, and his coat-
bottoms always flew. So he waved through the town, greeting
somebody at every few strides and grinning, and yet with a certain
haughty reserve. Oh yes, there was a certain salty hauteur about
him which made the people trust him. And he spoke the vernacular
so racily.
Hannele felt she would like to marry him. She would like to be
near him. She would like him to write his history. She would like
him to make her feel a queen in exile. No one had ever QUITE
kissed her hand as he kissed it: with that sudden stillness and
strange, chivalric abandon of himself. How he would abandon
himself to her!--terribly--wonderfully--perhaps a little horribly.
His wife, whom he had married late, had died after seven years of
marriage. Hannele could understand that too. One or the other
must die.
She became engaged. But something made her hesitate before
marriage. Being in Austria was like being on a wrecked ship that
MUST sink after a certain short length of time. And marrying the
Herr Regierungsrat was like marrying the doomed captain of the
doomed ship. The sense of fatality was part of the attraction.
And yet she hesitated. The summer weeks passed. The strangers
flooded in and crowded the town, and ate up the food like locusts.
People no longer counted the paper money, they weighed it by the
kilogram. Peasants stored it in a corner of the meal-bin, and mice
came and chewed holes in it. Nobody knew where the next lot of
food was going to come from: yet it always came. And the lake
teemed with bathers. When the captain arrived he looked with
amazement on the crowds of strapping, powerful fellows who bathed
all day long, magnificent blond flesh of men and women. No wonder
the old Romans stood in astonishment before the huge blond limbs of
the savage Germana.
Well, the life was like a madness. The hotels charged fifteen
h
undred kronen a day: the women, old and young, paraded in the
peasant costume, in flowery cotton dresses with gaudy, expensive
silk aprons: the men wore the Tyrolese costume, bare knees and
little short jackets. And for the men, the correct thing was to
have the leathern hose and the blue linen jacket as old as
possible. If you had a hole in your leathern seat, so much the
better.
Everything so physical. Such magnificent naked limbs and naked
bodies, and in the streets, in the hotels, everywhere, bare, white
arms of women and bare, brown, powerful knees and thighs of men.
The sense of flesh everywhere, and the endless ache of flesh. Even
in the peasants who rowed across the lake, standing and rowing with
a slow, heavy, gondolier motion at the one curved oar, there was
the same endless ache of physical yearning.
XIII
It was August when Alexander met Hannele. She was walking under a
chintz parasol, wearing a dress of blue cotton with little red
roses, and a red silk apron. She had no hat, her arms were bare
and soft, and she had white stockings under her short dress. The
Herr Regierungsrat was at her side, large, nimble, and laughing
with a new witticism.
Alexander, in a light summer suit and Panama hat, was just coming
out of the bank, shoving twenty thousand kronen into his pocket.
He saw her coming across from the Amtsgericht, with the Herr
Regierungsrat at her side, across the space of sunshine. She was
laughing, and did not notice him.
She did not notice till he had taken off his hat and was saluting
her. Then what she saw was the black, smooth, shining head, and
she went pale. His black, smooth, close head--and all the blue
Austrian day seemed to shrivel before her eyes.
'How do you do, Countess! I hoped I should meet you.'
She heard his slow, sad-clanging, straying voice again, and she
pressed her hand with the umbrella stick against her breast. She
had forgotten it--forgotten his peculiar, slow voice. And now it
seemed like a noise that sounds in the silence of night. Ah, how
difficult it was, that suddenly the world could split under her
eyes, and show this darkness inside. She wished he had not come.
She presented him to the Herr Regierungsrat, who was stiff and
cold. She asked where the captain was staying. And then, not
knowing what else to say, she said:
'Won't you come to tea?'
She was staying in a villa across the lake. Yes, he would come to
tea.
He went. He hired a boat and a man to row him across. It was not
far. There stood the villa, with its brown balconies one above the
other, the bright red geraniums and white geraniums twinkling all
round, the trees of purple clematis tumbling at one corner. All
the green window doors were open: but nobody about. In the little
garden by the water's edge the rose trees were tall and lank, drawn
up by the dark green trees of the background. A white table with
chairs and garden seats stood under--the shadow of a big willow
tree, and a hammock with cushions swung just behind. But no one in
sight. There was a little landing bridge on to the garden: and a
fairly large boat-house at the garden end.
The captain was not sure that the boat-house belonged to the villa.
Voices were shouting and laughing from the water's surface, bathers
swimming. A tall, naked youth with a little red cap on his head
and a tiny red loin-cloth round his slender young hips was standing
on the steps of the boat-house calling to the three women who were
swimming near. The dark-haired woman with the white cap swam up to
the steps and caught the boy by the ankle. He cried and laughed
and remonstrated, and poked her in the breast with his foot.
'Nein, nein, Hardu!' she cried as he tickled her with his toe.
'Hardu! Hardu! H?r' auf!--Leave off!'--and she fell with a crash
back into the water. The youth laughed a loud, deep laugh of a lad
whose voice is newly broken.
'Was macht er dann?' cried a voice from the waters. 'What is he
doing?' It was a dark-skinned girl swimming swiftly, her big dark
eyes watching amused from the water surface.
'Jetzt Hardu h?r' auf. Nein. Jetzt ruhig! Now leave off! Now be
quiet.' And the dark-skinned woman was climbing out in the
sunshine onto the pale, raw-wood steps of the boathouse, the water
glistening on her dark-blue, stockinette, soft-moulded back and
loins: while the boy, with his foot stretched out, was trying to
push her back into the water. She clambered out, however, and sat
on the steps in the sun, panting slightly. She was dark and
attractive-looking, with a mature beautiful figure, and handsome,
strong woman's legs.
In the garden appeared a black-and-white maid-servant with a tray.
'Kaffee, gn?dige Frau!'
The voice came so distinct over the water.
'Hannele! Hannele! Kaffee!' called the woman on the steps of the
bathing-house.
'Tante Hannele! Kaffee!' called the dark-eyed girl, turning round
in the water, then swimming for home.
'Kaffee! Kaffee!' roared the youth, in anticipation.
'Ja--a! Ich kom--mm,' sang Hannele's voice from the water.
The dark-eyed girl, her hair tied up in a silk bandana, had reached
the steps and was climbing out, a slim young fish in her close dark
suit. The three stood clustered on the steps, the elder woman with
one arm over the naked shoulders of the youth, the other arm over
the shoulders of the girl. And all in chorus sang:
'Hannele! Hannele! Hannele! Wir warten auf dich.'
The boatman had left off rowing, and the boat was drifting slowly
in. The family became quiet, because of the intrusion. The
attractive-looking woman turned and picked up her blue bath-robe,
of a mid-blue colour that became her. She swung it round her as if
it were an opera cloak. The youth stared at the boat.
The captain was watching Hannele. With a white kerchief tied round
her silky, brownish hair, she was swimming home. He saw her white
shoulders and her white, wavering legs below in the clear water.
Round the boat fishes were suddenly jumping.
The three on the steps beyond stood silent, watching the intruding
boat with resentment. The boatman twisted his head round and
watched them. The captain, who was facing them, watched Hannele.
She swam slowly and easily up, caught the rail of the steps, and
stooping forward, climbed slowly out of the water. Her legs were
large and flashing white and looked rich, the rich, white thighs
with the blue veins behind, and the full, rich softness of her
sloping loins.
'Ach! Sch?n! 'S war sch?n! Das Wasser ist gut,' her voice was
heard, half singing as she took her breath. 'It was lovely.'
'Heiss,' said the woman above. 'Zu warm. Too warm.'
The youth made way for Hannele, who drew herself erect at the top
of the steps, looking round, panting a little and putting up her
hands to the knot of her kerchief on her head. Her legs were br />
magnificent and white.
'Kuck de Leut, die da bleiben,' said the woman in the blue wrap, in
a low voice. 'Look at the people stopping there.'
'Ja!' said Hannele negligently. Then she looked. She started as
if in fear, looked round, as if to run away, looked back again, and
met the eyes of the captain, who took off his hat.
She cried in a loud, frightened voice:
'Oh, but--I thought it was TOMORROW!'
'No--today,' came the quiet voice of the captain over the water.
'TODAY! Are you sure?' she cried, calling to the boat.
'Quite sure. But we'll make it tomorrow if you like,' he said.
'Today! Today!' she repeated in bewilderment.' No! Wait a
minute.' And she ran into the boat-house.
'Was ist es?' asked the dark woman, following her. 'What is it?'
'A friend--a visitor--Captain Hepburn,' came Hannele's voice.
The boatman now rowed slowly to the landing-stage. The dark woman,
huddled in her blue wrap as in an opera-cloak, walked proudly and
unconcernedly across the background of the garden and up the steps
to the first balcony. Hannele, her feet slip-slopping in loose
slippers, clutching an old yellow wrap round her, came to the
landing-stage and shook hands.
'I am so sorry. It is so stupid of me. I was sure it was
tomorrow,' she said.
'No, it was today. But I wish for your sake it had been tomorrow,'
he replied.
'No. No. It doesn't matter. You won't mind waiting a minute,
will you? You mustn't be angry with me for being so stupid.'
So she went away, the heelless slippers flipping up to her naked
heels. Then the big-eyed, dusky girl stole into the house: and
then the naked youth, who went with sang-froid. He would make a
fine, handsome man: and he knew it.
XIV
Hepburn and Hannele were to make a small excursion to the glacier
which stood there always in sight, coldly grinning in the sky. The
weather had been very hot, but this morning there were loose clouds
in the sky. The captain rowed over the lake soon after dawn.
Hannele stepped into the little craft, and they pulled back to the
town. There was a wind ruffling the water, so that the boat leaped
and chuckled. The glacier, in a recess among the folded mountains,
looked cold and angry. But morning was very sweet in the sky, and
blowing very sweet with a faint scent of the second hay from the
low lands at the head of the lake. Beyond stood naked grey rock
like a wall of mountains, pure rock, with faint, thin slashes of
snow. Yesterday it had rained on the lake. The sun was going to
appear from behind the Breitsteinhorn, the sky with its clouds
floating in blue light and yellow radiance was lovely and cheering
again. But dark clouds seemed to spout up from the Pinzgau valley.
And once across the lake, all was shadow, when the water no longer
gave back the sky-morning.
The day was a feast day, a holiday. Already so early three young
men from the mountains were bathing near the steps of the
Badeanstalt. Handsome, physical fellows, with good limbs rolling
and swaying in the early morning water. They seemed to enjoy it
too. But to Hepburn it was always as if a dark wing were stretched
in the sky, over these mountains, like a doom. And these three
young, lusty, naked men swimming and rolling in the shadow.
Hepburn's was the first boat stirring. He made fast in the hotel
boat-house, and he and Hannele went into the little town. It was
deep in shadow, though the light of the sky, curdled with cloud,
was bright overhead. But dark and chill and heavy lay the shadow
in the black-and-white town, like a sediment.
The shops were all shut, but peasants from the hills were already
strolling about in their holiday dress: the men in their short
leather trousers, like football drawers, and bare brown knees and