The Glass Bees

  It wasn’t insubordination that moved me. I simply thought that Atje hadn’t yet noticed that the Cossack was bleeding, and I wanted to point the fact out to him. I seized his arm and said those words not in order to stop him, but only to call his attention to an oversight. Weigand had been the first to notice the mistake, and I only passed his news on to the Chief.

  I was convinced it really was only a mistake; there couldn’t be two minds about it. Atje would immediately correct it.

  In this belief, however, I was completely wrong. Atje shook me off and looked at me with utter stupefaction. Obviously for him not only wasn’t it wrong but it was absolutely right that the Cossack was bleeding. Now he lifted his arm again and struck me in the face. At the same time I heard him shout “beat him,” and all the others pounced upon me. They were my best friends and they had known me much longer than they had Hanebut. But one word from him was sufficient for them to treat me like an enemy. Only Weigand stayed in the background. But he didn’t take my side; he just slipped away. I paid for his liberality.

  My horror was so great that, although I realized blows were showering upon me, I actually didn’t feel them. My new suit was treated roughly as well. But the torn garment belonged in the picture.

  While the others were busy with me, the Cossack had snatched up his cap and knapsack and had scurried away. At last they left me alone and marched off. I remained, leaning against the fence, my heart beating in my throat. The sun glared down on the bushes, but I had the impression that its rays blackened the green foliage. In my mouth was a bitter taste.

  After I had stood by the fence for a long while, recovering my breath, I pulled myself together and walked in the direction of the city. Because I had never been there before, it took me some time to find my way out of the tangle of gardens. But at last I came to the road.

  Confused as I was, I thought I heard them coming back. I heard the tramp-tramp of nailed boots and hurried shouts.

  “There he is—a bullfinch; that’s him, he did it.” And before I fully realized what had happened, the Cossacks, roused by our invasion, suddenly fell upon me. In no time they had seized me. I heard a big fellow, their leader, shout: “You pigs, the whole gang of you attacking a sick boy—we’re going to cure you of that.”

  This time I felt the blows, and the kicks too, as I lay on the ground. The only luck I had, if you can call it that, was that they blocked each other’s movements in their zeal.

  On occasions like this, it is amazing how sharply we observe details. I saw, for instance, that in the scramble, one boy was never able to get at me. Again and again he was pushed back; once I saw his face quite clearly between the legs of the others. It was the boy whose nose had been bleeding; I recognized him. Several times he tried to jab me with a slate-pencil, which he had taken out of his schoolbag, but his arm was not long enough to reach me.

  Since they were firmly convinced of their right, I would undoubtedly have come to a bad end in this affair. I even heard others come running toward us with dogs. But fortunately, a cart loaded with beer barrels approached on the main road, and two drivers in leather aprons leisurely climbed down from their seat. They flourished their whip among the crowd, taking alternate turns. They established order and had great fun doing it. I, too, was painfully hit over the ear. The crowd scattered in a hurry, and I staggered home more dead than alive.

  As I crept through the hall and to the stairs, my father came out of the living room. The birthday party had been over for some time. I faced him in my outfit, of which nothing was intact but the jackboots, with tousled hair and a dirty, unrecognizable face. He assumed that on this festive day I had again been in a scuffle with the gang led by the coachman’s son, and this was, of course, an entirely accurate conclusion. I had not only spoiled my mother’s birthday but had also ruined, on the very first day, my expensive suit, which had pleased him so much at noon. Moreover, the scholar already had made complaints.

  My father was a kind, even-tempered man. Up to now he had never beaten me, although he probably had provocation on more than one occasion. This time, however, he stared at me, his face red with anger. He boxed my ears energetically.

  These blows again I did not feel, for my surprise was too great. I was more shocked than hurt. My father evidently noticed this at once, since he turned around angrily and ordered me to bed without my supper.

  This was the first night I felt alone. In later years I had many such nights. The little word “alone” took on a new meaning for me. Our time has provided frequent opportunity for people to endure this aloneness; still, it’s difficult to describe.

  Later my father must have learned some details of what had happened, because, some days after, he attempted to set the matter between us to rights, quoting a verse:

  “Three times while bullets whizzed,

  We took the mountain by storm.”

  These lines were from one of the poems we had to learn by heart. It was dedicated to a long-forgotten battle, the assault on Spichern Heights. And it was true: I had been in action three times—not including the draymen.

  We were soon on friendly terms again, but such a blow can never be quite forgotten, even if both sides have no greater wish than to do just that. A physical touch creates a new relationship. One has to resign one’s self to it.

  I have dwelt at length on this experience because it encompassed more than an episode. It repeated itself in my life in the same way that a woman, an enemy, or an accident can return. It recurred, though in a different disguise, with the same cast of characters. When the Asturian affair began, we knew that, although we were used to a good deal of trouble, this time it would be no joke. In the first town we entered, the monasteries had been raided, the coffins in the vaults forced open and the corpses set up in the streets in grotesque groups. Then we knew we had come to a country where no mercy could be expected. We passed a butcher shop in which the corpses of monks hung from meat hooks with a sign “hoy motado,” meaning “freshly killed.” I saw this with my own eyes.

  On that day a great sadness overcame me. I knew with certainty that this was the end of everything we had respected and honored. Words like honor and dignity became ludicrous. Again the word “alone” loomed up out of the night. An outrage has an isolating effect, as though our planet were threatened with extinction. I was feverish and thought of Monteron. What would he have said, entering such landscapes? But Monteron’s time was past, and men of his type would not have entered in any case. They would have already fallen before the gate, because—”once and for all there are matters I do not wish to know.”

  At that time my “Day of Spichern” repeated itself with its personnel unchanged; there was but one difference—the Chief whom I tried to seize by the arm was no longer called Hanebut. Neither was the matter in question a bleeding nose. It had more to do with ears. Those whom I helped (as I had the Cossack) again gave me no thanks. On the contrary. Even Weigand reappeared on the scene; now he conditioned the moral climate in a famous newspaper. Without him no one would have known exactly how things should be managed.

  Incidentally, on the school playground once, I asked the first Weigand where he had been when the scuffle started. He said that he bad suddenly remembered he hadn’t done his homework yet, adding: “It was nasty the way you all pounced on him.” He had cut out for himself exactly the piece which suited his purpose. Cosi fan tutte; later, too, that was his favorite motto.

  XIX

  All this came back to me when, after my unpleasant discovery, I was seized more and more irresistibly by weakness. The nausea which I tried to fight off promised nothing good; I had a foreboding that there would be a repetition of what I had endured when I tried to stop Atje Hanebut. And Zapparoni would not let me off so cheaply. I tried, therefore, to comfort myself as one does a sick child. For instance: “Severed ears are lying about on any highway.” Or: “You’ve certainly seen other things before, and these are not your concern at all. You’d better take French leave.”


  Then I tried to recollect episodes from the History of the Jewish Wars by Flavius Josephus, who had always been my favorite historian. In those times events happened quite differently. With what massive conviction, with what certainty of a higher mandate and a correspondingly clear conscience did the partners arrive on the scene! The Romans, the Jews in their various factions, the auxiliary peoples, the mountain garrisons which defended themselves to the last man, to the last woman! No decadent blabber here as there would be a hundred years later in Tertullian. Titus had given harsh orders, yet with a dignity as sublime as if he were the spokesman of destiny. Time and again in history there had been periods when action and conviction of right tallied perfectly with each other, a feeling that was shared by all the belligerents and factions concerned. Perhaps Zapparoni had already returned to such a period. Today one had to be part of the game. The closer one stood to the center of the game, the less significant its victims became. People who were in the game, or only thought to be in it, swept away millions, and the masses cheered them. Compared to them, a dismounted cavalryman who had never lifted his weapon against any but other armed men, cut a disreputable figure. It had to stop. Even mentally one had to climb into the tank.

  By the way, I still had the rest of Twinnings’ money in my pocket; I should have liked to take Teresa out for dinner tonight. I’d take her to the “Old Sweden” and be nice to her. Lately I had neglected her because of my worries. Now I’d tell her that the job with Zapparoni hadn’t come off, but that I had a chance of a better opening. She was always afraid I would accept an offer that was beneath me. She had far too good an opinion of me; it had often made me ashamed. Tomorrow I would go to Twinnings and talk with him about the jobs he had not yet mentioned because he did not think I would take them. I might take charge of a gambling table. I’d certainly get involved in scandals that might turn out badly if one wasn’t slippery as an eel. Then, one had to accept tips. Old comrades who couldn’t stop doing a little gambling—they had learned how in the Light Cavalry—would at first be surprised to see me, but if they had had a run of good luck, they’d slide toward me a red or even a blue chip. One would have to get used to it. But I would know for whom I did it. And I would enjoy it, and would even take on other work. I would tell Teresa that I had an office job.

  XX

  All these matters I turned over in my mind, but I found no resting place. The whole ship rocked right up to the top of the mast. Though I strictly avoided looking in that direction, my thoughts kept breaking away toward the water hole. My head was still buried in my hands. The Smoky Gray described wide figures of eight in front of me.

  My situation had certainly been planned with a purpose. This was obvious if only because the master of the house still failed to appear. Evidently he was either waiting for some result or postponing it. But what kind of result could possibly make sense? I would never be able to leave the park. Should I get up and return to the terrace? Unfortunately I may have shown my reaction too strongly after I had made my discovery.

  If, however, my situation had been arranged and, what is more, intended as a dilemma, much depended on the degree of my ability to see through the planned stage effects; then I could choose a direction for my behavior. I might be able to deny that I had seen the object, but perhaps it would be more profitable to respond to the provocation, as was expected. In any case, my remaining in a reflective mood could do no harm, since it was probably anticipated that I would take the discovery seriously and be alarmed. I had to think hard, review the case again, and use all my wits.

  The possibility that I had come upon a nest of evil, as I had thought in my first consternation, I now excluded not only as being improbable but as emphatically out of the question. Such an oversight, such an error in staging, was unimaginable in Zapparoni’s domain. Nothing took place here that was not part of the plan, and in spite of all the apparent disorder, one had the impression that even the molecules were controlled. I had sensed this at once on entering the park. Besides, who would leave ears lying around, quite near his house, from sheer forgetfulness?

  But if it was a question of the horrible sight having been arranged, it was bound to have something to do with my presence here. It must have been included in the parade of automatons as a calculated caprice. To rouse admiration and terror has at all times been a concern of the great. But there must have been stage directions. And who had provided the stage properties?

  One could hardly assume that Zapparoni’s plant—where even the impossible was possible—kept a supply of ears on hand. Where such things can happen, although they may be kept as secret as possible, rumors inevitably spread. Everyone knows what no one knows. That notorious Nobody walks around freely.

  Of course, many things that were discussed behind the scenes at the good grandfather Zapparoni’s—like Caretti’s disappearance—were not blazed abroad. But mostly they were ordinary things. This business did not fit into Zapparoni’s style. And it was out of all proportion to my circumstances. Who was I to be honored by the cutting off of two or three dozen ears? Even the boldest imagination wouldn’t dream of such a thing. And as a joke it was beneath the taste of a sultan of Dahomey. I had seen the interior of Zapparoni’s house, had seen his face and his hands. These ears must have been a delusion; I must have been the victim of a vision. The air was sultry; the garden seemed to be bewitched and the swirl of automatons had intoxicated me.

  Again I put the field glasses to my eyes and focused them on the water hole. The sun was now in the western sky, and all the red and yellow tints became more spectacular. The superior quality of the glass and the proximity of the object left no possible doubt: they must be ears, human ears.

  Were they, however, genuine ears? Supposing they were imitations, skillfully contrived frauds? No sooner had this idea flashed through my mind than it seemed very likely. The expenditure was minimal, and the intended effect of a test remained. I had once heard that the Freemasons lay out a corpse of wax, and that the novice, about to be initiated, is brought before it in a dimly lighted room and ordered by the Grand Masters to thrust a knife into the body.

  Indeed, it was possible, even probable, that I was faced with some sort of puzzle. In a place where glass bees fly about, why shouldn’t wax ears lie around as well? The moment of terror was suddenly followed by the solution, by a feeling of gaiety, almost of relief. This was even a witty touch, although at my expense; perhaps it was meant to indicate that in the future I would have to deal with practical jokers.

  I now decided to fall in with the joke and play the fool; I’d pretend not to have seen through the trap. Again I buried my face in my hands, but now in order to conceal my growing amusement. Then I took up the field glasses once more: the objects were infernally well done—I might almost say that they surpassed reality. But I was not going to be taken in. After all, one was used to things like these from Zapparoni.

  True, I now saw something that took me aback and again sickened me. A big blue fly descended on one of these shapes, a fly like those one used to see around butcher shops. But, although unpleasant, the sight did not shake my confidence. If I had judged Zapparoni rightly-which I did not in the least pretend to do—this move of his, these ears, could only be artificial. Heads or tails—Zapparoni or King of Dahomey.

  We cling to our theories and fit the phenomena to them. The fly? The work of art was to all appearance so perfect that not only my eyes but the insect itself was deceived. It is generally known that birds pecked at the grapes painted by Apelles. And I had once watched a small fly hovering around an artificial violet I wore in my buttonhole.

  Moreover, who in the garden would swear on oath that this was natural, that artificial? Had any person, had any pair of lovers in an intimate conversation passed me, I would not have liked to stake my life and declare whether or not they were flesh and blood. Only recently I had admired Romeo and Juliet on the television screen, and had occasion to see for myself that a new and more beautiful era in dramatic art had started
with Zapparoni’s automatons. How tired one had become of the heavily made-up actors who became more insignificant from decade to decade, and how badly heroic action and classical prose, to say nothing of verse, suited them! In the end, one would no longer have known what a body, what passion, what singing really was, had not Negroes been imported from the Congo. Zapparoni’s marionettes were of a quite different proficiency. They needed neither make-up nor beauty contests where chests and hips are measured and compared—they were made to order.

  I am not, of course, going to proclaim that they excelled human beings—that would be absurd after all I have said about horses and riders. On the other hand, I think that they set man a new standard. Once upon a time statues and paintings influenced not only fashion but man. I am convinced that Botticelli created a new race and that Greek tragedy enhanced the human body. That Zapparoni attempted something similar with his automatons revealed that he rose far above technique, using media as an artist to create works of art.

  For magicians like those Zapparoni employed in his workshops and laboratories, it was a trifle to create a fly. In an inventory which included artificial bees and artificial ears, one must admit the possibility of an artificial fly as well. Therefore, even though loathsome and needlessly realistic—this sight could not disconcert me.

  In any case, during this strenuous testing and watching, I had lost the capacity of distinguishing between the natural and the artificial. I became skeptical of individual objects, and, in general, I separated imperfectly what was within and what without, what landscape and what imagination. The layers, close one upon the other, shifted their colors, merged their content, their meaning.