“Yes, kids, give it to them!” said Gasteiner.
“Keeping us hushed up was never going to work in the long term,” added Friedinger.
Never yet had their spirits been so high and, as out of place as Saxberger had felt earlier that day, so well did he feel now. There was no doubt: it had been his promise that had animated the young people’s hopes; the discussion turned around and on him; they looked up to him—he felt that he was their center.
There was so much to discuss today that they decided to remain together past their usual time and all have supper in a restaurant. Saxberger was pressed to come with them. As they left the coffee house, he noticed to his surprise that the absinthe for which Fräulein Gasteiner would have committed crimes stood untouched on the table.
On the short way to the restaurant, Fräulein Gasteiner walked beside Saxberger. He could not but think how long it must have been since a woman had walked at his side. “I’m so happy,” Fräulein Gasteiner said quietly, holding the end of the boa in front of her mouth, “that I’m to present your work.” Then she asked him whether he had written much recently, which led him to talk again about his profession, about his office. Fräulein Gasteiner was deeply shocked.
“A civil servant—a man like you!” And she called Christian, who had been walking behind them, to come over.
“Do you hear that? This man, the poet of the Wanderings, is a civil servant—and you could have a position if you wanted but you won’t accept it!”
Christian laughed mockingly and immediately dropped back again behind them.
“But where’s the child?” Fräulein Gasteiner suddenly cried, looking around herself. Little Winder heard this shout and came running up from the rear. She took him by the hand and, catching hold of Saxberger’s arm with her other, she said, “Listen, child, this is what you’ve got to make it to one day!”
Winder did not reply. But Saxberger saw that the young man was gazing reverently at him. And he said to the little one: “I hope you get further than I have!”
“Oh no, oh no,” stammered Winder. And Fräulein Gasteiner smilingly stroked his cheek. Then she asked the old gentleman whether his job was a demanding one and why he did not give it up and instead devote himself unreservedly to his poetic vocation. And at all Saxberger’s resigned answers there remained in Winder’s eyes that same expression of sincerity and devotion.
“If I had had to choose any profession other than the theater, I would have killed myself,” said Fräulein Gasteiner.
Saxberger couldn’t help thinking of the absinthe left in the coffee house.
They had reached the door of the restaurant. Meier played the guide, going ahead through the rows of tables to the smaller adjoining room, in which a long, narrow dining table offered enough space for all these guests. As they squeezed past the other tables, Linsmann happened to be next to Saxberger.
“Well, how do you like our tragedienne?” he asked. “A very interesting person,” responded Saxberger, in an unsettled, almost a questioning tone.
“Ten years ago,” said Linsmann, “she even had a bit of talent.”
They sat down casually around the long table. Fräulein Gasteiner had taken the seat on one side of Saxberger; on the other he had Meier.
Saxberger soon felt even more at ease here than where he usually ate, and the difference between the mundane conversations that were had there and the bold and cheerful talk that could be heard here impressed itself starkly upon him. And he spoke, too. He could already join in with them.
Fräulein Gasteiner sometimes tried to draw Herr Saxberger away from the general talk and into a private conversation. She spoke to him about her years as an “apprentice and journeyman,” and seemed, to Saxberger’s surprise, to believe she had made a career. Whenever she spoke to him her eyes were full of respect; sometimes tenderness flashed in them.
Suddenly, Staufner got up and began to give a toast. He started with some general remarks about art, touched on its coarsening in our times and eventually came to speak of the old masters who had held the banner of true art aloft from their youth onwards and who, despite the indifference and indolence of the public, had serenely striven towards their high and beautiful ideals. “One representative of these noble men, my friends, is among us today! Never did he push himself forward; alone did he sit in his cell, unworldly, scorning the world that didn’t understand him. But the people who do understand him have come, they have made a pilgrimage to him, besought him to place himself at their head and have said to him: you must carry the flag, no one is worthier than you. [Bravo, bravo!] You made the nation a gift of your artwork, and it paid no heed. But we will tell the nation who you are, we will force them to hear us! It is to the flag you hold aloft that we make our oath. You are our teacher, our master, you. We salute you, Eduard Saxberger!”
Their glasses rang against each other. Saxberger, proud and confused, stood up with tears of feeling in his eyes, and those sitting farther away came closer and clinked their beer glasses against his. Fräulein Gasteiner let all the others go first and only when the old gentleman had sat back down, the noise and the chiming of glasses continuing around him, did she take her spritzer and, looking at him with damp eyes, lightly and gracefully touch her glass to his. He felt very peculiar. At Staufner’s opening words he had been embarrassed, almost painfully moved. Over the course of the speech, however, this sensation had gradually fallen away. He believed himself to have heard the note of conviction in the speaker’s words and, as the whole company was roused at the end and he was hailed as a teacher and master, his heart had been warmed so much that all his doubts were gently dissolved.
The acclaim of these youngsters felt to him like the belated fulfillment of many exhilarating things that he had fervently wished for many decades ago and that he had forgotten in his gray, everyday life.
He stood up to thank them. The loud gathering fell silent. It was a long time since he had spoken in front of such a large group. As a great quiet formed around him, he remembered the last occasion: when one of his subordinates had left the department and he had praised him warmly as the very exemplar of a conscientious civil servant. But how different . . . Suddenly there came to his lips the phrases with which the conscientious civil servant had answered him then. And he began. . .
“I’m so deeply touched that words fail me . . . really, gentlemen, I have no idea what I can say to you . . .you do me too much honor! [Oho!] I would very much like to express my gratitude—but you see, I have become an old man. [Oho!] The little that I’ve contributed [at this, the cries of ‘Oho’ became even stormier and Saxberger broke off the sentence]. My young friends,” he continued, “there is nothing more pleasing to an old man [Oho!] than the recognition of the young. That it has been granted me in such a late year will always remain my greatest source of pride. And to this young generation, of which I have such outstanding representatives sitting around me now, to this young generation [and to his great relief, there came to mind all the refrains that he had recently heard so much of], which preserves the nation’s aesthetic patrimony, which holds the banner of true art constantly aloft, to this young generation, to you, gentlemen, I raise my glass!”
And all at once it was over, actually against his will. He had wanted to say far more, a few words about each of his companions individually, but he had tumbled into his conclusion and could not get back out. Everyone again stood up. They drank his health, they thronged around him; Fräulein Gasteiner abruptly took his hand and pressed a kiss on it. No one settled back down. Conversations buzzed over and across each other.
Linsmann, who had had a lot to drink, was speaking in emphatic tones to Blink the critic and putting forward some ideas of his own for the recital evening’s introductory speech. Little Winder was leaning against the wall and had the feeling that he was present at a momentous occasion. Staufner, who was in a state of the highest excitement, was standing with Bolling behind old Saxberger’s chair and giving impassioned voice to his indigna
tion about a great range of things and people.
Christian, the composer of tragedies, had pulled a seat up next to Fräulein Gasteiner and was talking to her so closely that his lips almost grazed her neck. Friedinger was sitting broadly on two chairs, staring a little stupidly into the middle distance. Meier was standing next to him and was the calmest of them all.
“Do you know what I’m curious about?” he said to Friedinger.
“What?”
“How the new work from the old gentleman will turn out.” And he smiled at these words. It was not clear to Friedinger whether this was friendly curiosity or mocking skepticism.
Friedinger, who always became exceptionally earnest when he had been drinking, replied: “The old man, he’s a genius! He’s an unrecognized genius!” He was almost in tears.
“Indubitably,” responded Meier . . .
It was past midnight when they thought of leaving. Saxberger did not feel the least bit tired. He could have sat there until the early morning, listening to the young people and chatting with them. When he stood up, Fräulein Gasteiner, despite his protests, helped him with his winter coat and, as he took his scarf from the pocket, would not be prevented from wrapping it round his neck herself and arranging it into very dainty folds.
When the company went out onto the street, a mild blue night hung over the city. After the stifling, eye-burning fug of the restaurant, the cool, soft air came as a blessing. It seemed that the weather had turned while they had been sitting in there, and Fräulein Gasteiner cried, “Springtide has come!”
As Saxberger tried to say goodbye, it became apparent that no one was thinking of going home. And so they all walked the old gentleman back to his apartment.
On his right strode Fräulein Gasteiner, who from time to time dropped back with some other member of their group but always returned to Saxberger’s side, as if to her rightful place. The whole company was in constant, restless movement. On the dark and quiet Burgplatz, across which their route took them, Friedinger the humorist began to weep. Saxberger worriedly asked what this meant, but received the reassuring explanation that it always happened after they’d been carousing. On the Ringstraße, Linsmann, the bald, squashed Linsmann, abruptly began to whistle loudly. To Saxberger’s amazement, the boisterous conversation among the others went silent and everyone listened. Saxberger learnt that Linsmann had achieved an astonishing virtuosity in the art of whistling, but unfortunately only rarely condescended to give a demonstration of his skill.
He whistled several Offenbach melodies and stopped completely unexpectedly, halfway through an arietta, with the cry: “Miserable mob!”
In response to a questioning look of Saxberger’s, Meier, who was walking next to him, explained: “He means the French.”
“Herr Linsmann,” called Fräulein Gasteiner, “you whistle like a god!”
The old gentleman felt light and happy. And he thought: why all this only now? It’s so late! If only this had happened to him thirty—or twenty, oh, if only it had happened five years ago! But then his sense of his own freshness and youthfulness again came upon him so strongly that he had to say to himself: it is not too late.
And he involuntarily thought of the phrases with which this evening would necessarily have been described by someone who hadn’t been there. Proud words appeared in him: they accompanied him home in triumph—in triumph . . . accompanied the poet . . . And he delighted in how the young people came to his side one after another, how each strove to snatch a few words with him, how each tried to make himself as agreeable as possible to him. And he delighted in how unassumingly he could tell them about himself, about the disappointments of his youth, about his silent, lonely existence, about living in the modest apartment with its view of the hills in the nearby Wienerwald. And the admiring, even tender glances from Fräulein Gasteiner also did him good, and when Staufner at one point whispered to him, “Take a look at Christian, he’s jealous,” he had to smile.
When he reached the door of his building and pulled the bell, they all waited until the concierge came to open up and, as he stepped through the entrance, they shouted: Hurrah! hurrah! hurrah! And the bewildered face of the concierge was a pleasure, too. The old gentleman took the small lamp with the candle and slowly climbed the stairs. The confusion of voices still sounded in his ears. Now that he was quite alone and his steps resounded in the stairwell, the evening that had just passed seemed to have been wondrous and strange.
As he walked into his room, he, as usual, put the light down on the little bedside table. Then he stepped across to the window. He still had the voices in his ears. No, no—he was hearing them, he was hearing them really. And indeed—they were still standing down there, down outside the door. All of them who had accompanied him home.
He hurriedly opened the window and leant out. They had doubtless expected he would show himself because, as soon as his head appeared, the noise of their cheers rang up to him again: Hurrah! hurrah! hurrah! He bowed. They shouted “hurrah” a few more times, he called out a heartfelt “good night,” and they unhurriedly set off for home.
He saw them wandering away down the street; he followed them with his eyes until they disappeared around the corner. Then it was quiet in the alley. There was no one anywhere in sight. Only then did the old gentleman notice that it had grown a little chilly in his room. He quickly closed the window and moved away from it. He sat on his bedside chair and shook his head. He was touched. The light of the candle on the table stretched oddly upwards and shimmered fuzzily—there were tears in his eyes.
•
On the following afternoon, Saxberger sat down at his desk, reclined in his chair and considered. Today he had to make a start on the poem for the recital. One thing he was sure of: that he would have been as good as unable to choose any topic other than the unfamiliar feelings the recent weeks had brought him. What else would he have had to say? Should he just invent something from scratch? He could have floundered around like that for a long time. He felt very definitely that the time for that was over.
So there was no need to give any more thought to the selection of material. But as he tried to grasp it, as he began to search for phrases with which to express it, he noticed to his surprise that, while he sat there quietly, nothing occurred to him. He stood up, he paced up and down the room, he mumbled to himself. He tried to snatch at the individual words, which would not stand still but which, hardly had they appeared, seemed to vanish again as if into mist. He had to say them out loud to himself so as not to keep losing them again . . . An old man . . . forgotten . . . forgotten . . . lying in a dream . . . dreamt . . . I’ve awoken . . . forgotten . . . dreamt . . .
He made no progress. It was as if his thoughts were blocking each other; all at once he no longer knew what he was thinking about. He went over to the window and looked into the distance, into the gray skies. And he began again.
Forgotten . . . then the young generation came . . . they brought me the wreath . . .
No, no, that wouldn’t do at all. That bit about the wreath was ludicrous.
And he asked himself: so, what did the young people do? . . . the young . . . they came, they bent their knee . . . and the old man awoke . . . he awoke from a dream . . . I was dreaming . . . I dreamt my life . . . yes, that was good, it had to be taken on from there: that he had actually dreamt his life. But how to go on? . . . Always the same words again . . . a dreamt life, a dreamt life . . . and he could not get past them. It was as if someone were holding him fast on these few syllables, the way you press someone down into an armchair. He rubbed his forehead, he again started to pace up and down the room, that was better. Albeit that nothing else came to him. But his frustration was alleviated by the movement. Movement! Yes . . . out onto the streets . . . into the fresh air! After all, he must remember that he had not slept very much, his head must be clouded.
He took his hat and stick and he went. For half an hour at least he wanted to suppress any attempt at further thought, so as then
to start anew and afresh. But this was most peculiar: the phrases continued to whirr in his ears as he went down the stairs and then still when he was on the street; and as he tried to divert himself by reading the names on signs or observing the people going past—it didn’t help. Again and again it whirred in his brain: . . . I have dreamt my life . . . and the words didn’t even mean anything any more. They were only sounds, and he did not even quite understand them. Suddenly he said to himself: enough is enough. He had said it out loud. And it sounded so energetic that it was as though someone else had called to him. He sighed as if a curse had been lifted.
Honestly, what had he been thinking of, choosing today of all days—when he wasn’t in the mood, when he was tired and worn—to slog through the composition of a poem? He made a firm resolution not to think any more about it for the rest of the day. The whole day would be devoted to recovery. And with that he felt well again. Nor did he have any doubts that tomorrow or the day after he would achieve with ease what today he had struggled for with so much effort, and in vain. He decided not to go and see his young friends this evening. He feared the fug and the noise. And there was something else that held him back, something that had already crossed his mind once or twice in the previous days: he wanted to make himself a bit scarcer.
He would spend a quick hour in a little coffee house near his apartment that he sometimes frequented.
He went there, sat by a window, had himself brought a café au lait and watched with interest as a game of billiards was played by several old gentlemen. Two of these were well known to him. They belonged to the same table as him at his usual restaurant and, when he came in, had greeted him with a very loud “Servus,” which to him seemed so horribly unfitting that he was almost put out of sorts. But after he had sat for a few minutes at the small table, he began to feel so at home that he did not even take the request that he keep score at all badly, and followed the game with keen attention.
An extremely interesting shot was played and the game shifted into a whole new phase. From this moment on, Herr Saxberger was completely absorbed. He butted in, he gave advice, he took sides, he even offered to take a difficult shot for one of the men, something that was sarcastically declined. Saxberger was almost insulted by that and very pleased when the mocker’s shot went so wrong that it lost him the game.