Confessions of Felix Krull, Confidence Man: The Early Years

  We discussed a number of other matters as we sat drinking Benedictine and smoking excellent Egyptian cigarettes. He no longer had the slightest misgivings on the score of my handwriting, but he approved my proposal to send him at his new address (Sèvres, Seine-et-Oise, rue Brancas) the letters I would receive from our parents, so that with his help I could comment, if only belatedly and by way of afterthought, on unforeseeable family or social incidents that would be sure to arise. Something else occurred to him: as he was devoting himself to art, I in his place would, at least on occasion, have to show some competence in that field. Nom d'un nom, how was I to manage that! We must not, I said, lose heart about it. And I asked for his sketchbook, which contained some blurred landscapes drawn on rough paper with very soft pencil or chalk, in addition to a number of female portraits and half- and whole-figure studies for which Zaza had obviously sat — or rather lain — as model. The heads were sketched, I may say, with an unjustifiable boldness, but one had to admit a certain resemblance — not much, but some. As for the landscape sketches, they had been lent a shadowy vagueness by the simple process of almost completely obliterating the lines with a stump and blurring them into misty indistinctness. Whether this procedure was artistic or fraudulent I was not called upon to say, but I decided at once that, cheating or no, it was something I could do. I asked for one of his soft pencils and one of the felt-tipped stumps, blackened by much use, with which he bestowed on his productions the consecration of vagueness. After glancing briefly into the air, I drew awkwardly enough a church steeple with storm-tossed trees beside it, meanwhile transmuting the childishness of my work into pure genius by aid of the stump. Louis seemed a little taken aback when I showed him the picture, but he was reassured as well and declared I need have no hesitadon in showing my work.

  He lamented, if only in the interest of his own reputation, that I should not have time to go to London and order the necessary suits from Paul, a famous tailor whom he patronized. I would require, he pointed out, tails, a frock coat, a cutaway with pin-striped trousers, as well as light, dark, and dark-blue lounge suits. He was all the more pleasantly surprised to discover my exact knowledge of the proper accessories in the way of linen and silk underclothing and various sorts of shoes, hats, and gloves. I still had time to get much of this in Paris — indeed, I would have been able to have had some suits made to order — but I abandoned this formality upon reflecting that any half-way decent suit, when I wore it, would look like the most expensive bespoke work.

  The procuring of some things I needed, especially my white tropical wardrobe, was postponed until Lisbon. For my Paris purchases Venosta gave me some hundreds of francs which his parents had presented to him in preparation for the trip, and added to them a few hundred more from the capital I had made over to him. I volunteered to return this money from savings I would make during the trip. He gave me his sketch-book as well, together with some pencils and the helpful stump. Also a box of visiting-cards with our name and his address engraved at the top; he embraced me, laughing uproariously and pounding me on the back, hoped that I would soon be brimming with a flood of new impressions, and thus sent me forth into the wide world.

  It was toward that wide world, kind reader, that I was borne, two weeks and a few days later, properly ensconced in a first-class compartment of the Nord-Sud Express. I sat by the window on the grey plush sofa, my arm on the folding arm-rest, my head reclining against the lace runner, my legs crossed; I was wearing a well-pressed suit of English flannel, and light spats over my patent-leather boots. My well-filled steamer trunk had been checked through; my calf-skin and alligator hand-luggage, all stamped with the monogram L. d. V. and the nine-pointed coronet, reposed in the luggage net.

  I felt no need for occupation and no desire to read. To sit and be what I was — what better entertainment could there be? My soul was filled with a dream-like ease, but it would be a mistake to think that my satisfaction sprang solely or even predominantly from the fact that I was now so very distinguished a person. No, it was the change and renewal of my worn-out self, the fact that I had been able to put off the old Adam and slip on a new, that gave me such a sense of fulfilment and happiness. I was struck, though, by the fact that in this change of existence there was not simply delightful refreshment but also a sort of emptying out of my inmost being — that is, I had to banish from my soul all memories that belonged to my no longer valid past. As I sat there, I had ceased to have any right to them — which was certainly no loss. My memories! It was no loss whatever that they were no longer mine. Only it was not altogether easy to put others, to which I was now entitled, in their place with any degree of precision. It gave me a strange feeling of faulty memory, of emptiness of memory rather, as I sat there in my luxurious compartment. I became aware that I knew nothing about myself except that I had spent my childhood and early youth on a nobleman's estate in Luxemburg; there were only a few names like Radicule and Minime to give any degree of precision to my new past. Yes, if I so much as wanted to picture the castle within whose walls I had grown up, I had to call to my aid the representations of English castles on the china from which, in my former lowly existence, I had had to scrape remnants of food — and this, of course, amounted to mixing inadmissible memories with those that alone were appropriate to me now.

  Such were the reflections that drifted through my dreaming mind to the rhythmic jolting and hurrying of the train. I do not say for a moment that they were distressing. On the contrary, that inner emptiness, that vagueness and fusion of memory seemed to me in a kind of melancholy way appropriate to my distinguished position, and I was glad to let my face assume, as I stared straight ahead, a look of quiet, dreamy melancholy combined with a nobleman's helplessness.

  The train had left Paris at six o'clock. Twilight fell, the lights went on, and my private abode seemed even more elegant than before. The conductor, a man well advanced in years, knocked softly on the door and raised his hand to the peak of his cap as he entered; returning my ticket, he repeated the salutation. Loyalty and conservatism were to be read in that honest man's face; as he went through the train in the course of his lawful occasions, he came in contact with all strata of society, including the questionable elements, and it was a visible pleasure for him to behold in me wealth and distinction, the fine flower of the social order whose very sight raised and refreshed his spirits. About my well-being, once I had ceased to be his passenger, he assuredly need have no concern. For my part, in place of any kindly questions about his family life, I gave him a gracious smile and a nod de haut en bas that assuredly confirmed him in his conservative principles to the point where he would gladly have fought and bled for them.

  The man from the dining-car who was handing out reservations for dinner also knocked tentatively at my door. I accepted a number from him; and when, a short time later, the ringing of a gong in the corridor announced the meal, I got out my fitted travelling-case, adjusted my tie in front of the mirror, and then betook myself to the dining-car a few carriages forward. The steward directed me to my place with hospitable gestures and pushed in my chair.

  A middle-aged gentleman of fragile appearance was already seated at the little table, busying himself with the hors d'œuvre. His dress was somewhat old-fashioned — I can still see his very high stock. He had a small grey beard, and as I greeted him politely he looked up at me with starlike eyes. I am unable to say in what the starlike quality of his glance consisted. Were the pupils of his eyes especially bright, soft, beaming? They were that, to be sure — but are eyes on that account starlike? 'The light in his eyes' is a common expression, but it refers to something purely physical; it by no means connotes the description that forced itself upon me; something specifically moral has to be involved for bright eyes to be starlike eyes.

  They remained fixed on me as I sat down, and only very slowly was the accompanying expression of earnest attentiveness replaced by an assenting, or shall I say approving, smile. Only very tardily, after I was seated and was reach
ing for the menu, did he answer my greeting. It was exactly as though I had omitted that courtesy myself and the starry-eyed one was setting me an edifying example. And so involuntarily I repeated my 'Bonsoir, monsieur.'

  He, however, went on: 'I wish you bon appétit, monsieur.' Adding: 'Your youth, I feel sure, will guarantee that.'

  Reflecting that a man with starlike eyes was privileged to indulge in unconventional behaviour, I replied with a smile and a bow, already occupied with the plate of sardines, vegetable salad, and celery that the waiter was offering me. As I was thirsty I ordered a bottle of ale, a choice which my grey-bearded companion approved with no sign of fearing that he might be considered guilty of meddling.

  'Very sensible,' he said. 'Very sensible to order a strong beer with your evening meal. It is calming and induces sleep, whereas wine usually has a stimulating effect and is prejudicial to sleep, except of course when taken in great quantity.'

  'Which would be entirely contrary to my taste.'

  'So I assumed. Besides, there is nothing to keep us from sleeping late tomorrow. We will not be in Lisbon until noon. Or is your destination closer?'

  'No, I am going to Lisbon. A long trip.'

  'No doubt the longest you've ever taken?'

  'But a trivial distance,' I said, not answering his question directly, 'in comparison with all that lies before me.'

  'Think of that!' he exclaimed, raising his eyebrows and throwing back his head in a gesture of mock astonishment. 'You are off on a serious tour of inspection of this star and its present inhabitants.'

  His description of the earth as a star combined with the quality of his eyes made a strange impression on me. Besides, the adjective 'present' which he had applied to the earth's inhabitants immediately aroused in me a feeling of significance and vastness. And yet his manner of speech and the expressions he used were very much like those one uses with a child, a favoured child, to be sure; they held a touch of affectionate teasing. In the consciousness of looking even younger than I was, I took this in good part.

  He had refused soup and sat opposite me idly except that from time to time he poured Vichy water into his glass, an action that had to be accomplished with care, for the car was swaying violently. I had simply glanced up from my food in some bewilderment at his words and had not replied. He, however, clearly did not wish the conversation to die, for he went on:

  'Well, however long your journey may be, you ought not to neglect its beginning simply because it is a beginning. You are entering a very interesting country of great antiquity, one to which every eager voyager owes a debt of gratitude, since in earlier centuries it opened up so many travel routes. Lisbon, which I hope you will have time enough to see properly, was once the richest city in the world, thanks to the voyages of discovery. Too bad you did not turn up there five hundred years ago — at that time you would have found it wrapped in the rich scent of Eastern spices and you would have seen gold by the bushel. History has brought about a sorry diminution in those fine foreign possessions. But, as you will see, the country and people are still charming. I mention the people because a good part of all longing to travel consists in a yearning for people one has never seen, a lust for the new — to look into strange eyes, strange faces, to rejoice in unknown human types and manners. Or what do you think?'

  What was I to think? Probably he was right in attributing part of the love of travel to curiosity, or 'lust for the new'.

  'Thus you will find,' he continued, 'in the country you are approaching, a racial mixture that is highly entertaining because of its variety and confusion. The original inhabitants were mixed — Iberians, as of course you know, with a Celtic element. But in the course of two thousand years Veneuans, Carthaginians, Romans, Vandals, Suevians, West Goths, and especially the Arabs, the Moors, have co-operated to produce the type that awaits you — not to forget a sizeable admixture of Negro blood from the many dark-skinned slaves that were brought in at the time when Portugal owned the whole African coast. You must not be surprised at a certain quality of the hair, certain lips, a certain melancholy animal look in the eye that appear from time to time. But the Moorish-Berber racial element, as you will find, is clearly predominant — from the long period of Arab domination. The net result is a not exactly heroic but decidedly amiable type: dark-haired, somewhat yellowish in complexion and of delicate build, with handsome, intelligent brown eyes.'

  'I eagerly look forward to making its acquaintance,' I said, adding: 'May I ask, sir, whether you yourself are Portuguese?'

  'Why, no,' he replied. 'But I have lived in Portugal for a long time. I was in Paris this time only on a brief visit — on business. Official business. I was about to say, if you look about you a bit you will find the Arabic-Moorish influence everywhere in the architecture of the country. As far as Lisbon is concerned, I must warn you about the poverty of its historical buildings. The city, you know, lies on an earthquake fault, and the great quake of the last century laid two-thirds of it in rubble. However, it has become a very handsome place again with many sights worth seeing which I can't too strongly recommend to you. Our botanical garden on the western heights ought to be your first goal. There is nothing like it in all Europe, thanks to a climate in which a tropical flora flourishes side by side with that of the temperate zone. The gardens are crowded with araucaria, bamboo, papyrus, yucca, and every kind of palm tree. And there you will see with your own eyes plants that really do not belong to the present-day vegetation of our planet, but to an earlier one — I mean the tree ferns. Go without delay and look at the tree ferns of the Carboniferous period. That's more than short-winded cultural history. That is geological time.'

  Again I had the feeling of undefined vastness that his words had aroused in me before.

  'I shall certainly not miss them,' I assured him.

  'You must forgive me,' he felt obliged to add, 'for giving you directions in this way and trying to guide your steps. But do you know what you remind me of?'

  'Please tell me,' I replied smiling.

  'A sea lily.'

  'That sounds decidedly flattering.'

  'Only because it sounds to you like a flower. The sea lily, however, is not a flower but a sessile small animal of the deep sea, belonging to the order of echinoderms and constituting probably its oldest species. We have a quantity of fossils. Such non-mobile animals tend to take on flower-like forms — that is to say circular-symmetry like that of a star or a blossom. The present-day descendant of the sea lily, the lily-star, is attached to the ground by a stem only during its youth. After that it frees itself, emancipates itself, and goes off adventurously swimming and clambering along the coasts. Forgive me for this association of ideas, but like a modern sea lily you have freed yourself from your stem and are now off on a tour of inspection. One is tempted to give advice to this novice at locomotion. ... Allow me: Kuckuck.'

  For a moment I thought something was the matter with him, and then I understood. Although much older than I, he had introduced himself.

  'Venosta,' I hastened to reply with an oblique bow, as I was just then being served fish on my left.

  'Marquis Venosta?' he asked with a slight raising of the eyebrows.

  'At your service,' I replied in a deprecatory tone.

  'Of the Luxemburg line, I assume. I have the honour of knowing a Roman aunt of yours, the Contessa Paolina Centurione, born a Venosta of the Italian branch. And that line in turn is related to the Szechényis of Vienna and so to the Esterhazys of Galantha. As you know, you have cousins and connexions everywhere, monsieur le marquis. You mustn't be surprised at my knowledge. Family history and the study of descent is my hobby, or rather my profession. Professor Kuckuck,' he completed his introduction. 'Paleontologist and Director of the Museum of Natural History in Lisbon, an as yet insufficiently known institution of which I am the founder.'

  He drew out his wallet and handed me his card, which prompted me to offer him mine — that is to say, Loulou's. On his I found his given names, Antonio José, his
title, his official position, and his Lisbon address. As to paleontology, his conversation had given me some inkling of his connexion with that subject.

  We read the cards with mutual expressions of deference and pleasure. Then we put them in our pockets, exchanging short bows of acknowledgement.

  'I feel free to say, monsieur le professeur,' I added politely, 'that I have been fortunate in my place at table.'

  'The pleasure is altogether mine,' he replied. We had hitherto spoken in French; now he inquired: 'I assume you speak German, Marquis de Venosta? Your good mother, I believe, derives from Gotha — near my own native place — née Baroness Plettenberg, if I am not mistaken? You see I really do know my facts. So we can just as well -'