Confessions of Felix Krull, Confidence Man: The Early Years

  We discussed plans for the rest of my trip, which was to curtail my stay in Lisbon so distressingly, and I mentioned particularly the Argentinian estanciero family whose acquaintance my parents had made in Trouville and whose hospitality awaited me. I told all I knew about them on the basis of the information I had received from the stay-at-home. Their name was Meyer, but the children, a son and daughter of Mrs Meyer's by a former marriage, were named Novaro. She had been born, so I related, in Venezuela and at a very early age had been married to an Argentinian in government service, who had been shot in the revolution of 1890. After a year of mourning she had given her hand to the wealthy Consul Meyer. She and the children now stayed with him either in his town house in Buenos Aires or at El Retiro, his large estate in the mountains some distance from the city. It was there that the family spent most of its time. The substantial income Mrs Meyer had inherited from her first husband had gone to the children when she married again, so that they were not only the eventual heirs of the wealthy Meyer but were already independently rich young people. Their ages were about seventeen and eighteen.

  'Senhora Meyer is no doubt a beauty?' Zouzou asked.

  'I do not know, mademoiselle. But since she found a husband so promptly I assume she is not ugly.'

  'One may assume the same of the children, those Novaros. Do you know their first names?'

  'I don't remember my parents ever mentioning them.'

  'But I'll wager you're impatient to find out.'

  'Why?'

  'I don't know, you spoke of the pair with unmistakable interest.'

  'I was not aware of it,' I said, secretly taken aback. 'As yet, I have no impression of them. But I admit that the combination of brother and sister, when they are attractive, has always held a certain fascination for me.'

  'I regret that I have to meet you so single and alone.'

  'In the first place,' I replied with a bow, 'what is single can hold fascination enough.'

  'And in the second place?'

  'Second place? I said "in the first place" quite thoughtlessly. I have no second to offer. At most I might remark in the second place that there are other charming combinations besides that of brother and sister.'

  'Patatipatatá!'

  'We don't say that, Zouzou,' her mother broke in. 'The marquis will commence to wonder about your upbringing.'

  I assured her that my high regard for Mile Zouzou could not be so easily impaired. We rose from the luncheon table and went back to the living-room for coffee. The professor announced that he could not accompany us on our botanical excursion, but would have to return to his office. Accordingly, he simply rode down to the city with us and said goodbye at the Avenida da Liberdade — parting from me with the utmost cordiality, in which I could detect a certain gratitude for the interest I had shown in his museum. He said I had been a most agreeable and valued guest and would be so regarded by him and his at any time during my stay in Lisbon. If I had the desire and the time to take up tennis again, his daughter would count it a pleasure to introduce me into her club.

  Zouzou said with enthusiasm that she was quite willing.

  With a nod of the head in her direction and a smile that expressed and solicited consideration, he shook hands with me.

  From the point where he parted from us it is, in fact, but a pleasant stroll to the heights where lie the famous gardens with their ponds and lakes, grottoes and open slopes. We changed companions as we walked; sometimes Dom Miguel and I were at Senhora Kuckuck's side while Zouzou wandered on ahead. Sometimes I found myself alone beside that proud lady, watching Zouzou strolling ahead with Hurtado. Sometimes it happened, too, that I was paired with the daughter either in front of the senhora and the animal-sculptor, or behind. Frequently he joined me to impart information about the landscape and the marvels of the world of plants, and I admit that pleased me most — not because of the 'taxidermist' or his explanations, but because then the 'second place' which I had suppressed got its just due and I could see in front of me the enchanting combination of mother and daughter.

  This is a fitting place to remark that Nature, however rare and interesting her guise, gets scant attention from us when we are engrossed with humanity. Despite all her pretensions, she plays no more important role than that of scenery, the background for our emotions, simple decoration. But as that, to be sure, she was worthy of every praise. Conifers of gigantic size claimed our amazed attention, half a hundred metres tall, at a guess. The domain abounded in fan palms and feather palms. In places it had the tangled aspect of a primeval forest. Exotic rushes, bamboos, and papyruses, lined the edges of the ornamental waters on which floated bright-hued bride and mandarin swans. We admired the palm lily with its dark-green tuft of leaves from which springs a great sheaf of white, bell-like blossoms. And everywhere were the geologically ancient fern trees, growing close together in wild and improbable little groves, with their massive trunks and slender stems spreading into crowns of fronds, gigantic leaves, which, as Hurtado explained to us, carry their spore capsules. There were very few places on earth, aside from this one, he observed, where there were still tree ferns. But, he added, primitive man had from time immemorial ascribed magical powers to ferns in general, which have no flowers and really have no seeds, especially in the concoction of love potions.

  'Pfui,' Zouzou said.

  'How do you mean that, mademoiselle?' I asked.

  It is startling to encounter so emotional a reaction to a scientific and matter-of-fact term that calls up no specific image. 'Which part of the phrase do you object to?' I inquired. 'To love or to potions?'

  She did not reply, but looked angrily at me, actually lowering in a threatening way.

  At this point we chanced to be walking alone behind the animal-sculptor and the proud lady.

  'Love is itself a potion,' I said. 'What wonder that primitive man, the fern people so to speak, who still exist since everything on earth is contemporaneous and intermixed, were tempted to practise magic with it?'

  'That is a disreputable subject,' she said reprovingly.

  'Love? How hard you are! One loves beauty. One's eye and soul turn to it like blossoms to the sun. You certainly wouldn't apply your disapproving exclamation to beauty, would you?'

  'I find it the height of bad taste to bring the conversation around to beauty when one possesses it oneself.'

  To this forthrightness I responded as follows:

  'You are unkind, mademoiselle. Should one be penalized for having a passable exterior by being forbidden to admire beauty? Isn't it instead culpable to be ugly? I have always ascribed it to a kind of carelessness. Out of an innate consideration for the world that was awaiting me, I took care while I was being formed that I should not offend its eyes. That is all. I'd call it a kind of self-discipline. Besides, people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. How beautiful you are, Zouzou, how enchanting those ringlets in front of your little ears. I can't look at them enough; in fact, I have made a drawing of them.'

  This was true. That morning, while smoking a cigarette after my breakfast in the handsome alcove of my salon, I had supplied Loulou's nude studies of Zaza with Zouzou's ringlets.

  'What! You have taken the liberty of drawing me?' she hissed through clenched teeth.

  'Yes, I have, with your permission — or without it. Beauty is a freehold of the heart. It cannot prohibit the emotions it inspires, nor can it forbid the temptation of reproducing them.'

  'I wish to see that drawing.'

  'I don't know whether that's feasible — I mean, whether my drawing could stand your inspection.'

  'That's beside the point. I demand that you give me the picture.'

  'There are several of them. I will have to think about whether I can lay them before you and also when and where.'

  'The when and where must be found. There is no question about the whether. What you have made behind my back is my property, and what you just said about "freehold" is very, very shameless.'

  'It was certainl
y not intended to be. I would be inconsolable if I had given you reason to question my upbringing. "Freehold of the heart", I said, and is that not right? Beauty is defenceless against our emotions. It may be wholly unmoved and untouched by them, it need not pay the slightest attention to them. But it is defenceless against them.'

  'Will you please drop the subject once and for all?'

  'The subject? With pleasure! Or, if not with pleasure, at least with alacrity. For example —' I went on in a louder voice and a caricature of a conversational tone: 'May I inquire whether by chance your revered parents are acquainted with Monsieur and Madame von Hueon, the ambassador from Luxemburg and his wife?'

  'No, what have we to do with Luxemburg?'

  'You are right. I had to call on them. My parents would have expected me to. Now I can probably expect an invitation to luncheon or dinner.'

  'Much joy may you have of it!'

  'I have a secret motive. It's my wish to be presented by von Hueon to His Majesty the King.'

  'Really? So you're courtier too?'

  'If you want to call it that. I have been living for a long time in a bourgeois republic. As soon as it turned out that my trip would take me into a monarchy, I decided to pay my respects to the King. You may think it childish, but it will fulfil a need that I feel and it will give me pleasure to bow as one bows only before a King and to make frequent use of the words "Your Majesty". "Sire, I beg Your Majesty to accept my most humble thanks for the honour Your Majesty -" and so on. I would like even more to secure an audience with the Pope and I will certainly do so some time. There one even bends one's knee, which would give me great satisfaction, and says "Your Holiness".'

  'You pretend to talk to me, marquis, of your need for devotion -'

  'Not for devotion. For good form.'

  'Patatipatatá! In point of fact, you simply want to impress me with your acquaintances and your invitation to the Embassy and the fact that you have entrée among the great of the earth.'

  'Your mama has forbidden you to say patatipatatá to me. Besides -'

  'Mama!' she called so that Senhora Maria Pia turned around. 'I must report to you that I have said "patatipatatá" to the marquis again.'

  'If you go on quarrelling with our young guest,' the Iberian replied in her sonorous husky voice, 'you can't walk with him any more. Come here and let Dom Miguel escort you. Meanwhile, I will try to entertain the marquis.'

  'I assure you, madame,' I said after the change had been made, 'that there was nothing resembling a quarrel. Who could fail to be enchanted by Mademoiselle Zouzou's charming forthrightness?'

  'I am sure we have left you too long in that child's company, dear marquis,' the regal lady replied, and her jet earrings vibrated. 'Youth is generally too young for the young. In the end, association with those who are mature is, if not more welcome, at least more edifying.'

  'In any case, it is a greater honour,' I observed, putting a cautious warmth into my words.

  'And so,' she went on, 'we'll conclude this excursion together. Have you found it interesting?'

  'In the highest degree. I have found it an indescribable pleasure. And I am perfectly certain that this pleasure would not have been half so intense, my responsiveness to the new impressions that Lisbon offers — impressions of things and people, or better, people and things — would not have been half so profound without the preparation which good fortune granted me by allowing me to fall into conversation during my trip with your honoured husband, senhora — if one may use the word "conversation" when one's role has been simply that of enthusiastic listener — without, if I may say so, the paleontological loosening-up his discourse produced in the soil of my mind, making it a ready seed-bed for new impressions, racial impressions, for example, such as the experience of seeing the primordial race to which such interesting admixtures have been added at various periods, and which offers eye and heart a majestic image of racial dignity....'

  I paused to catch my breath. My companion cleared her throat sonorously and drew herself to an even greater height.

  'There is no help for it,' I went on, 'I have to keep using the words "primitive" and "primordial". They steal into all my thoughts. This is a result of that paleontological loosening-up I just mentioned. Without it, what would the tree ferns we have just seen have meant to me, even if I had been told that primitive man believed they were useful for love potions? Everything has become so insignificant since then — things and people — I mean, people and things -'

  'The real reason for your responsiveness, dear marquis, is probably your youth.'

  'How charming it is, senhora, to hear the word "youth" on your lips! You pronounce it with the kindliness of maturity. Mademoiselle Zouzou, it appears, finds youth annoying, quite in keeping with your remark that youth is usually too young for the young. In some measure it holds true for me as well. Youth alone could not have produced the enchantment I move in. My advantage is that I can behold beauty in a double image, as child-like blossom and as regal maturity —'

  In short, I talked like a book, and my gallantry was not ungraciously received. For as I bade farewell to my companions at the bottom of the cable-car line which would take them back to the Villa Kuckuck, and was about to return to my hotel, the senhora casually remarked that she hoped there would be an opportunity of seeing me again before my departure. Dom Antonio had suggested that, if it pleased me, I should freshen up my neglected tennis with Zouzou's athletic friends. Not a bad idea, perhaps.

  Not a bad idea indeed, but a foolhardy one! I questioned Zouzou with my eyes, and when she sketched with face and shoulders an attitude of neutrality that did not absolutely rule out my assent, an appointment was at once made for the third day following. We would play in the morning and after that I was to lunch with the family once more, a farewell lunch. When I had bowed over Maria Pia's hand and Zouzou's and had exchanged a cordial handshake with Dom Miguel, I went my way, speculating about what form the future would take.

  CHAPTER 9

  Lisbon, 25 August 1895 Dearest Parents, Beloved Mama, Beloved and Revered Papa: These lines follow so long after the telegram I sent to announce my arrival here that I must fear your displeasure. That will be double — I am, alas, all too sure — because of the above address, which is not at all in accord with your expectation, our agreement, or my own intentions. For ten days now you have pictured me on the high seas, and yet here I am, still writing from the capital of Portugal, the first stop on my journey. Dear parents, I shall explain this state of affairs, which I myself could not foresee, together with the reason for my long silence, in a way that will, I hope, nip your displeasure in the bud.

  It all began by my meeting on the train a distinguished savant named Professor Kuckuck, whose conversation, I am certain, would have fascinated and inspired you just as it did your son.

  German by birth, as his name indicates, and coming from the district of Gotha like you, dear Mama, belonging moreover to a good family, though of course not of family, he is a paleontologist by profession and has been living for a long time in Lisbon, married to a lady of ancient Portuguese family. He is the founder and director of the Natural History Museum here, which I visited under his personal guidance and whose scientific exhibitions both paleozoological and paleo-anthropological (these terms will be familiar to you) made a deep impression on me. It was Kuckuck who first warned me not to take the beginning of my world tour lightly just because it was a beginning and not to apportion too short a time to my inspection of a city like Lisbon. This made me wonder whether I had not planned too brief a visit properly to see a place that has so impressive a past and so many contemporary wonders — I mention here only the tree ferns in the botanical gardens which really belong to the Carboniferous period.

  When in your generosity and wisdom, dear parents, you arranged this trip for me, you probably intended it not only as a distraction from what were, I admit, silly fancies wherein my immaturity had been shared, but also as an educational experience, a kind of grand to
ur such as is appropriate to a young man of family. Well then, this intention has been promoted by my friendly intercourse with the members of the Kuckuck household. They are three in number — four at times, for one of the professor's professional colleagues, Senhor Hurtado, an animal-sculptor, is there on occasion. To be sure, they contribute to my education in very unequal fashion. I admit I have not succeeded in getting on very well with the ladies of the house. My relations with them have not really seemed to grow cordial in the past weeks nor does this appear likely within the foreseeable future. The Senhora, née da Cruz and of ancient Iberian stock, is a woman of terrifying sternness, yes, severity, and of an unconcealed arrogance, the basis of which is, to me at least, by no means clear; the daughter, whose age is perhaps a little less than mine and whose first name I have still not been able to catch, is a young woman one would be inclined to number among the echinoderms, so prickly is her behaviour. Moreover, if in my inexperience I have not misjudged the situation, the above-mentiontd Dom Miguel (Hurtado) is probably to be regarded as her presumptive fiancé and husband, although it is an open question in my mind whether he is to be envied on that account.

  No, it is the head of the house, Professor K., to whom I am devoted, and his associate as well, who is so deeply versed in the whole world of organic forms and to whose ingenuity the museum owes so much. It is from these two, but principally of course from K. himself, that I receive the enlightenment and information that are so important to my education and that exert a far greater attraction than the study of Lisbon and the architectural delights of its environs. Quite literally they embrace all Being, including the spontaneous generation of Life — everything from stone to Man. These two extraordinary men quite rightly see in me something resembling a sea lily which has freed itself from its stalk — that is, a novice at motion and in need of advice. It is on their account that this prolongation of my stay here contrary to plan — for which, dear parents, I affectionately beg your approval — is especially pleasant and valuable, although it would be going too far to say that they were the authors of it.