Stiller was busy, so I was able or compelled to look around to pass the time; he was standing our white wine under a jet of cold water. Later, we sat out of doors on a mossy balustrade surrounded by the ever jolly garden gnomes, and at last I had to say it: 'So this is your ferme vaudoise?' Stiller seemed unwilling to discuss any discrepancy between his description and the reality, he merely said: 'It's a terrible pity you never saw my eighty elms, they were supposed to be diseased.' And with that the joke was over. I asked, 'How are you?' and received the impression that Stiller had made up his mind not to complain. 'How's your wife?' he asked back. In subsequent conversations, too, he avoided uttering her name; I don't know why. Apart from this he did not inquire after anyone, and conversation was really a great effort.
'Why don't you put these garden gnomes in the tool-shed?' I asked, for the sake of something to say. Stiller shrugged his shoulders: 'I haven't got time, I don't know, they don't bother me.' But in spite of everything I felt he was glad of the visit. 'When Julika comes,' he said, 'we'll drink our wine.' Meanwhile we smoked...
I remember that insignificant quarter of an hour very well. What does man do with the days of his life? I was scarcely aware of the question, it just irritated me. How could Stiller bear to face this question unprotected by affairs of social or professional importance, without any defences? He sat on the weather-worn balustrade, one knee drawn up and his hands clasped round it; when I looked at him I could not imagine how he could bear this existence, how any man can bear his existence once he has learnt from his experiences and is consequently free from vain expectations...
His pottery was situated in an underground chamber with a good light cut into the side of the hill lower down—once a wash-house with' a drying room and a storehouse for garden furniture, formerly whitewashed, but now papered with grey mould although the sun shone in from midday till dusk. I was relieved: here I found it easier to imagine my friend's days. 'One has to do something,' he commented as we looked at his finished wares, the 'Swiss pottery' with which he earned his meagre livelihood. 'Julika still likes these shallow bowls best,' he said. Another time: 'Everything has to be learnt, you know, and I shall never become a proper potter now.' Stiller took particular pleasure in displaying a potter's wheel he had made himself. As a layman, I considered him a master of his craft when he talked about the pottery of various peoples and periods, about the mystery of certain glazes. In what way had he changed? It seemed to me that his mind was directed more towards things themselves than it had been. Once he had spoken only of himself when he talked about marriage in general, about Negroes, volcanoes, and heaven knows what else: now he talked about 'his' pots, 'his' wheel, 'his' glaze, even 'his' skill, without speaking of himself at all.
'Herr Staatsanwalt!' Frau Julika greeted me. And Stiller gave her a kiss on the check; his hands were rather dirty from the potter's wheel. I found Frau Julika noticeably older, an unusually beautiful woman still, her striking girlish hair with its almost natural sheen stranger than ever. 'He never misses a good excuse to drink wine!' she remarked when Stiller went to fetch his bottles, having first put the two wobbly arm-chairs out in the garden for us. it's nice here,' said Frau Julika, 'isn't it?' In spite of the growing sympathy I felt for this unusual woman, I never quite knew what to talk to her about. It would be wrong to take her cool manner, which was probably only a mask to cover her shyness, personally. In all likelihood she had no inkling how little she communicated herself, and couldn't understand it when people failed to notice her goodwill, her delight at seeing someone or in a little present. She looked at the little hand-printed cloth. 'You can't get anything like that round here,' was all she said. I think she had a profound aversion to expressing herself in words, but on the other hand the way Frau Julika immediately put the little cloth aside, although she probably liked it, made me feel throughly embarrassed too, as though I had been expecting a speech of thanks. Now I inquired about her job at the girls' school down in the valley but learnt practically nothing and had to think what else might interest her. She had cushioned her head on her coppery hair, understandably tired after her day's work.
'Our Stiller has become a real potter!' I began, and she nodded. Earlier on, in the underground chamber, I had been struck by Stiller's remark: Julika still likes these shallow bowls best. This suggested a limited appreciation on his wife's part, a lack of interest or even scepticism regarding his endeavours, yes, the good Stiller seemed to miss something, something like encouragement, criticism within the framework of enthusiasm; down in the underground chamber one got the impression that Frau Julika really regarded his whole activity as a potter as humbug. Now she said to me: 'Don't you think it's amazing what he's done in these two years?' I did think so. 'You should tell him that,' I remarked. 'He'd like to hear it.'—'Don't I tell him?'—'You know what we men are like,' I said evasively. 'We like to make an impression on the woman we love, and if we can't manage that we try the public.' I meant it more as a joke. 'I don't know,' said Frau Julika, rubbing her eyes with both hands, 'what he expects of me. Haven't I told him? Can I help it if he doesn't listen?' I had no intention of interposing myself in the role of guardian, so I broke off the conversation.
'You're very formal with one another,' burst in Stiller, making our embarrassment complete. 'Well, prosit!' he said to bridge the gap, and Stiller and I went to work on the cool little glasses. 'Aren't you drinking?' he inquired when Julika did not pick up the glass he had filled for her, because she didn't feel like it. He repeated, 'Well, prosit!' For a moment I really wondered whether Julika might not be expecting a child; her refusal to drink wine was as mute as it was definite, as though she wasn't allowed to, and I thought it a pity she didn't at least take a sip. In some way she shut herself out from the start. There is nothing trickier, I find again and again, than a three-cornered gathering. I made a great effort not to be drawn into an alliance with Stiller. It was easy with him, he has a feminine gift of adaptability, and for her part Frau Julika did nothing to prevent herself from being shut out. She lay back among her long hair without a word; her face, which I saw in profile, entranced and disturbed me in equal measure, it seemed to wear an expression of mute terror that had become permanent. Stiller paid no heed to this, but let himself go in witty persiflage, frequently directing his remarks to Frau Julika with an undertone of tender entreaty, half consideration and half coercion. Several times I thought: He makes it too easy for himself, he pays with charm, of which he has plenty, that doesn't cost him anything. It also seemed to me that Stiller was perpetually trying to make amends for something; on such occasions he became polite to the point of timidity.
'Take it away,' said Frau Julika. 'I don't need a cushion, really I don't.' Stiller felt rejected, to judge by his brief glance at Julika, unjustly rejected. If I had been asked to act as arbiter, I should have had to take Frau Julika's part as regards the superfluousness of the proferred cushion. 'Where are you going to set up your kiln?' I asked, to change the subject; but Stiller didn't hear. 'Why don't you want this cushion?' he insisted, until poor Frau Julika finally took it for the sake of peace, without thanking him, and instead of putting it behind her head pushed it under her knees, where it was less in the way. Two well-meaning people! I thought and praised the delicious wine.
For no particular reason I recalled the little story someone had told me recently. 'You once discovered Mexico,' I said, 'this will interest you. Some chap was breeding pigs there, I don't know where exactly, anyhow it didn't pay, he sweated his guts out, but to no avail, and he had invested all his means and half his life in it, and all his ambition; to cut a long story short, the business simply didn't pay, and then on top of everything else there came a devastating drought. That happens, doesn't it? The river dried up, I don't know which one; and then apparently things got so bad that the crocodiles migrated over land to the nearest water. One fine day a convoy of these crocodiles started heading straight across his pig farm. What was he to do? The unfortunate fellow could have climbed up
on to a roof, for example, and shot the crocodiles dead. But he didn't. He let them eat all his pigs, which had never paid anyway, made a stronger fence round the whole place, acquired a crocodile farm, went into the handbag business and made a fortune.' Stiller laughed loudly. 'It's supposed to be true,' I added. 'Isn't that wonderful?' exclaimed Stiller, turning to Frau Julika. Her laugh was completely forced, and as a matter of fact, when I look back, I can't remember this woman ever laughing in any other way. Her laughter always stayed on her face; it was as though she had no inward laughter, as though she had lost it. It was quite useless trying to cheer Frau Julika up; afterwards one felt utterly silly.
Now I was annoyed at myself. What was the point of all this talk? It was a late afternoon in autumn with a gentle sun, the hour Stiller had described in his letter: '—and then, my dear sir, when we sit outside and the autumn sun is enough to make you happy, when there are grapes again, when a metallic haze hangs over the lake, but the mountain-tops are clear and bright with golden woods against a Mediterranean sky and the light lies across the lake in a pathway of pure quicksilver, later of gleaming brass, then of copper—' The quicksilver phase was already over, the lake was at the brass stage.
Every now and then I had to look round again; the ever jolly garden gnomes, the chalet with its turret, the weeds, the grey Aphrodite, the empty, moss-grown fountain with its basin choked by dead leaves and its rusty water-pipe, the veranda with its art nouvtau leaded windows, the ivy, the funicular railway blood-red in the setting sun, all this remained pretty incredible. They themselves, Stiller and Frau Julika wore this environment like an alien suit of clothes with the unexpressed awareness that ultimately every suit of clothes is alien and provisional. I admired them. What really belonged to them was the sun with its vast radiance on the surface of Lake Geneva, the pottery down below in the underground chamber, all kinds of difficulties such as are usual among human beings, and no doubt also their helpless guest. As soon as one left Frau Julika in peace everything went smoothly. Now, however, Stiller wanted to know whether I believed in the educational value of eurhythmies. Frau Julika pleaded its cause without any real conviction, Stiller was of the opinion that Julika should devote herself to purely artistic work again and start a ballet school of her own at Lausanne. The discussion never got as far as a consideration of the practical obstacles; Frau Julika was positively vehement, Stiller sorrowful because she would accept nothing from him, neither a cushion nor his belated belief in her artistic gifts. He rose disconsolately to fetch the other bottle...
'Rolf,' she said the moment we were alone, 'you must talk him out of that idea! I beg you, talk him out of it! He's driving me crazy with this scheme!' My attempt to examine the idea from a practical standpoint, to consider what Stiller hoped Frau Julika might gain from it, and to ask what future Frau Julika herself desired, fell on totally deaf ears; since it was impossible to talk to me either, she had thrown herself back in the chair again and was shaking her head as she lay. 'What does he want of me?' she said at last, in a tired voice, as I remained silent. Her eyes were glistening; with her slender, pale hands she was grasping the arms of the chair as one does at the dentist's to stop oneself trembling. Her whole behaviour, I must admit, struck me as overwrought and I felt I was being called upon to take sides in a long-standing argument, something I had no wish to do, particularly as I lacked all expert knowledge in the matter. 'Stiller has made a pretty fool of me with his ferme vaudoise,' I said. She didn't react at all. 'But this position!' I chatted on, 'what I like most about Lake Geneva—' She heard neither my small talk nor my effort to pass beyond it to a genuine conversation: 'Talk him out it!' she begged again, just as excited ps before. 'How do you imagine I could do it?' she protested with a violence that was also directed against me and which she toned down by adding in a gentler voice: it's impossible, believe me. Impossible.' And soon afterwards: 'Of course, he can't know,'—'What can't he know?'—'Don't ask,' she begged, pulling herself together and taking another cigarette. I clicked my lighter. 'I shouldn't smoke all the time,' she remarked as though frightened or something, as though I were forcing her, in any case without thanking me for the light, which she did not use. 'He can't know,' she said to herself, 'I've been to see the doctor—' I'm sure Frau Julika did not intend to talk to anyone about it and was sorry she had started: naturally I waited to hear more, though in silence. 'The whole of my left lung,' she said. 'I don't want him to know yet. It's got to be done. As soon as possible.' Her sudden calm, a kind of composure that made me think the unhappy woman had no idea what it was all about, although she herself subsequently employed the medical expression, which she had learnt not from her doctor, but from her own common sense; her lack of complaint amazed me, so that I stared at the ground, as though searching for something in the gravel, and dared not look her in the face for fear of showing by my expression what I could not help thinking. 'Yes,' she said drily, 'that's the way it is.' I assumed the same dry tone. 'When is the operation to be?' I asked. 'I don't know yet. As soon as I am no longer afraid.'
A moment later Stiller arrived with the other bottle. He was just going up to Glion, he said, to fetch some grapes...
'Talk him out of it!' repeated Frau Julika, as though the ballet school idea was still the topic of conversation. She was lying back with her head cushioned in her girlish hair again. I don't think I've seen a lonelier person than this woman. Between her suffering and the world there seemed to be an impenetrable wall, not merely detachment but rather a kind of certainty she would not be heard, an old and hopeless, absolutely indelible conviction derived from experience, unreproachful but incurable, that her partner could hear only himself. I wanted to ask whether she had never been loved in her life. Of course I didn't ask. And did she herself love? I involuntarily tried to picture her as a child. Was it due to the fact that she was an orphan? Expecting every minute that Frau Julika would begin to pour her heart out, I too remained silent, listening to her regular, muffled breathing. What had happened to this woman? I found it impossible to believe that any human being could have been like this from the outset, so completely unable to express herself even at a moment of agonizing misery. Who had made her like this? Stiller had been gone a quarter of an hour already, in another quarter of an hour he would be back. 'Are you too waiting for me to say something now?' she began at last. 'I've nothing to say. How can I change? I am as I am. Why does Stiller always want to change me?'—'Does he want to?'—'I know,' she said, 'he probably means well, and he is convinced he loves me.'—'What about you?' I asked, 'do you love him too?'—'I understand him less and less,' she replied after painful thought. 'Do you know what he's always wanting me to do, Rolf?'...
After this, to take my mind off what she had said, but of course without being able to forget her horrifying revelation, I tried to put into words my current ideas about Stiller, about his human disposition, his actual make-up and his potentialities, his development during the last few years as I had sensed it. I tried to express myself in a way that neither blamed nor defended and scarcely excused, and for a long time I was under the impression that Frau Julika was listening to me. Certainly, I found it easier to 'understand' Stiller than Frau Julika, and after her last question I felt that in any case this was my task for the moment. As I spoke I drew with a twig in the gravel. When I glanced up to try at least to read from her expression her opinion about an idea, a question, which I as a man could not decide, I saw an utterly distorted face. I shall never forget this face that was no longer a face. Her mouth was open as in antique masks. She was trying in vain to bite her lips. Her mouth remained open as though paralysed, trembling. I saw her sobs, but it was as though I was deaf. Her eyes were open, but unseeing, blurred by silent tears, her two little fists in her lap, her body shaking—there she sat, unrecognizable, beyond the reach of any cry, with no personal characteristic left, no voice, nothing but a despairing body, flesh screaming soundlessly in the terror of death. I can't remember what I did...
Later, when I held
her two little fists that were still trembling convulsively, while her face had grown calm with exhaustion, she said: 'You mustn't tell him.' I nodded in order to give her some sort of feeling of support. 'Promise me!' she begged.
Soon afterwards Stiller arrived with his grapes. Frau Julika rose quickly to her feet with head averted; from the distance she said something about sweets and was gone. Stiller absolutely insisted on my trying the grapes, which were for dessert. Whether he really saw no signs of what I had been through, or only acted as though he didn't, I could not decide. Stiller said how glad he was I had come and promised himself a jolly evening. I steered the conversation on to the subject of the wine when Stiller asked casually what I thought of Julika. 'I mean, as regards her health,' he said. 'Isn't she looking splendid?' We stood drinking, our left hands in our trouser pockets. When Julika finally came back with the sweets, she was wearing a woollen jacket and looking splendid. She had powdered her face; but that wasn't the only reason. She herself seamed to know nothing. I had the irritating feeling that it wasn't the same person at all; as though I had merely dreamed of this woman. It really was growing cool, and we went indoors. I couldn't imagine how we were going to get through the evening; but to Stiller everything was just as usual, and so it was to Frau Julika.
***
At that time I had not yet read the foregoing notes, though I knew that Stiller had written something like a diary in custody. It is not my purpose in the postscript to rectify Stiller's statements. The mischievous element in Stiller's notes, his subjectivity which occasionally did not shrink from falsification, seem to me obvious enough, as the report of a subjective experience they may be honest. The picture which these notes give of Frau Julika amazes me; it appears to me to reveal more about the person who drew the picture than about the person who is so grossly misrepresented by it. Whether there is not something inhuman in the very attempt to portray a living human being is a major question, and one that applies substantially to Stiller. Most of us do not keep notebooks, but perhaps we do the same thing in a less manifest way, and the result is in every case bitter.