She looked at Elizabeth Muehler. “And unless we do something, at once, you will see Herman like that!”
Now, this is really too much! thought the other woman, fully angered and affronted now. She forgot her breeding in her great indignation. “How can you talk like that?” she demanded, her voice no longer quiet, but almost shrill. “How dreadful of you to say such things! You are not only a disloyal German, Frau Doctor Erlich, to imply such things of your own people, but you are positively offensive! You must forgive me, but you are really responsible for my saying such things to a lady in my own house! I never thought it possible that I should be so frank, so—well, insulting. But you force me to talk like this. No one would harm Herman. But truly, this is madness! This is the Twentieth Century. I—I have no time to listen to such nonsense.”
There was a sudden silence between the two women. The Englishwoman breathed loudly and jerkily. Her face was flushed scarlet. Her eyes snapped with her anger. She had pushed her chair away from the table.
And then, in the hallway, the clock tolled the hour of ten. Slowly, ominously. The Englishwoman heard it. Therese heard it.
“I have no time,” repeated Elizabeth Muehler, with bitter coldness, and deliberate insult.
Time. Time no longer. In her sick and whirling bemusement, in her mortal illness, Therese thought incoherently: There are so many times. So many changes of times. Time no longer for man’s little private world. Time no longer for mankind. Time no longer. Time only for death and madness, for fortitude and courage. For the last cry of faith and peace against fury and terror.… She put her hands to her head, in her old gesture of despair. Heavy impotence paralyzed her whole body. She thought: If I could only die. If I could only sink into nothingness and darkness. For, at the end, I can really do nothing at all. Nothing at all against blindness and stupidity, nothing against inertia and smiling fools. Nothing, until it is too late.
“Too late,” she whispered.
She felt something hard pressing against her lips. She opened her eyes. Elizabeth was standing beside her, with a distressed, changed face. She was pressing a glass of wine urgently to Therese’s white mouth. The servant, intensely interested, was standing in the doorway, a decanter in her hand.
“Oh, I am so sorry!” the Englishwoman exclaimed. “Forgive me, for being so rude, Therese. There, my dear, drink. I am afraid you fainted for a moment. You are really so ill! I am a brute. Please forgive me. There, one more swallow. Do you feel better now?”
She wiped Therese’s pallid face, on which little beads of moisture stood. She flung wider the already open window. Distressedly, she fanned Therese with her handkerchief, which was impregnated with a delicate odor of lilies. “Please, let me take you to my room. You must lie down. I should have remembered you have so much to bear. But my temper—my deplorable temper.… And you were so kind to come … about Herman. I should have understood.”
I must lie down, thought Therese numbly. If I do not lie down, I shall collapse. A violent craving for rest pervaded her. A passionate desire to relax, to sleep, to forget. She began to push herself to her feet. The servant and the Englishwoman took her arms. She felt herself being helped up cushioned stairs. She felt herself sink onto a chaise-longue. She heard blinds being lowered, the murmur of voices, a warm shawl being placed over her feet. She felt a cool and solicitous hand on her forehead. But she could not open her eyes. Complete prostration rolled over her like black waves.
She thought to herself, dimly: It is no use. It is too late. There is nothing I can ever do. If I could only die. Nothing matters. I can struggle no longer. I can only give up.
She surrendered to her appalling impotence, to the darkness, to the deathly cravings of her body. She began to feel herself sinking into unconsciousness. Her limbs relaxed as the limbs of the dead relax. She embraced unconsciousness as an addict embraces the sensations of his drug.
She must have slept. But it seemed to her that she was not completely unconscious. She could hear a faint and swirling ringing in her head, extending to all the universe. Her flesh felt like clay. The nausea increased somewhere in her body. Once or twice she tried to move, but iron weighed her down.
The ringing was more insistent. She floated to the surface of unconsciousness. She thought that she must have slept a long time. By sheer force of will she raised her languid arm, and tried to focus her eyes, in the dimness, on her watch. It was almost half-past eleven. Her arm fell to her side. She looked about her. She was in Elizabeth’s boudoir, large, ugly, warm and quiet, and full of comfort. She was all alone. The bell which had awakened her had stopped. She could hear the twittering of birds outside, and the stillness of the house. Leaf shadows fluttered against the drawn blinds. I must go, she thought.
And then she heard a cry, Elizabeth’s cry, wild and broken. The cry was repeated, not once, but several times. She heard the scurrying of servants, and their own confused faint screams.
The nausea seized her as she tried to rise. She bent double, retching dryly. Sweat burst out over her as she forced herself to her feet. She swayed. She pressed her hands over the spot in her breast, which was being pierced by hot daggers.
“Too late,” she said aloud, simply as a child speaks.
18
He had gone out earlier than usual. He always walked to the University, which took at least forty-five minutes’ rapid walking. Now he left the house fully one and a half hours before the time of the convening of his first class. His wife recalled later that he had kissed her with a little more than his usual tender kindliness, and had looked into her eyes with a sort of sad inquiry. He had walked away, with his peculiar, rather shambling gait, his satchel under his arm, his crooked pipe between his teeth. But he had been very calm. No one could have guessed that he knew he was going to condemn himself to imprisonment, torture and death. He had been so quiet, so matter-of-fact, so almost indifferent.
But he did not arrive at his first class before the usual time. He walked very slowly, sometimes stopping to look at the thick green trees, or speak to a child or a dog, or glance into a perambulator. He might have been a petty bourgeoisie strolling to his little shop or office. But with every breath he drew, he drew in the air of the life he loved, the life of Germany, the essence of its soul. He was no longer a shabby, gentle, quiet and kindly man in his middle-age, renowned for his learning, his literary tastes, his intellect and his knowledge, but a young man again, strolling to the university where he would learn, not teach. The world was new for him again, and the tranquillity of his youth was in his eyes, like a serene benediction. In this frightful hour, he could think: How tranquil were the mornings of my youth! The whole world was swelling about me. It was peaceful, but beyond the peace I could hear all the tumult of living, waiting for me beyond the calm threshold of the university and the classroom. I really lived then. There was nothing I could not do. There was nothing heroic for which I would not die. I knew then that the very reason for life was a noble, purpose to which I might sacrifice myself.
In the selfless devotion of youth there was a living joy, a beauty and a glory. But somehow, he thought, the crowding years shut out the vision, and at last there were left only narrow walls, dim windows, a waning fire, and a loaf of bread. Years do not bring wisdom; they bring only timorous selfishness, and the little prison of self-protectiveness.
But now he was free! In his body there was the awakening tingle of taut muscles finally released. He was not Herr Professor Herman Muehler. He was young student Herman Muehler, willing, eager, to die for what was good, and longing for the heroic opportunity. His father had been a Swabian, a scholar, a German Republican, though he had also been only a poor second-rate shopkeeper with a vision and a large simplicity of heart and mind. His mother had made a mesalliance in marrying him, for her father had been a Prussian army captain, a Junker. But she, too, had had his qualities of heart and mind, and intense blue eyes that saw straightly and uncompromisingly. Every quality with which they were endowed they had bequeathed
to their son. They were satisfied that, though they could leave him no money and no position, they had given him the best of themselves. At one time Heinz Muehler had dreamed of going to America. He had even gone so far as to sell his little shop and buy tickets. But at the last he could not leave Germany. It was as if he had some sad prescience of what Germany was to become. To leave her in her convulsions would have been dastardly. In small places, in the huge darkness, he knew it was his duty to keep his little lantern burning, in order that Germany might find, in the encroaching gloom, some haven, some refuge.
Like all the other Germans of his kind, he had a passionate love of scholastic learning. Herman would not keep a shop. He would be a Herr Professor! Sometime before, he would not have cared. But his wife, the daughter of a Junker, had not quite forgotten her birth. She had not forgotten that both Beethoven and Goethe had been close friends of her grandfather. Herman must be worthy of such an ancient friendship.
They lived to see him appointed instructor in literature at the University. They died shortly before his marriage to the Englishwoman, whose father had been a great liberal and a great gentleman. They were satisfied. Frau Muehler also was secretly delighted that the Englishwoman had a fortune of her own, and seemed a sensible young miss with no nonsense about her. At the last, she must have had some misgivings about a noble life which had no material prospects. But knowing that there was some treachery in this misgiving, she kept her thoughts to herself.
Herman had been deeply touched at his young wife’s passionate attachment to Germany, and her complete entry into its life. And then, finally, he saw that she was not really attached to Germany. She was attached to the artificial form of its rigorous aristocracy. She said, frankly, that she was delighted at the narrow confines of its class distinction. England, she observed, was losing this very necessary distinction. All sorts of inferior people were creeping into the ranks of the titled and the distinguished. One found the daughters of brewers and shopkeepers standing in line at the Court of St. James’s. England was losing her flavor and her strength in the brackish water of inferior classes. Germany was still immune, still rigorous. In time, she began to detest her native country, and all her enthusiasm was given to Germany, in which she found nothing wrong.
Herman found that he had married no republican, no Swabian, no liberal. But he was a gentle and tolerant man, not given to arguments or tempers. He adjusted himself to his wife’s ambitions, and thenceforth told her nothing. They remained childless throughout their marriage, and though his wife complained, he was secretly glad. He became the spiritual father of those few in his classes who were like him, who could be counted upon to light the little lanterns and keep them burning, even if they died for it. The lanterns might be struck out, but the oil would flow from the broken vessels, ignited, and, perhaps, some day, setting a great fire which would burn away all that was dark and corrupt in Germany.
But I have become tired, after all these years! he thought, as he strolled peacefully towards the University. He had watched the lanterns go out, one by one. It had given him a dreadful grief. But he had kept silent. He knew why he had kept silent, now. It was because he had forgotten the words he had once known. His own lantern had become dry, and he had no oil for the others.
And then, from some mysterious source, he had been given oil again. He had lighted his lamp. He held it in his hands. It would be struck out of his grasp, but the ignited oil would flow, and who knew but what it would find another lantern and light another lamp.
Never had he felt so happy, so peaceful! He forgot everything, his wife, his life, his sadness, his timorousness, his tired and fruitless indifference. He was young again. He could hardly contain the joy that made his heart palpitate. The world of his later years had vanished like a nightmare. The old world he had known, fresh, airy, bright, full of excitement and happiness and hope, was about him again. He had no wife, no home. He had only the University, and the promise of his life. He was no Herr Professor. He was a student, with the lamp in his hand.
He sat down on a bench under a tree, and removed his hat. He refilled his pipe, crossed his long shabby legs. His satchel lay beside him. The sun came softly on his head through the large leaves. He smiled at everything. The tired and disillusioned wrinkles on his worn face relaxed, disappeared. His brown eyes shone with exquisite pleasure and peace, and even some latent excitement. He smiled at everything. All at once he thought of Therese Erlich. I should like her to know, he said to himself. Then, she will not feel so wretched and so despairing, remembering me. I should like to tell her how happy I am, just now. He had a momentary impulse to call her, and tell her. Then he remembered that she lived in the dark and shifting nightmare, still. She must find her way out of it alone, into the daylight. Moreover, she might call to him out of the nightmare, and kill the brightness. I must be selfish for the last time, he remarked to his impulse.
He did not feel like a condemned man. He was free. Out of the tranquil aura of his freedom he could look at all things with a beatific detachment. He had lost his life. He had saved his soul. The simplicity of his thought seemed so beautiful, so satisfying, so lovely, that tears rose to his eyes, and he was compelled to remove his spectacles and wipe the mist away.
He had told his students that the way to living was through the narrow door of knowledge. But he knew that he had cluttered that open door with the rank growths of form and complexity, confusion, theories and futility. Now he understood that the moment knowledge lost its clarity and simplicity it lost its meaning. It became full of words, formless and chaotic. It choked out the light and left only a dimness in which nothing could be seen. It did not say: “This is the way of life.” It said: “There is no light.”
Knowledge had emphasized man’s littleness of soul, and impotence. It had said to him: “Who, by taking thought, can add one cubit to his stature?” It had not told him that he could increase the stature of his soul, and that the man of learning was the high priest of despairing people.
So deep was he in his musings that he was hardly aware of a young man’s voice calling to him with pleased surprise: “Herr Professor! Herr Professor!”
He looked up, to see a young man in the uniform of the Storm Troopers approaching him with outstretched hand, eager gait, and affectionate smile. At first he did not recognize the young man, who was so stalwart, so soldierly, so lean of body and hard of face. He adjusted his spectacles, and peered. Then at last he saw it was Joseph Buerger, one of his most promising students of two years ago, one of those he had thought of as a lamp-bearer in the gathering gloom. The shock of what he saw now, the metamorphosis of a student into a robot, so profoundly shocked him that he turned quite white. But his smile was gentle, his handclasp warm and kind.
“Good morning, Joseph. I did not recognize you at first.”
Joseph saluted stiffly, still smiling with affection. Then he sat down beside Herman and beamed upon him.
“How I have wanted to see you! It has been so long. I have been in Munich for the past year. Now I have come home, for I have much work here. I said to myself only yesterday: ‘I must see the Herr Professor again, very soon!’ How could I ever forget the years in your classroom, and the things you taught me!”
Herman regarded him with piercing sadness. “What did I teach you, Joseph?”
The young man paused; his smile became fixed. He colored. Herman laid his hand on his arm, and shook his head a little.
“Never mind, Joseph. You see, it was not important, after all. Nothing I have said lately has been important.” He added, after a moment: “For, I know now, I had nothing to say. I, too, had forgotten.”
The young man protested. “You taught us to love Germany, Herr Professor! I remember that.”
Herman’s eyes slowly travelled over the uniform. His expression became increasingly sad.
“And what I taught you has brought you to this, Joseph?”
“To this? Are you not proud of me, Herr Professor?”
Herman
was silent. He clasped his hands together. Age and mournfulness shrank his face. He seemed to huddle in his shabby clothing.
Joseph’s eyes hardened, his lips tightened. “If you are not proud of me, Herr Professor, it is because you do not understand. I have been chosen for important work in Berlin, after my work in Munich. Is that not an honor you can appreciate?”
Herman lifted his eyes and fixed them sorrowfully upon the other’s. “What was your work in Munich, Joseph? Beating and murdering the helpless and the innocent? Oppressing the defenseless? Trampling down all that was good and gentle in Germany under your robot’s boots? Helping to kill the soul of the Fatherland, and serving mountebanks and monsters who are no more a part of Germany than the decaying fungus on a tree trunk is part of the tree?”
Despair galvanized him. He flung out his hands. He looked at the sweet blue sky, and the pattern of leaves against it.
“If I have brought you to this, Joseph, then it would have been better if I had died first.”
A flash of blinding anger and fury made a glare in the youth’s eyes. He tried to control his voice; it came, stifled, from his lips. “If you were any one else, Herr Professor, I would take you into custody for this! You are a traitor to the new Germany.”
But Herman only smiled slightly and with even more mournfulness.
“Yes, Joseph. I am a traitor to the new Germany.”
He sighed. “But more than that, I was a traitor to you. Joseph, you must forgive me. Years from now, you will remember me, when you are in despair, and full of hopelessness. You will say: ‘He gave me no staff, no rod to comfort me. He gave me no lantern to guide me. He taught me the dead austerity of literature and pedantry. When the hour of trial came, I had no sustenance, no bread. What I have done, he is guilty of. The grave I must lie in, without hope, he dug for me.’ You will hate me then, Joseph.”
The young man listened. Slowly, the anger and the fury left his eyes. He paled. The hardness dissolved from his face, and the softness of the student took its place. All at once the uniform was incongruous on him. He looked at it. He looked at the swastika on his arm. He was terribly shaken. His eyes were dark with the horror of memories.