Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass

  I have quite an acute sense of style. The style of that building worried and irritated me, although I could not explain why. Behind its restrained classicism, behind a seemingly cool elegance, some other, elusive influences were hiding. The design was too intense, too sharply pointed, too full of unexpected adornments. A drop of an unknown poison inserted into the veins of the architect made his design recondite, explosive, and dangerous.

  Inwardly disoriented, trembling from contradictory impulses, I walked on tiptoe along the front of the villa, scaring the lizards asleep on the steps.

  By the round pool, now dry, the earth was parched from the sun and still bare; only here and there, from a crack in the ground, sprang a tuft of an impatient fantastical green. I pulled out some of these weeds and put them into my drawing book. I was shaking with excitement. Over the pool the air hung translucent and glossy, undulating from the heat. A barometer on a nearby post showed a catastrophic low. There was calm everywhere. Not a twig moved. The villa was asleep, its curtains drawn, and its chalky whiteness glared in the dullness of the gray air. Suddenly, as if the stagnation had reached its critical point, the air shook with a colored ferment.

  Enormous, heavy butterflies coupling in amorous frolics appeared. The clumsy, vibrating fluttering continued for a moment in the dull air. The butterflies flew past, as if racing one another, then rejoined their partners, dealing out in flight like cards whole packs of colorful shimmers. Was it only a quick decomposition of the overripe air, a mirage in an atmosphere that was full of hashish and visions? I waved my cap and a heavy, velvety butterfly fell to the ground, still fluttering its wings. I lifted it up and hid it. It was one more proof. . . .

  XXIV

  I have discovered the secret of the villa's style. The lines of its architecture repeated one incomprehensible pattern so many times and so insistently that I finally understood their mystifying code: the masquerade was really quite transparent. In those elaborate and mobile lines of exaggerated elegance there was too much spice, an excess of hot piquancy, something fidgety, too eager, too showy—something, in a word, colorful and colonial . . . Indeed, the style was in effect rather repulsive—lustful, overelaborate, tropical, and extremely cynical.

  XXV

  I need not say how this discovery shook me. The clues became clearer, the various reports and hints suddenly fit. Most excited, I shared my discovery with Rudolph. He did not seem concerned. He even snorted angrily, accusing me of exaggeration and invention. He has been accusing me for some time of lying and willful mystification. I still had some remains of regard for him as the owner of the stamp album, but his envious and bitter outbursts set me more and more against him. I didn't show any resentment, as I was unfortunately dependent on him. What would I do without the stamp album? He knew this and exploited his advantage.

  XXVI

  Too much has been happening during the spring. Too many aspirations, pretensions, and boundless ambitions are hidden in its dark depths. Its expansion knows no limits. The administration of that enormous, widespread, and overgrown enterprise is sapping my strength. Wishing to share part of the burden with Rudolph, I have nominated him co-regent. Anonymously of course. Together with the stamp album we form, we three, an unofficial triumvirate, on which rests the burden of responsibility for the whole impenetrable and convoluted affair of the spring.

  XXVII

  I did not have enough courage to go round to the back of the villa. I should certainly have been noticed by someone. Why, in spite of this, did I have the feeling of having been there already—a long time ago? Don't we in fact know in advance all the landscapes we see in our life? Can anything occur that is entirely new, that, in the depths of our being, wè have not anticipated for a long time? I know, for instance, that one day at a later hour I shall stand on the threshold of these gardens, hand in hand with Bianca. We shall find forgotten corners where, between old walls, poisonous plants are growing, where Poe's artificial Edens, full of hemlock, poppies, and convolvuli, glow under the grizzly sky of very old frescoes. We shall wake up the white marble statue sleeping with empty eyes in that marginal world beyond the limits of a wilting afternoon. We shall scare away its only lover, a red vampire bat with folded wings asleep on its lap. It will fly away soundlessly, soft and undulating, a helpless, disembodied, bright red scrap without bone or substance; it will circle, flutter, and dissolve without trace in the deadly air. Through a small gate we shall enter a completely empty clearing. Its vegetation will be charred like tobacco, like a prairie during an Indian summer. It will perhaps be in the State of New Orleans or Louisiana—countries are after all only a pretext. We shall sit on the stone wall of a square pond. Bianca will dip her white fingers in the warm water full of yellow leaves and will not lift her eyes. On the other side of the pond, a black, slim, veiled figure will be sitting. I shall ask about it in a whisper, and Bianca will shake her head and say softly: "Don't be afraid, she is not listening; this is my dead mother who lives here." Then she will talk to me about the sweetest, quietest, and saddest things. No comfort will be possible. Dusk will be falling. . . .

  XXVIII

  Events are following one another at a mad pace. Bianca's father has arrived. I was standing today at the junction of Fountain and Scarab streets when a shining, open landau as broad and shallow as a conch drove by. In that white, silk-lined shell I saw Bianca, half-lying, in a tulle dress. Her gentle profile was shaded by the brim of her hat tied under her chin with ribbons. She was almost drowned in swathes of white satin. Next to her sat a gentleman in a black frock coat and a white piqué waistcoat, on which glistened a heavy gold chain with innumerable trinkets. Under his black bowler hat a grim, gray face with sideburns was visible. I shivered when I saw him. There could be no doubt. This was M. de V. . . .

  As the elegant carriage passed me, discreetly rumbling with its well-sprung box, Bianca said something to her father, who turned back and stared at me through his large dark glasses. He had the face of a gray lion without a mane.

  Excited, almost demented from contradictory feelings, I cried out: "Count on me!" and "until the last drop of my blood ..." and fired into the air a pistol produced from my breastpocket.

  XXIX

  Many things seem to point to the fact that Franz Joseph was in reality a powerful but sad demiurge. His narrow eyes, dull like buttons embedded in triangular deltas of wrinkles, were not human eyes. His face, with its milky white sideburns brushed back like those of Japanese demons, was the face of an old mopish fox. Seen from a distance, from the height of the terrace at Schönbrunn, that face, owing to a certain combination of wrinkles, seemed to smile. From nearby that smile unmasked itself as a grimace of bitterness and prosaic matter-of-factness, unrelieved by the spark of any idea. At the very moment when he appeared on the world stage in a general's green plumes, slightly hunched and saluting, his blue coat reaching to the ground, the world reached a happy point in its development. All the set forms, having exhausted their content in endless metamorphoses, hung loosely upon things, half wilted, ready to flake off. The world was a chrysalis about to change violently, to disclose young, new, unheard-of colors and to stretch happily all its sinews and joints. It was touch and go, and the map of the world, that patchwork blanket, might float in the air, swelling like a sail. Franz Joseph took this as a personal insult. His element was a world held by the rules of prose, by the pragmatism of boredom. The atmosphere of chanceries and police stations was the air he breathed. And, a strange thing, this dried-up dull old man, with nothing attractive in his person, succeeded in pulling a great part of creation to his side. All the loyal and provident fathers of families felt threatened along with him and breathed with relief when this powerful demon laid his weight upon everything and checked the world's aspirations. Franz Joseph squared the world like paper, regulated its course with the help of patents, held it within procedural bounds, and insured it against derailment into things unforeseen, adventurous, or simply unpredictable.

  Franz Joseph was no
t an enemy of godly and decent pleasures. It was he who invented, under the spur of kindliness of a sort, the imperial-and-royal lottery for the people, Egyptian dream books, illustrated calendars, and the imperial-and-royal tobacco shops. He standardized the servants of heaven, dressed them in symbolic blue uniforms, and let them loose upon the world, divided into ranks and divisions—angelic hordes in the shape of postmen, conductors, and tax collectors. The meanest of those heavenly messengers wore on his face a reflection of age-old wisdom borrowed from his Creator and a jovial, gracious smile framed by sideburns, even if his feet, as a result of his considerable earthly wanderings, reeked of sweat.

  But has anyone ever heard of a frustrated conspiracy at the foot of the throne, of a great palace revolution nipped in the bud at the beginning of the glorious rule of the AU-Powerful? Thrones wilt when they are not fed with blood, their vitality grows with the mass of wrongs committed, with life-denials, with the crushing of all that is perpetually different and that has been ousted by them. We are disclosing here secret and forbidden things; we are touching upon state secrets hidden away and secured with a thousand seals of silence.

  Demiurge had a younger brother of an entirely different cast of mind, with different ideas. Who hasn't a brother under one form or another who follows him like a shadow, an antithesis, the partner in an eternal dialogue? According to one version, he was only a cousin; according to another, he had never been born. He was only suggested by the fears and ravings of the Demiurge, overheard while he was asleep. Perhaps he had only invented him anyway, substituted someone else for him, in order to play out the symbolic drama, to repeat once more, for the thousandth time, ceremoniously and ritually that prelegal and fatal act that, in spite of the thousand repetitions, occurs again and again. The conditionally born, unfortunate antagonist, professionally wronged, as it were, because of his role, bore the name of Archduke Maximilian. The very sound of that name, mentioned in a whisper, renews our blood, makes it redder and brighter, makes it pulsate quickly in the clear colors of enthusiasm, of postal sealing wax, and of the red pencil in which happy messages are printed. Maximilian had pink cheeks and shining, azure eyes. All human hearts went out to him, and swallows, squeaking with joy, cut across his path. The Demiurge himself loved him secretly while he plotted his downfall. First, he nominated him commander of the Levant Squadron in the hope that he would drown miserably on an expedition to the South Seas. Soon afterward he concluded a secret alliance with Napoleon III, who drew him by deceit into the Mexican adventure. Everything had been planned in advance. The young man, full of fantasy and imagination, enticed by the hope of creating a new, happier world on the Pacific, resigned all his rights as an agnate of the crown and heir to the Hapsburgs. On the French liner Le Cid he sailed straight into a prepared ambush. The documents of that secret conspiracy have never seen the light of day.

  Thus the last hope of the discontented was dashed. After Maximilian's tragic death, Franz Joseph forbade the use of red under the pretext of court mourning. The black and yellow colors of mourning became official. The amaranth of enthusiasm has since been fluttering secretly only in the hearts of its adherents. But the Demiurge did not succeed in extirpating it completely from nature. After all, it is potentially present in sunlight. It is enough to close one's eyes in the spring sun in order to absorb it under one's eyelids in each wave of warmth. Photographic paper burns that same red in the spring glare. Bulls led along the sunny streets of the city with a cloth on their horns see it in bright patches and lower their heads, ready to attack imaginary torreros fleeing in panic in sun-drenched arenas.

  Sometimes a whole bright day passes in explosions of the sun, in banks of clouds edged with a red glow. People walk about dizzy with light, with closed eyes that inwardly see rockets, Roman candles, and barrels of powder. Later, toward the evening, the hurricane fire of light abates, the horizon becomes rounder, more beautiful, and filled with azure like a glass globe with a miniature panorama of the world, with happily arranged plans, over which clouds tower like a crown of gold medals or church bells ringing for evensong.

  People gather in the market square, silent under the enormous cupola of light, and group themselves without thinking into a great, immobile finale, a concentrated scene of waiting; the clouds billow in ever deepening pinks; in all eyes there is calm and the reflection of luminous distances. And suddenly, while they wait, the world reaches its zenith, achieves in a few heartbeats its highest perfection. The gardens arrange themselves on the crystal bowl of the horizon, the May greenery foams and overflows like wine about to spill, hills are formed in the shape of clouds; having passed its supreme peak, the beauty of the world dissolves and takes off to make an entry into eternity.

  And while people remain immobile, lowering their heads still full of visions, bewitched by the great luminous ascent of the world, the man whom they had unconsciously all been waiting for runs out from among the crowd, a breathless messenger, pink of face, wearing raspberry-colored tights, and decorated with little bells, medals, and orders. He circles the square slowly six or seven times in order to be in everybody's view, his eyes downcast, as if ashamed, his hands on his hips. His rather heavy stomach is shaken by the rhythmical run. Red from exertion, the face shines with perspiration under the black Bosnian mustache, and the medals, orders, and bells jump up and down in time on his chest like a harness. One can see him from the distance as, turning the corner in a taut parabolic line, he approaches with the Janissary band of his bells, handsome as a god, incredibly pink, with an immobile torso, and drives away with a short whip the pack of barking dogs that has been following him.

  Then Franz Joseph, disarmed by the universal harmony, discreetly proclaims an amnesty, concedes the use of red color, allows it for one May evening in a watered-down, candy shade, and, reconciled with the world, appears in the open window of the Schönbrunn Palace; at that moment he is seen all over the world—wherever pink messengers are running on clean-swept market squares, bordered by silent crowds. One can see him in an enormous imperial-and-royal apotheosis against the background of cloud, leaning with gloved hands on the windowsill, clad in a turquoise coat with the ribbon of Commander Grand Cross of the Order of Malta; his eyes, blue buttons without kindness or grace, are narrowed in a kind of smile in the delta of wrinkles. Thus he stands, his snowy sideburns brushed back, made up to represent kindliness: an embittered fox who, for distant onlookers, fakes a smile without humor or genius.

  XXX

  After hesitating for a long time, I told Rudolph about the events of the last few days. I could no longer keep to myself the secret that weighed me down. His face darkened; he screamed, said I was lying, and finally burst out with an open show of jealousy. Everything was an invention, a complete lie, he shouted, running with his arms raised. Extraterritorialism! Maximilian! Mexico! Ha, ha!! Cotton plantations! Enough of that, this is the end, he is not going to lend me his stamp album anymore. End of partnership. Cancellation of contract. He pulled his hair in agitation. He was completely out of control, ready for anything.

  Very frightened, I began to plead with him. I admitted that my story seemed improbable on first hearing, even unbelievable. I myself, I agreed, was quite amazed. No wonder that it was difficult for him, unprepared as he was, to accept it at once. I appealed to his heart and honor. Would his conscience allow him to refuse me his help just when matters were about to reach a decisive stage? Would he now spoil everything by withdrawing his participation? At last I undertook to prove, on the basis of the stamp album, that everything was, word for word, the truth.

  Somewhat mollified, Rudolph opened the album. Never before had I spoken with such force and enthusiasm. I outdid myself. Supporting my reasoning with the evidence of stamps, not only did I refute all his accusations and dispel his doubts, but what is more, I reached such revealing conclusions that I myself was amazed by the perspectives that opened up. Rudolph remained silent and defeated, and no more was said about dissolving the partnership.

  X
XXI

  Can one consider it a coincidence that at about the same time a great theater of illusion, a magnificent wax figure exhibition, came to town and pitched its tent in Holy Trinity Square? I had been anticipating it for a long time and told Rudolph the news with great excitement.

  The evening was windy; rain hung in the air. On the yellow and dull horizon the day was getting ready to depart, hastily putting weatherproof gray covers over the train of its carts, about to proceed in rows toward the cool beyond. Under a half-drawn, darker curtain the last streaks of sunset appeared for a moment, then sank into a flat, endless plain, a lakeland of watery reflections. A frightened, yellow, foredoomed glare shone from these streaks across half the sky; the curtain was falling quickly. The pale roofs of houses shone with a moist reflection; it was getting dark and the gutter pipes were beginning to sing in monotone.

  The wax figure exhibition was already open. Crowds of people sheltering under umbrellas were outlined in the dim light of the sinking day in the forecourt of the tent, where they ceremoniously gave money for their tickets to a décolletaged lady, glittering with jewels and gold teeth: a live, laced-up, and painted torso, her lower extremities lost in the shadow of velvet curtains.