Gertrude (5 page)

My feelings toward Heinrich Muoth were not clear. I sensed his desires and unhappiness, yet I feared he could be a cruel, ruthless man who might use and then discard me. I was too young and my experience of people too limited to understand and accept the fact that he almost revealed himself naked to people and, in doing so, hardly seemed to know any shame. Yet I also saw that here was a sensitive passionate man who was suffering and who was alone. Involuntarily, I remembered rumors I had heard about Muoth, vague, disjointed, students' talk, the exact details of which I had forgotten but the echo and pattern of which I had preserved in my memory. There were wild tales of women and adventure, and without remembering one of them, I seemed to recall something about bloodshed—the linking of his name to a story of suicide or murder.

When I conquered my shyness and asked one of my colleagues about it, the matter seemed less serious than I had thought. Muoth, it was said, had had a love affair with a young woman of good family, and the latter had, in fact, committed suicide two years ago, not that anyone ventured to speak of the singer's involvement in this affair in anything but cautious allusions. Evidently it was my own imagination, stirred by the encounter with this unique and faintly ominous person, that had created that aura of dread around him. All the same, he must have suffered over that love affair.

I did not have the courage to go to see him. I could not conceal the fact from myself that Heinrich Muoth was an unhappy and perhaps desperate person who wanted and needed me, and at times I felt I ought to obey the call and that I was contemptible not to do so. Yet I did not go. Another feeling prevented me: I could not give Muoth what he sought from me. I was quite different from him and even if in many ways I was also isolated and not fully understood by other people, even if I was different from everyone else and separated from most people by fate and my talents, I did not want to make an issue of it. Though the singer might be demonic in some ways, I definitely was not, and an inner necessity made me resist the spectacular and unusual. I had a feeling of aversion and repugnance toward Muoth's vehement manner. He was a man of the theater and an adventurer, I thought, and he was perhaps destined to live a tragic and public life. On the contrary, I wanted a quiet life; excitement and audacious talk did not suit me—resignation was my lot. That was how I argued with myself to set my mind at rest. A man had knocked at my door. I was sorry for him and perhaps I ought to put him before myself, but I wanted peace and did not want to let him in. I threw myself energetically into my work but could not rid myself of the tormenting idea that someone stood behind me and tugged at me.

As I did not come, Muoth again took the initiative. I received a note from him written in large bold characters, which read:

Dear Sir,

I usually celebrate my birthday on the 11th January with a few friends. Would you like to come along? It would give us pleasure if we could hear your new sonata on this occasion. What do you think? Have you a colleague with whom you could play it, or shall I send someone to you? Stefan Kranzl would be agreeable. It would please me very much.

HEINRICH MUOTH

I had not expected that—to play my music, which no one yet knew about, before experts, and to play the violin with Kranzl! Ashamed and grateful, I accepted the invitation, and only two days later I was requested by Kranzl to send him the music. After another two days, he invited me to visit him. The well-known violinist was still young. He was very pale and slender and looked like a virtuoso.

As soon as I entered, he said, “So you are Muoth's friend! Well, let us start straight away. If we pay attention, we'll have it after playing it two or three times.”

Then he placed a stand before me, gave me the second-violin part, marked time and began with his light sensitive touch, so that in comparison I was quite feeble.

“Not so timidly!” he shouted across to me without stopping, and we played the music right through.

“That's all right!” he said. “It's a pity you haven't a better violin. But never mind. Now let us play the
allegro
a little faster, so that no one takes it for a funeral march. Ready!”

I then played my music quite confidently with the virtuoso, my modest violin sounding quite well along side his valuable one. I was surprised to find this distinguished-looking man so natural, indeed, almost naïve. As I began to feel more at home and gathered up courage, I asked him with some hesitation what he thought about my composition.

“You will have to ask someone else, my dear sir. I don't understand much about it. It's a little unusual, but people like that. If Muoth likes it, you can feel flattered. He is not easily pleased.”

He gave me some advice regarding the playing and showed me a few places where alterations were necessary. We arranged to have another rehearsal the following day, and I then departed.

It was a comfort to me to find this man so natural and sincere. If he was one of Muoth's friends, perhaps I could also find a place among them. To be sure, he was an accomplished artist and I was a beginner without any great prospects. I was sorry that no one would give me an honest opinion of my work. The most severe criticism would have been preferable to these good-natured remarks which said nothing.

It was bitterly cold at that time—one even had difficulty keeping the rooms warm. My companions enthusiastically went skating. It was just a year since our outing with Liddy. That was not a happy period for me. I looked forward to the evening at Muoth's, not because I expected too much from it, but because I had had no friends or gaiety for so long. During the night before January 11, I was awakened by an unusual noise and an almost amazing feeling of warmth in the air. I rose and went to the window, surprised that it was no longer cold. The south wind had suddenly come. Damp and warm, it blew vigorously. High above, the storm swept the heavy masses of clouds across the sky; in the small gaps between the clouds a few stars, unusually large and brilliant, shone through. The roofs already had black patches on them, and in the morning, when I went out, all the snow was gone. The streets and people's faces seemed strangely altered, and everywhere there was a breath of premature spring.

That day I went about in a state of slightly feverish agitation, partly on account of the south wind and the intoxicating air, partly in anticipation of the evening. I frequently took out my sonata, played parts of it, then pushed it away again. Sometimes I found it quite beautiful and was proud and happy with it; at other times it seemed trivial, fragmented and vague to me. I could not have endured this state of agitation and anxiety much longer. In the end, I did not know whether I was looking forward to the forthcoming evening or not.

However, it came at last. I put on my overcoat, took my violin case with me, and went to find Muoth's house. It was with some difficulty that I found it in the dark. It was far out in the suburbs on an unknown and unfrequented road. The house stood by itself in a large garden, which looked untidy and neglected. From behind the unclosed gate a large dog sprang at me. Someone whistled it back from a window and, growling, it accompanied me to the entrance. A little old woman with an anxious expression on her face received me there, took my coat and led me along a brightly lit passage.

Kranzl, the violinist, lived in a very elegant fashion and I had expected Muoth, who was reputed to be rich, to live in a similarly lavish way. I now saw two large, spacious rooms, far too large for a bachelor who was seldom at home. Apart from that, everything was very simple, or not really simple but casual and unarranged. Part of the furniture was old and seemed to belong to the house, and there were new things bought indiscriminately and placed about the room without forethought. Only the lighting was splendid. There was no gas—instead, there were a large number of white candles in single, attractive pewter candlesticks. In the main room there was also a kind of chandelier, a plain brass circle containing many candles. Here the chief item of furniture was a very good grand piano.

In the room into which I was led, several men stood talking to each other. I put my violin case down and said: “Good evening!” Some of them nodded and then turned to each other again. I stood there feeling uncomfortable. Then Kranzl, who was among them and had not seen me immediately, came across to me, held out his hand, introduced me to his friends and said: “Here is our new violinist. —Have you brought your violin with you?” Then he called across to the next room: “Muoth, the young man with the sonata is here.”

Heinrich Muoth then came in, greeted me very warmly and took me into the music room, which looked cheerful and festive. An attractive woman in a white dress, an actress from the Royal Theatre, handed me a glass of sherry. To my surprise, I observed that apart from her no other colleagues of the host had been invited. She was the only lady present.

As I had emptied my glass very quickly, partly through embarrassment, partly from an instinctive need to get warm after the damp, evening walk, she poured out another and ignored my protests. “Take it. It won't do you any harm. We do not eat until after the music. Have you brought your violin with you—and the sonata?”

I made reserved replies and felt embarrassed. I did not know what her relationship was to Muoth. She seemed to be the mistress of the house. She was very attractive. I subsequently noted that my new friend went about only with very beautiful women.

Meantime, everyone came into the music room. Muoth put up a music stand. Everyone sat down and soon I was playing the music with Kranzl. I played mechanically; it seemed poor to me. Only now and then for fleeting moments, like flashes of lightning, was I conscious of the fact that I was playing here with Kranzl and that the evening I had so long waited for with trepidation was here, and that a small gathering of experts and discerning musicians were sitting there listening to my sonata. Only during the
rondo
did I become aware that Kranzl was playing magnificently, but I was still so shy and distracted from the music that I continually thought about other things and it suddenly occurred to me that I had not even congratulated Muoth on his birthday.

We finished playing the sonata. The pretty lady rose, held out her hand to Kranzl and me, and opened the door of a smaller room, where a table was set for a meal, with flowers and bottles of wine.

“At last!” cried one of the men. “I'm nearly starving.”

“You're a shocking person,” the lady replied. “What will the composer think?”

“Which composer? Is he here?”

She pointed me out. “There he is.”

He looked at me and laughed. “You should have told me that before. Anyway, the music was very enjoyable. But when a man is hungry—”

We began the meal, and as soon as the soup was finished and the white wine was poured out, Kranzl rose and proposed a toast to the host on the occasion of his birthday. Immediately after the toast, Muoth rose to his feet. “My dear Kranzl, if you think I am going to make a speech in reply, you are mistaken. I don't want any more speeches, please. But perhaps the only one that is necessary I will take upon myself. I thank our young friend for his sonata, which I think is splendid. Perhaps our friend Kranzl will someday be glad to receive music of his to play, which he should do, for he played the sonata very sympathetically. I drink a toast to the composer and to our good friendship.”

They all clinked glasses, laughed, chaffed me a little, and soon the good wine helped to produce an atmosphere of gaiety to which I gave in with relief. It was a long time since I had enjoyed myself and felt at ease in this way, and in fact I had not done so for a whole year. Now the laughter and wine, the clinking of glasses, the intermingling of voices and the sight of a gay, pretty woman opened up closed doors of pleasure to me, and I easily entered into the atmosphere of unrestrained merriment, of light and lively conversation and smiling faces.

Shortly after the meal, everyone rose and returned to the music room, where wine and cigarettes were handed round. A quiet-looking man who had not spoken much, and whose name I did not know, came up to me and said some kind words about the sonata, I have quite forgotten what. Then the actress drew me into conversation and Muoth sat down beside us. We drank another glass of wine to our friendship, and suddenly his dark, sad eyes sparkled and he said: “I know your story now.” He turned to the lady. “He broke his bones while tobogganing, out of love for a pretty girl.” Then he turned to me again. “That is beautiful—to go head over heels down the hill at the moment when love is at its peak and is quite unsullied. It is worth losing a healthy leg for that.” Laughing, he emptied his glass and again looked gloomy and thoughtful. Then he said: “What made you interested in composing?”

I told him how music had affected me since I was a young boy. I told him about the previous summer, about my flight into the mountains, about the song and the sonata.

“I see,” he said slowly, “but why does it give you pleasure? You can't express sorrow on paper and be finished with it.”

“I don't want to do that,” I replied. “I don't want to thrust aside and be rid of anything but weakness and constriction. I want to feel that pleasure and pain arise from the same source, that they are aspects of the same force and portions of the same piece of music, each beautiful and each essential.”

“Man,” he shouted vehemently, “you have a crippled leg! Can music make you forget it?”

“No, why? In any case, I can never make it better.”

“And doesn't that make you despair?”

“It does not please me, you can be sure of that, but I hope it will never bring me to despair.”

“Then you are lucky, but I wouldn't exchange a leg for that kind of luck. So that is how it is with your music! Marian, this is the magic of art that we read about so much in books.”

“Don't talk like that!” I cried angrily. “You yourself don't sing just for your salary but because it is a source of pleasure and satisfaction to you. Why do you mock me and yourself? I think it is cruel.”