Pictor's Metamorphoses (4 page)

“Infamous Poisonbreath,” he bellowed as he hurried off, “ill-fated talisman, transformed into a red-blue flower! Abused, trampled in the dust, the only … Victim of satanical malice … The excruciating memory revived…”

The three friends shook their heads in astonishment and let the rampaging man go his way. At long last they began to ascend the stairs, when once again the doors flew open, and, with a friendly gesture of adieu to those still inside, Parson Wilhelm Wingolf stepped out. Those who stood on the stairs greeted him with all good cheer, and immediately inquired as to the cause of the radiance that gilded his broad and most worthy head. Mysteriously, he raised his chubby index finger, took the poet confidentially aside, and with a roguish smile whispered into his ear, “Just think, today, for the first time in my life, I have made a verse! And I did it not a moment ago!”

The poet opened his eyes so wide that they circled above and below the narrow frames of his wire-rimmed spectacles. “Recite it!” he cried. The parson turned toward the three friends, again raised his finger, and with blissfully half-closed eyes he recited his verse:

Perfection,

Today you've peered in my direction!

And, without uttering another word, he took his leave of the comrades, waving his hat.

“Good God!” said Ludwig Ugel. The poet stood silent, lost in thought. But Karl Hamelt, who had not let a single word pass his lips since he'd awakened in the grass, emphatically announced, “What a good poem!”

At this point, expecting the unexpected, the thirsty friends finally managed, without further hindrance, to enter the cool parlor of the Crown. It was much the best room, for in it the young wife of the innkeeper waited on the customers herself; furthermore, at this time of day they could count on being the only guests and could practice their jocular good manners on their hostess.

The first remarkable thing that all three noticed as soon as they entered and took their seats was this: today, for the very first time, the small, round hostess no longer seemed at all pretty. This, however, was owing to something each of them quickly remarked to himself in silence. Towering above the polished ornate border of the roomy sideboard, in semi-darkness, was the head of a strange and beautiful young maiden.

2

T
HE SECOND
, no less remarkable thing was that the elegant Herr Erich Tänzer—one of the inner circle of the cénacle and the bosom friend of Karl Hamelt—though seated at the small table immediately beside that of his friends, in no way remarked or acknowledged their arrival. Before him on the table was a half-full glass of light beer, into which he had placed a yellow rose. He sat there slowly rolling his big, somewhat bulging eyes; and for the first time in his life he looked utterly ridiculous. From time to time he lowered his stately nose closer to the flower and sniffed at it, while simultaneously casting a nearly impossible sidelong glance at the unknown woman's face. Despite the complete transformation of his own visage, hers showed not the slightest change of expression.

And the third extraordinary thing was that Turnabout, quite calm and composed, was sitting next to Erich. In the old man's glass, a few drops of Kulmbacher remained; stuck in his mouth was one of the Crown's Cuban cigars.

“What the devil, Herr Turnabout!” Hermann Lauscher exclaimed as he leaped to his feet. “How ever did you get in here? Didn't I just see you run off toward the upper embankment?”

“And didn't you, not a moment ago, in the fiercest rage, plant your fist in my stomach?” cried Ludwig Ugel.

“No harm intended,” replied the philosopher, his most winning smile on his lips. “Please don't take it amiss, dear Herr Ugel! My good sirs, let me recommend the Kulmbacher!” So saying, he calmly drained his glass.

Meanwhile, Karl Hamelt called out to his friend Erich, who still sat dreamily entranced before the yellow rose in his beer glass. “Erich, are you asleep?”

Without looking up, Erich answered, “I are not asleep.”

“You can't say ‘I
are
asleep.' You say, ‘I
am
asleep!'” cried Ugel.

But just then, the girl's head moved from behind the sideboard, and a moment later her whole, lovely, unfamiliar person stood at the friends' table. “What would the gentlemen like?”

He who has never stood entranced before a woman's portrait and suddenly beheld the beauty come to life, stepping forth from the painted landscape, cannot possibly imagine what the cénacle brothers felt at this moment. All three rose from their chairs and made three deep bows, one each.

“Lovely, beloved lady!” said the poet. “Most gracious Fräulein!” said Ludwig Ugel. Karl Hamelt was speechless.

“Is it Kulmbacher you're drinking?” the beauty asked.

“Yes, please,” said Ludwig; Karl nodded in assent; Lauscher, though, ordered a glass of red wine.

While the girl's slender hands elegantly served the drinks, another round of self-conscious, deferential compliments was paid. Then Frau Müller came running from her corner of the room.

“Don't make such a lot of fuss, gentlemen, over this silly girl,” she said. “She's my stepsister and has come here to work because we were shorthanded … Go into the buffet, Lulu; it's not proper for a young lady to dawdle about with the men.”

Lulu slowly walked away. The philosopher furiously champed down on his cigar; Erich Tänzer cast another acrobatic glance toward where the girl had vanished. The three friends, irritated and embarrassed, fell silent.

To appear to be friendly and to make conversation, the hostess took a flowerpot from the windowsill and brought it over to the men's table, making a proud display of it. “Just look at this extraordinary flower! It may well be the rarest known to man, and they say that it blooms but once every five or ten years.”

All eyes turned toward the red-blue flower nodding gently on its long, bare stem, emitting a strangely musty scent. The philosopher became greatly agitated and cast a fiercely cutting glance at the hostess and her flower; but no one noticed this.

Quite suddenly, Erich sprang to his feet, dashed over to his friends' table, forcibly seized and tore the flower in two, and with its two halves disappeared into the buffet. Turnabout burst out in a fit of malicious laughter. The hostess let out an ear-piercing shriek and set off after Tänzer, but she caught her dress on a chair and went tumbling to the floor. Ugel, in hot pursuit, stumbled over her, and over him the poet, who, in leaping to his feet, sent both wine goblet and flowerpot crashing to the floor. The philosopher fell upon the helplessly prostrate hostess, shook his fists in her face, bared his teeth, completely oblivious of Ugel and Lauscher, who struggled madly to pull him off by tearing at his coattails. At this moment the innkeeper ran in; the philosopher, as if transformed, helped the woman to her feet. In the doorway of the adjacent room, farmers and carters stood gaping at the scandalous scene. The lovely Lulu could be heard weeping in the buffet, out of which Erich emerged, crumpled flower in hand. Everyone rushed upon him and set to scolding, questioning, threatening, ridiculing him; but he, brandishing the broken flower, desperately cut through the crowd, and, without his hat, attained the outdoors.

3

T
HE NEXT MORNING
, Karl Hamelt, Erich Tänzer, and Ludwig Ugel gathered in Hermann Lauscher's room at the inn to hear him read his latest poems. Everyone served himself from a big carafe of wine standing on the table. The poet had already recited several charming poems, and now he extracted the last one, written on a small piece of paper, from his breast pocket. He began: “To the Princess Lilia…”

“What?” cried Karl Hamelt, rising up from the settee. Somewhat annoyed, Lauscher repeated the title. But Karl, now deep in thought, settled back on the flowery cushions. The poet read:

I know an ancient roundelay,

O clear, bright Silversong!

How softly you are ringing,

Like fiddle bows across heartstrings,

Music that sounds of home …

Hamelt completely distracted the others' attention from the rest of the song. “Princess Lilia … Silversong … the ancient roundelay…” he said over and over again, shaking his head. Then he rubbed his forehead, stared blankly into the air, and fixed his glowing, intense gaze on the poet.

When Lauscher finished reading, he looked up to meet this gaze. “What is it?” he asked astonished. “Are you practicing your rattlesnake eye on me, a poor defenseless bird?”

Hamelt awakened, as if from a deep dream. “Where did that song come from?” he asked the poet in a soft voice. Lauscher shrugged. “Where they all come from,” he replied.

“And Princess Lilia?” Hamelt asked on. “And the ancient roundelay? Don't you see that this is the only real song you have ever composed? All your other poems…”

Lauscher was quick to interrupt him. “All right, that's enough; but in fact,” he went on, “in point of fact, my dear friend, the song is an enigma to me, too. I was just sitting around, my mind a complete blank, when, out of habit and to pass the time, I started scribbling on a piece of paper—doodling, and drawing decorative letters; when I stopped, there on the paper was the song. It's in a completely different handwriting from the one in which I generally write; see for yourselves!”

He gave the paper to Erich, who was sitting beside him. Erich held it up to his eyes and could hardly believe what he saw. He looked at it a second time, more closely, then sank back into his chair, exclaiming loudly, “Lulu!” Ugel and Hamelt rushed over to have a look at the paper. “Good heavens!” Ugel exclaimed. Hamelt, however, sank back on the settee, eyeing the extraordinary page and exhibiting every sign of utter astonishment. Supreme joy and profound gloom alternately passed over his features.

“Now tell me, Lauscher,” he said at last, “is this our Lulu, or is it the Princess Lilia?”

“What tripe!” the poet cried in anger. “Give it back to me!”

But while he held the page in his hand and looked at it once again, quite suddenly a strange, cold terror came over him, making his heart skip a beat. The erratic, mutable letters mysteriously ran together to form the contours of a head. As Lauscher continued to pore over the page, the fine features of a girl's face emerged, in the likeness of none other than the strange and beautiful Lulu.

Erich sat, as if turned to stone, in his chair; Karl lay mumbling on the settee; beside him sat Ludwig Ugel, who could do nothing but shake his head. The poet stood in the middle of the room, pale and lost. Then a hand tapped him on the shoulder; frightened, he turned around to find the philosopher Turnabout, who doffed his shabby, pointed hat in greeting.

“Turnabout!” the poet exclaimed in astonishment. “My God, did you fall through the ceiling?”

“What do you mean, Herr Lauscher?” replied the smiling old man. “Whatever do you mean? I knocked twice. But let me see what you've got there. Aha, a splendid manuscript.” He took the song, or rather the picture, carefully from Lauscher's hands. “You'll permit me to examine it, won't you? Since when did you start collecting rare manuscripts?”

“Rare manuscripts? Collecting? So you think you'll learn something from that scrap of paper?” The old man continued to examine and finger the page with great delight.

“Well, really,” he said with a grin, “it is a lovely fragment of a text, even if corrupt, and late. It's Askian.”

“Askian?” Hamelt called out.

“No doubt about it, Herr Student,” the philosopher replied in a friendly tone. “But tell me now, my dear Herr Lauscher, tell me where you came upon this exceedingly rare find. Further investigations are in order!”

“Come, come now, Herr Turnabout, stop telling tales,” the poet rejoined with a nervous laugh. “It's brand-new, I penned it myself last night.”

The philosopher measured up Lauscher with a suspicious look. “I must confess,” he replied, “I really must confess, my fine young man, that I have a strong distaste for this sort of tomfoolery.”

Lauscher became earnestly indignant. “Herr Turnabout,” he cried vehemently, “I must beseech you not to take me for a buffoon, and in the event that you yourself, as it appears, would like to play that merry role, kindly select some theater other than my lodgings for your performance.”

“Now, now.” Turnabout smiled good-naturedly. “Maybe you'd like to give the matter some more thought! Meanwhile, farewell, fare you all well, my good sirs!” So saying, he righted his shimmering green cap on his head of white hair and quietly left the room.

Downstairs, in the empty tavern, Turnabout found the lovely Lulu standing alone, drying wineglasses with a towel. He went over to the keg and helped himself to a mug of beer; then he sat down at the table opposite the girl. He did not try to make conversation, but from time to time his friendly, old, bright eyes looked into the beauty's face; and she, sensing his kindly intentions, went calmly about her work. The philosopher then took one of the empty cut-glass goblets, poured in some water, moistened the glass's rim, and began to run the tip of his index finger around it. Soon a humming arose, then a clear ringing tone, which alternately swelled and diminished, filling the whole room with its sound. The lovely Lulu enjoyed the glass's singing; her hands stopped what they were doing, and she listened, completely captivated by the eternally sweet, crystal-clear tones. From time to time, the old man looked up from the glass and into her eyes, amiably and searchingly. The whole room rang with the singing of the glass. Lulu stood calmly in the middle of the room, her mind a blank; she listened intently, her eyes growing wide as a child's.

“Is the old King Sorrowless still alive?” she heard a voice ask, not knowing if it came from the old man or from the singing glass. Not knowing why, she had to nod in assent.