Steppenwolf (16 page)

When I gave her the orchids she laughed in delight. ‘How sweet of you, Harry. You wanted to give me a present, didn’t you, and weren’t quite sure what to choose. Not knowing how entitled you were to go buying me something, you wondered whether I’d be offended, and in the end you opted for orchids, just some flowers, and yet mighty expensive ones. Well, thanks very much, but I ought incidentally to tell you without further ado that I don’t want you buying me presents. I may earn my living from men, but I’ve no desire to be kept by you. But anyway, just look at you! How you’ve changed! I’d hardly have recognized you. The other day you looked like something just cut down from the gallows and now you are already almost a human being again. Have you carried out my orders, by the way?’

‘What orders?’

‘Can’t you remember anything? What I mean is: have you now learned to do the foxtrot? You said there was nothing you would like more than to receive orders from me, nothing better than to obey them. Do you remember?’

‘Indeed I do, and I stick by what I said. I meant it seriously.’

‘And yet you still haven’t learned how to dance?’

‘What, that quickly? Is it possible in just a few days?’

‘Of course. You can learn the foxtrot in an hour, the Boston in two. The tango takes longer, but you’ve absolutely no need of that.’

‘But what I do need, after all this time, is to know your name!’

She looked at me for a while in silence.

‘You may be able to guess it. It would please me no end if you could. Just pay attention and take a good look at me. Hasn’t it occurred to you yet that I sometimes have a boy’s face? Now, for instance?’

So it was. On now taking a close look at her face, I couldn’t help thinking that she was right. It was that of a boy. And as I allowed myself to contemplate it for a minute or so, her face began to speak to me, reminding me of my own boyhood and of my then friend whose name had been Hermann. For a moment she seemed to have changed completely into this boy Hermann.

‘You ought, if you were a boy, to be called Hermann,’ I said in amazement.

‘Who knows? Perhaps I am a boy, only in disguise,’ she said playfully.

‘Is your name Hermione?’

She nodded, beaming with joy at the fact that I had guessed correctly. The soup was just arriving and, as we started our meal, she began to take a childlike pleasure in everything. Of all the things that I liked and found fascinating about her, the most charming and idiosyncratic was her ability to switch from being deeply serious to extremely funny. Yet she remained entirely herself, just as gifted children do, showing no signs of strain. She was now funny for a while, teasing me about the foxtrot and even giving me the odd kick under the table. She was lavish in her praise of the food, remarked that I had gone to some trouble to look my best, but still found a great deal to criticize in my appearance.

Amid all this I asked her: ‘How did you manage to look like a boy all at once, and get me to guess your name?’

‘Oh, you managed all that on your own. Can’t you get it into your head, my learned friend, that you’ve taken a liking to me and feel that I matter because I’m like a kind of mirror for you, because something in me responds to you and understands you? Actually, all human beings ought to be such mirrors for one another, responding and corresponding to each other in this way, but the thing is that cranks like you are oddities. You easily get led astray, bewitched into thinking that you can no longer see or read anything in the eyes of other people, that there is nothing there that concerns you any more. And when a crank of your sort suddenly discovers a face again that really looks at him, in which he senses something akin to a response and an affinity, it naturally fills him with joy.’

‘You know all there is to know, Hermione,’ I cried in amazement. ‘It’s exactly as you say. And yet you’re so utterly different from me! You’re my opposite, after all, you have everything that I lack.’

‘That’s how it looks to you,’ she said laconically, ‘and it’s as well it does.’

And now a heavy cloud of seriousness passed over her face, which really was a kind of magic mirror for me. All at once her whole face spoke only of seriousness now, of tragedy emerging as it were from the hollow, fathomless eyes of a mask. Slowly, as if word after word had to be prized from her lips, she said:

‘Mind you don’t forget what you told me, my dear. You told me to give you orders and that you’d be delighted to obey them all. Don’t forget! I must tell you, Harry my boy, that just as you feel that my face responds to you, that there is something in me that comes halfway to meet you and inspires you with confidence, I feel exactly the same thing with regard to you. When I saw you coming into the Black Eagle recently, so weary and absent-minded, almost having departed this world already, I immediately sensed: there’s someone who will obey me; he’s just longing for
me to order him about. And I intend to do just that. That’s why I spoke to you, that’s why we’ve become friends.’

She uttered these words in such deadly earnest, they poured forth from the depths of her soul with such force that I couldn’t fully grasp their meaning. I tried to calm her down, to take her mind off the subject, but she merely shook off my attempt with a twitch of her eyebrows, gave me a forceful look and continued in a tone of voice devoid of all warmth: ‘You’d better keep your word, my lad, I’m telling you, otherwise you’ll be sorry. You’ll receive lots of orders from me, and you’ll obey them – orders that are so appealing, so agreeable that you’ll be only too delighted to obey them. And at the end, Harry, you’ll carry out my final order too.’

‘I shall,’ I said, half surrendering to her will. ‘What will you order me to do finally?’ I asked, although, God knows why, I already sensed what she had in mind.

Trembling, as if suffering a slight fit of shivering, she seemed slowly to awake from her deep trance. Her eyes remained fixed on me. All of a sudden her mood became even more sombre.

‘The sensible thing to do would be not to tell you. But I don’t want to be sensible, Harry, not this time, anything but sensible. Listen carefully. You’ll hear what it is, then forget it again. It will make you laugh, then make you cry. Take note, my lad. We’re going to play for high stakes. It’s a matter of life and death, dear brother. And I want to lay my cards on the table even before we begin.’

How beautiful her face looked as she said this, how ethereal! A knowing sadness lay coolly and clearly on the surface of her eyes, eyes that seemed to have endured every sorrow it is possible to imagine and to have acquiesced in it. Words came from her mouth with difficulty, as if she had a speech impediment. She spoke roughly, as people do whose faces have been numbed by severe frost, yet – in apparent contradiction to the expression on
her face and the tone of her voice – between her lips, in the corners of her mouth and in the movements of the tip of her tongue, only rarely caught sight of, all was sweet, playful, free-flowing sensuality and intense carnal desire. A short curl was hanging down on to her smooth, motionless forehead and the corner of her brow where the curl rested was the source from which that wave of boyishness, of hermaphroditic charm flowed from time to time like the breath of life. I
listened to her full of anxiety, yet as if sedated, only half there.

‘You are fond of me,’ she said, ‘for the reasons I’ve already mentioned. It’s because I’ve made inroads into your isolation, thrown you a lifeline when you were on the very threshold of hell, and reawakened you to life. But I want more from you, much more. I want to make you fall in love with me. No, don’t try to contradict me; let me have my say. I can sense that you’re very fond of me, that you’re grateful for what I’ve done, but you aren’t in love with me. I intend to make you be in love with me. After all, it’s my job: I earn a living by being able to make men fall in love with me. But mark you, I’m not doing this because I find you of all people particularly charming. I’m not in love with you, Harry, any more than you are in love with me. But I need you, as you need me. You need me now, at this moment, because you are desperately in need of
someone to push you into the water and bring you back to life. You need me in order to learn how to dance, to learn how to laugh, to learn how to live. However, I need you for something that is also very important and beautiful – not today, but later. When you are in love with me I shall give you my final order, and you’ll obey, which will be a good thing for you and for me.’

She lifted one of the brownish-mauve, green-veined orchids a little in the water jar and, bending her head over it for a moment, stared at the flower.

‘It won’t be easy for you, but you will do it. You will carry out
my order
and will kill me
. That’s what I have in mind. Don’t ask me anything more.’

Still gazing at the orchid, she fell silent. Her face relaxed and, like the bud of a flower unfolding its petals, all pressure and tension went from it. Suddenly there was a delightful smile on her lips, whereas her eyes, as if spellbound, remained frozen for a moment. And now she shook her head with its little boyish curl and, taking a sip of water, suddenly became aware again of being in the middle of a meal and tucked into the food with a gleeful appetite.

Having clearly heard her eerie speech word for word, having even guessed her ‘final order’ well before she uttered it, I was no longer horrified by the statement: ‘You will kill me.’ Everything she said sounded convincing to me, destined to happen. I accepted it without resistance and yet, despite the horrifyingly earnest manner in which she had stated it all, none of it struck me as fully real or serious. One part of my being soaked up her words, believing them; another part, nodding sagely, noted that even the ever so clever, sane and confident Hermione had her semi-conscious moments of wild fantasy. Scarcely had she finished speaking before a layer of unreality and ineffectuality descended on the whole scene.

I, at any rate, found it impossible to leap back into the realm of reality and probability, as Hermione had done, with the ease of a tightrope-walker.

‘So one day I’m going to kill you?’ I asked, still slightly in a trance, whereas she was already laughing again and busily engaged in cutting up the roast duck on her plate.

‘Of course,’ she replied with a dismissive nod. ‘But enough of that, it’s time to eat. Order me a little more green salad, Harry, there’s a dear. What’s wrong with you, have you no appetite? I think you need to learn all those things that come naturally to other people, even the enjoyment of food. Just look at this, for
instance. It’s the leg of a duck, dear boy, and easing the lovely light-coloured flesh from the bone is an act of celebration. You have to savour the excitement of it, feel with all your heart as thankful for it as a man in love does when first helping his girlfriend out of her jacket. Do you see? No? You’re a dunce. Pay attention, I’ll give you a bit of this lovely duck leg, then you’ll see. There, open your mouth. – Oh, what a silly fool you are! I don’t know, now he goes sneaking a look at the other people, afraid that they might
see him taking a titbit from my fork! Don’t worry, you prodigal son, I’m not going to show you up. But you really are a poor devil if you need the permission of other people before you can enjoy yourself.’

The scene just before this seemed more and more divorced from reality. It was increasingly difficult to believe that only minutes ago these eyes of hers had been staring at me so gravely and frighteningly. In this respect, alas, Hermione was like life itself, forever fickle as the moment, never predictable in advance. Now she was eating, and the duck leg and the salad, the gateau and the liqueur were taken seriously, objects to rejoice in and pass judgement on, to discuss and go into flights of fancy about. Each plate that was taken away marked the beginning of a new chapter. This woman, who had seen through me so comprehensively, who seemed to know more of life than any wise men, was so skilled in behaving as a child, so adept at playing whatever little game life momentarily offered, that I automatically became her pupil. Whether it was wisdom of the highest order or the simplest form of naivety, it did not matter. Anyone knowing
how to live for the moment, to live in the present as she did, treasuring every little wayside flower with loving care and deriving value from every playful little instant, had nothing to fear from life. How was I supposed to believe that this cheerful child with her healthy appetite and her playful attitude to wining and dining was at one and the same time a dreamer, a hysterical woman wishing herself
dead, or a vigilant, calculating woman who deliberately and cold-bloodedly intended to make me fall in love with her and become her slave? That couldn’t possibly be the case. No, she was simply such a total creature of the moment that she was exposed not just to any amusing idea that occurred to her, but equally to any fleeting dark tremor from remote depths of the soul. And she lived both to the full.

The Hermione I was seeing for the second time today knew all there was to know about me. It seemed impossible to me that I could ever keep anything secret from her. It might be that she had not fully understood my intellectual life, would not perhaps be able to keep up with me where my interests in music, in Goethe, in Novalis or Baudelaire were concerned – but even this was doubtful; she would probably have no difficulty with these things either. And even if she couldn’t – what, I asked myself, remained of my ‘intellectual life’? Wasn’t it all in ruins, devoid of meaning? But as for my other, personal problems and interests, she would understand them all, of that I had no doubt. Soon I would talk to her about Steppenwolf, about the Tract, about each and every thing that until now had existed only for me, matters I had never spoken a word about to any human being. I could not resist making a start on this
straight away.

‘Hermione,’ I said, ‘something really odd happened to me the other day. A stranger gave me a little printed booklet, the kind of cheap pamphlet you get at fairgrounds, and in it I found the whole story of my life, everything of importance to me, described in exact detail. Don’t you think that’s remarkable?’