IX
One morning he sat at breakfast with his father. He marvelled how strange to him was this gentleman with the white, parted hair, with the elegantly clipped and divided beard and the rosy complexion.
Herr Wahnschaffe treated him with very great courtesy. He inquired after the social relations that Christian had formed in England, and commented upon his son’s frugal answers with instructive remarks concerning men and things. “It is well for Germans to gain ground there—useful and necessary.”
He discussed the threatening clouds in the political sky, and expressed his disapproval of Germany’s attitude during the Moroccan crisis. But Christian remained silent, through want of interest and through ignorance, and his father became visibly cooler, took up his paper, and began to read.
What a stranger he is to me, Christian thought, and searched for a pretext that would let him rise and leave. At that moment Wolfgang came to the table, and talked about the results of the races at Baden-Baden. His voice annoyed Christian, and he escaped.
It happened that Judith was sitting in the library and teased him about Letitia. Then Letitia herself and Crammon entered chatting. Felix Imhof soon joined them. Letitia took a book, and carefully avoided, as was clear, looking in Christian’s direction. Then those three left the room again, and Judith listened with pallor to their retreating voices, for she had heard Felix pay Letitia a compliment. “Perhaps she is committing a great folly,” she said. Then she turned to her brother. “Why are you so silent?” She wrinkled her forehead, and rested her folded hands on his shoulder. “We are all merry and light hearted here, and you are so changed. Don’t you like to be among us? Isn’t it lovely here at home? And if you don’t like it, can’t you go at any time? Why are you so moody?”
“I hardly know; I am not moody,” Christian replied. “One cannot always be laughing.”
“You’ll stay until my wedding, won’t you?” Judith continued, and raised her brows. “I’ll never forgive you if you don’t.” Christian nodded, and then she said with a friendly urgency, “Why don’t you ever talk to me, you bear? Ask me something!”
Christian smiled. “Very well, I’ll ask you something,” he said. “Are you contented, Judith? Is your heart at peace?”
Judith laughed. “That’s asking too much at once! You used not to be so forthright.” Then she leaned forward, with her elbows on her knees, and spread out her hands. “We Wahnschaffes can never be contented. All that we have is too little, for there is always so much that one has not. I’m afraid I shall be like the fisherman’s wife in the fairy tale. Or, rather, I’m not afraid but glad at the thought that I’ll send my fisherman back to the fish in the sea again and again. Then I shall know, at least, what he is willing to risk.”
Christian regarded his beautiful sister, and heard the temerity of her words. There was an audacity about her gestures, her words, her bright, clear voice, and the glow of her eyes. He remembered how he had sat one evening with Eva Sorel; and she had been as near him as Judith was now. In silent ecstasy he had looked at Eva’s hands, and she had raised her left hand and held it against the lamp, and though the radiance outlined only the more definitely the noble form of the rosy translucence of her flesh, the dark shadow of the bony structure had been plainly visible. And Eva had said: “Ah, Eidolon, the kernel knows nothing of beauty.”
Christian arose and asked almost sadly: “You will know what he risks. But will that teach you to know what you gain?”
Judith looked up at him in surprise, and her face darkened.