XVIII
Stettner had returned to Hamburg. His ship was to sail on that very evening. He had several errands in the city, and Christian and Crammon waited for him in order to accompany him to the pier.
Crammon said: “A captain of Hussars who suddenly turns up in mufti—I can’t help it, there’s something desperate about it to me. I feel as though I were on a perpetual visit of condolence. After all, he’s déclassé, and I don’t like people in that situation. Social classes are a divine institution; a man who interferes with them wounds his own character. One doesn’t throw up one’s profession the way one tosses aside a rotten apple. These are delicate and difficult matters. Common sense may disregard them; the higher intelligence reverences them. What is he going to do among the Yankees? What good can come of it?”
“He’s a chemist by inclination, and scholarly in his line,” Christian answered. “That will help.”
“What do the Yankees care about that? He’s more likely to catch consumption and be trodden under. He’ll be stripped of pride and dignity. It’s a country for thieves, waiters, and renegades. Did he have to go as far as all this?”
“Yes,” Christian answered, “I believe he did.”
An hour later they and Stettner arrived at the harbour. Cargoes and luggage were still being stowed, and they strolled, Stettner between Crammon and Christian, up and down a narrow alley lined with cotton-bales, boxes, barrels, and baskets. The arc lamps cast radiant light from the tall masts, and a tumult of carts and cranes, motors and bells, criers and whistles rolled through the fog. The asphalt was wet; there was no sky to be seen.
“Don’t forget me wholly here in the old land,” said Stettner. A silence followed.
“I don’t know whether we shall be as well off in the old country in the future as we have been in the past,” said Crammon, who occasionally had pessimistic attacks and forebodings. “Hitherto we haven’t suffered. Our larders and cellars have been well-stocked, nor have the higher needs been neglected. But times are getting worse, and, unless I mistake, clouds are gathering on the political horizon. So I can’t call it a bad idea, my dear Stettner, to slip away quietly and amiably. I only hope that you’ll find some secure position over there from which you may calmly watch the spectacle of our débâcle. And when the waves rise very high, you might think of us and have a mass said for us, that is for me, because Christian has been expelled from the bosom of Holy Church.”
Stettner smiled at this speech. But he became serious again at once. “It seems to me too that, in a sense, we’re all trapped here. Yet I have never felt myself so deeply and devotedly a German as at this moment when I am probably leaving my fatherland forever. But in that feeling there is a stab of pain. It seems to me as though I should hurry from one to another and sound a warning. But what to warn them of, or why warn them at all—I don’t know.”
Crammon answered weightily. “My dear old Aglaia wrote me the other day that she had dreamed of black cats all night long. She is deep, she has a prophetic soul, and dreams like that are of evil presage. I may enter a monastery. It is actually within the realm of the possible. Don’t laugh, Christian; don’t laugh, my dearest boy! You don’t know all my possibilities.”
It had not occurred to Christian to laugh.
Stettner stopped and gave his hands to his friends. “Good-bye, Crammon,” he said cordially. “I’m grateful that you accompanied me. Good-bye, dear Christian, good-bye.” He pressed Christian’s hand long and firmly. Then he tore himself away, hastened toward the gang-plank, and was lost in the crowd.
“A nice fellow,” Crammon murmured. “A very nice fellow. What a pity!”
When the car met them Christian said: “I’d like to walk a bit, either back to the hotel or somewhere else. Will you come, Bernard?”
“If you want me, yes. Toddling along is my portion.”
Christian dismissed his car. He had a strange foreboding, as though something fateful were lying in wait for him.
“Ariel’s days here are numbered,” said Crammon. “Duty calls me away. I must look after my two old ladies. Then I must join Franz Lothar in Styria. We’ll hunt heath-cocks. After that I’ve agreed to meet young Sinsheim in St. Moritz. What are your plans, my dear boy?”
“I leave for Berlin to-morrow or the day after.”
“And what in God’s name are you going to do there?”
“I’m going to work.”
Crammon stopped, and opened his mouth very wide. “Work?” he gasped, quite beside himself. “What at? What for, O misguided one?”
“I’m going to take courses at the university, under the faculty of medicine.”
Horrified, Crammon shook his head. “Work ... courses ... medicine.... Merciful Providence, what does this mean? Is there not enough sweat in the world, not enough bungling and half-wisdom and ugly ambition and useless turmoil? You’re not serious.”
“You exaggerate as usual, Bernard,” Christian answered, with a smile. “Don’t always be a Jeremiah. What I’m going to do is something quite simple and conventional. And I’m only going to try. I may not even succeed; but I must try it. So much is sure.”
Crammon raised his hand, lifted a warning index finger, and said with great solemnity: “You are upon an evil path, Christian, upon a path of destruction. For many, many days I have had a presentiment of terrible things. The sleep of my nights has been embittered; a sorrow gnaws at me and my peace has flown. How am I to hunt in the mountains when I know you to be among the Pharisees? How shall I cast my line into clear streams when my inner eye sees you bending over greasy volumes or handling diseased bodies? No wine will glitter beautifully in my glass, no girl’s eyes seem friendly any more, no pear yield me its delicate flavour!”
“Oh, yes, they will,” Christian said, laughing. “More than that: I hope you’ll come to see me from time to time, to convince yourself that you needn’t cast me off entirely.”
Crammon sighed. “Indeed I shall come. I must come and soon, else the spirit of evil will get entire control of you. Which may God forbid!”