XXXIII
Amadeus Voss said: “He will not enter upon the conflict. He has been placed before the final choice. You think: ‘Oh, it is only his family that would make him submit and conform.’ But the family is to-day the decisive factor of power in the state. It is the cornerstone and keystone of millennial stratifications and crystallizations. He who defies it is outlawed; he has nowhere to lay his head. He is placed in a perpetual position of criminality, and that wears down the strongest.”
“His people seem to have made a considerable impression on you,” Lamprecht remarked.
“I discuss a principle and you speak of persons,” Voss replied, irritably. “Refute me on my own ground, if you don’t mind. As a matter of fact, I saw no one face to face except Wahnschaffe’s brother, Wolfgang. He invited me, ostensibly to obtain information, but in fact to test me. A remarkable chap; representative to the last degree. He is penetrated by the unshakable seriousness of those who have counted every rung of the social ladder and measured all social distances to a millimetre. Ready for anything; venal through and through; stopping at nothing; cruel by nature, and consistent through lack of mind. I don’t deny the impressiveness of such an extraordinarily pure type. You can’t image a better object lesson of all that constitutes the society of the period.”
“And, of course, you took Christian’s part, and declared that you were unapproachable and unbribable for diplomatic services?” Johanna asked, in a tone of subtle carelessness. “Or didn’t you?” She walked up and down in order to lay the board for Christian, whom she yearned for with a deep impatience.
Michael did not take his eyes from the face of Amadeus Voss.
“I never dreamed of such folly,” Amadeus answered. “My occupation is research, not moralizing. I have ceased sacrificing myself to phantoms. I no longer believe in ideas or in the victory of ideas. So far as I am concerned, the battle has been decided, and peace has been made. Why should I not admit it frankly? I have made a pact with things as they are. Do not call it cynicism; it is an honest confession of my sincere self. It is the fruit of the insight I have gained into the useful, the effective, into all that helps man actually and tangibly. There was no necessity in the wide world for me to become a martyr. Martyrs confuse the world; they tear open the hell of our agonies, and do so quite in vain. When or where has pain ever been assuaged or healed through pain? Once upon a time I went the way of sighs and the way of the cross; I know what it means to suffer for dreams and spill one’s blood for the unattainable; breast to breast have I wrestled with Satan till at last it became clear to me: you can strip him off only if you give yourself to the world wholly and without chaffering. Nor must you look back, or, like Lot’s wife, you will be turned into a pillar of salt. Thus I overcame the devil, or, if you prefer, myself.”
“It was, to say the least, a very weighty and significant transformation,” said Johanna, cutting the buns in half and buttering them. Her gestures were of an exquisitely calculated ease and charm.
“And what did you finally say to Wolfgang Wahnschaffe?” asked Botho von Thüngen. He sat beside the window, and from time to time looked out into the yard, for in him too there was a deep desire for Christian’s presence. In each of them was a dark feeling of his nearness.
“I told him just about what I think,” Voss answered. “I said: ‘The best thing you can do is to let everything take its natural course. He will be entangled in his own snares. Resistance offers support, persecution creates aureoles. Why should you want to crown him with an aureole? A structure of paradoxes must be permitted to fall of its own weight. All the visions of Saint Anthony have not the converting power of one instant of real knowledge. There must be no wall about him and no bridge for his feet; then he will want to erect walls and build bridges. Have patience,’ I said, ‘have patience. I who was the midwife of his soul on the road of conversion may take it upon myself to prophesy; and I prophesy that the day is not far off when he will lust after a woman’s lips.’ For this, I confess, was the thing that mainly gave me pause—this life without Eros. And it was not satiety, no, it was not, but a true and entire renunciation. But let Eros once awaken, and he will find his way back. Nor is the day far off.” His face had a look of fanatical certitude.
“It will be another Eros, not him you name,” said Thüngen.
Then Michael arose, looked upon Voss with burning eyes, and cried out to him: “Betrayer!”
Amadeus Voss gave a start. “Eh, little worm, what’s gotten into you?” he murmured, contemptuously.
“Betrayer!” Michael said.
Voss approached him with a threatening gesture.
“Michael! Amadeus!” Johanna admonished, beseechingly, and laid her hand on Voss’s arm.
And while she did so, the door was opened softly, and the little Stübbe girl slipped silently into the room. She was neatly dressed as always. Her two blond braids were wound about her head and made her pain-touched child’s face seem even older and more madonna-like. She looked about her, and when she caught sight of Michael, she went up to him and handed him a letter. Thereupon she left the room again.
Michael unfolded the letter and read it, and all the colour left his face. It slipped from his hand. Lamprecht picked it up. “Does it concern us too?” he asked, with a clear presentiment. “Is it from him?”
Michael nodded and Lamprecht read the letter aloud: “Dear Michael:—I take this way of saying farewell to you, and beg you to greet our friends. I must go away from here now, and you will not receive any news of me. Let no one try to seek me out. It seemed simpler and more useful to me to depart in this way than to put off and confuse the unavoidable by explanations and questions. I have taken with me the few things of mine that were in Karen’s rooms. They all went into a little travelling bag. What remains you can pack into the box in the other room; there are a few necessities—some linen and a suit of clothes. Perhaps I shall find it possible to have these sent after me, but it is uncertain. For you, Michael, I am sending one thousand marks to Lamprecht, in order that your instruction may be continued for a time; it may also serve in time of need. Johanna will find in the house-agent’s care to-morrow, when I shall send it, an envelope containing two hundred and fifty marks. Perhaps she will be kind enough to use this money to satisfy a few obligations that I leave behind. Once more: Greet our friends. Cling to them. Farewell. Be brave. Think of Ruth. Your Christian Wahnschaffe.”
They had all arisen and grouped themselves about Lamprecht. Shaken to the soul, Lamprecht spoke: “I am his, now and in future, in heart and mind.”
“What is the meaning of it, and what the reason?” Thüngen asked, in the shy stillness.
“Exactly like Wahnschaffe,” Voss’s voice was heard. “Flat and wooden as a police regulation.”
“Be silent,” Johanna breathed at him, in her soul’s pain. “Be silent, Judas!”
No other word was said. They all stood about the table, but the place that had been laid for Christian remained empty. Twilight was beginning to fall, and one after another they went away. Amadeus Voss approached Johanna, and said: “That word you spoke to me, following the boy’s example, will burn your soul yet, I promise you.”
Michael, rapt from the things about him, looked upward with visionary, gleaming eyes.
In weary melancholy Johanna said to herself: “How runs the stage-direction in the old comedies? Exit. Yes, exit. Short and sweet. Exit Johanna. Go your ways.” She threw a last look around the dim room, and, lean and shadowy, was the last to slip through the door.