“Every one of us,” he went on, “knows what it is to make mistakes, to run off the rails in that way, to make greedy excursions of that kind into the festival halls of life. But we return thence into our isolation humbled and sick at heart.”
Herr Martini stopped. His look, from under his knotted brows, became fixed for a moment and lost in vacancy, while his mouth assumed a sour expression and his cheeks, on which the unhealthy redness glowed, seemed even thinner than before. It was only for a second; then he changed his position, and his eyes recovered their vivacity.
“But your poem,” said Klaus Heinrich, with some empressement. “Your prize poem to the ‘Joy of Life,’ Herr Martini…. I am really grateful to you for your achievement. But will you please tell me … your poem—I've read it attentively. It deals on the one hand with misery and horrors, with the wickedness and cruelty of life, if I remember rightly, and on the other hand with the enjoyment of wine and fair women, does it not?…”
Herr Martini laughed; then rubbed the corners of his mouth with his thumb and forefinger, so as to wipe the laugh out.
“And it's all,” said Klaus Heinrich, “conceived in the form of ‘I,’ in the first person, isn't it? And yet it is not founded on personal knowledge? You have not really experienced any of it yourself?”
“Very little, Royal Highness. Only quite trifling suggestions of it. No, the fact is the other way round—that, if I were the man to experience all that, I should not only not write such poems, but should also feel entire contempt for my present existence. I have a friend, his name is Weber; he's a rich young man; he lives, he enjoys his life. His favourite amusement consists in scorching in his motor car at a mad pace over the country and picking up village girls from the roads and fields on the way, with whom he——but that's another story. In short, that young man laughs when he catches sight of me, he finds something so comic in me and my activities. But as for me, I can quite understand his amusement, and envy him it. I dare say that I too despise him a little, but not so much as I envy and admire him….”
“You admire him?”
“Certainly, Royal Highness. I cannot help doing so. He spends, he squanders, he lets himself go in a most unconcerned and light-hearted way—while it is my lot to save, anxiously and greedily, to keep together, and indeed to do so on hygienic grounds. For hygiene is what I and such as I most need—it is our whole ethics. But nothing is more unhygienic than life….”
“That means that you will never empty the Grand Duke's cup, then, Herr Martini?”
“Drink wine out of it? No, Royal Highness. Although it would be fine to do so. But I never touch wine. And I go to bed at ten, and generally take care of myself. If I didn't, I should never have won the cup.”