Agathe Read online

  And that he knew so little about her and was sitting with her so intimately, and yet not at all as he would with a woman to whom he would be a man, this was something very pleasant, in the lassitude to which he was now beginning to surrender.

  “A big change since yesterday!” he thought.

  He was grateful for that and tried to think of some affectionate brotherly thing to say to her upon parting, but since he lacked any experience with this, nothing occurred to him. So he just put an arm around her and kissed her.

  3

  DAYBREAK IN A HOUSE OF MOURNING

  IT WAS still early when Ulrich woke from dreamless sleep as smoothly as a fish leaping from water. All traces of the previous day’s fatigue were gone. He set out in search of breakfast and walked through the house. The mourning rituals were not quite in motion yet; there was merely an aura of sorrow hovering in all the rooms, reminding him of shops that open their shutters at dawn when the street is still empty of people. Then he took the scientific papers he had been working on from his suitcase and went to his father’s study. The room, now with its stove lit, looked more human than it had on the previous evening. Even though a pedantic mind had designed it with an obsessive view to weighing this on the one hand against that on the other, all the way to the plaster busts lined up in parallel rows on top of the bookshelves, still, the many small, personal things that had been left behind—pencils, monocle, thermometer, an open book, boxes of pen nibs, and the like—gave it the touching vacancy of a lifelong abode that had been abandoned by its tenant just a moment ago. Ulrich sat in the midst of it—not far from the window, actually, yet near the room’s center of gravity, the desk—and felt a peculiar listlessness. Portraits of his forebears hung on the walls, and some of the furniture dated from their time; the man who had lived here had formed the egg of his life from the shells of theirs; now he was dead, and his furnishings still stood there as clean-cut as if they had been carved out of space with a file, but already the order of things was about to crumble away to adapt itself to his successor, and one felt the longevity of these inanimate objects almost imperceptibly burgeoning with renewed life behind their rigid air of mourning.

  In this mood Ulrich spread out his work, which he had interrupted weeks and months ago, and his gaze immediately settled on the equations of hydrodynamics where he had gotten bogged down. He darkly remembered having thought of Clarisse when he had used the three basic states of water as an example to show a new mathematical possibility; and Clarisse had then diverted him from it.* But there is a kind of remembering that recalls not so much the word as the atmosphere in which it was spoken, and so Ulrich suddenly thought: “Carbon...” and then had the impression, as if out of nowhere, that it would help him if he could just instantaneously know in how many states carbon occurred; but he couldn’t remember, and instead he thought: “Man occurs in two states, male and female.” He dwelled on this thought for quite a while, seemingly stunned with amazement, as if it were God knows how great a discovery that man lives in two different permanent states. But concealed beneath this momentary stopping of his mind, something different was taking place. For one can be hard, selfish, driven, pushed outward in bas-relief, as it were, and suddenly feel oneself to be not only the same Ulrich So-and-so but also the opposite, recessed and inverted, a selflessly happy creature in an ineffably tender and somehow also selfless state of all surrounding things. And he asked himself: “How long has it been since I last felt this?” To his surprise, it was little more than twenty-four hours. The silence that surrounded him was refreshing, and the state he was reminded of did not seem as uncommon as it usually did. “After all, we’re organisms,” he thought, reassured, “who have to prevail against one another in an unfriendly world with all the vigor and desire we have at our disposal. But each of us, together with all his enemies and victims, is also a particle and child of this world, and perhaps not as separate from the rest or as independent as he imagines.” Given that premise, it seemed to him not at all incomprehensible that from time to time an intimation of unity and love arises from the world, almost a certainty that the palpable urgencies of life under ordinary circumstances keep us from seeing more than half of the pattern in which all beings are interwoven. There was nothing in this that had to be offensive to a person whose feelings were imbued with the precision of a mathematical-scientific worldview: Ulrich was even reminded of the work of a psychologist with whom he was personally acquainted that dealt with two large opposing groups of concepts, one based on the sense of being encompassed by the contents of experience, the other on the encompassing of these contents by the subject. It proposed that such a state of “being within something” and “looking at something from outside,” a “concave” and a “convex” way of feeling, a “spatial” and a “figural” awareness, an “insight” orientation and an “outlook” orientation, occurred in so many other opposite pairs of experience and their corresponding linguistic tropes that it was justifiable to assume a primeval doubleness of human consciousness behind it. It was not the kind of study that is rigorously based on factual research, but was of the imaginative kind that roams slightly in advance of established knowledge and that originates in an impetus that lies outside the scope of everyday scientific activity; but it was built on solid foundations and its deductions were persuasive, edging towards a unity of feeling that was hidden behind primordial mists, and whose myriad scattered fragments, Ulrich now assumed, had produced the present-day mentality that is vaguely organized around contrasting male and female modes of experience and is mysteriously shadowed by ancient dreams.

  Here Ulrich sought to secure his footing—literally the way one uses ropes and crampons for a descent down a dangerous rock face—and began a further deliberation.

  “The most ancient philosophies, which are almost incomprehensibly obscure to us, often speak of a feminine and a masculine ‘principle,’” he thought.

  “The goddesses that existed side by side with the gods in primeval religions are in truth no longer accessible to our sensibility. For us a relationship with these superhumanly powerful women would be masochistic!

  “But nature,” he thought, “gives men nipples and women a male sex organ, which does not necessarily mean that our forebears were hermaphrodites. Nor, then, are they likely to have been psychically androgynous. In which case the double possibility of a giving and a taking vision must once have been received from without, as a two-faced aspect of nature, and somehow all that is much older than the difference between the sexes, who later adapted these modes to complement their psychological wardrobe.”

  Such was the direction his thoughts took, but subsequently it happened that he remembered a detail from his childhood, and he was distracted by it, because—and this had not happened for a long time—he was finding pleasure in remembering. It must be said in advance that his father had in earlier days been a horseman and had also owned riding horses, to which the empty stable by the garden wall that Ulrich had seen on his arrival still bore witness. Probably that was the only aristocratic fancy his father had arrogated to himself out of admiration for his feudal friends’ way of life, but Ulrich had been a little boy at the time, and the infinity, or at any rate the vastness, that a horse’s tall, muscular body possessed for an admiring child reestablished itself to his senses as an eerie fairytale landscape, a mountain covered with fields of hair through which the ripples of the skin ran like waves of wind. It was, he realized, one of those memories whose splendor comes from the child’s powerlessness to fulfill his wishes; but these words are not adequate to the magnitude of that splendor, which was virtually supernatural, or to the no less miraculous splendor that little Ulrich touched shortly afterward with his fingertips in a quest for the earlier one. For at that time posters announcing a circus had been put up in the town, showing not only horses but also lions and tigers, as well as magnificent large dogs that lived in friendship with the wild beasts, and he had spent a long time staring at these posters before he finally s
ucceeded in getting hold of one of those brightly colored sheets and cutting out the animals, which he now stiffened with little wooden supports so they could stand up. But what happened then can only be compared to drinking that never quenches one’s thirst, no matter how long one goes on drinking; for it knew no bounds, nor, as it went on for weeks, did it yield any progress, and was a constant pull drawing him out of himself and into those adored creatures, which now, with the unutterable happiness of a lonely child, he believed he possessed whenever he looked at them, while just as strongly he felt that some ultimate thing was missing, a lack that nothing could fill, which was precisely what gave his longing the immense radiance that suffused his whole body. But then, along with this peculiarly boundless memory, another, slightly later experience emerged from the oblivion of those young days and despite its childishness took possession of the big adult body that was sitting there, dreaming with open eyes. It was the memory of a little girl who had only two qualities: that she had to belong to him and that as a result he got into fights with other boys. And of these two, only the fights were real, for the little girl did not exist. What a strange time that was, setting out like a knight-errant in search of some unknown boy, preferably bigger than himself, preferably on a lonely road that was capable of harboring a mystery, there to leap at the throat of his surprised enemy and, with some luck, wrestle him to the ground. He had received quite a few beatings for this and won great victories, too, but no matter how it turned out, he felt cheated of satisfaction. Nor would his feelings consider the obvious possibility that the little girls he actually knew were the same kind of creatures as the one he went into battle for, because like all boys his age he became rigid and awkward in the presence of girls; until one day something happened that was an exception to the rule. And now Ulrich remembered it as clearly as if he were looking at the image in the circle of a telescope trained across the years on an evening when Agathe was dressed up for a children’s party. She was wearing a velvet dress, and her hair flowed over it like waves of lighter velvet, so that suddenly, in much the same way he had yearned for the animals in the posters, he felt an unspeakable longing to be a girl. At that time he knew so little about men and women that he did not regard it as entirely impossible, but he knew enough not to try to enforce the fulfillment of his wishes, as children often will; rather it was a combination of the two, an ambiguous state which if he were to describe it now was as if he were groping in the dark for a door, meeting with a blood-warm or warmly sweet resistance, pressing against it again and again as it tenderly yielded to his urge to push through without actually ever giving way. Maybe it also resembled a harmless kind of vampire passion that sucks the object of its longing into itself, except this little man did not want to draw that little woman into himself but wanted to be entirely in her place; and this happened with that dazzling tenderness that accompanies only the earliest intimations of sex.

  Ulrich stood up and stretched his arms, marveling at his reverie. No more than ten steps away, on the other side of the wall, lay his father’s body, and only now did he notice that, around them both, the house, which had been dead and desolate, was bustling with people, who seemed to have suddenly risen from the earth. Old women were laying carpets and lighting new candles, there was hammering on the staircase, flowers were delivered, floors were being waxed, and now it appeared that he too was about to be drawn into this bustle, for visitors were announced who were up and about at this hour because there was something they wanted to have or to know, and from that time on the flow of people was unending. The university needed information about the funeral, a peddler came and shyly asked for clothing, a local antiquarian-book dealer announced himself with profuse apologies to present an offer, on behalf of a German firm, for a rare legal tome that was presumed to be in the deceased’s library, a chaplain asked to speak with Ulrich regarding some point that was not clear in the parish registry, a man from the insurance company came with a lengthy contestation, someone was looking for a cheap piano, a real estate agent left his card in the eventuality that the family might wish to sell the house, a retired government clerk offered to address envelopes, and so the coming, going, asking, and wanting went on without cease in these favorable early morning hours, each caller making matter-of-fact reference to the death in the family and staking his claim to existence, in speech and in writing, at the front door, where the old servant turned away as many as he could, and upstairs, where Ulrich nonetheless had to receive everyone who slipped through. He had never imagined how many people politely wait for the death of others and how many hearts are quickened the moment one’s own heart stops. He was somewhat astonished, and saw: A beetle lies in the forest, and other beetles, ants, birds, and swaying butterflies gather around.

  For embedded in all this greedy commotion there was also a flickering and fluttering of forest-deep darkness. Self-interest peered through the windows of mournful eyes like a lantern left burning in broad daylight when a man with black crepe on the sleeve of a black garment that was a blend of condolence and business suit appeared at the door and stopped, apparently waiting for either himself or Ulrich to burst into sobs. But when after a few seconds neither had done so, the man seemed to consider the gesture sufficient, for now he entered the room entirely and introduced himself, in the same manner in which any other tradesman would have, as the director of the funeral parlor. He said he had come to inquire if Ulrich was satisfied with the services that had been rendered thus far, and assured him that everything else would be conducted in a manner that even the blessed Herr Papa, difficult to please as he famously was, would have found absolutely unimpeachable. He pressed into Ulrich’s hand a sheet of paper equipped with blocks of small print and rectangles that turned out to be a contract form itemizing all classes of funerals, and forced him to read particular words, such as: . . . eight horses or two horses . . . wreath carriages . . . number of . . . harnesses à la . . . with outriders, silver-plated . . . attendants à la . . . torches in Marienburg style . . . in Admont style . . . number of attendants . . . illumination, style of . . . illumination, duration of . . . coffin woods . . . floral tributes . . . name, date of birth, sex, profession . . . disclaimer of liability for any unforeseen . . . Ulrich had no idea where some of the more antiquated terms came from; he inquired, the funeral director looked at him with surprise, and he too had no idea. He stood in front of Ulrich like a reflex arc in the brain of humanity, a link between stimulus and response that required no consciousness. A centuries-old tradition had been entrusted to this merchant of mourning, who was at liberty to invoke it as his product description. Evidently he felt that Ulrich had loosened a screw that should have been left untouched, and quickly sought to tighten it again with a remark that was intended to expedite the delivery to its destination. He explained that all these distinctions were unfortunately prescribed by the statutes of the national association of undertakers, but that it really didn’t matter if they were ignored, as indeed they always were, and if Ulrich would be kind enough to sign—since Madam, his sister, had declined to do so yesterday without first consulting her brother—it would simply indicate that the gentleman was in accord with the instructions left by his father, and he could be assured of a first-class operation.

  While Ulrich was signing, he asked the man if he had already seen those electrically driven sausage machines with a picture of Saint Luke as patron of the guild of butchers; he himself, he said, had once seen them in Brussels—but before he could expect to receive an answer, this man had been displaced by another who also wanted something from him and who was a reporter from the leading local newspaper seeking information for the obituary. Ulrich dismissed the undertaker, but as soon as he began to recite to the journalist the most important events in his father’s life, he realized he did not know what was important and what wasn’t, and his visitor had to come to his aid. Only then, thanks to the precision grip of a curiosity trained to isolate essentials, did the interview get underway, and Ulrich began to feel as if
he were present at the creation of the world. The reporter, a young man, asked if the old gentleman had died after a long illness, or unexpectedly, and when Ulrich answered that his father had continued lecturing until the last week of his life, the resulting formulation was: . . . in the full exercise and enjoyment of his powers. Then the chips began to fly off the old gentleman’s life until all that was left were some ribs and joints: Born in Protivín in 1844 . . . attended these and those schools and universities . . . appointed to the post of . . . on this and that date . . . appointed as . . . until finally, with five appointments and honorary degrees, the essential facts were nearly exhausted. A marriage in between. A few books. Once he almost became minister of justice, but ran into opposition from some quarters. The reporter took notes, Ulrich checked them, everything was correct. The reporter was pleased, he had the requisite number of lines. Ulrich was astonished at the small heap of ashes that remains of a life. For every piece of information supplied, the reporter had a coach-and-six phrase at the ready: distinguished scholar, wide-­ranging sympathies, forward-looking but cautious politician, a Renaissance man, and so forth; apparently no one had died for a considerable time and the long-unused words were hungry for employment. Ulrich reflected: he would have liked to add a kind word about his father, but the chronicler had his facts and was putting his notebook away, and the rest was like trying to take hold of the contents of a glass of water without the glass.