by Paul Leppin
Severin had not been to a church in years. The ardor of his youth had spent itself in blind and unrestrained fanaticism. From the lassitude that held him, which he bore with resignation from one day to the next, there now arose an old and long-forgotten yearning in his boyish soul. The afternoon sun had boiled a warm mist from the fragrance of the acacias and the breath of the river, and its light decay roused him. Identically clad girls from a school for orphans walked along the pavement on the riverbank, conversing in whispers. A nun accompanied them, wrapped up in her garments. For an instant the young eyes under her cowl regarded Severin. They were gray and pious and had stars in their centers, like Aunt Regina’s had had.
He rose hesitantly and searched the pocket of his coat for a cigarette. Across from him the plaque of the Biblical Society shone in the light. Many years before, during school vacation, he had bought a Bible here for very little money. He did not have it for long; it got lost, like most of the books he owned. He only thought of it now because today he felt again the wish for the heavy stories of the testaments, darkened by age, and the clear wisdom of the evangelists.
The children were playing in the sand in front of the statue of Emperor Franz. An old man with a white beard and a green eyeshade over his crooked glasses was selling sticky sugarcanes and hard rolls with salt and poppy-seeds. Severin bought the rest of his wares and handed them out to the children. The old man carried his basket home happily; the servant girls on the benches drew closer together and giggled.
A gentle and blissful enthusiasm, interwoven with the faded events of his schooldays, took hold of him. His thoughts felt cautiously back into this world, to the naive enchantment of the school chapel, to the timid feeling that came when he touched the cool communion cloth with his fingertips. Within him he began to hear the music of the May devotions; the organ joined the choruses of the songs to Mary, and outside, in the linden tree that grew in front of the open church window, a bird began to twitter loudly, with a trembling throat.
He crossed the bridge and saluted the golden cruci-
fix with his hat. Suddenly he stood before the portal of Niklaskirche. Its green dome shone above the rooftops, and piercing and burning light lay on the steps before the door. Severin went in. The stone faces of the bishops looked at him from the colorful darkness and his steps echoed from the columns. The church was empty except for a woman in black who was kneeling near the door. She turned around when he entered, and he recognized the nun from the riverbank. Her face was white and her eyes burned beneath her cowl. Severin knelt next to her and, in a loud voice, prayed: Hail Regina, full of grace — — And he thought he saw a frightened smile pass over her mouth, behind her folded hands.
II
Karla and her new lover had opened a wine bar in the center of the city. The streetcorner began next to the German University, where students in bright caps stood before the enormous wooden gate. A cool breath of air came from the low passage entrances, and the smell of moldering leather and damp felt emerged from the shopkeepers’ cellars. Travelling merchants sometimes spent the night here, under the arcades of the Grünmarkt. They came to the city with baskets full of mushrooms and fresh berries and waited for the morning to come. It was lively here during the day. People crowded the narrow footpaths, secondhand dealers called out their wares in singsong voices, and carriages rattled over the uneven cobbles. At night the clamor retreated behind the dim panes of the dance halls, and it was quiet here except for an occasional group of inebriates or a watchman who, surrounded by people, stopped a drunken brawl.
A fiery arc lamp hung in front of the wine bar in the black lane. When one walked around the badly lit houses on the corner, the light stung one’s eyes, and the muffled sound of the piano came from the door. Karla had consulted young Nikolaus’s elegant and fertile taste for the furnishings of the rooms, and he was there every night among her guests. Through unrestrained dissonances, she had endowed the place with a strange and provocative beauty that suited her nature and that she did not want to live without. It was true that Nikolaus shook his head pensively the first time he entered the room. The dark tone of the tapestries was drowned in the scarlet blaze of the door curtains, and Karla had decided to have a bizarre, unsettling blood-red heart pattern embroidered on the adored blue-black velvet of the table runners and divans. But the unschooled temperament that expressed itself here thrilled and conquered. And when Karla, her unruly hair fastened with a chain, stood in the light of the electric lamp wearing a wild gypsy gown that displayed her beautiful bosom and arms, the wine flowed more sweetly from the engraved goblets, and there was a wonderful and beguiling sound in the music.
But the most delightful thing, what drew people and enticed them, was Mylada. Somewhere Karla had discovered this girl, whose origins no one knew and who had never been seen in Prague before. Now she sat in the wine bar every night, her gaunt face becoming no redder from drinking. She wore a simple green dress that sheathed her body like a thin shirt and showed her small pointed breasts. After a few weeks all the men had fallen in love with her. She had a manner no one could resist, which seduced the most silent into talking and conquered the most reserved. Her clear eyes, which sometimes became covered with cloud when she spoke, could fascinate the ponderous, intoxicate the capricious, and subjugate the depraved. She was a new and exciting trick in the dull nightlife of the city. Karla had engaged her as a singer, and now and then, to the accompaniment of the piano, she sang for the guests in her clear voice. German chansons that had just appeared in the music halls, Czech folk melodies that youths played on harmonicas in front of suburban doorways in the evening. But the allure of her character had nothing to do with these songs.
An unexpected crowd of people had brought Karla’s wine bar into fashion. A shrill gaiety raged here from night until early morning, screaming and stomping and laughing with a full throat. Outside on the street, where the arc light burned, passersby stopped and crowded enviously in the shadows. The mawkish charm of Viennese music called them back after they had gone past, and put the doorknob in their hands. The joy in living that romped in waltz time within caught the lonely in its clutches and pulled them into the circle of light. Some of Karla’s earlier acquaintances also showed up, many of whom had not met since Doctor Konrad’s death. Blonde Ruschena came with a stout, pock-faced painter. She sat in the corner, sipped the sour Austrian wine he lavished on her, and gazed into the air with a vacuous smile. Nikolaus rarely appeared before midnight. He would come from an evening visit, wearing a silk vest and tails, and Karla would set the white-capped champagne before him in a bucket.
It was after a hot day that Severin and Zdenka made their first visit to the black lane. A storm was gathering angrily over the city and both of them were tired. Zdenka was hungry and thirsty, and Severin suggested going to Karla’s. He had read her advertisement in the newspaper and had also heard talk of Mylada in the office. It was still early in the evening and the wine bar was empty except for old Lazarus, who was hunched in the corner, cowering and drunk. He recognized Severin and greeted him with a nod. Mylada was sitting next to him and patiently listening to what he said. Her clear eyes regarded Zdenka with quiet interest, and also brushed her companion with a quick glance. Severin looked into her small gaunt face, spellbound. A frightened opposition had seized him when he came in and saw the book dealer. Now he sat in his chair, motionless and transformed, and incredulously felt the force that heavily and anxiously drove his blood to his heart while he looked at Mylada. An odd, strangely intimate expression in her eyes made him reflect. Zdenka self-consciously stopped talking when she noticed the furrow in his brow, and did not dare to disturb him. Only when Karla entered the room and happily shook his hand did he wake up and collect himself. She sat next to him on the divan and, in whispers, began to speak about Lazarus. Every evening after closing his business, he came here and got drunk. But he did not stay for long. When the theatre had let out and the first guests began to arrive, he went home.
And Karla talked about how he sometimes spoke senselessly in his drunkenness and wept:
He often flapped his arms like a bird that was trying to fly, and cawed like a raven. And then he cried again for his daughter — — —
Severin became pale. The evening when the Jewess had confronted him in the dark street and driven him away appeared before him like a vision. He no longer remembered her words, but he saw her body, distorted by motherhood, and trembled. He rose and approached the intoxicated man.
Good evening Lazarus! — he said — How is Susanna?
His voice sounded brittle from fear and in the same instant he wondered how he had had the courage to ask.
The old man stared vacantly into his wine and did not turn his head.
She came back from the foundling hospital today — —
And after a long pause, in which the three women looked at each other and held their breath:
But the child is dead, Severin, — — stone dead — —
And Lazarus laughed until the tears ran down his bony cheeks.
III
The closer the summer came to its end, the more tender and beautiful it became. Every day the sky spread out its flawless covering and the sun shone mildly. Severin spent his vacation in the city. He savored the idleness of the mornings like a pleasure he had long been denied. Now and then, with wonderful clarity, the mood of his school vacations welled up behind the silent years that had been nullified by dull office work. The events of the previous winter and the thoughts of his meager life, wasted on the treadmill, scattered like insubstantial webs. Early in the morning, when sleep fell away from him, he stretched out his limbs and lay for another hour in bed. Leisurely he watched the circles the light painted on the door after it fell through the curtain mesh. He felt he had been relieved of a burden. Then he washed and went out onto the street. He climbed the hill of the Weinberge fortifications and looked down at the Nusl Valley. New, chalk-white buildings glared in the sunlight and the smoke from distant railroad trains filled the air. In his youth there had been a small overgrown garden somewhere nearby, where he had looked for pebbles and snail-shells. Ox-eye daisies grew there in the untended grass during the springtime. Next to the children’s hospital the dome of the Karlshof Kirche peered at him like an enormous brown onion, and on the other side of the valley, in the fields of Pankraz, stood the new water-tower, which always looked to him as if it had been cut it out of the picture book he had once owned. The morning was clear and shone above the rooftops. In a factory a siren began to whine, and its melancholy voice remained in his ears for a long time, like a novel and monotonous song.
It was during these morning hours that he first discovered the city’s polymorphous life. Its thousand streets stretched out all around him. When he climbed the edge of the valley he saw the Moldau flowing past the fortifications of Wyschehrad. Bright reflections floated on the water like glowing firebrands. Grass was growing in the crumbling arrow-slits of the fortress wall. Severin thought back to the evenings when he had stood in the labyrinth of houses, dully and nervously oppressed, awash in dread and foreboding. The city that lay before him and plunged its towers into the morning seemed more beautiful now, and had retained its wonder.
On his way home he usually entered a church. Ever since that afternoon on the Kleinseite there was something that compelled him to linger in the darkness of the side-altars, where, with grave countenances, the statues leaned in the niches and the eternal light burned in a red glass. He sat on a pew and rested for a quarter of an hour. At this time of day there were rarely any visitors, except for an old woman who sometimes shuffled over the flagstones with small steps. Severin drew the silence into him anxiously, like someone long accustomed to noise. In the murky light of the remote corner that concealed him, his thoughts wove together inextricably and entangled his heart in a world of childish confusion. The images of the morning returned dreamily; he saw the waves on the river and the low gables of Hradschin in the dim air, and heard the steam-whistle singing in the valley. Once a noise disturbed him and he realized that a woman was kneeling behind him, praying. She had entered quietly, before he turned around. Then he gave a start and examined her face carefully from over his shoulder.
Gradually he realized that he was looking for the nun with stars in her eyes. For no real reason he had christened her Regina, and he found that he now believed in this name. Their meeting under the acacias on the riverbank returned to his mind. And by a sudden and unaccountable connection he immediately began to think of Mylada. —
In these hours he reviewed the days in which Zdenka’s love had protected him. He experienced for a second time everything that had come before. Lazarus’s words returned to him, and cruel and useless tears reminded him of his child. Little by little he began to understand that the idyll of this summer was only a delusion. The sleepy lethargy of his heart had made him believe that solace and genuine happiness had come to reside within it. But the evil force continued to dwell there, growing rankly and eating at his soul like corrosive acid while he kissed his girl. Something had roused the flickering shadows he had fled from in the winter, and he recognized them again in the darkness of the empty church. He was not sure if it had been Regina or Mylada, and his memories of them became strangely interwoven in a single form. For him Susanna’s fate was a sign that his foot was treading a wretched and accursed path. Wherever it led, grief and ruin rose up behind him, and joy withered in his tracks. Concern for Zdenka clutched him, and he struggled futilely in its claws. Shuddering, he discovered a grim desire in his frightened love for her; he held her life in his hands and could destroy it.
When Severin stepped out of the church and back into the open air, he shook his head over these dreams. The midday sun flowed through the street like warm honey. A blind man stood by the wall blinking, his hat in his hand. Over the rooftops hung the exquisite shimmer of late summer, which rose from the fields of stubble beyond the city. Severin rubbed his fingers over his brow. He walked on uncertainly, and the pleasant numbness of the previous weeks relieved the tension within him. Now and then the warbling of a canary came from the open window of a ground-floor apartment, and a violin screeched from the third floor of a house. A humming came through the air from far off, a metallic ringing that grew stronger and stronger. In the towers the midday bells began to chime.
IV
Nathan Meyer loved to conceal his life from other people. Since opening the wine bar in the black lane with Karla, he had never been among his guests. He kept his room locked up, and lived there alone among the books and pamphlets that were strewn carelessly over the floor. He only went out at night, when the other people who lived in the building had gone to sleep and there was no chance of meeting anyone on the stairs. He must have been about forty years old, but his closely cropped hair and smoothly shaven face made him look younger. Little was known about his past. His father had owned a large brewery in Russia, and had left him a substantial inheritance when he died. For years he had lived off the interest from the capital without ever feeling the compulsion to pursue any vocation. His rough personality, in no way softened by good nature, had not hindered his inclination to solitude. An unknown accident had brought him together with Karla, but his outer being had been little affected by it. In the apartment they shared his door was usually closed even to her. For that reason the few people he was in casual contact with were surprised when Nathan suddenly, with enthusiasm and dedication, pursued his idea of opening a tavern. Perhaps Karla had provided the initial impetus because her restless spirit sought a diversion from the unbearable monotony of their life together. But he greeted her suggestions with a fanaticism that remained inexplicable even to her, who knew better than others the energies he wasted in pointless brooding. He had also discovered Mylada and, rubbing his hands together, had guaranteed her success. But when everything was in motion and the enterprise got off to a very promising start, he resumed his old habits and no longer gave the business any thought.
At least it appeared that way. Because no one saw the contented smile that appeared on his lips when the sound of the music from the wine bar penetrated into his room. The window was open and Nathan Meyer sat at his desk with his head raised, listening closely. The quiet lane caught all the sounds between its high walls and brought them to his room. He heard how the glasses clinked together and how Mylada’s coy laughter impassioned the men. He heard the shrill and ecstatic voices of people who became intoxicated with wine and conversation. An expression of satisfaction crossed his smooth face, and he nodded. On many evenings there rose a frenzied roar that lasted for several minutes, the hissing and gurgling of an unbridled and overflowing lust that lost sight of itself and could not be contained. The fiery chords of the piano sounded in the midst of it, reeling. Heavy hands dug jubilant melodies and waltzes and marches from the keys. Then Nathan Meyer took his coat and hat from the wardrobe and descended the stairs. Unseen and unrecognized he stood next to the wine bar and counted the guests who disappeared inside. The arc lamp drew a bright circle in the darkness of the lane and lit the faces of those who went in with a harsh white beam. For an instant Nathan could see into the souls of the people who stopped before the door and lingered for a while, blinded. The lamplight drew all the faces more deeply than they appeared by day, leaving less concealed. The cavities in which fear was buried, the furrows and wrinkles around staring eyes that blazed with nighttime fantasies. Nathan wore his hat low on his forehead and the collar of his coat upturned. Motionless, he stood in the shadows and kept watch over the building.
