Sam had a sweet voice, rich and deep and light withal, as if it floated to its own surprise above the ordinary clatter – of footsteps on the floorboards and hurried ‘pardons’ and scrapes and little squeals and grunts of effort and concentration. I remember one song in particular, as the bells rang out two o’clock across the river, and only a handful of souls remained; sitting mostly on the sill of the bay window or leaning against a wall. He played tirelessly, and even at that late hour could sing out with a kind of mocking and melancholy bravado:
In leafy dell or dingle
Where lovers like to mingle
And maids and bachelors single
Walk past them sadly,
There will I roam or rove
For friends the stars above
And if I’m not in love
At least I’m madly.
And I thought, as he turned to us smiling to see if we twigged, What a talent for happiness he has, for ordinary and wonderful happiness, for easy ‘good times’, as the old men say, remembering. And I thought, as I took Frau Simmons’ soft hand (ever so faintly etched with the fretwork of age) for a final waltz, Perhaps I am learning something of that, too.
In the morning, of course, we faced a different reckoning: hard heads and a heap of empty bottles by the fire; and empty purses and tired hearts. And it was Tom, as usual, who swept the grate, and cleared the room, and dropped the bottles into the first thaw of the river. That afternoon – a bleak, black, lingering, miserable hole of an afternoon, that squeezed us into a corner, and pinched us to mean spirits and sharp words – a letter arrived from my father, answering my … answering our request. I sat with a thick head before the fire while the snow dripped off the lintels in the dull thaw; and I read – with a sudden pang at the sight of my father’s hand that reminded me how far I had come already, how loath I would be to return – these words:
My dear son,
Ruth stands over my shoulder and begs me to ‘leave nothing out’, though I scarcely know what to ‘put in’ our lives are so quiet here, since you’ve gone. I think she means only that I should ‘tell him how much we want him’ and then she thinks twice, and pinches the bridge of her nose and squeezes her eyes (as is her way, you well know), and says, ‘No, no, he shall miss us and want us himself then, he shall feel low, et cetera, et cetera. Tell him’ – she now insists – ‘how well we get on, and he shall think we’ve forgotten him, and come back at once …’ Well, I have put it all down, and I trust that you shall take her meaning, and understand – and add my own perplexity of joy at your prospects and regret at your absence to the pot, as they say.
In fact, however, I must report that your sister does ‘get on’ quite shamefully these days, waltzing through a round of sparkling balls that would do honour, I believe, to Vienna, for the Prince has taken a fancy to what he calls ‘the old way of doing things’ (before you know who and what, he adds, though I doubt very much that he does), and the little parties that used to grace his drawing room have spilled into the hall and the gardens. A fountain is under construction, and heaps of marble lie tumbled in the courtyard, waiting it seems for a giant’s hand to set them in place. The pipes, I believe, are proving to be a great nuisance, and horrible trenches are being dug and readied for the summer. He wishes, he says, to ‘entertain his people in the grand style’ – and sends strange spies, high and low, in quite a comical fashion, to discover specimens of the same suitable for his largesse.
In fact, your old student Hespe with the clever fingers has got in with him lately, and holds his ear, as the saying is (perhaps I have not got it quite right). Hespe is quite changed since you last knew him from the slim and sallow youth who made a great show of being bored and having seen it all before, who wore his ennui like a rose in his button-hole. Apparently this is no longer the rage. For one thing, he is becoming quite fat, and dresses in the most peculiar fashion, which he terms traditional, and puffs his chest out when I mock him, and claims German gear is good enough for such as him … He is a foolish soul, but I am fond of him – as, I believe, is your sister – who shrieks now and beats me, and protests, she did but dance with him twice or thrice the other night as there wasn’t another gentleman for miles around to be had for love or money, without they suffered from elephant’s feet or fearsome beards that stank of their dinners or – but you can imagine the rest, beginning perhaps with her cherry-coloured striped dress, which cost me four marks and three shillings per yard – though she did, I confess, look lovely, a proper little Gretchen.
No, no, the rage, as I was beginning to say (which has crept upon us in quite surprising fashion for a rage) is now for everything old and everything German and everything to do with the people. Of course, it will not surprise you the number of lies that are told in the service of our good old-fashioned – commonsensical – plain as daylight – history. To give you a notion of this, I need only say that Hespe himself sets up now for a historian, as the noblest title a man may claim, and, what is more, a Romantic historian – to distinguish himself from the other charlatans. In this cause, he has constructed an elaborate and wonderful genealogy for our Prince, complete with heralds and ancient demesnes, to prove his ancestral right to govern his (I blush to repeat his word) children in a manner compliant with their traditions. (We used to pride ourselves on our philosophers, but even they have become historians, in these times.) The Prince, bless him, has begun to give himself airs – according to which, I must learn to navigate carefully, if we are to reach a free port at last.
The truth, of course, is that we have no history – only histories, which grow narrower and pettier the closer we look. Since the battle of Leipzig, I feel, we have lost our way – for the simple reason that it is possible to defend as a people what cannot be maintained as a people. But we have a future, I trust – and, what is worth a great deal more, a language, all praise to Luther! who gave us not only freedom of discussion, but also the instrument of discussion. We Germans are the strongest and wisest of nations; our royal races furnish princes for all the thrones of Europe; our Rothschilds rule all the Bourses of the world; our learned men are pre-eminent in all the sciences (I puff my chest a little, and think of you, dear boy); we invented gunpowder and printing, and hazard a journey even now into the heart of the earth; and yet, if one of us fires a pistol he must pay a fine of three thalers; and if we so much as christen a ship The Liberty, the censor grasps his pencil and strikes out the word in the shipping times.
I apologize, my son, for going on at such length; only I wished to answer in part what I believed to be your doubt, regarding the hopelessness of what you term Idealism exercised in the realm of practical politics, in the affairs of men. You concern yourself with the permanent and unchanging revolutions of the planet itself, and I honour you for it. But never believe that our – for we are greater than you suppose, and growing – doing and striving are mere idle caprice; that out of the store-house of new ideas we select one for which to speak and do, strive and suffer, somewhat as our linguists formerly selected each his classic, to the commentary of which he devoted his whole life. No; we do not lay hold of the idea, but the idea lays hold of us, and enslaves us, and lashes us into the arena that we, like captive gladiators, may battle for it. We are not the masters, but the slaves, of the word. Perhaps you begin to understand something of this yourself now, I believe. I would like to meet this fellow Syme, some day.
Well, Ruth has grown quite tired of me, fretted and sighed over all this nonsense, and departed at last, to see to our lunch (she is a good girl, after all, and has acquired an appetite). The rains come down so heavy today we cannot venture out – the Elbe is vexed by a thousand drops, and the surface resembles nothing so much as afield of brown grass. (I see it from the window in my study.) But I have saved the best for last, as they say, a little nugget to brighten a short afternoon. Whatever its other merits, this new Romantic spirit has induced a great pride in all things German, the more fantastical the better; and the Prince (who tells me, with
a wink, that he scarce remembers who you are) has agreed to support your experiments. (I have managed to persuade him that Geognosy is, above all, a Romantic science; invented by Germans and now advanced by Germans to the honour of Germans everywhere, most particularly those resident in the grand principality of Kolwitz-Kreminghausen.) Accordingly, I enclose a draft for twice the sum originally agreed upon; which I trust will see you some way into … the heart of the matter, as they say, and bring you out again and home again, soon, soon.
Your loving father,
F.
P.S. I hope, next time you hear from me, to have a more particular and less theoretical account to offer, of my ideas. There is always a quiet before the … (He presses a finger to his lips.)
Well, there was something that concerned me in all this, a slight worm nibbling in the apple; and I confess that I shamed myself yet again to reach into my father’s pocket just as I strode forth proudly on my own. Moreover, the tidings of home (of my sister particularly, and that fool Hespe) awakened in me a strange, recalcitrant melancholy, that baulked at the very thing that fed it, but would not be satisfied with anything else, and returned again, and again, to these pages to make itself miserable. I did not reveal our good fortune to my companions until at length Tom discovered the bank draft for himself, peering over my shoulder, as I dozed briefly before the fire with the letter spread across my lap. And yet, it is true, that I was somewhat mollified by their happiness, then happy altogether, and then drunk, as we emptied the last of the bottles in my father’s honour, and cured our thick heads, as they say, with a hair of the dog that bit us.
‘How did we get along,’ I whispered to Tom that evening, considerably confused in my ideas but holding fast to the main thought, ‘before I came along?’
And he drew himself up at this, and declared with a belch, ‘By my wits,’ and then lowered his head a little, and confessed, ‘By scrounging – experiments, lectures, articles and, worst of all, surveying,’ and then dipped it still more and admitted, ‘And when nothing else would do, by selling what we owned – look about you – to see how little is left.’ It is true: the great house (the fruit, as I discovered, of Sam’s mining days) was bare; most of the chambers empty; the windows cracked; the roof leaking; the floors loose; the fields about it barren and ruined by rocks. Then Tom pressed both cheeks in his hands, and widened his eyes and his mouth to ‘O’s, in a ludicrous demonstration of the happy hopelessness in which we were engaged.
*
By degrees we grew accustomed to our new-found supply of wealth. Our reports grew more detailed, and I confess that Sam had no small hand in their composition. I recall in my own defence that I did occasionally request an audience with the great ‘double-compression piston’, part object of my mission in the first place. Sam, for once, would look me in the eyes – an uncomfortable stare, I assure you – and declare, fondly it seemed, that he had half a mind to ‘revisit’ (this was his word) that wonderful invention, but ‘You must – you must ask Tom (it has become his particular concern) – for its whereabouts – as he had hired it out – on business, I believe – something of that order – and would know where to find it.’ I sensed indeed that the question awoke a curious resentment against Tom (of all people), who, when similarly applied to, knocked a knuckle against his brow, and protested, he had seen it only the other day, and considered (he said as much to Sam at the moment) it was time to ‘dust it off (again his phrase) and put it to some particular use, now that the spring had returned and the earth was ripe again. Then he would thank me, particularly, for the reminder, and busy himself about something.
Of course, my suspicions were aroused, but I had little heart for suspicions at this time (for once in my life), and I recognized also that my mission had changed – subtly at first, until, as the winter died in its spring grave, altogether, so that I could scarcely distinguish my aim from Tom’s. We were in the business of … revolution, and revolutions always sacrifice a number of doubts along the way. And suddenly it seemed we had no other cares but the duties of world discovery, and very pleasant duties they were. Like an enchanted cloud, my father never failed to answer our calls in golden rain. By April the three of us were entirely supported by those regular drafts on the German bank. We learned to doubt his bounty as little as we feared that the sun would fail us on the morrow, though I at least did wonder how it was managed, and worry a little.
Though my own role in that strange crew remained uncertain, I learned a great deal about the company I kept. The contentment of others is among my favourite studies, the resource of all solitaries, misfits and constitutional misanthropes (a role I once took pride in, though I was rapidly growing to doubt my natural claims). I believe I have a gift in that way, though I am neither pleasing nor easy in company, and it is a difficult subject. For I know no deeper nativity than the way we are happy. It is as recognizable as the way we walk and as awkward to imitate. Our joy is a country of one. Friends learn to speak its language as a foreign tongue, but do we not mark the trace of accent, the hint of translation? No, this is how I live, we feel like roaring. I love searching for that key in another man’s character that opens on a happiness they would not share or exchange if they could. I loved looking into Sam’s heart, though I envied and feared him, and I asked myself perpetually, Should I trade fates with him if I could?
Syme’s contentment was obvious. It resembled hunger. It fed on anything and everything and could live only so long as it was never satisfied. His sensual, intellectual, political, personal appetites demanded not only their food, but his perfect right to it, his superior right. He found it as obvious that his joy was greater than yours, as it was that his arm was stronger than yours. With a quite impersonal belief in the value of mass, he was willing to sacrifice your tastes. A man’s friendship with Syme began with the task of rendering palatable his own inferiority. So it was with me, as it was with Tom Jenkyns. We fed on his scraps; but they fell from the plate of so gigantic an ambition that they were richer than the food on another man’s table.
Tom Jenkyns knew his ground in our strange fellowship. He kept shop among everyday and business matters, petitioned the government for funds, posted propaganda, wrote to editors and journals, arranged lectures, and, to conclude this worthy list, persuaded me to draw on my father’s kindness. He was tireless and painstaking and faithful in Sam’s service. He was an able man; and I reasoned that in some secret chamber of his bosom, he must have scorned Syme’s weakness. For in his way Tom was an ordinary fellow, just the kind to marry and mock a desperate ambition such as Sam’s. I watched him and could not help but wonder, How much does he believe? But Tom’s rare flights of the absurd made him an eccentric, and so fitting company for a bird of Sam’s feather. This is the manner in which Tom adapted himself to Syme, and under his care Syme grew fatter and fatter among the clouds.
The perfect winter continued to thaw into a miserable spring – endless drizzles and bleak, middling-warm afternoons. The sea of snow retreated, leaving a kind of brown weed behind, draped on brown lawns, the sides of buildings, the edges of streets. Syme’s great experimental season had begun. In the mud and damp of a slow spring he saw nothing but golden exhalations and the bare-bosomed earth breathing freely again.
In such a long, hard winter, Sam reckoned, a wealth of escaped fluvia must have gathered in the frozen turf beneath its snowy blankets. For Sam the dank thaw promised an ethereal but tremendous harvest. ‘The harvest of a century,’ he called it. We burned heaped piles of branches and leaves in lonely forests. Sam approached farmers, and with a charm Mesmer would have envied convinced them that their sodden pasture might contain a rare and refined element, ‘the fumes of gold’, he said. They often stood at a distance, silent in their heavy boots, while Sam lit bonfires in their fields.
We must have made a romantic picture, huddled in our coats, stooped low to the cold ground, selecting crumbs of earth or a twig or leaf, and carefully marking the specimen and location in our heavy notebooks. We
peered down caves and pushed through undergrowth, summoning those enchanted azure sprites wherever we went. Sam dripped a concoction of his own into ordinary street puddles and set fire to them, calling forth their blue ghosts. We were like spirits from The Tempest or Goethe’s devil, or the alchemists themselves about their business, searching for that oldest of New Worlds, the earth’s core. We left a trail of blackened turf across much of Pactaw County. We were foot-sore, backweary, hand-chapped and heart-full. We were, as I told myself repeatedly, pioneers of a kind; and we slept easy at night, and woke brisk in the morning.
Of course, just as the crop was ripe and the greatest work to be done, I fell ill. Snifflingly ill at first, so that I trudged beside the eager steps of Tom and Sam, as they chased those magical breaths into the glass flu’. Then well and truly ill, until Tom said (not unhappily, I must say, with a wicked sympathy and exaggerated concern), ‘You have discovered quite another flu’, Phidy, and should go to bed.’
I spent countless days by my bedside window, watching the slow hours, and the river carry broken ice and driftwood to the south. Sam evinced a particular dread of all illness, being a confessed hypochondriac, though paradoxically indifferent to all physical discomforts in others, which he dismissed as a kind of moral and intellectual weakness. I saw little and less of him; and though Tom for his part proved a skilful, if somewhat enthusiastic, nurse, he insisted always that I must not tire myself (nor, it goes without saying, intrude upon them). In short, they were busy, and I could not help but suspect that some old order between them had been restored, as they trooped day after day across the breathing land. I began to repent my coming. I sneezed at the country, at Syme’s theories, at Tom’s ‘hypocrisies’ – I simply sneezed.
The Syme Papers Page 32
