There was a thick crowd of spectators. Look—look! Out of the sky, a face turned toward the earth. It looked blue and blood-red, as if it were about to burst. From the man’s teeth was suspended a large apparatus, consisting of a revolving wheel which flashed in the sunlight and hoops in which four acrobats—two men and two women—made swallows’ nests† while the wheel whirled around.
Anna Marie was fascinated and excited.
And it seemed to Jastrau as if he saw the park in a new light. Or perhaps it was an old light, remembered from his childhood years. He and Anna Marie moved on. Look—there was the pantomime theater with its peacock-tail curtain. They made the customary round of the asphalt paths, weaving in and out among the strolling spectators. There was the concert hall in Moorish style. People always walked slowly in this park—an easy, enjoyable Tivoli kind of saunter. And over there was the Chinese pagoda.
The buildings had not yet faded into the twilight between the trees. They stood out clearly defined as obvious imitation structures in the reddish sunset glow, and it was precisely their unreal quality that made them pretty and exciting. The Alpine landscaping of the roller coaster was altogether too colorful. The mountains were not Alps. And the colored lamps in the flower borders and along the ponds hung from what were crudely revealed as rusty iron pipes, not yet transformed into glowing flowers.
The huge illuminated arches that vaulted over the pathways and had a defoliated appearance among the crowns of the trees seemed more than anything else like a complicated croquet court for giant children.
“You’ve never seen my son, have you?” Jastrau said.
“No.”
“Oh well, we won’t go into that,” Jastrau said, feeling momentarily disorganized and cynical. “He was whisked away from me over the telephone,” he said jokingly. “Everything is being whisked away. But as a matter of fact, I’m very happy today. I must be sure to bear that in mind.”
“Are you?” Anna Marie asked. She felt she ought to say something.
“Yes, by Jove, I am. I’ve committed one of my life’s big stupidities today, one of the really big ones.”
“Does that make a person happy?”
“Yes.”
They were inside the Hall of Mirrors and saw themselves distorted in the concave mirrors. They became round and fat, and laughed at the sight. They became long and lanky, and made grotesque faces. They were endowed with long, stilt-like legs and foreshortened torsos, and long torsos and short, badger-like legs, and at last it was a real relief to see themselves in a normal mirror and shake off the distorted images. Indeed, Anna Marie became a very nice-looking girl in that mirror, perhaps a bit gross and with an unfortunately weak chin. If only her skin had not looked so sickly and sallow, if her cheeks had been flushed like those of a clerk in a dairy-goods shop, then it would almost have been a joy to walk with her. Jastrau laid his hand on her shoulder and turned her away from the mirror, and in doing so caught just a glimpse of himself in his light, finely-checked trousers and dark jacket—a combination of a Negro jazz band player and a ship’s cook on shore leave, and a bit on the heavy side. Yes, that much he was just able to discern, and it was enough.
So that was how they looked.
“But now I’m in a good mood,” he said softly.
It had become dark in the park. The evening sky shone blue between the dark treetops. There was an aroma of violets in the air. And in the restaurants and other establishments the lights were being turned on.
From the throng of people came a dynamic rustling that was like the sound of a forest at sundown. Polished shoes and bright eyes gleamed through the darkness. And Anna Marie walked closely beside him.
But why did he now become so confounded paternal and take her by the arm? It was the shadowy coolness of the treetops that led him to do it. It was probably also the mingling of melodies from the various orchestras that made the evening air seem permeated with a hum of insects and the murmur of voices—all the indistinct, living sounds that were audible there amidst the lights and shadows. Yes, undoubtedly the people were partly responsible too. He was doing the same as the others.
They strayed into a small rock garden where there were caves and grottos, a rococo and ludicrous bit of park architecture. But inside the caves there was the subdued red and green glow of large aquariums with fish gliding through the water. People stood looking at them in quiet fascination, their faces palely lighted by the green and red glow like anonymous poor folks standing outside shopwindows.
“Look! See the fish!” Anna Marie exclaimed in childish glee as she dragged Jastrau over in front of one of the aquariums.
Some large red fish were pursuing and snapping at each other with soft muzzles, and behind them came a swarm of small, striped perch, a teeming mass of tails and fins in rapid motion, while bubbles effervesced up through the green, illuminated water. A long eel floated with his glistening body suspended down through the aquarium like the stalk of a plant.
And a moment later, Jastrau was just as hypnotized by the gliding movements of the fish as the other spectators.
Then he gave a start. Midway in the tank was a pearl-gray fish that was remaining motionless in an oblique position with its bill-like head down at the sandy bottom. A sinister strength radiated from its un-ruffled composure. It was conscious of its power.
And now it was impossible to understand why he had not caught sight of it immediately. It was the center of attraction, fearsome and imperturbable. And when it shifted its eye ever so slightly, an electrical tremor ran through its body.
It was a pike.
“Why is it that I’ll never forget it?” said Jastrau. And they went on.
At the Divan II, the lamps were lighted in the long stretch of arbor leading to the restaurant. There were espaliered trees and festively fluttering ivy, a mildly romantic atmosphere.
“I’m going to order lobster, and then you must congratulate me on my stupidity today,” Jastrau said gaily, kicking out with one foot.
“That isn’t the sort of thing you congratulate anyone for,” she said soberly.
“Yes you do, because at least once a year one ought to commit a stupid act as an offering to the gods.”
And then they were sitting at one of the tables, with huge lobsters and white wine between them. A cool evening breeze stirred the ivy into gentle motion. And the distant music was borne on the air like the humming of a swarm of insects, now and then like a single, fragile insect’s wings vibrating close to their ears—a very subtle, delicate sound.
Anna Marie’s eyes had the look of a sleepwalker’s as she stared stiffly past Jastrau, seemingly all at sea.
“I can’t understand—” she said helplessly, and then could go no further, as if she could not collect her thoughts.
Jastrau fondled her stubby hand, which lay on the tablecloth.
She glanced at him as if to get her bearings, as if she were just waking from a sleep.
“Would you believe it—I’m very unhappy—but—” Her eyebrows became restless. “But—I’m not aware of it right now. How can that be?”
“It’s because you’re with me,” Jastrau replied jokingly.
Anna Marie forced a smile and brushed her hand across her forehead.
“Hadn’t we better have a drink?” Jastrau proposed gently.
“Yes, of course—I’m supposed to congratulate you on some sort of nonsense,” she said, staring at him. There was an uneasy look in her eyes—now observing him, now looking into the distance.
“No, on a stupidity.”
“Yes, a stupidity—that was it. But I’m so stupid—I—” And suddenly she burst into laughter that was a little too loud. She gave a frightened look around and shrank back into herself.
Jastrau raised his glass of gleaming wine and smiled. Beside the red lobster shells her dishpan hands had a pale, whitish look. But he ought not to be thinking such thoughts. Concerned with aesthetics and feeling superior. She was a little, live female, she was. A sinner. Now w
hy had that word occurred to him? Ivy, coolness, and intoxication. But that word!
He raised his glass to her.
And she nodded awkwardly.
She took such a firm hold on her glass. No grace in her movements, no ease. No flower stem, she.
And then she again became preoccupied.
“Now I’m with you,” she said suddenly, but still staring past his ear out at the arbor walls, out into space. “How can it be, then, that all the while I have to remember that I’m not in love with you?”
“Now, now, now,” Jastrau said in a sing-song voice, but with a tender smile.
She was looking at him with wide-open eyes.
“No,” she said. “But—”
For a second or two she looked straight at him. For a moment there was an uncertain contact between an outer and inner light, flickering and quivering like two projector beams trying to merge.
“Once I had a friend,” she went on, shifting her glance. “Her name was Agnes. She was engaged to a young man—a musician. But she deceived her fiancé with his father.” She took a bite or two of lobster. “When she was with the father she loved him, and when she was with the son she loved him.” She spoke rapidly now, but then she stopped for a moment and felt her way slowly: “And then it seemed to her—I mean that’s what she told me—that for the first time she really felt as if she loved her fiancé.”
Jastrau looked down at the tablecloth so that their eyes would not meet.
“Can that be true?” she said in a matter-of-fact but inquiring tone.
“It’s probably true, if that’s what she says,” Jastrau replied.
He did not dare look at her. He felt overwhelmed by compassion.
“Oh—what I’m telling you is really nonsense,” she said dejectedly. “I don’t understand anything at all.”
Jastrau reached for a slice of white bread.
“You’re—” he began, but got no further because he noticed that he was crumbling the bread between his fingers—he was breaking bread. And immediately he laid the bread aside, as if it had burned his fingers. He was breaking bread! He was breaking bread! Always this pious gesture when he was drinking in the company of women. This Jesus that seemed to be in his blood!
No! No!
He screwed up his eyes and suddenly looked across at Anna Marie, stared and stared at her as if she were to blame. No! No! She looked at him, and slowly her eyes lit up with fear. She could not take her eyes off him. She was helpless, at his mercy. Her mouth fell open and her chin sagged.
“Did you know that Steffensen’s mother is dead?”
It came like a slash from a knife. No Jesus here. No cloying sentimentality toward fallen women. Mary Magdalene. He ought to know how to vindicate himself.
For a moment he saw white. The gleam from a knife. And he heard the sound of his own voice ringing through the room and taking on reality. Did you know that Steffensen’s mother is dead!
And at once he was filled with such remorse that it was painful. He compressed his lips and held his breath as if that might prevent the words from reaching her. But then he saw the inevitable happen. She dropped her lobster fork. He let his hands fall on the table and stared at her in desperation.
“Oh, no,” he groaned.
Anna Marie sat completely rigid. A deep flush spread over her neck above the mauve kerchief. Her moist lips glistened in the yellow light from the park lamp.
“So you know the whole story,” she said in a whisper.
“Yes.”
“Then you know that I’m sick.” She was about to cry.
“Yes.”
“Do you think I’ll ever be well again? Oh—you know—you know so much. But that this should happen! That Hans Christian should get this disgusting disease!”
“Hans Christian?” Jastrau said quizzically. He was not being inquisitive. He was simply very unhappy. And now he had to blurt out this question, as if it were any of his business. She ought not to answer. He looked at her imploringly, but she had already begun to pour out a whole stream of confused words and emotions. Like a sleepwalker, she had stepped over the edge.
“Yes—Herr Stefani, and then me, and then Stefan. Oh, how could I help it? I came from a poor home and got a job in this high-class pharmacist’s house. Fru Stefani—oh, is she dead? She didn’t have an easy time of it. She was strict—but she treated me fairly. She was fair. She always went stamping around in big, high-topped laced shoes. It was she who nabbed Hans Christian. She always got what she wanted.”
“But you mustn’t tell me about it,” Jastrau said, trying to keep her from going on.
“Yes—because what mustn’t you think about me? But after all, I’m nothing but a stupid young girl. Stefan was going to the university. He looked just as self-important and stuck-up as he does now, but not so crude and dirty—no. And I wasn’t in love with him. But he was a university student and the son of Stefani, the rich pharmacist, and one night he came into my room. I wasn’t in love, not at all. I had known a chauffeur before him. But what mustn’t you think of me? You’re so good—”
“Nonsense,” Jastrau said, turning his wine glass.
“Yes you are—otherwise you wouldn’t have us living with you. I wasn’t in love with him, so it wasn’t right of me. I wasn’t in love with Hans Christian either. Never. But he gave me liqueurs to drink, and that makes a big difference. But with Stefan—that time I had had nothing but my evening tea.”
Jastrau had to laugh. “Yes,” he said, “that makes matters considerably worse.”
“No, no.” She glanced across at him with a frightened look. “You mustn’t make fun of me. And now Fru Stefani is dead. I’m so unhappy.”
“Hadn’t we better have some coffee now?” Jastrau suggested.
“Yes, but what do you think of me?” she exclaimed with greater intensity than before. Her eyes shone. “I had known Stefan for a month. Yes, a month. And then one evening his father brought me the liqueur. It was fine liqueur—very fancy—I can’t remember what it’s called, but it had a green color. Actually I didn’t think it tasted so good, but I drank it anyhow because it seemed like a treat. And then it happened. But I couldn’t help it, and I didn’t dare tell Stefan. And oh, I suffered—you don’t know how I suffered—and I didn’t dare look Fru Stefani in the eye. And Herr Stefani could sit there at the dinner table and look back and forth from Stefan to me. He knew everything. And then the way he would smile. Why did he do that?”
Jastrau shrugged his shoulders in embarrassment, and Anna Marie stared at the tablecloth with a vacant expression.
“But can you understand what happened then?” she went on, as if talking in her sleep, as her eyes grew wider. The yellowish whiteness of the tablecloth was reflected eerily in them. “Can you understand that it was then I fell in love with Stefan? I couldn’t do anything else. I was deceiving him—with his father—so could I do anything but fall in love with him?”
She gaped at him and added hastily, “It was certainly foolish, wasn’t it?”
“No, it wasn’t,” Jastrau replied firmly.
“And then—no, no, I can’t—” She wrung her hands. “You can’t expect a woman to tell about it.”
She looked over at him with her eyes flashing. Jastrau shook his head and smiled.
“I think we should pay the bill and go,” he said quietly.
“And then I got sick,” she exclaimed vehemently. “This disgusting disease. Herr Stefani had been over here in Copenhagen. And when he came home, then—oh, no—do you think—no, a woman can’t recover from it. With a man it’s different. For them it doesn’t amount to anything. But a woman?”
“Are you going to a doctor?”
“Oh, there’s nothing that does any good. I never know whether I’m sick or well. I don’t know anything about it. I’m not allowed to live like other folks. And what have I done? Was it anything so bad? Was it? Yes it was—it was wrong—but—”
And all of a sudden she shoved her plates and glass to on
e side, hid her head in her arms on the table, and began to sob.
Jastrau got up, went over to her, and gently stroked the back of her head. What should he say?
Then she raised her head with a start and seized his hands.
“But you mustn’t tell Stefan that his mother is dead, because then he’ll hit me again and torment me.” Her lips were distorted, and her mouth opened and closed like that of a fish.
“Why do you keep on seeing Stefan?”
“It’s he who—no it’s—but he thinks it’s his duty.” She screamed the last word. “They gave me my notice—immediately—even though it was Herr Stefani, and then me, and then Stefan. They sent me packing—bitch that I am. And am I really anything else?”
She got up, brushed the hair away from her forehead, and stood there swaying her hips in a lively, provocative manner.
“Am I anything else? Am I anything else? I want to go and dance, that’s what I want to do. I want to drink myself blotto. I want to—”
She stretched out her arms and threw them around Jastrau’s neck.
“And you’re going to dance with me all night long. You’re so good—so good. You’re going to dance with me. But I’m sick.”
Sobbing, she hid her face against his breast.
The ivy was fluttering so festively all around them.
*Skræp was the name given to his sword by an ancient Danish king. It sang for him with a special note when he brandished it against an enemy.
†Part of the acrobatic repertory consisting of hanging by the knees from a trapeze or hoop and grasping the feet with the hands.
6
JASTRAU sat at one end of his dining room table and gazed out through the dust-coated windows that had not been cleaned from time immemorial. Long streaks left by a rain some time in the remote past looked like seaweed on the panes, and now and then the smudgy figures on them gleamed with an opalescent light.
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