The Confessions of Felix Krull

by Thomas Mann

  Further introductions were made: the hairy mammoth with its upward-curving tusks, now extinct, and the rhinoceros with its thick, flabby skin which looks extinct but is not. The half-apes gazed down at me from the branches they crouched on, with over-large mirror eyes, and the nocturnal loris won a permanent place in my heart because, quite apart from those eyes, it had such delicate hands and slender arms — which concealed, of course, the same bony armature as that of the most primitive land animals. And the lemur with eyes like teacups and long, thin fingers clasped in front of its breast, and amazingly wide-spaced toes. These faces were like a trick of Nature to make us laugh; I, however, refrained from so much as a smile. For very clearly in the end they all prefigured me, even though disguised as in some sorry jest.

  How can I name and praise all the animals the museum had on view, the birds, the nesting white herons, the surly owls, the thin-legged flamingos, the hawks and parrots, the crocodiles, the seals, the frogs, the moles and warty toads — in short, whatever creeps or flies? There was a little fox I shall never forget because of his witty face. I should have liked to pat them all on the head, the foxes, lynxes, sloths, omnivores, yes, even the jaguar in a tree with his slanting eyes green and false, and his look of having been assigned a destructive and bloody role — I should have liked to pat them all, and here and there I did so, although touching exhibits was forbidden. But what freedom might I not allow myself? My guides were entertained to see me shake hands with a bear that was lumbering along on his hind feet, and give an encouraging slap on the back to a chimpanzee that had sunk down on his knuckles.

  'But Man, professor!' I said. 'After all, you spoke of Man. Where is he?'

  'In the basement,' Kuckuck replied. 'If you have pondered everything here, marquis, we will descend.'

  'Ascend, you mean,' I substituted in jest.

  There was artificial illumination in the basement. Wherever we went, little theatres were let into the wall behind glass panes, with life-like scenes from the early life of Man. We paused in front of each of them to listen to the commentary of the master of the establishment, and again and again, at my request, returned from a later to an earlier one, however long we might already have stood there. Does the kind reader perhaps recall how in my earlier days I had been at pains to search among the pictures of my forebears for some hint or indication of the source of my own striking physical perfection? Early experiences in life always recur in heightened form, and I now felt myself completely reimmersed in that activity as, with probing eyes and beating heart, I saw what had been striving toward me from the grey reaches of antiquity. Good God, what were those small, shaggy creatures squatting together in timid groups as though conferring in some cooing and hissing pre-language about the means of surviving and prospering on an earth already possessed by much better-equipped and more strongly armed creatures? Had the spontaneous generation of which I had been told, the separation from the animal, already taken place or had it not? It had, it had, if anyone asked me. There was proof of it in these shaggy creatures' obvious sense of strangeness and helplessness in a world which had been given to others and in which they had been provided with neither horns nor tusks, fangs nor bony armour nor iron jaws. And yet, it is my conviction that they already knew — and were discussing as they squatted there — that they already knew they were made of finer clay.

  A roomy cave housed a group of Neanderthal people tending a fire — bull-necked, thick-set individuals, to be sure — but imagine anyone else, even the lordliest king of the forest, coming along and making a fire and tending it! That required more than a regal demeanour; for that, something had to be added. The head of the clan had an especially thick bull-neck; he was a short man with a moustache and rounded back, his arms too long for his stature; his knee had been bloodily gashed open, one hand grasped the antlers of a deer he had killed and was just dragging into the cave. Short-necked, long-armed, and stooped were they all, these people around the fire, the boy watching the provider and booty-bringer with hero-worship in his eyes, and the woman emerging from the back of the cave with a child at her breast. But look, the child was just like an infant of today, a decidedly modern improvement over the state of the adults, but no doubt in growing he would regress to theirs.

  I could not tear myself away from the Neanderthalers, but later I had equal trouble in leaving that eccentric who, many hundreds of thousands of years ago, crouched in his barren cavern and with mysterious diligence covered the walls with pictures of bison, gazelles, and other prey, with pictures of the hunters too. No doubt his companions were actually outside hunting, but he was here painting them with coloured pigments, and the smeary left hand with which he leaned against the rocky wall as he worked had left numerous marks between the pictures. I looked at him for a long time and yet, after we had passed on, I wanted to return once more to that diligent eccentric. 'Here we have someone,' Kuckuck said, 'who is scratching his imaginings in stone as best he can.' And this fellow busily scraping away at his stone was very touching, too. Daring and valiant, however, was the replica of a man attacking a maddened and embattled wild boar with dogs and spear — the boar was daring and valiant, too, but at a subordinate level on Nature's scale. Two dogs — they were of a strange breed, now vanished, which the professor called bog hounds and which had been domesticated in the lake-dwellers' time — lay on the grass ripped open by the boar's tusks. There were others, however, and their master was taking aim with his spear. Since there could be no doubt about the outcome, we passed on, leaving the wild pig to its subordinate fate.

  Then came a handsome seascape in which fishermen were carrying on their advanced and bloodless occupation by the shore, hauling in a good catch with their flaxen net. Next to them, however, something was going on quite different from anything else and more significant than the activities of the Neanderthalers, or the wild-boar hunter, or the fishermen hauling their net, or even the diligent eccentric. Stone pillars had been raised, a number of them; they stood unroofed, forming a hall of pillars with only the heavens as ceiling, and on the plain beyond the sun was just rising, flaming red, over the edge of the world. In the roofless hall a powerful-looking man stood with upraised arms presenting a bouquet of flowers to the rising sun! Had anyone ever seen anything like it? The man was not a greybeard and not a child. He was in the prime of life. And it was just the fact of his vigour and strength that lent his action its peculiar delicacy. He and those who, living with him, had for some personal reason chosen him for this office did not yet know how to build and to roof; they could only pile stones on top of one another into pillars, and with these construct a circle wherein to perform ceremonies such as this powerful man was enacting. The burrows of fox or badger, the splendidly constructed nests of birds showed far more art and ingenuity. But they were useful and nothing more — a refuge for themselves and their broods; beyond that, the creatures' thoughts did not go. The circle of piled stone, however, was something else; refuge and brood had nothing to do with it; they were below the attention of one who had freed himself from crude necessity and risen to a nobler need. Just let any other creature in Nature come along and hit on the idea of making a formal gift of flowers to the rising sun!

  My head was hot and slightly feverish from my concentrated observations as I pronounced this challenge in my heart, the heart I had so freely bestowed. I heard the professor saying that we had now seen everything and could ascend again and go straight up to the Rua Joäo de Castilhos, where his ladies were awaiting us for luncheon.

  'One might almost have forgotten that amid all these sights,' I replied. But I had by no means forgotten it; rather I regarded the tour through the museum as a preparation for my reunion with mother and daughter — exactly as Kuckuck's conversation in the dining-car had been a preparation for this tour of inspection.

  'Professor,' I said, wishing to make a short concluding speech, 'I have not, as it happens, seen many museums in my brief life, but that yours is one of the most thrilling is beyond question. Cit
y and country owe you a debt of gratitude for establishing it, and I for being my guide. I thank you too most warmly, Senhor Hurtado. How accurately you have reproduced the poor, immoderate dinosaur and the tasty giant armadillo! Now, however, reluctant though I am to leave, we must not on any account keep Senhora Kuckuck and Mademoiselle Zouzou waiting. Mother and daughter — there is something thrilling about that, too. Very often great charm is to be found in brother and sister. But mother and daughter, I feel free to say, even though I may sound a trifle feverish, mother and daughter represent the most enchanting double image on this star.'

  CHAPTER 8

  AND SO it was that I was introduced into the home of the man whose conversation during the train trip had stirred me so profoundly. Often, peering up from the city, I had tried to search out his domicile, and it had now taken on even greater interest in my eyes through my unexpected encounter with the mother and daughter who lived there. Quickly and comfortably the cable car Hurtado had mentioned bore us upward and deposited us in the immediate vicinity of the Rua Joäo de Castilhos. A few steps brought us to the Villa Kuckuck, a little white house like many others in that quarter. In front of it was a small lawn with a flower bed in the middle. The interior was furnished like the home of a modest scholar and was in such extreme contrast to the magnificence of my own lodgings in the city, both in size and in décor, that I could not forbear a feeling of condescension as I poured out praises of the view and the cosiness of the rooms.

  This feeling, however, was quickly moderated to one of timidity by another contrast that forced itself upon me: the appearance, that is, of the lady of the house, Senhora Kuckuck-da Cruz, who greeted us — and me especially — in that small, completely bourgeois living-room with a formality as extreme as though she were in a royal reception hall. The impression this woman had made upon me the day before was now definitely strengthened. She had chosen to appear in a different costume: a dress of very fine white moiré with a close-fitting ruffled coat, narrow ruffled sleeves, and a black silk sash worn high under her bosom. An antique gold necklace with a medallion circled her throat, whose ivory tint seemed several shades darker against the snowy whiteness of her dress. So, too, did her large, severe face framed by the trembling ear-rings. Hatless, today a few threads of silver could after all be seen in the heavy dark hair that fell in curls on her forehead. But how perfectly preserved was that erect figure and how imperiously held the head, as the eyes looked down on you, almost weary with pride. I will not deny that this woman terrified me and, through the self-same qualities, strongly attracted me at the same time. The almost forbidding majesty of her demeanour was hardly justified by her husband's position as a meritorious scholar. There was some property of blood in it, a racial arrogance that had an animal quality about it, and was for that very reason exciting.

  Meanwhile, I was on the lookout for Zouzou, who was closer to my own age and interests than Senhora Maria Pia — I heard her given names from the professor, who was pouring port wine for us from a carafe standing on the velvet-covered table in the living-room. I did not have long to wait. We had hardly begun to sip our apéritif when Zouzou entered and greeted first her mother, then, in comradely fashion, Hurtado, and last of all me — no doubt for pedagogical reasons, so that I would not begin to imagine anything. She had come from playing tennis with some of her young friends, whose names were something like Cunha, Costa, and Lopes. She pronounced favourable or unfavourable opinions of their individual performances on the courts in a way that showed she regarded herself as an expert. Looking at me over her shoulder, she asked whether I played, and although I had only been a sideline spectator of this diversion of gilded youth and had on a few occasions acted as ball boy on the courts in Frankfurt, I replied lightly that in the old days at Castle Monrefuge I had been a pretty fair player, but since then had got badly out of practice.

  She shrugged her shoulders. How happy I was to see again the pretty curls beside her temples, the pouting upper lip, the gleam of her teeth, the enchanting line of chin and neck, the bold inquiring glance! She was wearing a simple white linen dress with a leather belt and short sleeves, which left her sweet arms bare — arms that, curving, gained in enchantment for me as she raised both hands to the slender golden snake she wore as an ornament in her hair. To be sure, Senhora Maria Pia's majesty of race impressed me to the point of terror; but my heart beat for her lovely child, and the idea that this Zouzou was or must become the travelling Loulou Venosta's Zaza implanted itself ever more firmly in my imagination, although I was fully aware of the enormous difficulties in the way of its accomplishment. How could the six or seven days till I took ship suffice, in these most difficult circumstances, for me to place even the first kiss on those lips, on that precious arm — with its primordial bony armature? It was then that the thought thrust itself upon me that I must absolutely prolong my too short stay, alter the programme of my trip, arrange to take another ship, so as to give my relations with Zouzou time to mature.

  What fantastic ideas shot through my mind! My alter ego, the stay-at-home, was determined to marry, and this now became part of my own thinking. It seemed to me as though I must betray the intentions of my parents in Luxemburg, give up the trip around the world they had prescribed to distract me, woo Professor Kuckuck's enchanting daughter, and stay in Lisbon as her husband — although at the same time it was painfully clear to me that the delicate ambiguity of my existence, its ticklish double aspect, completely ruled out any such excursion into reality. This, as I say, pained me. But how happy I was to be able to meet new friends on a social level corresponding to my own essential fineness!

  Meanwhile we went into the dining-room, which was dominated by a walnut sideboard, too large, too heavy, and too ornately carved. The professor sat at the head of the table. My place was beside the lady of the house, opposite Zouzou and Hurtado. The fact that they sat together, combined with my, alas, forbidden dream of marriage, prompted me to observe the behaviour of the pair with a certain uneasiness. The thought that Long-hair and the charming child might be destined for each other seemed only too probable, and it worried me. And yet the relationship between them showed such ease and lack of strain that my suspicions gradually evaporated.

  An elderly maid with woolly hair brought in the food, which was excellent. There were hors d'œuvre with delicious native sardines, roast mutton, cream kisses for dessert, and afterward fruit and cheese pastry. A quite strong red wine was served with all this. The ladies diluted it with water and the professor did not touch it at all. The latter saw fit to remark that his house could of course not rival the table at the Savoy Palace, whereupon Zouzou observed tartly, before I could answer, that I had chosen to have lunch here of my own free will and that I certainly could not expect anyone to take particular pains on my account. They had taken pains, but I passed over this point and remarked simply that I had no reason whatever to miss the kitchens of the hotel on the Avenida, and that I was enchanted to be lunching in so distinguished and winning a family circle, adding that I kept well in mind to whom I was indebted for this privilege. At this I kissed the senhora's hand, with my eyes fastened on Zouzou.

  She encountered my glance sharply, brows somewhat gathered, lips parted, nostrils dilated. I observed with pleasure that the calm which characterized her behaviour toward Dom Miguel was by no means duplicated in her attitude toward me. She hardly took her eyes off me, observed each of my gestures with no attempt at concealment, and listened just as openly, attentive and, as it were, incensed in advance, to each of my remarks, never altering her expression or showing any trace of a smile, but occasionally giving a short, contemptuous snort. In a word, my presence obviously aroused in her a prickly and characteristically combative irritability. Who will blame me for preferring this interest in my person, hostile though it was, to a passive indifference?

  The general conversation was carried on in French, while the professor and I occasionally exchanged a few words in German. We talked of my visit to the museum and of th
e insights I had acquired, which had inspired me with a feeling of universal sympathy, insights, I assured him, that I owed to him. We then discussed the proposed expedition to the botanical gardens and went on to the near-by architectural sights which I must not miss. I expressed my interest, saying that I kept in mind my honoured travelling-companion's advice not to look about Lisbon too hurriedly but to devote enough time to it. But it was just this that worried me; the plan for my trip allowed all too little time, and I was actually beginning to consider how I could lengthen my stay.

  Zouzou, who loved to talk of me in the third person over my head, remarked cuttingly that it was wrong to urge thoroughness upon monsieur le marquis. In her opinion, this meant a misunderstanding of my habits which were doubtless those of a butterfly, floating from flower to flower, sipping nectar wherever I went. It was charming, I replied, imitating her manner of speech, that Mademoiselle took such an interest in my character, even through she was mistaken about it — and it was especially nice that she did so in such a poetic figure of speech. At this she became even more cutting and said that, confronted by so splendid a personal appearance as mine, it was hard not to be poetic. There was anger in her words along with the conviction she had expressed earlier that one should call things by their right names and that silence is unhealthy. The two gentlemen laughed while the mother rebuked her rebellious child with a shake of her head. As for me, I simply raised my glass in homage to Zouzou, and she, in irritation and confusion, almost raised hers in return. However, she withdrew her hand in time, blushing, and covered her confusion with that short, disparaging snort.