The Confessions of Felix Krull

by Thomas Mann

  'Here,' I said. 'It was your wish. ... You understand, they are imaginative creations, produced, as it were, involuntarily.'

  She held the drawings in her hand and looked at the top one. It was an enamoured sketch of Zaza's body in such-and-such a posture. The flat button ear-rings matched, the cluster of curls matched even more exactly. There was little enough resemblance in the face, but what did the face count for here?

  I sat as straight as Dona Maria Pia, prepared for anything, agreeable to anything, and thrilled in advance by whatever might occur. A deep blush suffused her face at the sight of her own sweet nakedness. She sprang up, tore the works of art into tiny pieces, and strewed them fluttering on the breeze. Of course, that was something that had to happen. What did not have to happen and yet did, was this: she stared for an instant with a bewildered expression at the scraps of paper lying on the ground, and the next instant her eyes filled, she sank back on the bench, flung her arm around my neck and buried her glowing face on my breast. She gave little noiseless sighs that were nevertheless clearly perceptible, and at the same time — and this was the most touching of all — she kept up a rhythmic hammering against my shoulder with her little fist, the left one. I kissed the bare arm around my neck, I raised her lips to mine and kissed them. They responded, just as I had dreamed, longed, determined they would when I had first seen her, my Zaza, on the Rossio. Who of you whose eyes peruse these lines will not envy my such sweet instants? Nor envy her as well, however hard the little fist might pound, for her conversion to love? But now what a peripeteia! What a reversal of fortune!

  Zouzou suddenly threw back her head and tore herself from our embrace. In front of bush and bench, in front of us, stood her mother.

  Silent, as though we had been struck on those lips so recently united, we looked up at the august lady, at her large, pale countenance, jet ear-rings quivering on either side, at the severe mouth, widened nostrils, and stormy brows. Or rather, I alone looked at her; Zouzou kept her chin lowered on her breast and went on with the rapid-fire pounding of her little fist, striking now against the bench on which we sat. And yet I ask you to believe that I was less cast down by this maternal apparition than one might have thought. However unexpected her appearance, it seemed fitting and necessary, as though she had been summoned, and in my natural confusion there was an element of joy.

  'Madame,' I said formally, rising, 'I regret the interruption of your afternoon rest. What has happened has occurred almost accidentally and with complete propriety -'

  'Silence!' the lady commanded in her marvellously sonorous, slightly hoarse voice. And turning to Zouzou:

  'Susanna, go to your room and remain there until you are called.' Then to me: 'Marquis, I wish to speak to you. Follow me.'

  Zouzou rushed off across the lawn, which had obviously deadened the approaching footsteps of the senhora. Now she went along the path and, obeying her injunction to follow, I walked not at her side but behind her and a little to one side. Thus we entered the living-room, from which a door led into the dining-room. Behind the opposite door, which was not entirely closed, there seemed to be a room of more intimate character. The austere lady closed that door.

  I met her glance. She was not pretty but very beautiful.

  'Luiz,' she said, 'the obvious thing would be to ask you whether this is your way of repaying Portuguese hospitality — be silent! I shall spare myself the question and you the answer. I did not summon you here to give you an opportunity for witless apologies. They could not possibly exceed the stupidity of your conduct. That is unsurpassable, and all that is left for you, all you are entitled to, is to be silent and let more mature persons see to your interests and lead you back to the right path from the childish irresponsibility you were youthful enough to engage in. There's seldom more miserable childishness or more wicked nonsense than when youth associates with youth. What were you thinking of? What do you want of this child? With complete ingratitude you bring nonsense and confusion into a home that was hospitably thrown open to you because of your birth and other agreeable attributes, and where order, reason, and intelligent planning prevail. Sooner or later, probably within a short time, Susanna will become the wife of Dom Miguel, the worthy assistant of Dom Antonio José, whose unequivocal wish and will this is. You can thus realize what stupidity you were guilty of when, in your need for love, you followed a childish course and formed the capricious notion of turning a child's head. That was not choosing or acting like a man, but like an infant. Mature reason had to intervene before it was too late. Once when we were conversing you spoke to me about the graciousness of maturity and the graciousness with which it speaks of youth. To encounter it successfully requires, of course, a man's courage. If an agreeable youth only showed a man's courage instead of seeking satisfaction in childishness, he would not have to run off like a drenched poodle, uncomforted, into the wide world. ...'

  'Maria!' I cried.

  And: 'Holé! Heho! Ahé!' she exclaimed in majestic jubilation. A whirlwind of primordial forces seized and bore me into the realm of ecstasy. And high and stormy, under my ardent caresses, stormier than at the Iberian game of blood, I saw the surging of that queenly bosom.