Kreisler looked at the Abbot in silence, still incapable of uttering a word.
‘Well now,’ continued the Abbot, smiling, ‘come down from that elevated region to which you have soared! I really believe you compose in your thoughts and so you never stop work, which is certainly a pleasure to you, if a dangerous one, since in the end it will consume your powers. Rid yourself of all creative thoughts now, and let us walk up and down this cool alley and talk without constraint.’
The Abbot now spoke of the furnishings of the monastery, of the monks’ way of life, praised the truly cheerful and pious mind they all bore within them, and finally asked the Kapellmeister whether he (the Abbot) was mistaken in thinking he had noticed that after spending these months at the Abbey Kreisler had become calmer, less prejudiced, more inclined to active pursuit of that high form of art which glorifies the service of the Church.
Kreisler could not but admit this, and furthermore assured him that the Abbey had opened its doors to him like an asylum to which he had fled, and he felt as much at home there as if he were really a brother of the Order and would never leave the monastery again.
‘So, reverend sir,’ Kreisler concluded, ‘allow me the deception these robes encourage. Let me believe that when I was buffeted by threatening storms, the kindness of a Fate now placated washed me up on an island where I could be safe, where the beautiful dream that is none other than the inspiration of art itself can never be destroyed.’
‘Indeed,’ replied the Abbot, his countenance lit up by a singular kindliness, ‘indeed, my son Johannes, the garment you have put on to appear our brother suits you well, and I would wish you never to take it off again. You are as worthy a Benedictine as can be imagined. And yet,’ the Abbot continued after a brief silence, taking Kreisler’s hand, ‘and yet this is not the occasion for joking. You know, Johannes, how dear you have been to me ever since I first met you; you know how my deep friendship, coupled with my great respect for your outstanding talent, has increased more and more. One feels concern for a man one loves, and this concern it was that has made me observe you, even observe you with anxiety, since you came to stay in the monastery. The result of my observations brought me to a conviction that I cannot relinquish! I have long wished to open my whole heart to you in this respect; I was waiting for a favourable moment, and it has come! Kreisler, renounce the world and enter our Order!’
Congenial as Kreisler found the Abbey, pleased as he was to be able to prolong a visit that gave him peace and quiet while he devoted his mind to his many artistic occupations, the Abbot’s proposition surprised him in an almost disagreeable way, since the last idea he seriously entertained was to give up his freedom and remain with the monks for ever, even if such a fancy had sometimes entered his head, and the Abbot might have noticed it. He looked at the Abbot in astonishment. However, the latter did not let him speak, but continued: ‘Hear me out quietly, Kreisler, before you give me an answer. I must certainly wish to win the Church an able servant, but the Church herself frowns on any undue persuasion, only desiring the inner spark of true knowledge to be stirred so that it blazes up into the brightly burning flame of faith and destroys all delusion. All I want, therefore, is to disclose what may lie dark and confused in your own heart, and bring you to clear knowledge. May I then, my dear Johannes, speak to you of those nonsensical prejudices against the monastic life entertained in the outside world? A monk is always supposed to have been driven by some monstrous fate into the cloister, where he spends a desolate life in constant torment, renouncing all the pleasures of the world. The monastery is seen as the dark dungeon where sad grief for happiness forever lost, despair and the madness of ingenious self-torments lock themselves away, a place where careworn, pale, deathly figures eke out a miserable existence, giving vent to their heart-rending anguish in dully murmured prayers!’
Kreisler could not help smiling, for as the Abbot spoke of careworn, pale, deathly figures he thought of many a well-nourished Benedictine, particularly good red-cheeked Hilarius, who knew no greater torment than drinking wine of a bad vintage, and whose only anguish was caused by a new musical score which he did not immediately understand.
‘You smile,’ continued the Abbot, ‘you smile at the contrast of the picture I painted with the monastic life as you have learnt to know it here, and you certainly have reason to do so. And if many a man tormented by earthly sorrow does flee to the cloister, resigning all worldly happiness and good fortune for ever, then it is well for him that the Church takes him in, and he finds in her bosom a peace which alone can comfort him for all the adversity he has suffered, and can raise him above disastrous earthly fate. But how many there are who are led to the convent by a true inner inclination to the devout contemplative life, who are ill-fitted for the world, distracted every moment by the pressure of all the petty business that life engenders, who feel at ease only in voluntary seclusion! And then there are others who have no decided inclination towards the monastic life, yet belong nowhere but in the cloister. I mean those who live as strangers in the world because they belong to a higher existence, and take the claims of that higher existence for the condition of life; however, they are in restless pursuit of what cannot be found here below, ever thirsty with a longing that can never be satisfied, wavering this way and that, seeking peace and calm in vain. Every arrow strikes their bared breasts; there is no balm for their wounds but the bitter derision of the enemy who is always armed against them. Only seclusion, a life of uniformity without interruption, and above all constant freedom to look up to that world of light where they belong can create equilibrium, allowing them to feel an inner contentment not of this earth, not to be won in worldly bustle and confusion. And you – you, my dear Johannes – are one of these men raised up by the Eternal Power, amidst the stress of earthly life, to what is heavenly. That lively sense of a higher existence that will always, must always divide you from shallow earthly things shines strongly out in the art which belongs to another world and which, a sacred mystery of divine love, is locked with longing in your breast. That art is ardent piety itself, and once devoted to it entirely, you will have nothing more in common with a motley worldly dalliance which you will fling contemptuously away, as a boy casts aside his worn-out toys when he becomes a young man. Flee the deluded mockery of scornful fools who have often wounded you to the heart, my poor Johannes, flee it for ever! Your friend spreads his arms to receive you and guide you into the safe harbour where no tempest threatens!’
‘I am deeply aware,’ said Johannes in sad, grave tones, when the Abbot fell silent, ‘I am deeply aware of the truth of your words, my reverend friend! I have a profound sense of being good for nothing in a world which seems to me an eternal and mysterious kind of dissonance. And yet – I admit it freely – I am horrified by the thought of putting on this habit at the cost of many convictions I absorbed with my mother’s milk; I see it as a dungeon from which I could never emerge. I feel as if the world where Kapellmeister Johannes found many a pretty little garden full of fragrant flowers would suddenly appear to Brother Johannes a desolate, inhospitable wilderness, as if, once involved in active life, renunciation –’
‘Renunciation,’ the Abbot interrupted the Kapellmeister, his voice raised, ‘renunciation? Is it renunciation to you, Johannes, when the spirit of art grows stronger and stronger within you, when you rise to the bright clouds on mighty pinions? What earthly pleasure can still beguile you? But –’ (continued the Abbot in a softer voice) ‘but no doubt the Eternal Power has set a feeling in our hearts that shakes our whole being with invincible force; it is the mysterious bond that unites mind and body, in that one man thinks he is striving for the highest ideal of a chimerical happiness, yet he wants only what another thinks a necessary requirement, and so there is an interplay required for the continued existence of mankind. I need not add that I speak of love between men and women, and that I consider it no small thing to renounce it entirely. But Johannes! if you do renounce it you save yourself from ruin; yo
u never, never can or will partake of the imagined happiness of earthly love.’
The Abbot spoke these last words as solemnly and devoutly as if the Book of Fate lay open before him, and he was informing poor Kreisler out of it of all the suffering that threatened him, which he must escape by fleeing to the cloister.
However, there began on Kreisler’s face that strange play of muscles which usually announced the advent of the spirit of irony seizing upon him. ‘Oh no!’ said he. ‘Oh no, your Reverence is wrong there, quite wrong. Your Reverence is mistaken in my person, confused by the habit I wear to fool folk for a while in masquerade, and while remaining incognito myself, write their names in the palms of their hands, so they know where they stand! Am I not a tolerable sort of fellow, then, still in the prime of life, handsome enough in appearance, sufficiently educated and well-mannered? Can’t I brush my best black tail-coat and put it on, and as for what goes under it, appear bravely decked out all in silk to come before any professor’s red-cheeked daughter, or any blue or brown-eyed daughter of a privy councillor, asking without more ado, all the sweetness of the most delicate amoroso55 in my bearing, countenance and tone, “Loveliest of girls, will you give me your hand and with it your precious person, in earnest of the same?” And the professor’s daughter would cast down her eyes and whisper softly, “Pray speak to Papa!” Or the councillor’s daughter might cast me a languishing glance and then assure me that she has been silently aware for some time of the love I have only now put into words, and just by the way she’ll talk about the trimming of her wedding dress. And oh, dear God! as for those gentlemen their respective fathers, how happily would they be rid of their daughters at the bidding of so respectable a character as a Grand Ducal ex-Kapellmeister!
‘Or then again, I could aspire to the high romantic vein, embark upon an idyll, offer my heart and hand to the farmer’s pretty daughter while she’s engaged in making goat cheese, or like another Pistofolus the notary56 betake me to the mill and seek my goddess in the celestial clouds of flour-dust! Where would a true, honest heart fail to be appreciated if it wants nothing, asks nothing, but marriage – marriage – marriage? So I’ll have no luck in love? Your Reverence doesn’t stop to think that I’m the very man to be quite stupendously lucky in the kind of love whose simple theme is nothing but “If you want me, then I’ll take you!”, upon which, after the allegro brillante of the wedding, further variations are played during marriage. What’s more, your Reverence doesn’t know that I seriously thought of getting married a while ago. To be sure, I was a young fellow of little experience and education at the time, being only seven years old, but the young lady of thirty-three whom I had chosen for my bride promised me then, with hand and word, to marry none but me, and why it all fell through later I myself don’t know. So let your Reverence just note that I’ve been lucky in love from infancy, and now – silk stockings, silk stockings – shoes fit to put me on a suitor’s footing so that I may instantly go a-courting, running full tilt after the lady who has already stretched out the prettiest little index finger, ready for a ring to be put on it directly. If it weren’t indecorous for a respectable Benedictine to amuse himself by leaping about like a hare, I’d dance a jig for your Reverence here and now, or a gavotte or a hopping dance,57 such is the joy that overwhelms me at the mere thought of brides and weddings. Ah, when it comes to marriage and luck in love I’m your man, as I hope your Reverence may understand!’
‘I have not,’ said the Abbot, when Kreisler at last fell silent, ‘I have not wished to interrupt you in your strange flights of humour, Kapellmeister, which prove just what I say. And I certainly feel the sting that was intended to wound me but did not! It is my good fortune never to have believed in that chimerical love which hovers bodiless in the air, and is supposed to have nothing in common with the condition of the human principle! How can it be that with your morbid extravagance of mind – but never mind that! It is time to come closer to the menacing enemy that pursues you. Did you not hear of the fate of that unhappy painter Leonhard Ettlinger during your visit to Sieghartshof?’
Shudders of strange horror ran through Kreisler when the Abbot spoke that name. Every trace of the bitter irony which had previously possessed him was gone from his face, and he asked in a hollow voice: ‘Ettlinger? Ettlinger? What has he to do with me, or I with him? I never met him; it was only a trick of heated fancy when I once imagined he was speaking to me from the water.’
‘Hush,’ said the Abbot in mild and gentle tones as he took Kreisler’s hand, ‘hush, my son Johannes! You have nothing in common with that unhappy man who was cast into utter ruin by the aberration of a passion grown too strong. Yet his dreadful fate may serve you as a warning and an example. My son Johannes, you are still treading paths more slippery than he trod, so flee – flee Hedwiga! Johannes, a nightmare holds the Princess fast in bands that seem impossible to loosen if a free spirit does not cut through them! And you?’
A thousand ideas passed through Kreisler’s mind at these words. He saw that the Abbot was acquainted not only with all the circumstances of the princely house at Sieghartshof, but also with what had happened while he was staying there. It became clear to him that the Princess’s morbid sensitivity had given grounds for fearing a danger in his presence which he had not even thought of, and who could entertain that fear and therefore wish him gone from the scene entirely but Madame Benzon? The lady must be in contact with the Abbot, must have heard of his, Kreisler’s sojourn in the Abbey, and was thus the moving force behind everything his Reverence had been saying. He vividly remembered all those occasions when the Princess really had appeared to feel a passion kindling within her, yet even he did not know why the idea that he himself could be the object of that passion filled him with something like fear of the uncanny. He felt as if a strange incorporeal power were trying to force its way into him and rob him of his freedom of thought. Princess Hedwiga suddenly stood before his mind’s eye, gazing at him with the strange glance characteristic of her, and at that moment a pulse-beat throbbed through all his nerves, as it had when he first touched the Princess’s hand. Yet now that uncanny fear was lifted from him. He felt electrical warmth spread benignly through his inner being, and said quietly, as if in a dream, ‘Little rogue of a Raja torpedo,58 are you teasing me again? But you can’t inflict injury unpunished, you know, since I’ve turned Benedictine monk all for love of you!’
The Abbot observed the Kapellmeister with a penetrating glance, as if trying to see right through him, and then asked gravely and solemnly, ‘To whom are you speaking, my son Johannes?’
Kreisler, however, awoke from his dreams. It struck him that if the Abbot were informed of all that had happened in Sieghartshof, he must know, more particularly, the sequel to the catastrophe that had driven him away, and he was anxious to hear more about it.
‘I was speaking to no one, reverend sir,’ he replied to the Abbot, with a curious laugh, ‘to no one but, as you heard, a rogue of a Raja torpedo which tried, quite uninvited, to interrupt our rational conversation and confuse me more than I’m confused already. But from all this, I am very sorry to conclude that certain persons take me for as much of a fool as the late court painter Leonhard Ettlinger, who not only wanted to paint a lady of rank – who naturally couldn’t care for him a jot – but to love her too, and that in as common a way as Jack loves Jill. Dear God, did I ever show any disrespect in playing the finest chords to accompany some wretched singing? Did I ever dare to express unseemly or fanciful notions of joy and pain, love and hate, when it pleased that self-willed princely little creature to act strangely, in all manner of wonderful emotional fancies, trying to vex honest folk with magnetic visions? Did I ever do such a thing? Tell me –’
‘Yes,’ interrupted the Abbot, ‘yes, my dear Johannes, you once spoke of the artist’s love.’
Kreisler stared at the Abbot and then, striking his hands together and casting up his eyes, exclaimed, ‘O Heaven! So that’s it! My dear good people,’ he continued, that c
urious smile asserting itself again on his face so that the inner melancholy of his voice was almost hidden, ‘dear good people all, did you never hear Prince Hamlet59 somewhere, even treading the most commonplace of boards, tell an honest man called Guildenstern, “Call me what instrument you will, though you fret me, you cannot play upon me.” By Heaven, that’s my case entirely! Why listen to your harmless friend Kreisler if the melody of love locked in his breast doesn’t please your ear? Ah, Julia!’
The Abbot, as if suddenly surprised by something quite unexpected, seemed to be searching in vain for words, while Kreisler stood there gazing with delight at the sea of fire rising in the evening sky.
Then the sound of bells rang out from the Abbey towers; beautiful, heavenly voices, they moved through the golden glow of the evening clouds.
‘I will go with you,’ cried Kreisler, spreading both arms wide, ‘I will go with you, ye chords! Borne by you, all desolate pain shall rise to me and be destroyed within my breast, and your voices, like heavenly messengers of peace, shall proclaim that pain is swallowed up in hope, in the yearning of eternal love.’
‘The bells are ringing for Vespers,’ said the Abbot. ‘I hear the brethren coming. My dear friend, we may perhaps speak again tomorrow of various events at Sieghartshof.’
‘Wait,’ cried Kreisler, who had just remembered what it was he wanted the Abbot to tell him, ‘wait, most reverend sir; there’s a great deal I’d like to hear about merry weddings and so forth. Surely Prince Hector will not hesitate to take the hand he sued for, even while far away? I hope no ill has befallen the glorious bridegroom?’
At this all solemnity vanished from the Abbot’s countenance, and he spoke with the pleasant humour usually characteristic of him. ‘Nothing has happened to the glorious bridegroom, my dear Johannes, but they do say a wasp stung his adjutant in the forest.’
The Life and Opinions of the Tomcat Murr Page 33
