Both of us sighed as we rolled up the lace again; it was a lengthy task, but we would not entrust it to anyone else.
‘Just imagine we had to make them,’ said Maman, looking properly alarmed. I could not imagine it at all. I caught myself picturing minute creatures incessantly spinning lace and rewarded for their efforts by being left in peace. No, of course it was women who made it.
‘The women who made this must surely have gone to heaven,’ I remarked with admiration. I remember it occurred to me that I had not asked about heaven for a long time. Maman took a deep breath, now that the pieces of lace were rolled up again.
After a while, when I had already forgotten about it, she said, very slowly: ‘To heaven? I think they are absolutely in heaven. Just look at this… it could well mean one's eternal salvation. We know so little about it.’
[42] It was often said, when visitors came, that the Schulins were tightening their belts. The big old manor house had burned down some years before, and they now lived in the two cramped wings, tightening their belts. But entertaining guests was in their blood. They could not give it up. Whenever someone arrived at our house unexpectedly, he had probably come from the Schulins'; and if someone suddenly glanced at the clock, and made a startled departure, it was doubtless because they were expecting him at Lystager.
By that time, Maman did not really go anywhere any more, but this was not something the Schulins could understand; so there was nothing for it but to drive over one day. It was in December, after one or two early snowfalls; the sleigh had been ordered for three o'clock, and I was to go too. But we never left punctually. Maman, who did not care to have the carriage announced, generally went down much too early and, finding no one there, invariably remembered something that should have been attended to long since, and started searching or tidying somewhere upstairs, so that it was next to impossible to find her. At length we would all be standing around waiting. And once she was finally seated and tucked in, something would prove to have been forgotten, and Sieversen must needs be fetched; for only Sieversen knew where it was. But then we would abruptly drive off, before Sieversen returned.
That day, it had never really brightened up. The trees stood as if they had lost their way in the fog, and there was something presumptuous about driving into it. As we drove, the snow began to fall silently once more, and now it was as if all that remained had been erased and we were driving on to a blank page. The only sound was that of the sleigh-bells, and it was impossible to say where exactly it came from. One moment it ceased entirely, as if the very last jingle had sounded; but then it gathered itself afresh, into a unison of sound, and scattered its fullness upon the air. The church tower to the left we might as well have imagined; but suddenly the shapes of the park were discernible, high up, almost above us, and we were in the long avenue. The sound of the sleigh-bells did not entirely cease again; it was as if it hung in clusters in the trees to our right and left. Then we swung in and drove around something and passed something else on the right and drew up in the middle.
Georg had completely forgotten that the house was not there, and for all of us it was there at that moment. We ascended the flight of steps that led up to the old terrace, and merely thought it odd that all was in darkness. All at once a door opened, below and behind us to the left, and someone called ‘Over here!’ and raised a dim lantern and swung it. My father laughed: ‘Here we are, wandering about like ghosts’; and he helped us back down the steps.
‘But there was a house there just now,’ said Maman, finding it hard to adjust so quickly to Viera Schulin, who had come out, warm and laughing. Now of course we had to hurry indoors, and there was no more thinking about the house. We left our coats in a cramped vestibule, and anon we were right in amid the lamps, warming ourselves at the fire.
These Schulins were a redoubtable family of independent women. I do not know if there were any sons. I can only remember three sisters: the eldest had married a marchese in Naples and was now gradually divorcing him in a series of law-suits; then there was Zoë, who was said to know everything there was to know; and above all there was Viera, this warm Viera – God knows what has become of her. The Countess, a Narishkin, was really the fourth sister and in a sense the youngest. She knew nothing at all and was continuously in need of instruction by her children. And dear Count Schulin felt as if he were married to all of the ladies, and went about kissing whichever of them happened to be nearest.
He was laughing heartily as we entered and gave each of us a meticulous welcome. I was passed about the women, who felt me and put questions. I had firmly resolved, however, that once this was over I should slip out somehow and look for the house. I was convinced it would be there today. Getting away was not too difficult; I could crawl among all the dresses like a dog, and the door to the vestibule was ajar. But the outer door refused to open. There were various locks on it, chains and bolts, and I was all thumbs as I tried to undo them in a hurry. Suddenly the door did open after all, but it made a loud noise as it did so, and before I could get outside I was apprehended and pulled back.
‘Just a moment. No playing truant here,’ said Viera Schulin in an amused tone. She bent down to me and I decided I would tell this warm person nothing. But as I said nothing, she simply assumed that the call of nature had driven me to the door; she took me by the hand and set off, meaning in a manner part pally and part imperious to drag me away somewhere. This intimate misunderstanding mortified me beyond measure. I tore myself loose and gave her an angry look.
‘I want to see the house,’ I said proudly. She did not understand. ‘The big house, out by the steps.’
‘You silly,’ she shot back, reaching out for me, ‘there isn't any house there any more.’ I insisted that there was. ‘We'll go in the daylight sometime,’ she suggested in a conciliatory tone. ‘You can't go wandering about there now. There are holes, and right behind are Papa's fish ponds, which mustn't freeze. You'd fall in and turn into a fish.’
With that, she pushed me along in front of her, back to the brightly lit rooms. There they all sat, talking, and I looked at them one after another: of course they only go when the house isn't there, I thought contemptuously; if Maman and I lived here, it would always be there. They were all talking at once, and Maman had an absent look to her. No doubt she was thinking about the house.
Zoë sat down beside me and began to ask questions. She had an even-featured face, in which insight was forever burgeoning afresh, as if she were continually seeing this point or that. My father sat leaning a little to the right, listening to the marchesa, who was laughing. Count Schulin was standing between Maman and his wife and was telling a story. But the Countess, I noticed, interrupted him in mid-sentence.
‘No, child, you're imagining that,’ said the Count good-humouredly, but all at once his face wore the same troubled expression as hers as he inclined towards the two ladies. There was no convincing the Countess that what she asserted was, as he put it, imagination. She made a distinctly strained impression, like someone who does not want to be disturbed. She made slight, dismissive gestures with her soft, beringed hands; somebody said ‘Psstt!’ and suddenly there was complete silence.
Behind the people in the room, the huge objects from the old house were thrusting upon the scene, far too close. The weighty family silver gleamed, looming as if seen through a magnifying glass. My father looked round, somewhat taken aback.
‘Mama can smell something,’ said Viera Schulin behind him. ‘We always have to be quiet. She smells with her ears.’ She herself stood attentively with her eyebrows raised, all nose.
Ever since the fire, the Schulins had been a little peculiar in this respect. In the cramped, overheated rooms, an odour might be in evidence at any moment, and would promptly be analysed, with everyone giving an opinion. Zoë, a practical and thorough person, busied herself at the stove. The Count went about, pausing in every corner and waiting. ‘It isn't here,’ he would announce. The Countess had got up without any idea where
to look. My father turned slowly on his heel as if the odour were behind him. The marchesa, who had instantly assumed that it was an offensive smell, held her handkerchief over her mouth and looked at everyone in turn to ascertain if it was gone. ‘Here, here,’ Viera called from time to time, as if she had found it. And around each word was a curious silence. As for myself, I had been busily sniffing away along with the others. But all at once (was it the heat in the rooms, or the closeness of so many lights?) I was overcome, for the first time in my life, by something akin to a fear of ghosts. It dawned on me that all these assertive, grown-up people who had just been talking and laughing were going about bent over, occupied with something invisible; that they conceded something was there that they could not see. And the terrible thing was that it was stronger than all of them.
My fear grew apace. I imagined that what they were looking for might suddenly break forth from within me, like a rash; and then they would see it and would point at me. In utter desperation I looked across at Maman. She was sitting strangely erect, and I felt she was waiting for me. Scarcely was I beside her, scarcely did I feel how she trembled within, than I realized that only now was the house disappearing once more.
‘Malte, you coward,’ I heard someone laugh. The voice was Viera's. But we did not let go of each other, and endured it together; and so we remained, Maman and I, till the house had once again completely disappeared.
[43] It was birthdays, however, that afforded the greatest wealth of virtually inconceivable experience. Of course you already knew that Life took pleasure in making no distinctions; but on that day, you got up aware of a right to joy that was not to be doubted. Quite likely the awareness of this right was instilled very early in life, at that age when you reach out for everything and get it, all; and when, with the unerring power of the imagination, you invest those things you have in your grasp at a particular moment with all the primary-coloured intensity of whatever desire happens to be uppermost within you at the time.
But then suddenly those remarkable birthdays come along, when the awareness of your right is still completely secure within you and yet you see others becoming uncertain. You would like someone to dress you, as they used to, and then accept whatever else is given. But you are hardly awake when someone outside shouts that the cake hasn't come yet; or you hear something break as the presents are being arranged on the table in the next room; or someone comes in and leaves the door open, and you see everything before you were supposed to. At that moment, a kind of operation is conducted on you. It is a brief and horribly painful incision. But the hand that performs it is practised and steady. It is over in no time at all. And you have scarcely got over it than you are no longer thinking of yourself; what matters is to save the birthday, watch the others, anticipate their mistakes, confirm them in their notion that they are managing everything impeccably. They do not make it easy for you. They turn out to be of an unparalleled clumsiness, almost stupid. They contrive to come in with parcels of some sort that are intended for other people; you rush to meet them, and then have to pretend you were merely pacing about the room for a little exercise, with nothing particular in mind. They plan to surprise you, and, with the shallowest show of expectation, open the bottom-most layer of the toy-box, where there is nothing but wood shavings; you simply have to put them out of their misery. Or if the present they're giving you is a mechanical toy, they over-wind it and break the spring the very first time. So it is no bad thing to practise beforehand, surreptitiously nudging along an over-wound mouse or some such with your foot: it can often be a good way of fooling them and helping them get over the embarrassment.
All of this you did, in the end, just as it was required of you. It took no particular talent; the only time any ability was really called for was when someone had taken some pains, and brought you, all importance and good nature, something delightful, and you could tell a long way off that it was something to delight someone else entirely, a delight you could never feel; you couldn't even think of anyone it would have been suitable for, so alien was it.
[44] The days of telling stories, really telling them, must have been before my time. I have never heard it done. When Abelone used to talk to me about Maman's youth, it was clear that she was not a storyteller. Old Count Brahe, she told me, was. I shall write down what she remembered.
There was a time in Abelone's early girlhood when she was possessed of a broad and idiosyncratic sensitivity. At that date, the Brahes lived in town, in Bredgade, and led an active social life. When she went up to her room late in the evening, she would think she was tired, like the others. But then all at once she became aware of the window and, if I understood her rightly, could stand for hours facing the night and thinking: this means something to me. ‘Like a prisoner I stood there,’ she said, ‘and the stars were freedom.’ At that time, she could go to sleep without making herself feel heavy. The expression ‘falling asleep’ would not have been apt to that year of her girlhood. Sleep was something that rose with you, and from time to time your eyes were open and you were lying on a new surface, one that was still far from being the topmost. And then you were up before daybreak; even in winter, when the others came sleepy and late to a late breakfast. In the evenings, when it grew dark, there were only lights for the whole household, of course, to be shared. But those two candles lit just as the darkness was fresh and everything began anew – those were yours alone. They stood in their low, two-branched candlestick and shone placidly through the small, oval tulle shades painted with roses, which had to be lowered at intervals. There was nothing inconvenient in this; for once, there was no hurry at all; and at times you would look up, reflectively, from the letter you were writing or from the diary that had once been begun, long since, in a quite different hand, a timid and beautiful hand.
Count Brahe lived altogether separately from his daughters. If anyone claimed to be sharing his life with others, he took it for a delusion. (‘Yes of course, sharing –’ he would say.) But he had nothing against it when people talked to him of his daughters; he would listen closely, as though they were living in another town.
So it was quite extraordinary when one day after breakfast he beckoned Abelone over to him: ‘It seems we have the same habits. I write at the crack of dawn as well. You can help me.’ Abelone remembered it as if it were yesterday.
The very next morning, she was led into her father's study, which was always considered forbidden territory. She had no time to take the room in, for she was immediately seated opposite the Count at the writing table, which seemed to her like a vast plain dotted with villages of books and papers.
The Count dictated. Those who maintained that Count Brahe was writing his memoirs were not completely in error; they were not, however, the political or military recollections that were so eagerly anticipated. ‘I forget,’ the old gentleman would say curtly if asked about these matters. But what he did not want to forget was his childhood. It was important to him. And it was altogether proper, in his view, that that very remote time should be uppermost in him now, and that when he gazed within himself it lay before him as in a clear Nordic summer's night, highly charged and unsleeping.
At times he leaped to his feet and talked into the candles, making the flames flicker. Or whole sentences had to be struck out, at which times he would pace violently to and fro, his eau-de-Nil silk dressing-gown billowing. One other person was present throughout – Sten, the Count's aged valet from Jutland, whose task it was, when my grandfather sprang up, to lay swift hands upon the stray loose leaves covered with notes that lay all over the tabletop. His lordship had a notion that paper nowadays was no good: it was far too lightweight, and blew away on the slightest pretext. And Sten, of whom one saw only the long upper half, shared this suspicion and held his hands forever at the ready, as it were, day-blind and earnest as a night-owl.
This Sten spent his Sunday afternoons reading Swedenborg, and none of the servants would ever have ventured to enter his room, believing he was summoning up the
dead. Sten's family had always been familiar with spirits, and Sten was marked out by destiny for this kind of contact. His mother had seen an apparition on the night he was born. Sten had large, round eyes, and the far end of his gaze invariably rested somewhere behind the person he was looking at. Abelone's father frequently asked after the spirits as one might ask after someone's family: ‘Are they coming, Sten?’ he would say well-meaningly. ‘It is good if they come.’
For a few days, all went well with the dictation. But then Abelone was unable to spell ‘Eckernförde’. It was a proper noun, one she had never heard before. The Count, who for a long time had been casting about for a pretext to abandon his writing, which went too slowly for his recollections, affected exasperation.
‘She can't spell it,’ he said tetchily, ‘and no one else will be able to read it. Will they even see what I'm saying?’ he went on angrily, keeping his eyes fixed on Abelone. ‘Will they see him, this Saint-Germain?’ he shouted at her. ‘Did we say Saint-Germain? Strike it out. Put: the Marquis of Belmare.’31
Abelone crossed it out and wrote. But the Count went on so rapidly that she could not keep up.
‘He could not abide children, the excellent Belmare, but he did dandle me on his knee, small as I was, and something got into me and I bit his diamond buttons. That tickled him: he laughed and raised my head so that we were looking into each other's eyes. “You have excellent teeth,” he said, “teeth that show enterprise…” – For my part, I noticed his eyes. In later life I got around, and I have seen all sorts of eyes, believe me, but never again eyes like his. For those eyes, things did not need to exist; they already contained everything within themselves. You have heard of Venice? Very well. I tell you that those eyes could have looked Venice right into this room, so that it would have been here as plain as the table. I once sat in the corner listening as he told my father about Persia; at times, I imagine my hands still smell of it. My father thought highly of him, and His Excellency the Landgrave was something of a disciple. But of course there were enough people who thought ill of him because he only believed in the past when he bore it within himself. They could not grasp that the whole business is devoid of meaning unless you have been born to it.