Steppenwolf (21 page)

The next morning, after she had shared my breakfast, I had to smuggle Maria out of the building, which I succeeded in doing.
That very same day I rented a small room for the two of us in a nearby part of the town, to be used solely for our meetings.

Dutifully putting in an appearance, my dancing teacher Hermione made me learn the Boston. Strict and unsparing, she wouldn’t let me miss a lesson because it had been decided that I would attend the next masked ball with her. She had asked me for money to pay for her costume, but refused to give me any information as to what it would be. I was still forbidden to call on her or even to know where she was living.

This period leading up to the masked ball, a matter of some three weeks, was extraordinarily beautiful. It seemed to me that Maria was the first woman I had really loved. I had always demanded a degree of intellect and education from the women I loved, without ever fully noticing that even the most intellectual and relatively best-educated woman never responded to the Logos in me, but rather clashed with it. I used always to take my problems and ideas along with me to my rendezvous with women, and it would have seemed quite impossible for me to spend longer than an hour loving any woman who had scarcely read a book, hardly knowing what reading meant, or was unable to tell the difference between a Tchaikovsky and a Beethoven. Maria had no education. She had no need of such diversions or surrogate worlds because all her problems were directly sensuous in origin. Her art, her mission in life, consisted in striving to achieve as much sensual and sexual happiness as was humanly possible, in seeking and enticing from her partner in love – by means of the senses she had been endowed with, her exceptional figure, her colouring, her hair, her voice, her skin, her vivacity – a sympathetic response and a lively, gratifying counter-play to everything she was capable of, to every supple adjustment of her curves, every extremely delicate modulation of her body. This was something I had felt when dancing shyly with her on that first occasion. Even then I had picked up the clear scent of an ingenious, highly
refined sensuality in her, and had been enchanted by it. And it was certainly no coincidence that Hermione, omniscient as she was, had put this girl Maria in touch with me, for she had the scent of summer, of roses about her. It was the hallmark of her whole being.

I was not fortunate enough to be Maria’s sole or preferred lover. I was one of several. Often she found no time for me, sometimes one hour in the afternoon, on very few occasions a whole night. She refused to take money from me, which was probably Hermione’s doing. However, she was happy to accept gifts and when, for instance, I gave her a dainty new purse made of shiny red leather she didn’t object to the two or three gold coins it contained. That little red purse, by the way, prompted her to laugh right in my face because, charming though it was, it was long since out of fashion and no longer selling well. From Maria I learned a great deal about matters such as this, about which previously I had known and understood less than I did any Eskimo language. Above all I learned that these little playthings, fashionable accessories and luxuries are not just tawdry kitsch, invented by money-grabbing manufacturers and dealers, but quite legitimate, beautiful and diverse objects. They constitute a small, or rather large, world of things, all of them designed with the sole aim of serving Eros, refining the senses, breathing fresh life into the dead world we inhabit and magically endowing it with new sexual organs, from powder and perfume to dance shoes, from rings to cigarette cases, from belt buckles to handbags. These handbags were not handbags, the purses not purses, flowers not flowers, fans not fans – no, all of them were the visual and tangible material of Eros, of magic, of stimulation. They functioned as messengers, touts, weapons, battle cries.

I often wondered who it was Maria really loved. I think of all people she loved youthful Pablo the most, he of the saxophone, the dreamy black eyes and the long, pale, noble and melancholy
hands. I would have judged Pablo to be a rather languid, spoiled and passive lover but Maria assured me that, though it took a long time, once aroused, he was rougher, more muscular, masculine and demanding than any boxer or horseman. In this way I got to know intimate details of this or that person: the jazz musician, the actor, women, girls, men from our milieu. I knew all sorts of secrets, had insight into alliances and enmities that lay beneath the surface, was slowly initiated into and became familiar with this world in which I had been a completely alien presence with no links whatsoever to anyone. About Hermione too I learned a great deal, but above all I was now in frequent contact with Herr Pablo, whom Maria loved very much. She also used his secret substances from time to time, occasionally procuring these delights for me too, and Pablo was always ready, indeed especially keen, to oblige me. Once he told me in no uncertain terms: ‘You are unhappy so much of the time. Nobody should be like that, it’s not good. I’m sorry for you. Try smoking a little opium.’ My opinion of this cheerful, clever, childlike and yet unfathomable human being was constantly changing. We became friends, and not infrequently I accepted some of the drugs he had on offer. It was with a degree of amusement that he observed my infatuation with Maria. Once he organized a ‘party’ in his room up in the attic of a hotel in the suburbs. Since there was only one chair, Maria and I had to sit on the bed. To drink, he served us a mysterious, wonderful liqueur he had mixed from the contents of three small bottles. And, once I was feeling in a really good mood, he suggested, his eyes sparkling, that the three of us should have an orgy. Abruptly refusing, since for me that sort of thing was out of the question, I nevertheless cast a brief sidelong glance at Maria, wondering what her attitude might be. She did, like me, immediately say no, but I could sense from the glint in her eyes that this was an opportunity she was sorry to miss. Pablo was disappointed by my refusal, but he didn’t take
offence. ‘Pity,’ he said. ‘Harry has too many moral scruples. It can’t be helped, yet it would have been so beautiful, so very beautiful. However, I know something we can do instead.’ Each of us now got to take a few pulls on a pipe Pablo had filled with opium. Sitting motionless, our eyes open, all three of us underwent the experience he had suggested, Maria trembling with delight. Afterwards, when I felt slightly unwell, Pablo laid me on the bed and gave me a few drops of medicine. And as I closed my eyes for a few minutes, I felt the briefest and faintest touch of lips on each eyelid. As if believing that the kisses came from Maria, I let it happen, but I knew full well they came from him.

And one evening he had an even greater surprise in store for me. Appearing in my flat, he told me he needed twenty francs. Could I let him have them? If so, he offered, I could take his place that night with Maria.

‘Pablo,’ I said, shocked, ‘you don’t know what you are saying. There’s nothing we in this country consider more despicable, Pablo, than letting another man have the woman you love in exchange for money. I didn’t hear what you just proposed.’

He gave me a pitying look. ‘You refuse to do it, Herr Harry. Very well. You are always making things difficult for yourself. Still, if you prefer it that way, don’t spend the night with Maria, just give me the money. You’ll get it back. I need it urgently.’

‘What for?’

‘For Agostino, you know who I mean, the lad who plays second violin. He’s been ill for a week now and no one’s looking after him. He hasn’t got a penny of his own, and now I’ve run out of money too.’

Mainly out of curiosity, but also by way of self-punishment, I went with him to the garret, a truly wretched garret, where Agostino lived. Pablo took him some milk and medicine, freshened up his bed for him, aired the room, and put a neat, skilfully fashioned compress round his fevered head. All this was swiftly
and gently done, with the expertise of a good nurse. That same night I saw him playing until the early hours of the morning in the City Bar.

Often I would talk to Hermione at length and in a matter-of-fact way about Maria, about her hands, her shoulders, her hips, about the way she laughed, kissed and danced.

‘Has she shown you this yet?’ Hermione once asked me, going on to describe a particular trick of the tongue when kissing. I asked why she didn’t demonstrate it to me herself, but she earnestly refused. ‘That can wait till later,’ she said. ‘I’m not your lover yet.’

I asked her how she came to be familiar with Maria’s kissing skills and many an intimate detail of her body that only a man making love to her could know.

‘Oh,’ she cried, ‘after all, we are friends. Surely you don’t think we keep things secret from one another? I should know, I’ve slept with her and played with her often enough. Believe me, you’ve got yourself a fine girl there, one who knows more than other girls do.’

‘But, Hermione, I still think there must be some things even the two of you keep secret from one another. Or have you also told her everything you know about me?’

‘No, that’s a different matter. Those are things she wouldn’t understand. Luckily for you, Maria is wonderful, but there are things private to the two of us of which she has no idea. Of course I told her a lot about you, a lot more than you would have wished at the time. After all, I had to seduce her for you. But as for understanding you, my friend, in the way I understand you, that’s something Maria will never be capable of, or any other woman either. I’ve also found out quite a few new things about you from her, so I am well informed, at least as far as her knowledge of you goes. I know you almost as well as if we had often slept with one another.’

When I was next together with Maria it was strange and mysterious, knowing as I did that she had held Hermione close to her like me, that she had fondled, kissed, tasted and examined her limbs, hair and skin exactly as she had mine. Visions arose in me of new, indirect, complicated relationships and connections, new opportunities to experience life and love, which made me think of the thousand souls mentioned in the Steppenwolf tract.

In that short period between getting to know Maria and the day of the grand masked ball I was positively happy, yet I never felt that I had found some kind of ultimate bliss or salvation. Instead, I had a very clear sense that all this was merely a prologue and preparation. There was a strong forward impulse to everything, but the real thing was still to come.

By now I had learned enough in my dancing lessons to feel that it would be feasible for me to attend the ball, which was being talked about more and more with every day that went by. Hermione’s costume remained a secret. She was absolutely determined not to tell me what she would be going as. I was not to worry, she said. I would recognize her, and failing that she would help me out, but I was not allowed to know anything in advance. Nor, for this reason, was she the least bit curious about what I was planning to wear, so I decided not to dress up at all. Maria, when I wanted to invite her to the ball, explained that she already had a partner for the occasion. And since she did indeed have a ticket already, I realized to my disappointment that I would have to attend the ball on my own. The most exclusive of all the city’s masked balls, it was put on annually in the Globe Rooms by the Society of Artists.

I saw little of Hermione during this time, but on the eve of the ball she visited me to collect the ticket that I had ordered for
her. Sitting peacefully in my room, she began a – to my mind – strange conversation that made a profound impression on me.

‘You are really well now, in fact. Dancing suits you. Anyone seeing you for the first time in four weeks would scarcely know you.’

‘True,’ I conceded. ‘I’ve not been this well for years. It’s all your doing, Hermione.’

‘Oh really? Not your lovely Maria’s?’

‘No. She was your gift to me as well, as you know. She’s wonderful.’

‘She’s the lover you needed, Steppenwolf, good-looking, young, cheerful, very good in bed and not always available. If you didn’t have to share her with others, if she were ever more than just a fleeting guest, things wouldn’t be as good.’

It was true. I had to concede that she was right about that too.

‘You’ve got everything you need now, then?’

‘No, Hermione, that’s not the case. What I have is something very beautiful, something that delights me, brings me great joy and welcome comfort. I am positively happy …’

‘There you are, then! What more can you want?’

‘I do want something more. I’m not content to be happy, that’s not what I’m cut out to be, not what fate intended for me. I’m destined to be the very opposite.’

‘To be unhappy, you mean? Well, you had more than your fair share of unhappiness that time when you couldn’t bring yourself to go home for fear of the razor waiting there.’

‘No, Hermione. Don’t you see, I mean something else. I was very unhappy then, I grant you, but my unhappiness was stupid, barren.’

‘Why was that?’

‘Because if I wanted to die, and I did, I ought not to have been so afraid of death. The unhappiness I’m in need of and longing for is different. It’s of a kind that will make me hunger
for suffering and lust for death. That’s the sort of unhappiness, or happiness, I am waiting for.’

‘I can understand you. We are like sister and brother in that respect. But what is wrong with the happiness you have now found with Maria? Why are you not satisfied?’

‘There is nothing wrong with this happiness. On the contrary, I love it, feel grateful for it. It’s as beautiful as a sunny day in a summer of rain. But I sense that it can’t last, so it is barren too, this happiness. It is satisfying, but satisfaction is not the nourishment I need. It’s enough to fill Steppenwolf’s stomach and send him to sleep, but it’s not the kind of happiness to die for.’

‘So dying is of the essence, is it, Steppenwolf?’

‘I think so, yes. I am very satisfied with my happiness. It’s something I can live with for quite a while yet, but if it occasionally deserts me for an hour or so, allowing me to wake from my sleep and experience a longing for something, what I long for with all my being is not this happiness, not that it should last for ever. Rather, I long to experience suffering again, only more exquisitely, more richly this time. What I yearn for are the kinds of suffering that will make me ready and willing to die.’