A silence descended over the room, as though they had all been watching a soap bubble float to the floor.
At ten o'clock sharp, Herr Gottlieb heaved himself out of his chair. He went to wind up the clock and said goodnight to his guests.
In view of the rather gloomy atmosphere hanging over the gathering, Sophie suggested they devote the rest of the evening to music and performance, an idea warmly received by everyone, in particular Professor Mietter, who would occasionally accompany her in a Mozart or Haydn duet, and even the odd sonata by Boccherini (the
even
was Professor Mietter's word). Sophie sat at the piano and Elsa fetched the professor's cello case. Before the music began, Elsa was able to sit down for the first time since the beginning of the soirée, and for the first time, too, she appeared completely attentive. She ground a few crumbs into the carpet with the toe of her shoeâthe crumbs turned to dust with the first stroke of Professor Mietter's bow. Hans could not take his eyes off Sophie's supple, tapping fingers.
The duet proceeded peacefully, disrupted only by abrupt nods from Professor Mietter, to which Sophie responded with discreet half smiles. When they had finished and been applauded by their fellow salon-goers, Sophie insisted Frau Pietzine come to the piano. Flattered by her entreaties, Frau Pietzine duly resisted, and then, just as Sophie appeared to back down, agreed, blushing theatrically. There was further applauseâFrau Pietzine's necklace came away from her bosom and swung in mid-air for a moment. Then she turned to the piano, and with a clatter of rings and bracelets began to sing excruciatingly.
What did you think? asked the flushed Frau Pietzine. With
great astuteness, Sophie answered: Your playing was excellent. In an attempt to rouse Frau Levin from her stupor, Sophie suggested she and Frau Pietzine play a piece for four hands. Everyone declared this an excellent idea, and their implorings ended in a burst of applause when the flustered Frau Levin rose from her seat, glancing around her as though surprised to find herself on her feet. She made her timorous way towards the piano. Frau Pietzine's generous hips slid along the stool. Backs straight, shoulders tensed, the two women tackled Beethoven with more ardour than was seemly. Contrary to Hans's expectations, Frau Levin was an excellent pianist, disguising her companion's mistakes and compensating for her missed notes. During the recital, Herr Levin's eyes remained fixed on the piano stool, not quite on his wife's skirts.
The soirée ended just before midnight with a selection of the classics. Frau Pietzine requested Molière, Ãlvaro suggested Calderón and Professor Mietter demanded Shakespeare. Herr Levin came up with Confucius, but there was no book by Confucius in the house. Hans asked for nothing and was content to study the down on Sophie's arms, which changed shape, colour and (he assumed) taste according to the candlelight. Sophie was unanimously elected to recite the chosen passages. Hans was very curious to listen to her, because not only did it enable him to gaze at her with impunity, but he also had the idea that from listening to someone read aloud it was possible to read their erotic inflections. What Hans did not know was that Sophie shared his opinion. This was why Hans's looks, digressions, slips of the tongue and hesitations made her uneasy, but more than that, if she were honest, they disturbed her.
Hans felt that, although Sophie's voice was not beautiful, she modulated it perfectly, achieving a convincing tone without being strained, avoiding sounding on the one hand bland and on the other affected, maintaining a controlled delivery, her lips
slightly pursed, deliberately threading together the inflections, lingering on the more emphatic ones and skimming over the softer ones, alternating between the long and the short sounds with a rocking movement, modifying the punctuation to suit her breathing rather than any grammatical requirements, savouring each pause without drawing it out. In short, being sensual, not in order to please her audience, but for her own enjoyment. Hans thought: This is terrible. He half-closed his eyes and in his imagination tried to enter Sophie's throat, to float inside it, to be part of her air. The air undulating in her neck like warm liquid. She recites as though she were drinking tea, thought Hans. The comparison struck him as ludicrous, and his mouth felt suddenly dry. Moistening his lips with his tongue he realised he had become distracted from the texts again. Sophie must have partly been able to read Hans's thoughts, for when she had finished the last but one paragraph, she fell silent, closed the book on her forefinger marking the page, passed it to Hans and said: My dear Monsieur, pray give us the pleasure of hearing you recite the final passage. With that, she smoothed the creases in her dress, daintily crossed her leg and settled back in her chair, gazing at Hans and smiling provocatively. Suddenly she fixed her eyes on the succulent bulge of Hans's throat, a nest of words. Go ahead, said Sophie, savouring the thought, we're listening.
Standing beside the door, neither was able to utter the last word. All the other guests had gone and both Sophie and Hans had bade them farewell one by one without moving, behaving as though they had already taken leave of one another yet postponing their goodbye indefinitely. A gentle breeze seemed to be blowing between them, making them quiver. For want of kissing her violently and putting a stop to the unbearable tension, Hans vented his frustration by being aggressive and referring to her at every opportunity as
Frau. Fräulein
, corrected Sophie,
I am still Fräulein. But you'll soon be married, protested Hans. Yes, she retorted, as you say, soon, but not yet.
They remained silent, almost touching, dismayed by their own aggressiveness, until Sophie added: Don't be impatient, I will invite you to the wedding.
Â
As the days slipped by, they continued to observe the same courtesies when addressing one another, each echoing the other's formal tone, yet imbuing these identical utterances with a note of impatience that was increasingly playful and ambiguous. On the surface nothing was happening. Both kept their composure in their own particular way: Sophie disguised her hot flushes with displays of aloofness, while Hans repressed his desire with theoretical expositions and literary quotations. Sophie derived strength from the heat of the debates themselves, from the analytical distance she forced herself to assume when communicating with him. Hans succeeded in appearing calm when he focused on a theme, losing himself in his argument. On Fridays at midnight when the salon was over, the two of them would talk for a while in the corridor as though on the point of parting, without really parting. They sought to do this in full view of Elsa or Bertold, as if making it clear they had no need to hide everything they needed to hide. After the arrival of Sophie's first letter, they began taking tea together at her house. On those afternoons, Herr Gottlieb would emerge from his study to sit with them and the three would converse amicably. Herr Gottlieb welcomed Hans as warmly as ever, although less effusively. Hans was his daughter's friend now, and he was obliged to withdraw a little in order not to seem like an interfering father, and above all so as to be able to watch over her from a distance. Herr Gottlieb was only too aware of his daughter's tempestuous nature. He knew that any opposition or outright prohibition was enough to make her persist in disobeying him with an obstinacy he
sometimes found alarming. And so the most sensible thing to do was to let her have her own way and to stay alert.
Had Hans been capable of thinking about it objectively, he would have understood why Sophie's behaviour towards him was so erratic. When they were face to face, gazing excitedly into each other's eyes, she was confrontational. Yet when another guest criticised his point of view she would discreetly leap to his defence. But these signs remained relatively invisible to anyone else. In part because the language of gestures is not transparent like a piece of glass but reflective like a mirror. And in part because each had their own reasons for interpreting them in their own way.
Besides his habit of not taking part in any of the discussions, with the result that he didn't feel they concerned him in the slightest, Rudi Wilderhaus felt too certain of his position, his status, his betrothal, to be at all concerned. Or rather he
was obliged not to
be concerned, for if he had been that would have meant lowering himself to the level of an unknown stranger with no social standing. Professor Mietter appeared to find nothing odd either in Sophie's discreet and constant solidarity towards Hans, since (as he himself could testify from his first months at the salon) she was an attentive hostess, whose rule it was to indulge new members in order to make certain they stayed. For this reason the salon had begun with three or four regular members, and now boasted double that number. Moreover, in the professor's view, Fräulein Gottlieb's passionate and somewhat stormy nature was behind her tendency to enliven their debates by siding with whoever was in a minority. And it so happened that the outrageous Hans frequently found himself in a minority. In any event (the professor ended by reassuring himself) Sophie had continued to grant him preferential, even honorific treatment, confirming him as the incontestable authority in the salon and the starting point for any debate.
Frau Pietzine might have suspected something amid her giggles and embroidery, yes. But she was far too enthralled by the arrival of this young guest, too amused by the novelty, to go against the tide. As for Herr Levin, who respected and feared Professor Mietter in almost equal measure, in some inadmissible part of his prudent self he was glad of Hans's presence. Not because he agreed with his opinions, but because of the destabilising effect they had on the unshakeable self-assurance of the professor, who was so partial to criticising Herr Levin's own contributions. Ãlvaro had sided with Hans from the start, and delayed the discussion of any differences they might have for the privacy of the Central Tavern. He did so not only out of loyalty but out of convenienceâhe had never met anyone as like-minded in Wandernburg, and had felt less lonely since Hans arrived. And Frau Levin? Frau Levin was silent, although she wrinkled her brow thinking who knew what.
That afternoon there were magnolias in the drawing room. After they had taken tea, instead of shutting himself in his study as usual, Herr Gottlieb had stayed on to talk with the two of them. After chatting for a while about nothing in particular, Sophie had suddenly retired to her room. She hadn't done so because she was upset with Hans or annoyed at her father's intrusiveness. Quite the contrary, she had understood that if she wanted Hans's visits to continue unimpeded she must allow her father to keep up his friendship with him. Neither of the two men was able to fathom this simple strategy, and so her father chewed his pipe contentedly and stared at Hans, and Hans coughed disappointedly and stared at Herr Gottlieb.
During their hour-and-a-half-long conversation, accompanied by a bottle of brandy Bertold brought, Herr Gottlieb confided in Hans his concern about the forthcoming betrothal dinners. Luckily, he explained, the first of these would be held at the house of the bride to be. Imagine what a calamity it would have
been for me, Herr Gottlieb told him, if the Wilderhausesâthe Wilderhauses no less!âhad received us first in their mansion, and then weâperish the thought!âhad returned the honour here in this house. I tell you, I scarcely sleep a winkâscarcely a wink!âjust thinking about the menu, what can one offer a Wilderhaus, you understand? Naturally we will be eating in the dining room rather than in hereâa little more brandy my friend? Not even a drop?âAnyway, as I was saying, this week we will prepare the room, but will that be enough? I've already asked Petraâdo you know Petra? And her daughter?âA fine woman, Petra, when we first employed her she was the best cook of her generation, why do I say was? No, yes, she still is, only things have changed, you know, we no longer entertain like we once did, times change, my friend! And this house, this house, well, anyway, there it is, but we're all so nervous! No, Sophie isn't, Sophie is never nervous, although I have to confessâare you sure you won't have another drop?âI have to confess I find it difficult to stay calm, and what would you think of chicken consommé, noodles with cinnamon, a joint of roast meat, and to follow I don't know, a compote, some meringues, what would youâand champagne, champagne to finish off obviously, but what about with the dinner?âDo you know what wines are served these days in Berlin, you'll ask around? That's good of you, I'd be most grateful. You know it's a great relief talking to you. Don't you think beef would be best?
And I swear, Hans told the organ grinder later on that same evening, it took a supreme effort for me to stay calm while he was talking to me about that accursed dinner. Sophie went to her room, and her father spent two hours telling me about the Wilderhaus family, could things be any worse? The organ grinder, who had been listening, his gaze wandering as he played with Franz's muzzle, finally spoke, only to say something
completely bewildering: And you say there were flowers? Yes, yes, Hans said wearily. What flowers were they? What does that matter? replied Hans, why should you care? What were they? the old man insisted. I think, Hans relented, they were magnolias. Magnolias! the old man brightened up, are you sure? I think so, said Hans, puzzled. Magnolias, said the organ grinder, signify perseverance, she's telling you not to give up. And since when do they mean that? Since for ever, the old man smiled, where have you been living? In that case, said Hans, should I say something to her, declare my feelings? No, the old man said, you have to wait, don't be hasty, she's not asking you to do anything, she needs time. She needs time to consider, but knowing you are still there, do you see? She needs to decide the time of her love, you have no control over it. You must persevere but also wait. Do peasants twist their sunflowers to face the sun? Well. You can't twist magnolias either.