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When Lisa handed him the envelope, he felt the same pang of excitement he always felt when he received one of Sophie's letters. As he sat down to read, his brow wrinkledâthis wasn't Sophie's notepaper or her writing. Inside the envelope Hans discovered an ominous surprise. A white visiting card, substantial and stiff to the touch, embossed with heraldic insignia and military crosses. The card, he read, was that of Herr Rudi P von Wilderhaus, the younger.
The letter, polite but to the point, was an invitation to dear Herr Hans, with whom he had not yet had the opportunity to converse as quietly as he would have liked, to accompany him on a shoot the following day at dawn, assuming that he had no previous engagements and that he enjoyed fresh air and nature. So that, if Herr Hans saw fit to honour him with his company, he would pick him up in his carriage at six-thirty sharp. And with this, he ended the letter, sincerely yours, etc.
After weighing up for a moment the possible inconveniences of accepting this strange invitation against the possibly even greater ones of refusing it, Hans sent a note to Wilderhaus Hall (taking care that it sounded neither overly aloof nor overly enthusiastic) thanking Rudi kindly for his generous invitation, which he accepted with pleasure, in the meantime bidding him goodbye until the morrow, etc, with my sincerest gratitude.
Hans's first thought was: What does Rudi really want? And his second: My God, I have to get up at the crack of dawn. Followed by: What boots shall I wear? He had never cared for hunting. Or rather, he had an instinctive loathing for it. And yet he knew he should go. Not simply out of courtesy, but in order to wheedle information out of Rudi about his betrothal to Sophie, and to gauge how suspicious he was, if at all. Because of the hour, his apprehension or both, Hans was unable to sleep a wink, and the lordly clip-clop of hooves found him wide-awake, standing at the window.
Rudi greeted him from the top of a long shooting brake drawn by four black horses. The driver's seat towered aloft, and from behind a caged partition the dogs barked at the dawn. Rudi had pinned to his lapel an eight-pointed star with a falcon at its centre and an inscription that read:
Vigilando ascendimus.
He had on baggy breeches tucked into slender knee-length boots. Hans found them distasteful, yet felt ridiculous when he glimpsed his own as he clambered onto the carriage. Did you sleep well, Herr Hans? You look tired. Rudi's face shone like polished marble. Oh, extremely well, replied Hans, indeed, I slept so soundly I confess I had difficulty waking up. Did you? smiled Rudi. I did indeed, smiled Hans.
As Rudi's shooting brake sped north through the countryside along dirt roads Hans had never before been on, dawn burst on the scene, lighting everything as if catapulted into the air. Rudi appeared calm, or at least sure of himself. He spoke little and only about trivial matters. Occasionally, he would stare fixedly at Hans with an ominously friendly expression. Isn't it beautiful? he said, pointing at the woods. Then he would become absorbed in the landscape and inhale deeply. Only when he noticed Rudi's burly chest rising and falling did Hans realise he was scarcely breathing himself.
They descended from the vehicle and Rudi ordered the driver
and the footman to wait there until they returned. Hans, who had been interpreting Rudi's every gesture since their first greeting, was even more alarmed by this commandâwhat did
until they returned
mean exactly? That they'd be a long time, that he didn't know how long they'd be, or that the driver and the servant weren't to go looking for them however long they took? Rudi slung his gun over his shoulder. He offered Hans another and quickly nodded his head.
They made their way into the wood. The dogs followed, sniffing the damp ground. Rudi walked forward, shoulders hunched, back straight. The weight of the gun clearly didn't hinder him in the slightest. Hans, on the other hand, was not sure which shoulder to carry it on. He had only handled a gun three or four times in his life, and on each occasion he had felt an awkward mixture of power and guilt. They walked in virtual silence for fifteen or twenty minutes. They came to a place that to Hans seemed identical to all the others. Rudi halted, lifted a finger to his lips and began noiselessly loading his gun. He did this with ceremonial slowness or with almost rehearsed precision, as though he were giving a demonstration. Each of Rudi's fingers moved with a dexterity that could not fail to produce admiration or panic. His expression was relaxed, almost indifferent to the weapon he was caressing. And yet, as soon as he took aim with his gun, Rudi was transformed. His features hardened. His jaw tensed. His gaze was that of a predator. The dogs shot forward like barking missiles as the gunpowder exploded. While the bloodhounds went to retrieve the prey, Rudi recovered his graceful indolence, smiled amiably, and said: Now your turn, my friend. Hans refused the invitation as politely as possible, and said that he was quite happy simply to accompany Rudi. In order to learn? Rudi enquired. Just as an observer, Hans explained. Ah, I see, Rudi replied, reloading his gun, but remember that by watching you are also taking part in the shoot.
Rudi hunted partridge, quail and rabbit. His quarry plummeted from the sky, crumpled as it attempted to flee, was blown from its hole. The dogs scurried back and forth excitedly. A string of dead animals hung upside down from Rudi's belt. He was an undeniably excellent marksmanâhe rarely missed and when he did it was out of carelessness rather than incompetence. As the morning went on, he kept insisting Hans try a shot, but Hans would refuse with a nervous gesture that seemed to bolster Rudi's confidence. Rudi's real ammunition, reflected Hans, was not the deafening cartridges flying through the air before falling to the ground, but his knowledge that he wasn't the fearful one. Rudi gradually fired less and laughed moreâit seemed what he liked about hunting was not shooting but being
able
to shoot.
Yes, more than likely Rudi had brought him shooting to impress him, to assert his authority on his own territory. But precisely because this territory was not his, Hans preferred to relinquish any claim to it from the outset rather than entering into a futile contest. He thought that by leaving Rudi to shoot on his own, to show off unrivalled, his fervour would burn itself out and his eagerness to triumph would gradually subside until he realised no one but the partridge, quail and rabbit had been defeated, because, when all the shots had been fired, Hans would still be looking him in the eye without having pulled the trigger. Hans was fully aware that his pacifism was an attempt to match up to Rudi. And, like Rudi, he was trying to do so on his own territory.
Hans was prepared to keep up his passive resistance at all costs in order not to give up an iota of rage to Rudi. This was his strategy, and he intended to follow it calmly and with complete cynicism to the end. What Hans hadn't foreseen was what actually happenedâas the sun rose high above the thicket, Rudi's strength began to wane forlornly. Without uttering a word his shots became spaced out, his pace slowed, his
reflexes slackened. Finally, he stopped shooting altogether, his shoulders drooped and he sat down on a rock, leaning on his gun butt as if it were a cane. The barking stopped. The air grew calm. Strings of birds sailed across the sky once more. Ill at ease, Hans sat down opposite him at a prudent distance. Rudi raised his head, and for the first time Hans was able to look into his eyesâhis gaze was one of firm memories and uncertain future. Rudi sighed. He let his head drop, and sat examining the furrows in the ground. Then he smiled with a disarming tenderness that (against his will) Hans found touching. Do you think, said Rudi, that Sophie loves me as much as I love her?
And suddenly Rudi began to talk openly and at length about his feelings. His broad back seemed to hunch slightly. Hans had the impression Rudi was talking to him in a beseeching tone. That he was speaking about Sophie as if Hans were his confidant, or Rudi wished he were. In a few gushing moments, which to Hans felt like hours, Rudi told him how he had met Sophie, confessed how long he had waited for her, how often he had refused to take no for an answer. He felt inside the folds of his garments, unfastened two horsehair buttons and showed Hans his treasureâan oval medallion containing a miniature of Sophie. Hans read the inscription engraved on the back, too affectionate to have been mere pretence. He felt a tightening in his chest as he contemplated Sophie's smile. Her portrait was painted on ivory (Ivory, Hans thought, more from jealousy than political conviction, imported by the British colonists in India, the imperialist pig!) and the glass was domed, like the mirror opposite the fireplace at the Gottlieb residence. Hans noticed that because of a defect in the glass, a tiny air bubble, one of Sophie's eyes looked slightly bigger than the other, wider open, as if in warning. Rudi carried on talking excitedly about the wedding in October, about the dowry agreed on by the two families, the forthcoming preparations. Unsure of how to
respond to such directness, Hans softened and was on the point of lowering his guard. Had he misjudged his rival? But then Rudi made an ambiguous remark in passing, which put him back on the defensive: Besides, Rudi said, you're a close friend of hers, you must understand my feelings and be aware of hers.
You must understand my feelings and be aware of hers
, Rudi had said. (What exactly did he mean by this? Hans wondered, was he referring to Hans's conversations with Sophie? Did he want to know what she had told him, was he asking him to be disloyal? Or was he insinuating that Hans had become
too
close to his fiancée?) I'm being completely honest with you, Rudi continued, because I know I can trust you in this matter. (Was Rudi a master of irony? Was he capable of subjecting him to such subtle torture? Was he speaking out of deliberate malice or with the innocence of the cuckold?) Sometimes, you see, I worry that Sophie might be too sophisticated for a man such as me. Let's be honest, I haven't had much time for study due to my obligations (what was thisâa fit of humility or a defiant display of mockery?) In short, I needn't describe her to you (why needn't he, why?) but for me one of her attractions is that way she has of remaining slightly aloof (she might well be aloof with you, you fool!) and, how should I say, just a little wild (well, we agree on that) not to mention her beauty, I don't know what you think. (And now what should he doâagree or turn a deaf ear? What would rouse a jealous man's suspicions moreâanother man praising his fiancée or maintaining a stubborn silence?) And do you know what else I like about her? The way she smiles. That's what I most like about her. Knowing a woman's smile is important, isn't it? Because a man aspires to make his wife happy, and when people are happy they smile a lot. And if Sophie and I are going to be very happy together, it's important for me to like her smile.
Hans felt the urge to spit in Rudi's face or to embrace him.
As he reached the end of his declarations, Rudi gave Hans
a glimpse of the true source of his anxiety. Contrary to Hans's initial fear, what most troubled him about his betrothal to Sophie was not the appearance of a rival (a possibility he appeared to exclude out of ignorance or conceit) but the doubts that a woman as self-possessed and difficult to please as her could instil in a man such as he.
At that moment, Hans at last
saw
Rudi. And he understood his torment. And he pitied him. This betrothal might to some degree have been born of convenienceâbut not on his part. For Rudi it was a consequence of having fallen in love. And for this reason, sensing Hans had affinities with Sophie that were inaccessible to him, the powerful Rudi Wilderhaus was seeking his help, almost unwittingly. For a moment Hans was able to put himself in Rudi's place, to glimpse the weakness behind his show of strength, to put his finger on the trigger of his fears. And yet, seeing Rudi suffer, he knew he could never be loyal to him, and would never be his friend. And he felt wretched and jubilant, filled with cruel delight, more traitorous than ever, and truer to his desire.
He inhaled the intoxicating morning breeze, held it in his lungs like someone smoking pungent tobacco, breathed out slowly. He walked over to Rudi and without looking him in the eye said: Pass me that gun.
I dare not call this a reply, Sophie, for these hasty lines scarcely honour your radiant letter. Yet I am aware of how soon we forget feelings (not a complete but a gentle, imperceptible forgetting, like an unremembered tune you still hear as a murmur in the background). That is why I wanted to reply urgently, now, this instant. In fact, your letter is impossible to match. Were I to take the time necessary to write the reply you deserve, I would first have to overcome the turmoil your letter has caused me. And if I write to you while under its influence, as I am doing, I will not do justice to its loftiness. If I think about it, your letter can only be replied
to with music.
But I have to say something, if only in prose. And it is this, and I don't know what else. I remember you each day with an overpowering feeling of complicity. An inexplicable complicity that seems to come from somewhere beyond, from many things we haven't experienced. It is curious. The last few times we have met, I have felt a strong desire finally to xxxxxxx sleep with you. And yet I notice a feeling between us of afterwardsânot only the tension of two people who have never touched, but also (and this is what is so strange) the calm intimacy of those who have slept together. And I do not mean, the devil take me, platonically.
And between the before and the after, between the having and the not having slept together, there is this peculiar happiness. Sophie, I can't think of you without grinning foolishly. That is the good thing.
The good thing is you exist.
Yours, Hans.
Â
Â
I have chosen this moment to write to you because it has suddenly begun to rain, and on hearing the insistence of those playful raindrops and seeing how everything became more faint, I felt an irresistible urge to speak to you. But today there is no salon, nor any credible excuse for me to leave the house. What there is, is an arch of floating clouds that pass from me to you, or from you to me, I wouldn't know which way they are going. How are you today, you bad boy? What are you translating? I translate what I imagine you would say to me if we could see one another. I also read some of my beloved Duecento poets.
Il corso delle cose è sempre sinuoso
â¦
I wish I could converse with you a moment, dear Hans. I love addressing you using formal language, I feel deliciously nervous when I speak to you like that in front of others. I wish I could see you right now and that you were here beside me. Not so that we could sleep together (how reckless of you to say such things to me in a letter? What if someone read them? Don't you know we young ladies like to be a little more reticent, if
not in our desires, then at least in our words? I love your impulsiveness) but in order to stroll along the path to the bridge and to walk beside the river and lose ourselves in the fields.
I send you a kiss of rain, which has just stopped. Has it reached you? Is it refreshing? And, with my kiss, a question. What is the origin of beauty? Do you know? It sounds a little pretentious, I know, but it is a serious question. What is its origin?
S
Â
Â
We shall meet. With or without proper excuses, we shall meet. And in the meantime, yesâlet us savour this waiting, which the ancients praised so much. Nowadays everything seems so much more rushed than it did in olden times, does it not? To me, patience is a kind of mysterious flower. A flower all of us, unknowingly, have clasped in our hands. You are teaching me how to pull out its petals, and so forgive me if I crumple it without meaning to.
I am not complaining, thoughâyou sent me a kiss, or so you said.
Xxxx xxxx Sophie, Sophie Gottlieb, I don't know why my language goes all awry when I write to you. Never has stammering felt so satisfying. I don't know what I would do first if I were alone with you. Ah, but you say I shouldn't write such things in a letter. In that case, it gives me great pleasure to tell you in writing that I would do everything that is unmentionable to you ⦠So you see I am repeating what I said, and enjoying it.
You asked me (and you say it is a serious questionâof course it is!) what is the origin of beauty. After thinking about it for a long time, I would say it comes from transience and joy. I am almost certain of it. Or perhaps an image would helpâbeauty originates from the tremors of the bridge between tingling and truth. When that bridge trembles, it means something important is crossing it.
I hear your footsteps. The bridge is trembling.
H
Â
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Hans, darling Hans, it upsets me a little to think that the other night, during our precious few hours together in the salon, I was unable to do anything but pretend. Luckily, the next day your beautiful flower arrived with the girl from the inn, thank you so much, again. I slipped it like a treasure between the pages of my album, and there it was this morning until my nosy father saw it peeping out and asked if Rudi had sent it (of course!) and said it had wilted and I should throw it away, because Rudi would be sending me many more. My father doesn't like things to wilt.
Elsa has just come into the room. I must leave you now, I shall take this opportunity to give her my letter. But no, I am not leaving you.
Un bacio all' italiana e spero ansiosamente di rivederti presto, amore
.
S
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You were right, Sophie,
cuore
âanticipation is a joy when you imagine the person you are waiting for will come. Anticipation is a kind of child. Only, unlike in parenthood, we nurture it before it bears fruit. Now I know. You are Ithaca. You are the journey.
Did I tell you that when I imagine you I can't see you clearly, like in those portraits of people smiling in profile. I always see you in constant movement, a little blurred. In my imagination you are always on the move, doing lots of things, all of them marvellous, without you even realising it. And I see myself xxxxxxx traipsing in your wake, slowly catching up with you.
Beware of so much Italian fervour, it can be very dangerous in spring. If you persist I shall have to ask foryour help with some of my translations. As an antidote to this agitation I suggest a dose of French relativism,
tout au juste milieu
, as Professor Mietter is fond of saying, mixed with a few drops of German rationality. One has to be prudent. If I come into contact with your ear I intend to nibble it without asking your permission. That's a promise.
Your very own, Hans.