No More Learning

As he watched, Ulrich was also troubled by the question ofwhy he had talked Hagauer into leaving in good faith. It seemed to him that he had behaved all along as the tool ofhis sister's will, and to the very last his responses, even when he was disagreeing with her, had only encouraged her. Truth dealt cruellywith people, she had said. "Well put, but she has no idea what truth means! " Ulrich mused. "With the passing of the years it leaves one stiff and gouty, but in one's youth it's a life of hunting and sailing! " He had sat down again. Now he suddenly realized not only that Agathe had somehow got from him what she had said about truth, but that he had sketched out for her in advance what she was doing next door. Had he not said that in the rughest state of human awareness there was no such thing as good and evil, but only faith or doubt; that strict rules were contrary to the innermost nature of morality and that faith can never be more than an hour old; that in a state of faith one could never do anything base; that intuition was a more passionate state than truth? And Agathe
Into the Millennium (The Criminals) · 867
was now on the point of abandoning the safe enclosure of morality and venturing out upon those boundless deeps where there is no de- cision other than whether one will rise or fall. She was doing this just as she had the other day when she took her father's medals from his reluctant hand to exchange them for the imitations, and at this mo- ment he loved her in spite of her lack of principle, with the remark- able feeling that it was his own thoughts that had gone from him to her and were now returning from her to him, poorer in deliberation but with that balsamic scent offreedom about them like a creation of the wild. And while he was trembling with the strain of controlling himself, he cautiously made a suggestion:
"I'll put off leaving for a day and sound out a notary or lawyer. Perhaps what you're doing is terribly obvious! "
But Agathe had already ascertained that the notary her father had used was no longer alive. "There's not a soul left who knows anything about this business," she said. "Let it be! "
Ulrich saw that she had taken a piece of paper and was practicing imitating her father's handwriting.
Fascinated, he had drawn closer and stood behind her. There in piles lay the papers on which his father's hand had lived-one could still almost feel its movements-and here Agathe, with an actress's mimicry, conjured up almost the same thing. It was strange to see this happening. The purpose it was serving, the thought that it was a forgery, disappeared. And in truth Agathe had not given this any thought at all. An aura ofjustice with flames, not with logic, hovered about her. Goodness, decency, abiding by the law, as she had come to know it in people she knew, notably Professor Hagauer, had al- ways seemed to her like removing a spot from a dress; while the wrongdoing that enveloped her at this moment was like the world drowning in the light ofa rising sun. It seemed to her that right and wrong no longer constituted a general notion, a compromise devised to serve millions of people, but were a magical encounter between Me and You, the madness of original creation before there was any- thing to compare it to or anything to measure it by. She was really making Ulrich the present of a crime by putting herself in his hands, trusting him wholeheartedly to understand her rashness, as children do who come up with the most unexpected ideas when they want to give someone a present and have nothing to give. And Ulrich
868 · THE MAN WITH0UT QUALITIES
guessed most of this. As his eyes followed her movements he felt a pleasure he had never known before, for it had in it something ofthe magical absurdity of yielding totally and without remonstrance, for once, to what another being was doing. Even when the thought in- tervened that this was causing harm to a third person, it flashed only for an instant, like an ax, and he quickly put his mind at rest, since what his sister was doing here was really not anyone else's business; it was not at all certain that these attempts at copying someone's hand- writing would actually be used, and what Agathe was doing inside her own four walls was her own affair as long as it had no effect beyond them.
She now called out to her brother, turned around, and was sur- prised to find him standing behind her. She awoke. She had written all she wanted to write and resolutely singed it over a candle flame in order to make the handwriting look old. She held out her free hand to Ulrich, who did not take it, but he was not able to withdraw en- tirely behind a somber frown either. She responded by saying: "Lis- ten! If something is a contradiction, and you love both sides of it-really love it! -doesn't that cancel it out, willy-nilly? "
"That's much too frivolous a way of putting it," Ulrich muttered. But Agathe knew how he would judge it in his "second thinking. " She took a clean sheet of paper and lightheartedly wrote, in the old- fashioned hand she was so good at imitating: "My bad daughter Agathe proffers no reason to change the above-ordained instructions to the disadvantage of my good son Ulo! " Not yet satisfied, she wrote on the second sheet: "My daughter Agathe is for some time longer to be educated by my good son Uli. "
So that was how it had happened, but now that Ulrich had reawak- ened it down to the last detail, he ended up with just as little knowl- edge ofwhat to do about it as before.
He ought not to have left without first straightening things out, no doubt about that! And clearly the fashionable superstition that one shouldn't take anything too seriously had played him a trick when it whispered to him to quit the field for a time and not give too much weight to the issue between them by emotional resistance. Heat can't pass from the cooler to the hotter; the most violent extremes, left to themselves, eventually give rise to a new mediocrity; one could hardly take a train or walk in the street without a cocked gun if one
Into the Millennium (The Criminals) · 86g
could not trust the law of averages, which automatically reduces ex- treme possibilities to improbability. It was this European faith in em- piricism that Ulrich was obeying when, despite all his scruples, he returned home. Deep down he was even glad that Agathe had shown herself to be different.
Nevertheless, the matter could not be properly resolved other than by Ulrich's now taking action, and as soon as possible, to make up for his negligence. He should have sent his sister an immediate special delivery letter or telegram, which should have stated in ef- fect: "I won't have anything to do with you unless you . . . ! " But he had absolutely no intention of writing anything of the kind; at the moment he simply could not do it.
Besides, they had decided before that fateful incident that in the next few weeks they would try to live together or at least move in together, and this was what they had mainly talked about in the brief time remaining befm:e his departure. They had agreed that for the moment it would be for "the time it will take to get the divorce," so that Agathe would have a refuge and counsel. But now, in thinking about it, Ulrich also remembered an earlier remark of his sister's about wanting "to kill Hagauer"; this ''scheme" had evidently been working in her and taken on a new form. She had insisted vehe- mently on selling the family property at once, possibly also in the interest of making the inheritance evaporate, although it might seem advisable on other grounds as well. In any case, they had agreed to put the sale in the hands of a broker and had set their terms. And so Ulrich now had to give some thought as well to what was to become of his sister after he returned to his casually interim life, which he did not himself regard as real. It was impossible for her present situation to continue. Amazingly close though they had grown in so short a time-as though their fates were linked, even though this had arisen from all sorts of unconnected details; Agathe probably had a more quixotic view of it-they knew hardly anything of each other in the many and various superficialities on which a shared life depends. When he thought of his sister objectively Ulrich could even perceive numerous unsolved problems, nor could he form a very clear idea of her past; his best guess was that she dealt most casually with every- thing that happened to her or through her, and that she lived rather vaguely and perhaps with fantasies that ran alongside her actual life;
870 · THE MAN WITH0UT QUALITIES
such an explanation would plausibly account for her having stayed so long with Hagauer and then broken with him so suddenly. And even the carelessness with which she treated the future fitted in with this view: she had left home, and that seemed to satisfy her for the pres- ent; and when questions arose about what should happen now, she avoided them. Nor was Ulrich himself capable of either picturing a life for her without a husband, in which she would hover around in vague expectations like a young girl, or imagining what the man would look like who would be right for his sister; he had even told her so shortly before he left.
She had given him a startled look-perhaps she was clowning a bit, pretending to be startled-and then calmly countered with the question: "Can't I just stay with you for the time being, without our having to decide everything? ''
It was in this fashion, without anything more definite, that the idea of their moving in together had been ratified. But Ulrich realized that this experiment meant the end of the experiment of his "life on leave. " He did not want to think about the possible consequences, but that his life would henceforth be subject to certain restrictions was not unwelcome, and for the first time he again thought of the circle and especially the women of the Parallel Campaign. The idea ofcutting himself off from everything, as part ofhis new life, seemed delightful. Just as it often takes only a trifling alteration in a room to change its dull acoustics to a glorious resonance, so now in his imagi- nation his little house was transformed into a shell within which one heard the roar of the city as a distant river.
And then, toward the end of that conversation, this other special little conversation had taken place:
"We'll live like hermits," Agathe had said with a bright smile, "but of course we'll each be free to pursue any love affairs. For you, at any rate, there's no obstacle! " she assured him.
"Do you realize," Ulrich said by way of an answer, "that we shall be entering into the Millennium? ''
"What's that? ''
"We've talked so much about the love that isn't a stream flowing toward its goal but a state of being like the ocean. Now tell me hon- estly: When they told you in school that the angels in heaven did nothing but bask in the presence of the Lord and sing His praises,
Into the Millennium (The Criminals) · 871
were you able to imagine this blissful state of doing nothing and thinking nothing? "
. . I always thought it must be rather boring, which is certainly due to my imperfection," was Agathe's answer.
. . But after everything we've agreed on," Ulrich explained, "you must now imagine this ocean as a state of motionlessness and detach- ment, filled with everlasting, crystal-clear events. In ages past, peo- ple tried to imagine such a life on earth. That is the Millennium, formed in our own image and yet like no world we know. That's how we'll live now! We shall cast offall self-seeking, we shall collect nei- ther goods, nor knowledge, nor lovers, nor friends, nor principles, nor even ourselves! Our spirit will open up, dissolving boundaries toward man and beast, spreading open in such a way that we can no longer remain 'us' but will maintain our identities only by merging with all the world! "
This little interlude had been a joke. He had been sitting with paper and pencil, making notes and talking meanwhile with his sister about what she could expect from the sale of the house and the furni- ture. He was also still cross, and he himself did not know whether he was blaspheming or dreaming. And with all this they had not got around to talking seriously about the will.
It was probably because ofthese ambiguities in the way it had hap- pened that Ulrich even now was far from feeling any active regret. There was much about his sister's bold stroke that pleased him, though he was himself the defeated one; he had to admit that it sud- denly brought the person living by the "rule of the free spirits," to whom he had given far too much ease within himself, into grave con- flict with that deep, undefined person from whom real seriousness emanates. Nor did he want to dodge the consequences of this act by quickly making it good in the usual way; but then, there was no norm, and events had to be allowed to take their course.
REUNION WITH DIOTIMA'S DIPLOMATIC HUSBAND
Next morning Ulrich's mind was no clearer, and late that afternoon he decided to lighten the serious mood that was oppressing him by looking up his cousin who was occupied with liberating the soul from civilization.
To his surprise he was received by Section ChiefTuzzi, who came to greet him even before Rachel had returned from Diotima's room. "My wife's not feeling well today," the seasoned husband said, with that unconscious tone of tenderness in his voice which regular monthly use has made into a formula that exposes the domestic se- cret to the world. "I don't know whether she'll be up to a visit. " Though dressed to go out, he was quite willing to stay and keep Ul-
rich company.
Ulrich took the opportunity of inquiring about Arnheim. "Arnheim's been in England and is now in St. Petersburg," Tuzzi
told him. The effect of this trivial and predictable news on Ulrich, depressed as he was by his own experiences, was to make him feel as though world, fullness, and motion were rushing in upon him.
"A good thing too," the diplomat added. "Let him travel here and there as much as he likes. It gives one a chance to make one's obser- vations and pick up some information. "
"So you still believe," said Ulrich, amused, "that he's on some pac- ifist mission for the Czar? "
"I believe it more than ever," was the plain answer from the man who bore official responsibility for carrying out Austro-Hungarian policy. But suddenly Ulrich doubted whether Tuzzi was really so un- suspecting or was only pretending to be and pulling his leg; some- what annoyed, he dropped Arnheim and asked: "I hear that 'Action! ' has become the watchword since I left. "
As always when the Parallel Campaign came up, Tuzzi seemed
Into the Millennium (The Criminals) · 873
to relish playing both the innocent and the shrewd insider. He shrugged and grinned.
"I'll let my wife fill you in on that-you'll hear all about it from her as soon as she's able to see you! " But a moment later his little mus- tache began to twitch and the large dark eyes in the tanned face glis- tened with a vague distress. "You're a man who has read all the books," he said hesitantly. "Could you perhaps tell me what is meant by a man having soul? "
This was apparently something Tuzzi really wanted to talk about, and it was obviously his insecurity that was responsible for the im- pression that he was distressed. When Ulrich failed to respond im- mediately, he went on: "When we speak of someone as 'a good soul,' we mean an honest, conscientious, dependable fellow-I have an ad- ministrator in my office like that-but what that amounts to, surely, is the virtues of an underling. Or there's soul as a quality of women, meaning more or less that they cry more easily, or blush more easily, than men do. . . . "
"Your wife has soul," Ulrich corrected him, as gravely as ifhe were stating that she had raven-black hair.
A faint pallor rushed across Tuzzi's face. "My wife has a mind," he said slowly. "She is rightly regarded as a woman of some intellect. I like to tease her about it and tell her she's an aesthete. That galls her. But that isn't soul. . . . " He thought for a moment. "Have you ever been to a fortune-teller? " he asked. "They read the future in your palm, or from a hair of your head, sometimes amazingly on target. They have a gift for it, or tricks. But can you make any sense of some- body telling you, for instance, that there are signs that a time is com- ing when our souls will behold each other directly, so to speak, without the mediation of the senses? Let me say at once," he added quickly, "that this is not to be understood only as a figure of speech, but if you're not a good person, then no matter what you do, people today can feel it much more clearly than in earlier centuries, because this is an age of the awakening soul. Do you believe that? "
With Tuzzi, one never knew if his barbs were directed against himself or his listener, so Ulrich answered: "If I were you I'd just let it come to the test. "
"Don't make jokes, my dear friend," Tuzzi said plaintively. "It's
874 · THE MAN WITH0UT QUALITIES
not decent when you're safely on the sidelines. My wife expects me to take such propositions seriously even if I can't subscribe to them, and I have to surrender without having a chance to defend myself. So in my hour of need I remembered that you're one of those bookish people. . . . "
"Both of these assertions come from Maeterlinck, if I'm not mis- taken," Ulrich said helpfully.
"Really? From . . . ? Yes, I can see that. That's the . . . ? I see, that's good; then perhaps he's also the one who claims that there's no such thing as truth-except for people in love! he says. IfI am in love with a person, according to him, I participate directly in a secret truth more profound than the common kind. On the other hand, ifwe say something based on observation and a thorough knowledge of human nature, that's supposed to be worthless, of course. Is that an- other ofthis Mae-this man's ideas? "
"I really don't know. It might be. It's what you would expect from him. "
"I imagined it came from Arnheim. "
"Arnheim has taken a lot from him, as he has from others-they're both gifted eclectics. "
"Really? Then it's all old stuff? But in that case can you tell me, for heaven's sake, how it is possible to let that sort of thing be published nowadays? " Tuzzi asked. "When my wife says things like: 'Reason doesn't prove a thing; ideas don't reach as far as the soul! ' or 'There's a realm of wisdom and love far beyond your world of facts, and one only desecrates it with considered statements! ' I can understand what makes her talk like that: she's a woman, that's all, and this is her way of defending herself against a man's logic! But how can a man say such things? " Tuzzi edged his chair closer and laid a hand on Ulrich's knee. " 'The truth swims like a fish in an invisible principle; the moment you lift it out, it's dead. ' What do you make of that? Could it maybe have something to do with the difference between an 'eroticist' and a 'sexualist'? "
Ulrich smiled. "Do you really want me to tell you? "
"I can't wait to hear! "
"I don't know how to begin. ''
"There it is, you see! Men can't bring themselves to utter such
things. But ifyou had a soul, you would now simply be contemplating
Into the Millennium (The Criminals) · 875
my soul and marveling at it. W e would reach heights where there are no thoughts, no words, no deeds. Nothing but mysterious forces and a shattering silence! May a soul smoke? " he asked, and lit a cigarette, only then recalling his duty as host and offering one to Ulrich. At bottom he was rather proud of now having read Arnheim's books, and precisely because he still found them insufferable he was pleased with himself for having privately discovered the possible use- fulness of their puffed-up style for the inscrutable workings of diplo- macy. Nor would anyone else have wanted to do such hard labor for nothing, and anyone in his place would have continued making fun of it to his heart's content, only to yield after a while to the temptation of trying out one quotation or another, or dressing up something that could not be stated clearly in any case in one of those annoyingly fuzzy new ideas. This is done reluctantly, because one still considers the new "costume" ridiculous, but one quickly gets used to it, and so the spirit of the times is imperceptibly transformed by its new termi- nology, and in specific cases Arnheim might in fact have gained a new admirer. Even Tuzzi was ready to concede that the call to unite soul and commerce, despite any hostility to it on principle, could be thought of as a new psychology of economics, and all that kept him unshakably immune from Arnheim's influence was actually Diotima herself. For between her and Arnheim at that time-unknown to anyone-a certain coolness had begun to gain ground, burdening ev- erything Arnheim had ever said about the soul with the suspicion of being a mere evasion; with the result that his sayings were flung in Tuzzi's face with more irritation than ever. Under these circum- stances Tuzzi could be forgiven for assuming that his wife's attach- ment to the stranger was still in the ascendant, though it was not the kind of love against which a husband could take steps, but a "state of love" or "loving state of mind" so far above all base suspicion that Diotima herself spoke openly of the ideas with which it inspired her, and had lately been insisting rather unrelentingly that Tuzzi take spiritual part in them.
He felt inordinately bewildered and vulnerable, surrounded as he was by this state that blinded him like sunlight coming from all sides at once without the sun itself having any fixed position to orient one- self by, so as to find shade and relief.
He heard Ulrich saying: "But let me offer this for your considera-
876 · THE MAN WITH0UT QUALITIES
tion: Within us there is usually a steady inflow and outflow of experi- ences.
The states of excitation that fonn in us are aroused from out- side and flow out of us again as actions or words. Think of it as a mechanical game. But then think ofit being disturbed: The flow gets dammed up. The banks are flooded in some fashion. Occasionally it may be no more than a certain gassiness. . . . "
"At least you talk sensibly, even if it's all nonsense . . . ," Tuzzi noted with approval. He could not quite grasp how all this was sup- posed to explain matters to him, but he had kept his poise, and even though he was inwardly lost in misery, the tiny malicious smile still lingered proudly on his lips, ready for him to slip right back into it.
"What the physiologists say, I think," Ulrich continued, "is that what we call conscious action is the result of the stimulus not just flowing in and out through a reflex arc but being forced into a detour. That makes the world we experience and the world in which we act, which seem to us one and the same, actually more like the water above and below a mill wheel, connected by a sort of dammed-up reservoir of consciousness, with the inflow and the outflow depen- dent on regulation of level, pressure, and so forth. Or in other words, if something goes wrong on one of the two levels-an estrangement from the world, say, or a disinclination to action-we could reason- ably assume that a second, or higher, consciousness might be formed in this fashion. Or don't you think so? "
"Me? " Tuzzi said. ''I'd have to say it's all the same to me. Let the professors work that out among themselves, if they think it impor- tant. But practically speaking"- h e moodily stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray, then looked up in exasperation-"is it the people with two reservoirs or only one reservoir who run the world? "
"I thought you only wanted to know how I imagine such ideas might arise. . . . "
"If that's what you've been telling me, I'm afraid I don't follow you," Tuzzi said.
"But it's very simple. You have no second reservoir-so you haven't got the principle of wisdom and you don't understand a word of what the people who have a soul are talking about. Do accept my congratulations! "
Ulrich had gradually become aware that he was expressing, in ig- nominious fonn and in curious company, ideas that might be not at
Into the Millennium (The Criminals) · 877
all unsuited to explain the feelings that obscurely stirred his own heart. The sunnise that in a state of enhanced receptivity an over- flowing and receding of experiences might arise that would connect the senses boundlessly and gently as a sheet ofwater with all creation called to mind his long talks with Agathe, and his face involuntarily took on an expression that was partly obdurate, partly forlorn. Tuzzi studied him from under his indolently raised eyelids and gathered from the form of Ulrich's sarcasm that he himself was not the only person present who was "dammed up" in a manner not of his own choice.
Both of them hardly noticed how long Rachel was taking. She had been detained by Diotima, who had needed her help in quickly put- ting herself and her sickroom into an ordered state of suffering that would be informal, yet proper for receiving Ulrich. Now the maid brought a message that Ulrich should not leave but be patient just a bit longer, and then hurried back to her mistress.
"All those quotations you cited are of course allegories," Ulrich continued after this interruption, to make up to his host for having to keep him company. "A kind of butterfly language! And people like Amheim give me the impression that they can guzzle themselves potbellied with this vaporous nectar of theirs! I mean . . . ," he has- tened to add, remembering just in time that he must not include Di- otima in the insult, "I have this impression about Amheim in particular, just as he also paradoxically gives the impression that he carries his soul in his breast pocket like a wallet! "
Tuzzi put down his briefcase and gloves, which he had picked up when Rachel appeared, and said with some force: "Do you realize what this is? I mean, what you've explained to me so well. It's nothing but the spirit of pacifism! " He paused to let this revelation sink in. "In the hand of amateurs, pacillsm can be extremely dangerous! " he added portentously.
Ulrich would have laughed, but Tuzzi was being dead serious; he had, in fact, linked two things that actually were distantly related, funny as it might be to see how love and pacifism were connected for him in an impression of dilettantish debauchery. At a loss for an an- swer, Ulrich took the occasion to fall back on the Parallel Campaign and its chosen watchword, "Action! "
"That's a Leinsdorf idea," Tuzzi said disdainfully. "Do you recall
878 · THE MAN WITH0 UT QUALITIES
the last discussion here before you went away? Leinsdorf said: 'Something's got to be done! ' That's all there was to it, and that's what they mean by their new watchword, 'Action! ' And Arnheim is of course trying to foist his Russian pacifism on it. Do you remember how I warned them about it? I'm afraid they'll have cause to remem- ber me! Nowhere in the world is foreign policy as difficult as it is here, and I said even then: 'Whoever takes it upon himself these days to put fundamental political ideas into practice has to be part gam- bler and part criminal. ' " This time, Tuzzi was really opening up, probably because Ulrich might be called by his wife at any moment, or because in this conversation he did not want to be the only one to have things explained to him.
"The Parallel Campaign is arousing suspicion all over the world," he reported, "and at home, where it's being viewed as both anti-Ger- man and anti-Slav, it's also having repercussions in our foreign rela- tions. But if you want to know the difference between amateur and professional pacifism, let me tell you something: Austria could pre- vent a war for at least thirty years by joining the Entente Cordiale! And this could of course be done on the Emperor's Jubilee with a matchless pacifist flourish, while at the same time we assure Ger- many of our brotherly love whether or not she follows suit. The ma- jority of our nationalities would be overjoyed. With easy French and English credit we could make our army so strong that Germany couldn't bully us. We'd be rid ofltaly altogether. France wouldn't be able to do a thing without us. In short, we would be the key to peace and war, we'd make the big political deals. I'm not giving away any secrets; this is a simple diplomatic calculation that any commercial attache could work out. So why can't it be done? Imponderables at Court. Where they dislike the Emperor so heartily that they'd con- sider it almost indecent to let it happen. Monarchies are at a disad- vantage today because they're weighed down by decency! Then there are imponderables of so-called public opinion-which brings me to the Parallel Campaign. Why doesn't it educate public opinion? Why doesn't it teach the public to see things objectively? You s e e " - but at this point Tuzzi's statements lost some of their plausibility and began to sound more like concealed affliction-"this fellow Arnheim really amuses me with those books he writes! He didn't invent writ- ing, and the other night, when I couldn't fall asleep, I had time to
Into the Millennium (The Criminals) · 879
think about it a little. There have always been politicians who wrote novels or plays, like Clemenceau, for instance, or Disraeli; not Bis- marck, but Bismarck was a destroyer. And now look at those French lawyers who are at the helm today: enviable! Political profiteers, but with a first-rate diplomatic corps to advise them, to give them guide- lines, and all ofthem have at one time or another dashed offplays or novels without the slightest embarrassment, at least when they were young, and even today they're still writing books. Do you think these books are worth anything? I don't. But I give you my word that last night I was thinking that our own diplomats are missing out on some- thing because they're not writing books too. And I'll tell you why: First of all, it's as true for a diplomat as for an athlete that he has to sweat offhis excess water. Secondly, it's good for public security. Do you know what the European balance of power is? " .
They were interrupted by Rachel, who came to tell Ulrich that Di- otima was expecting him. Tuzzi let her hand him his hat and coat. "If you were a patriot . . . ," he said, slipping into the sleeves as Rachel held his coat for him.
"What would I do then? " Ulrich asked him, looking at the black pupils of Rachel's eyes.
"If you were a patriot, you'd alert my wife or Count Leinsdorf to some of these problems. I can't do it myself--coming from a hus- band it could easily seem narrow-minded. "
"But nobody here takes me seriously," Ulrich said calmly.
"Oh, don't say that! " Tuzzi cried out. "They may not take you seri- ously the way they take other people seriously, but for a long time now they've all been quite afraid of you. They're afraid that you're liable to put Leinsdorf up to something crazy. Do you know what the European balance of power is? " the diplomat probed intently.
"I suppose so; more or less," Ulrich said.
"Then I must congratulate you! " Tuzzi flared up bitterly. 'W e pro- fessional diplomats have no idea--none of us do. It is what mustn't be disturbed ifpeople are not to be at each other's throats. But what it is that mustn't be disturbed, no one knows exactly. Just cast your mind back a little over what's been going on around you these last few years and is still going on: the Italo-Turkish war, Poincare in Moscow, the Baghdad question, armed intervention in Libya, Aus- tro-Serbian tensions, the Adriatic problem . . . Is that a balance? Our
88o · THE MAN WITH0UT QUALITIES
never-to-be-forgotten Baron Ahrenthal- But I mustn't keep you any longer! "
"Too bad," Ulrich said. "If that's what the European balance of power comes to, then it's the best possible expression of the Euro- pean spirit! "
"Yes, that's what makes it so interesting," Tuzzi replied from the door, with an indulgent smile. "And from that point ofview the spiri- tual achievement of our Parallel Campaign is not to be underesti- mated! " -
"Why don't you put a stop to it? "
Tuzzi shrugged his shoulders. "In this country, if a man in His Grace's position wants something, one can't come out against it. All one can do is just keep one's eyes open. "
"And how have you been getting on? " Ulrich asked the little black- and-white sentry who was now taking him to Diotima.
17
DIOTIMA HAS CHANGED THE BOOKS SHE READS
"My dear friend," Diotima said when Ulrich came in, "I didn't want to let you leave without having a word with you, but to have to re- ceive you in this state . . . ! " She was wearing a negligee in which her majestic form, through its accidental position, looked slightly preg- nant; this lent the proud body, which had never given birth, some- thing of the lovely abandon of the travail of motherhood. Beside her on the sofa lay a fur collar, which she had obviously been using to keep herselfwarm, and on her forehead a compress against migraine had been allowed to stay in place because she knew it was decorative, like a Greek headband. Though it was late, no lamp had been lit, and the mingled scent of medications and fresheners for some unknown malaise hung in the air, mixed with a powerful fragrance that had been tossed over all the individual odors like a blanket.
Into the Millennium (The Criminals) · 881
Ulrich bent his face low to kiss Diotima's hand, as ifhe were trying to make out from the scent of her arm what changes had taken place during his absence. But her skin exuded only the same rich, well-fed, well-bathed aroma it always did.
"Ah, my friend, how good it is to have you back! Oh! " she suddenly moaned, but with a smile. ''I'm having the most awful cramps! "
Such information, from a straightforward person as neutral as a weather report, on Diotima's lips took on all the emphasis of a break- down and a confession.
"Dear cousin! " Ulrich exclaimed, and leaned forward with a smile to look into her face. For an instant Ulrich confused Tuzzi's delicate hint about his wife's indisposition with a conjecture that Diotima had become pregnant, which would have been a momentous him of events for the household.
Half guessing what was in his mind, she made a languid gesture of denial. What she had was only menstrual cramps, which were, how- ever, something new in her experience; she had begun having them only in the last few months, suggesting an obscure connection with her wavering between Arnheim and her husband. When she heard of Ulrich's return it gave her some comfort, and she welcomed him as the confidant of her struggles, which is why she had received him. She lay there, with only a token pretense of sitting up, abandoned to the pains that raged within her, and was in his company a piece of untrammeled nature, without fences or No Trespassing signs, a rare enough condition with her. She had assumed she could convincingly plead a nervous stomachache, no more than a sign of a sensitive con- stitution; otherwise, she would not have let him see her.
"Why don't you take something for it? '' Ulrich asked her.
"Ah," Diotima sighed, "it's only this excitement. My nerves can't take it much longer! "
There was a little pause, because this was really Ulrich's cue to inquire after Arnheim, but he was more interested in finding out about the things that directly concerned himself, and he could not immediately find a way. Finally, he asked:
"Liberating the soul from civilization is not so easy, I suppose? '' and added: ''I'm afraid I can flatter myself that I predicted long since that your efforts to blaze a trail for the spirit into the world would come to a painful end! "
882 · THE MAN WITH0UT QUALITIES
Diotima remembered how she had escaped from the reception and sat with Ulrich on the shoe bench in her foyer: she had been almost as depressed then as she was today, and yet there had been countless risings and ebbings of hope since then.
'Wasn't it glorious, dear friend," she said, "when we still believed in the great idea! Today I can say that the world listened, but how deeply disappointed I am myself! "
"But why, actually? " Ulrich asked.
"I don't know. It must be my fault. "
She was about to add something about Arnheim, but Ulrich
wanted to know what people had made of the great demonstration; the last he remembered of it was not finding Diotima at home after Count Leinsdorfhad sent him to prepare her for some firm interven- tion, while making sure she would not worry.
Diotima made a disdainful gesture. "The police arrested a few young people, and then they let them go; Leinsdorf was very an- noyed, but what else could they do? Now he's backing Wisnieczky more than ever, and insists that something must be done. But Wis- nieczky can't organize any propaganda if no one knows what it's sup- posed to be for! "
"I hear it's supposed to be Watchword: Action! '" Ulrich inter- jected. The name of Baron Wisnieczky, who as Cabinet Minister had been wrecked by the opposition of the German nationalist parties- so that putting him at the head of the committee to drum up support for the undefined great patriotic idea of the Parallel Campaign could only arouse intense suspicion-vividly reminded Ulrich of His Grace's political ministrations, whose fruit this was. It seemed that the casual course of Count Leinsdorf's thinking-perhaps confirmed by the predictable failure of all attempts to electrify the spirit of the homeland, and beyond that of all Europe, by a concerted effort of its leading intellects-had now led him to the realization that it would be best to give this spirit a push, no matter from what direction. In His Grace's deliberations this might also have been supported by ex- periences with cases of possession, whose victims were sometimes supposed to be helped by being ruthlessly screamed at or shaken. But this speculation, which had rushed through Ulrich's mind before Diotima could reply, was now interrupted by her answer. This time, the invalid again addressed him as "dear friend. "
Into the Millennium (The Criminals) · 883
"My dear friend," she said, "there is some truth in that! Our cen- tury is thirsting for action. An action-"
"But what action? What kind of action? " Ulrich broke in.
"It doesn't matter! In action there is a magnificent pessimism about words. We can't deny that in the past all we have done is talk. We have lived for great and eternal words and ideals; for a heighten- ing of human values; for being true to our inmost selves; for an ever- increasing enrichment of life. We have striven for a synthesis, we have lived for new aesthetic joys and new standards of happiness, and I won't deny that the quest for truth is child's play compared with the immense responsibility of becoming a truth oneself. But we over- reached, considering the meager sense of reality the human soul has in our time, and we have lived in a dream of yearning, but for nothing! "
Diotima had urgently risen on one elbow. "It's a healthy sign these days to renounce the search for the buried entrance to the soul and try instead to come to terms with life as it is! " she concluded.
Now Ulrich had a second, authorized version of the slogan "Ac- tion! " to set beside the conjectural Leinsdorfian one. Diotima seemed to have changed her library books. He remembered seeing her, as he came in, surrounded by piles of books, but it had grown too dark to make out the titles; besides, some were covered by the medi- tative young woman's body as by a great serpent that had now reared up higher and was eagerly watching his face. Since girlhood Diotima had been inclined to nourish herself on very sentimental and subjec- tive books, but now, as Ulrich gathered from what she said, she had been seized by that spiritual urge for renewal which is constantly at work, striving to find what it has failed to find in the ideas of the last twenty years in the ideas of the next twenty years. This may tum out to be the root of those great changes of mood in history, which see- saw between humanitarianism and ruthlessness, rage and indiffer- ence, or other such contradictions for which there seems to be no adequate explanation. It passed through Ulrich's mind that the little residue of uncertainty left over from every moral experience, about which he had talked so much with Agathe, must really be the cause of this human instability; but because he shied away from the plea- sure with which he remembered those conversations, he forced his thoughts to tum aside and focus instead on the General, who had
884 · THE MAN WITH0UT QUALITIES
been the first to tell him that the age was receiving a new spirit, and had done so in a tone of healthy irritation that left no room for be- guiling oneself with bewitching doubts. And because he was now thinking of the General, the latter's request that Ulrich might look into the ruffled relationship between his cousin and Arnheim came to mind, so that he ended by responding bluntly to Diotima's speech of farewell to the soul:
" 'Boundless love' doesn't seem to have quite agreed with you! "
"Oh, you're incorrigible! " His cousin sighed, letting herself fall back into her pillows, where she closed her eyes; unaccustomed to such straightforward language in Ulrich's absence, she needed time to recollect just how much she had confided in him. But suddenly his nearness brought it back. She dimly remembered a talk with Ulrich about "love beyond measure," which had been continued at their last or penultimate meeting: a conversation in which she had sworn that souls could step outside the prison ofthe body, or at least lean out of it halfway, as it were, and Ulrich had retorted that these were the delirious ravings of starved love, and that she should concede her "concession" to Arnheim, or himself, or anyone at all; he had even named Tuzzi in that connection, as she now recalled-suggestions of this kind were probably easier to remember than the rest of the things a man like Ulrich talks about. At the time, she had probably been justified in feeling this as impudent, but since past pain is a harmless old friend compared with present pain, it now enjoyed the advantage of being a memory of frankness between friends.