He approached her with an immeasurable amount of caution and reverence, and would only speak to her in a carefully suppressed voice, so that the Rätin Spatz who had trouble with her ears, could scarcely understand a word he said. He would tiptoe with his large feet up to the chair where Herr Klöterjahn’s wife was leaning back frail and smiling. Then he would stop about two steps off, keep one leg behind the other, bend the upper part of his body, and talk in his impeded, somewhat sipping manner. He was quite urgent, but ready at any moment to retreat and disappear in haste as soon as the least sign of weariness or satiety might be noticeable on her face. But he did not weary her. She would press him to be seated near the Rätin and herself; then she would ask him some question or other, and listen to him smiling and engrossed. For quite frequently he would drop into a delightful and unusual vein, such as she had never met with before.
“Just why are you at Einfried?” she asked. “What sort of cure are you taking, Herr Spinell?”
“Cure? … I take a bit of the electric treatment. But not to speak of. I will tell you frankly why I am here. … On account of the period.”
“Ah!” said Herr Klöterjahn’s wife, supporting her chin in her hand and turning towards him with the exaggerated eagerness one puts on for children who are about to tell something.
“Oh, yes. Einfried is entirely Empire; it used to be a castle, a summer home, I am told. This side wing is a recent annex, but the main building is old and genuine. Now there are times when I simply can’t live without Empire, when it is inevitably necessary to my well-being. It is plain that you must feel one way when among furniture which is soft and comfortable even to the extent of the lascivious, and feel another way among such tables, chairs, and drapes as these, with their marked straight lines. This brightness and strength, this cold crass simplicity and its reserve of vigour, lends me bearing and dignity, if you will; it produces an inner purging and renovation, and without a doubt it is uplifting. …”
“Yes, that is remarkable,” she said. “And I can understand you, with a little effort.”
Then he answered that it was not worth the effort, so that they both laughed together. The Rätin Spatz laughed too, and found it remarkable; but she didn’t claim to understand him.
The drawing-room was large and attractive. The high white folding doors of the billiard-room stood wide open; here the gentlemen with the uncontrollable legs and several others were amusing themselves. To the other side, a glass door afforded a prospect of the broad terrace and garden. In one corner there was a piano. There was also a card table at hand, covered with green felt. Here and there a woman was reading or doing fancy work. The heating was provided by an iron stove, although it was pleasant to sit and talk in front of the unused fireplace, with its imitation coal and flames made of painted paper. “You are an early riser, Herr Spinell,” said Herr Klöterjahn’s wife. “Two or three times I have happened to see you leaving the house around half past seven in the morning.”
“An early riser? But with reservations, to be sure. The fact is that I get up early because I am really a sleepyhead.”
“But you must explain that, Herr Spinell!” The Rätin Spatz also wanted to have it explained.
“Well … if you are an early riser, it doesn’t seem necessary to me that you should get up that early. But our conscience … it is an awful problem, this conscience! I and those of my ilk spend all their time in a struggle with their own lives, and they are kept more than busy trying to deceive life here and there and to procure for it a sly little bit of self-complacency. We are useless creatures, I and those of my ilk, and with the exception of a good hour now and then we are burdened to death with the knowledge of our uselessness. We detest the useful, we know that it is common and unlovely, and we defend this truth the way one defends only a truth which is inevitably necessary to him. And yet we are so gnawed at by a bad conscience that there isn’t a healthy spot left on us. Add to this the fact that the very nature of our inner existence, our attitude towards life, our method of work, has a horribly unwholesome, undermining, and irritable effect on us, which makes the case that much the worse. But there are slight palliatives, without which it would all be unbearable. A certain selectness and hygienic rigour in the manner of our living, for instance, is needed with many of us. To rise early, uncannily early, a cold bath and a walk through the snow … perhaps that will make us contented with ourselves for a whole hour. Believe me, if I did as I wanted, I should lie in bed until afternoon. So you see, my early rising is pure hypocrisy.”
“Why, no, Herr Spinell! I should call it self-mastery. … Shouldn’t you, Frau Rätin?” And, sure enough, the Rätin Spatz also called it self-mastery.
“Hypocrisy or self-mastery! It is a choice between one word and the other. But I happen to be so broodingly honest that I …”
“That is just it: you brood too much.”
“Yes, I brood too much.”
The good weather continued. The hills, the house and park, the entire locality, lay out in a flat pure white with
