green and fertile furrow, he had turned passionate, he had left disinterestedness behind, he had ruptured the Olympian surface of the scholar's detachment, he had submerged the distinction between the investigator and the investigated, the hunter and the hunted, he was no longer a historian after quarry, he had become the quarry, he had flung himself into the hearts of his prey. He had broken through the wall, the wall he had professed—the wall between belief and the examination of belief. A false profession. He had the smell of a renegade.
The white-nosed man with the bad hand dropped his cigar. A cry—high-pitched and sharp, a treble upstairs shock—was shooting through the smoke.
"Waltraut," Anneliese whispered, "all this noise, it woke her—"
But I kept my place under the dining room lintel. "Leave her be, she'll fall back—"
"Go and see!" Anneliese commanded.
I kept my place. It was Mitwisser I wanted to see. He stood—he had never taken a chair—under the spell of a resignation concentrated and embattled but strangely tranquil: a ship captain who is unsurprised by a squall. He looked satisfied; I thought he was satisfied. If you court the sea there will likely be a storm, and he had courted the sea, he had brought the sea into his own house, he had made the storm, he was the god of the storm, he was satisfied!
Again that cry: now it was descending the stair, now it had thinned to tiny breathless phantom moans enveloping a barefoot figure. Like a bird in a rush of wind, Mrs. Mitwisser flew into the room.
"Gentlemen, it's no good, it's no use"—she pulled and pulled at the torn breast of her nightgown—"no good at all—"
The visitors fell into a motionless silence.
"My dear Elsa," Mitwisser said.
"No good at all," she chanted, "no use, no good—"
"Mama," Anneliese pleaded.
"What is broken, gentlemen, you cannot put it again back, nicht wahr? "
The visitors rose in a body and mutely trickled out the door; only the man in the skullcap hesitated before Mrs. Mitwisser. " Guten Abend, " he said.
" Guten Abend, " she replied: a chatelaine presiding over farewells after an evening of delicacies and wine.
Anneliese took her mother's hand and began to lead her away. Mitwisser's enameled blue eye trailed after them; his face blazed. "Quite right," he said. I hardly knew what he meant by this; I was thinking what an oddity it was that he had ever lain beside the woman in the torn nightgown. He turned back to me with a little shrug of surprise, as if he had just discovered me there: "You see how it is," he said. "I have no peers in this matter. What lies beyond the usual is dismissed, it is regarded as wasteful and perverse. They judge it—my work—to be pointless. What was once valued there is not valued here. Here they lack the European mind, they are small."
"But isn't one of them from Vienna—"
"That one is no one at all. I will return now to my study. Please to shut off all these lights." He gestured toward the kitchen, where the kettle still steamed, and reached out himself to the dining room switch.
He left me in the dark, among empty cups and littered plates.
13
T HE VISITORS never came again. The house resumed its isolation. The drawn-out heat wave ebbed. Mrs. Mitwisser no longer asked my forgiveness. Her playing cards remained under her pillow; a new pursuit lured her. She sat on the edge of her bed, with a little low chest drawn up beside it, sorting out the curlicued colored shapes of a vast jigsaw puzzle. The picture on the box was of a forest scene: masses of leaves, the trunks of trees casting dark columns of shadows, a foxtail glimpsed in a clump of bush—a confusion of chiaroscuro. I watched her assess the jumble of pieces, and saw how shrewdly she judged and matched and fitted together; she considered before she experimented. She was a scientist in a laboratory. If the experiment turned out to be successful, it was because she had considered. A square of noon sunlight fired the
The white-nosed man with the bad hand dropped his cigar. A cry—high-pitched and sharp, a treble upstairs shock—was shooting through the smoke.
"Waltraut," Anneliese whispered, "all this noise, it woke her—"
But I kept my place under the dining room lintel. "Leave her be, she'll fall back—"
"Go and see!" Anneliese commanded.
I kept my place. It was Mitwisser I wanted to see. He stood—he had never taken a chair—under the spell of a resignation concentrated and embattled but strangely tranquil: a ship captain who is unsurprised by a squall. He looked satisfied; I thought he was satisfied. If you court the sea there will likely be a storm, and he had courted the sea, he had brought the sea into his own house, he had made the storm, he was the god of the storm, he was satisfied!
Again that cry: now it was descending the stair, now it had thinned to tiny breathless phantom moans enveloping a barefoot figure. Like a bird in a rush of wind, Mrs. Mitwisser flew into the room.
"Gentlemen, it's no good, it's no use"—she pulled and pulled at the torn breast of her nightgown—"no good at all—"
The visitors fell into a motionless silence.
"My dear Elsa," Mitwisser said.
"No good at all," she chanted, "no use, no good—"
"Mama," Anneliese pleaded.
"What is broken, gentlemen, you cannot put it again back, nicht wahr? "
The visitors rose in a body and mutely trickled out the door; only the man in the skullcap hesitated before Mrs. Mitwisser. " Guten Abend, " he said.
" Guten Abend, " she replied: a chatelaine presiding over farewells after an evening of delicacies and wine.
Anneliese took her mother's hand and began to lead her away. Mitwisser's enameled blue eye trailed after them; his face blazed. "Quite right," he said. I hardly knew what he meant by this; I was thinking what an oddity it was that he had ever lain beside the woman in the torn nightgown. He turned back to me with a little shrug of surprise, as if he had just discovered me there: "You see how it is," he said. "I have no peers in this matter. What lies beyond the usual is dismissed, it is regarded as wasteful and perverse. They judge it—my work—to be pointless. What was once valued there is not valued here. Here they lack the European mind, they are small."
"But isn't one of them from Vienna—"
"That one is no one at all. I will return now to my study. Please to shut off all these lights." He gestured toward the kitchen, where the kettle still steamed, and reached out himself to the dining room switch.
He left me in the dark, among empty cups and littered plates.
13
T HE VISITORS never came again. The house resumed its isolation. The drawn-out heat wave ebbed. Mrs. Mitwisser no longer asked my forgiveness. Her playing cards remained under her pillow; a new pursuit lured her. She sat on the edge of her bed, with a little low chest drawn up beside it, sorting out the curlicued colored shapes of a vast jigsaw puzzle. The picture on the box was of a forest scene: masses of leaves, the trunks of trees casting dark columns of shadows, a foxtail glimpsed in a clump of bush—a confusion of chiaroscuro. I watched her assess the jumble of pieces, and saw how shrewdly she judged and matched and fitted together; she considered before she experimented. She was a scientist in a laboratory. If the experiment turned out to be successful, it was because she had considered. A square of noon sunlight fired the
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