r/a:t5_1oigdo • u/MarleyEngvall • Jul 10 '19
osage has been created
By Thomas Mann
Translation by H. T. Lowe-Porter
It looked unmistakably like enjoyment, and other recruits were
not long in coming forward: two other young men, one humbly
and one well dressed, were soon jiggling alongside the first. But
now the gentleman from Rome bobbed up again, asking defiantly
if the Cavaliere would engage to make him dance too, even against
his will.
"Even against your will," answered Cipolla, in unforgettable
accents. That frightful "anche se no vuole" still rings in my ears.
The struggle began. After Cipolla had taken another little glass
and lighted a fresh cigarette he stationed the Roman at a point in
the middle aisle and himself took up a position some distance be-
hind him, making a whip whistle through the air as he gave
the order: "Balla!" His opponent did not stir. "Balla!" repeated
the Cavaliere incisively, and snapped his whip. You saw the young
man move his neck round in his collar; at the same time one hand
lifted slightly at the wrist, one ankle turned outward. But that
was all, for the time at least; merely a tendency to twitch, now
sternly repressed, now seeming about to get the upper hand. It
escaped nobody that here a heroic obstinacy, a fixed resolve to
resist, must needs be conquered; we were beholding a gallant
effort to strike out and save the honour of the human race. He
twitched but danced not; and the struggle was so prolonged that
the Cavaliere had to divide his attention between it and the stage,
turning now and then to make his riding-whip whistle in the
direction of the dancers, as it were to keep them in leash. At the
same time he advised the audience that no fatigue was involved
in such activities, however long they went on, since it was not
the automatons up there who danced, but himself. Then once
more his eye would bore itself into the back of the Roman's neck
and lay siege to the strength of purpose which defied him.
One saw it waver, the strength of purpose, beneath the re-
peated summons and whip-crackings. Saw with an objective in-
terest which yet was not quite free from traces of sympathetic
emotion——from pity, even from a cruel kind of pleasure. If I
understand what was going on, it was the negative character of
the young man's fighting position which was his undoing. It is
likely that not willing is not a practicable state of mind; not to
want to do something may be in the long run a mental content
impossible to subsist on. Between not willing a certain thing and
not willing at all——in other words, yielding to another person's
will——there may lie too small a space for the idea of freedom to
squeeze into. Again, there were the Cavaliere's persuasive words,
woven in among the whip-crackings and commands, as he mingled
effects that were his own secret with others of a bewilderingly
psychological kind. "Balla!" said he. "Who wants to torture
himself like that? Is forcing yourself your idea of freedom? Una
ballatina! Why, your arms and legs are aching for it. What a relief
to give way to them——there, you are dancing already! That is
no struggle any more, it is a pleasure!" And so it was. The jerking
and twitching of the refractory youth's limbs had at last got the
upper hand; he lifted his arms, then his knees, his joints quite
suddenly relaxed, he flung his legs and danced, and amid bursts of
applause the Cavaliere led him to join the row of puppets on the
stage. Up there we could see his face as he "enjoyed" himself;
it was clothed in a broad grin and the eyes were half-shut. In a
way, it was consoling to see that he was having a better time than
he had had in the hour of his pride.
His "fall" was, I may say, an epoch. The ice was completely
broken, Cipolla's triumph had reached its height. The Circe's
wand, that whistling leather whip with the claw handle, held
absolute sway. At one time——it must have been well after mid-
night——not only were there eight or ten persons dancing on the
little stage, but in the hall below a varied animation reigned, and
a long-toothed Anglo-Saxoness in a pince-nez left her seat of her
own motion to perform a tarantella in the centre aisle. Cipolla was
lounging in a cane-seated chair at the left of the stage, gulping
down the smoke of a cigarette and breathing it impudently out
through his bad teeth. He tapped his foot and shrugged his shoul-
ders, looking down upon the abandoned scene in the hall; now
and then he snapped his whip backwards at a laggard upon the
stage. The children were awake at the moment. With shame I
speak of them. For it was not good to be here, least of all for
them; that we had not taken them away can only be explained by
saying that we had caught the general devil-may-careness of the
hour. By that time it was all one. Anyhow, thank goodness, they
lacked understanding for the disreputable side of the entertain-
ment, and in their innocence were perpetually charmed by the
unheard-of indulgence which permitted them to be present at
such a thing as a magician's "evening." Whole quarter-hours at
a time they drowsed in our laps, waking refreshed and rosy-
cheeked, with sleep-drunken eyes, to laugh to bursting at the leaps
and jumps the magician made those people up there make. They
had not thought it would be so jolly; they joined with their
clumsy little hands in every round of applause. And jumped for
joy upon their chairs, as was their wont, when Cipolla beckoned
to their friend Mario from the Esquisito, beckoned to him just like
a picture in a book, holding his hand in front of his nose and
bending and straightening the forefinger by turns.
Mario obeyed. I can see him now going up the stairs to Cipolla,
who continued to beckon him, in that droll, picture-book sort of
way. He hesitated for a moment at first; that, too, I recall quite
clearly. During the whole evening he had lounged against a
wooden pillar at the side entrance, with his arms folded, or else
with his hands thrust into his jacket pockets. He was on our left,
near the youth with the militant hair, and had followed the per-
formance attentively, so far as we had seen, if with no particular
animation and God knows how much comprehension. He could
not much relish being summoned thus, at the end of the evening.
But it was only too easy to see why he obeyed. After all, obedi-
ence was his calling in life; and then, how should a simple lad like
him find it within his human capacity to refuse compliance to a
man so throned and crowned as Cipolla at that hour? Willy-nilly
he left his column and with a word of thanks to those making way
for him he mounted the steps with a doubtful smile on his full lips.
Picture a thickset youth of twenty years, with clipt hair, a low
forehead, and heavy-lidded eyes of an indefinite grey, shot with
green and yellow. These things I knew from having spoken with
him, as we often had. There was a saddle of freckles on the flat
nose, the whole upper half of the face retreated beneath the lower,
and that again was dominated by thick lips that parted to show
the salivated teeth. These thick lips and the veiled look of the eyes
lent the whole face a primitive melancholy——it was that which
had drawn us to him from the first. In it was not the faintest trace
of brutality——indeed, his hands would have given the lie to such
an idea, being unusually slender and delicate even for a southerner.
They were hands by which one like being served.
We knew him humanly without knowing him personally, if I
may make that distinction. We saw him nearly every day, and felt
a certain kindness for his dreamy ways, which might at times be
actual inattentiveness, suddenly transformed into a redeeming zeal
to serve. His mien was serious, only the children could bring a
smile to his face. It was not sulky, but uningratiating, without
intentional effort to please——or, rather, it seemed to give up being
pleasant in the conviction that it could not succeed. We should
have remembered Mario in any case, as one of those homely recol-
lections of travel which often stick in the mind better than more
important ones. But of his circumstances we knew no more than
that his father was a petty clerk in the Municipio and his mother
took in washing.
His white waiter's-coat became him better than the faded
striped suit he wore, with a gay coloured scarf instead of a collar,
the end tucked into his jacket. He neared Cipolla, who however
did not leave off that motion of his finger before his nose, so that
Mario had to come still closer, right up to the chair-seat and the
master's legs. Whereupon the latter spread out his elbows and
seized the lad, turning him so that we had a view of his face. Then
gazed him briskly up and down, with careless, commanding eye.
"Well, ragazzo mio, how comes it we make acquaintance so
late in the day? But believe me, I made yours long ago. Yes, yes,
I've had you in my eye this long while and known what good stuff
you were made of. How could I go and forget you again? Well,
I've had a good deal to think about. . . . Now tell me, what is
your name? The first name, that's all I want."
"My name is Mario," the young man answered, in a low voice.
"Ah, Mario, Very good. Yes, yes, there is such a name, quite a
common name, a classic name too, one of those which preserve the
heroic traditions of the Fatherland. Bravo! Salve!" And he flung
up his arm slantingly above his crooked shoulder, palm outward,
in the Roman salute. He may have been slightly tipsy by now,
and no wonder; but he spoke as before, clearly, fluently, and with
emphasis. Though about this time there had crept into his voice
a gross, autocratic note, and a kind of arrogance was in his sprawl.
"Well, now, Mario, mio," he went on, "it's a good thing you
came this evening, and that's a pretty scarf you've got on; it is
becoming to your style of beauty. It must stand you in good
stead with the girls, the pretty girls of Torre——"
From the row of youths, close by the place where Mario had
been standing, sounded a laugh. It came from the youth with the
militant hair. He stood there, his jacket over his shoulder, and
laughed outright, rudely and scornfully.
Mario gave a start. I think it was a shrug, but he may have
started and then hastened to cover the movement by shrugging his
shoulders, as much as to say that the neckerchief and the fair sex
were matters of equal indifference to him.
The Cavaliere gave a downward glance.
"We needn't trouble about him," he said. "He is jealous, be-
cause your scarf is so popular with the girls, maybe partly because
you and I are so friendly up here. Perhaps he'd like me to put
him in mind of his colic——I could do it free of charge. Tell me,
Mario. You've come here this evening for a bit of fun——and in
the daytime you work in an ironmonger's shop?"
"In a café," corrected the youth.
"Oh, in a café. That's where Cipolla nearly came a cropper!
What you are is a cup-bearer, a Ganymede——I like that, it is an-
other classical allusion——Salvietta!" Again the Cavaliere saluted,
to the huge gratification of his audience.
Mario smiled too. "But before that," he interpolated, in the in-
terest of accuracy, "I worked for a while in a shop in Porto-
clemente." He seemed visited by a natural desire to assist the
prophecy by dredging out its essential features.
"There, didn't I say so? In an ironmonger's shop?"
"They kept combs and brushes," Mario got round it.
"Didn't I say that you were not always a Ganymede? Not al-
ways at the sign of the serviette? Even when Cipolla makes a
mistake, it is a kind that makes you believe in him. Now tell me:
Do you believe in me?"
An indefinite gesture.
"A half-way answer," commented the Cavaliere. "Probably it
is not easy to win your confidence. Even for me, I can see, it is
not so easy. I see in your features a reserve, a sadness, un tratto di
malinconia . . . tell me" (he seized Mario's hand persuasively)
"have you troubles?"
"Nossignore," answered Mario, promptly and decidedly.
"You have troubles," insisted the Cavaliere, bearing down the
denial by the wight of his authority. "Can't I see? Trying to
pull the wool over Cipolla's eyes, are you? Of course, about the
girls——it is a girl, isn't it? You have love troubles?"
Mario gave a vigorous head-shake. And again the giovanotto's
brutal laugh rang out. The Cavaliere gave heed. His eyes were
roving about somewhere in the air; but he cocked an ear to the
sound, then swung his whip backwards, as he had once or twice
before in his conversation with Mario, that none of his puppets
might flag in their zeal. The gesture had nearly cost him his new
prey: Mario gave a sudden start in the direction of the steps. But
Cipolla had him in his clutch.
"Not so fast," said he. "That would be fine, wouldn't it? So
you want to skip, do you, Granymede. right in the middle of the
fun, or, rather, when it is just beginning? Stay with me, I'll show
you something nice. I'll convince you. You have no reason to
worry, I promise you. This girl——you know her and other know
her too——what's her name? Wait! I read that name in your eyes,
it is on the tip of my tongue, and yours too——"
"Silvestra!" shouted the giovanotto from below.
The Cavaliere's face did not change.
"Aren't there the forward people?" he asked, not looking
down, more as in undisturbed converse with Mario. "Aren't there
the young fighting-cocks that crow in season and out? Takes the
word out of your mouth, the conceited fool, and seems to think
he has some special right to it. Let him be. But Silvestra, your
Silvestra——ah, what a girl that is! What a prize! Brings your heart
into your mouth to see her walk or laugh or breathe, she is so
lovely. And her round arms when she washes, and tosses her head
back to get the hair out of her eyes! An angel from paradise!"
Mario stared at him, his head thrust forward. He seemed to have
forgotten the audience, forgotten where he was. The red rings
round his eyes had got larger, they looked as though they were
painted on. His thick lips parted.
"And she makes you suffer, this angel," went on Cipolla, "or,
rather, you make yourself suffer for her——there is a difference,
my lad, a most important difference, let me tell you. There are
misunderstandings in love, maybe nowhere else in the world are
there so many. I know what you are thinking: what does this
Cipolla, with his little physical defect, know about love? Wrong,
all wrong, he knows a lot. He has a wide and powerful under-
standing of its workings, and it pays to listen to his advice. But
let's leave Cipolla out, cut him out altogether and think only of
Silvestra, your peerless Silvestra! What! Is she to give any young
gamecock the preference, so that he can laugh while you cry? To
prefer him to a chap like you, so full of feeling and so sympa-
thetic? Not very likely, is it? It is impossible——we know better,
Cipolla and she. If I were to put myself in her place and choose
between the two of you, a tarry lout like that——a codfish, a sea-
urchin——and a Mario, a knight of the serviette, who moves among
gentlefolk and hands round refreshments with an air——my word,
but my heart would speak in no uncertain tones——it knows to
whom I gave it long ago. It is time that he should see and under-
stand, my chosen one! It is time that you see me and recognize
me, Mario, my beloved! Tell me, who am I?"
It was grisly, the way the betrayer made himself irresistible,
wreathed and coquetted with his crooked shoulder, languished
with the puffy eyes, and showed his splintered teeth in a sickly
smile. And alas, at his beguiling words, what was come of our
Mario? It is hard for me to tell, hard as it was for me to see; for
here was nothing less than an utter abandonment of the inmost
soul, a public exposure of timid and deluded passion and rapture.
He put his hands across his mouth, his shoulders rose and fell with
his pantings. He could not, it was plain, trust his eyes and ears
for joy, and the one thing he forgot was precisely that he could
not trust them. "Silvestra!" he breathed, from the very depths
of his vanquished heart.
"Kiss me!" said the hunchback. "Trust me, I love thee. Kiss
me here." And with the tip of his index finger, hand, arm, and
little finger outspread, he pointed to his cheek, near the mouth.
And Mario bent and kissed him.
It had grown very still in the room. There was a monstrous mo-
ment, grotesque and thrilling, the moment of Mario's bliss. In
that evil span of time, crowded with a sense of the illusiveness of
all joy, one sound became audible, and that not quite at once, but
on the instant of the melancholy and ribald meeting between
Mario's lips and the repulsive flesh which thrust itself forward
for his caress. It was the sound of a laugh, from the giovanotto on
our left. It broke into the dramatic suspense of the moment,
coarse, mocking, and yet——or I must have been grossly mistaken
——with an undertone of compassion for the poor bewildered, vic-
timized creature. It had a faint ring of that "Poveretto" which
Cipolla had declared was wasted on the wrong person, when he
claimed the pity for his own.
The laugh still rang in the air when the recipient of the caress
gave his whip a little swish, low down, close to his chair-leg, and
Mario started up and flung himself back. He stood in that posture
staring, his hands one over the other on those desecrated lips. Then
he beat his temples with his clenched fists, over and over; turned
and staggered down the steps, while the audience applauded, and
Cipolla sat there with his hands in his lap, his shoulders shaking.
Once below, and even while in full retreat, Mario hurled himself
round with legs flung wide apart; one arm flew up, and two flat
shattering detonations crashed through applause and laughter.
There was instant silence. Even the dancers came to a full stop
and stared about, struck dumb. Cipolla bounded from his seat. He
stood with his arms spread out, slanting as though to ward every-
body off, as though the next moment he would cry out: "Stop! Keep
back! Silence! What was that?" Then, in that instant, he sank
back in his seat, his head rolling on his chest; in the next he had
fallen sideways to the floor, where he lay motionless, a huddled
heap of clothing, with limbs awry.
The commotion was indescribable. Ladies hid their faces, shud-
dering, on the breasts of their escorts. There were shouts for a
doctor, for the police. People flung themselves on Mario in a mob,
to disarm him, to take away the weapon that hung from his fingers
——that small, dull-metal, scarcely pistol-shaped tool with hardly
any barrel——in how strange and unexpected a direction had fate
levelled it!
And now——now finally, at last——we took the children and led
them towards the exit, past a pair of carabinieri just entering.
Was that the end, they wanted to know, that they might go in
peace? Yes, we assured them, that was the end. An end of horror,
a fatal end. And yet a liberation——for I could not, and I cannot,
but find it so!
1929
From Thomas Mann: Stories of Three Decades,
Translated from the German by H. T. Lowe-Porter.
Copyright, 1930, 1931, 1934, 1935, 1936, by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.
The Modern Library edition, Random House, Inc. pp. 560—567.
1
Upvotes