Albert Thelen - The Island of Second Sight

“That’s because Madame Adele Gerstenberg has forgotten that here in Spain, when the play is over you don’t see horse-drawn cabs driving up to the theater exit.”

Beatrice made herself scarce, trotting off to take care of this or that with no servants to help out — ladies comprehend such a move without exchanging words. In any case, it was better to get on with no help at all than with some Spanish maid with a tragic history—

— and now, following a brief pause, it was Beatrice who clapped her hands in a dignified, almost soundless way, although the sound had to travel around the corner of the house that separated us from her jour . There she stood, the grande dame , up on the open staircase poised for the grand reception. Poised? Beatrice? They were both poised, the staircase and the lady who now descended two steps to greet her guest—“Once again, a warm welcome to you chez Vigos.”

I offered the tragedian my arm, and felt no less equal to the task than Beatrice with her wide-ranging experience. It was the first time in my life that I had ever “received,” much less at my own place of residence. I no doubt relished the delight that takes hold of a stork when it locates its own special wagon wheel and never gives it up. Weltschmerz , where is thy sting? It was a powerful moment indeed: not a distortion of the actual past, not a pipe-dream of the future, but a singularly pleasant experience of the present, arm in arm with a star of the stage.

The Giant tried to disperse the crowd of gaping kids, but happily they disobeyed and remained under the spell of our grand occasion. They were determined to witness our spectacle. To be sure, they did not strew flowers and marsh grasses on our path. But they did even more, these snot-nosed half-pints, some of whom were dressed in chemises that didn’t even reach to their navels. This was apparent only to someone who looked at them carefully, for the cloth had assumed the color of camouflage. La Gerstenberg thought that they were all naked. This is what they did for us: they screened off the manure pile and scattered the rats that, day after day and even at high noon, held their own jour on the plank amidst garbage and offal. Infected by the pestilence, they had gradually lost their fear of humans. Tame rats are death itself!

“What magical, natural grace Spanish children can have,” said our guest. “Where we come from, all that has to be trained and rehearsed, and it is always so stiff and straight-laced. Down here, everything is already fit for the stage.”

“If you’ll permit me to say so, that’s just why you never get to see it on the stage. In Madrid you will have noticed what Martersteig has told me — no, not the Captain but the Privy Councillor — the stages in Spain are god-awful. Nothing but cheap melodrama, or if you will, just play-acting.”

We had reached the top of the stairs and let our guest pass in front of us, although I ought to have preceded her into the dimly lit nave. It would have been all too banal for me to say with Schiller, “Through this narrow pathway he must arrive.” We knew that the actress wasn’t fond of theatrical quotations. In any case I couldn’t think of any more edifying apothegm from the classic stage tradition, least of all the motto from Dante that would have been most fitting for this place, the one that admonishes anyone entering to abandon all hope, so inexorable in its Italian vocalization: Lasciate ogni speranza, voi ch’entrate … But this would be valid only at the portal to Cell № 1; in the others, hope began swelling immediately upon crossing the threshold. It’s wonderful to have a wise poet’s line of verse, a divine proclamation, or a well-turned curse for every occasion in life — it makes things easier. Entire professions thrive on catchy phrases uttered by the masters and prophets. Here we had to do without one of Büchmann’s “Winged Words,” but we got along nicely.

Adele Gerstenberg, after being distracted for a moment by the glimmering brightness at the end of the hallway where I had lit a candle at the little shrine, took a look at our room. She gazed up at the suspended netting, and before her eyes could focus through the gridwork at the dome of our private cathedral, she did something that I can describe only with a hackneyed phrase: she turned into a pillar of salt. The blood congealed in her veins, and, as if halted by a supernatural force, she stood there rooted to the spot. Tremors will have been visible in the plaster mask that was her face. Since we were standing behind her, we could not see this change in her features, but it is familiar enough as an image of sudden fright. Nevertheless, her condition of total stupefaction did not last long. In fact, it was a lucky thing that we were standing behind her, for when the spark of life returned to the actress, it was barely sufficient to pass from petrification to yet another commonplace state: the very picture of misery, one that we were just able to prevent from collapsing in a heap. This was first-rate theater in the finest Viennese tradition, but there was no applause. I held the lightweight woman under her armpits while Beatrice lifted our chair over our heads and placed it in the corridor — thus removing the single chair from our salon. where our jour had gone to pieces before it even got started.

So this was our triumph, our grand premiere with the celebrated artist from the Vienna Burgtheater. She sat there and wept tears that not even a Nobel-prizewinning dramatist could ever squeeze out of her. We let her have a good cry, stepping back from her with the discreet, empty gesture of mourning used by heads of state when they place a wreath at the tomb of the Unknown Soldier. But no, I’m being unfair to ourselves; we by no means had such cynical thoughts as we witnessed the genuine pain felt by our horrified friend.

In the meantime the water had started boiling in our genuine Dutch-made whistling teapot. The steam escaped first with a hiss, and then came a piping noise that got louder and louder as it resounded through the whole barn. Adele, sensitive to noise, suddenly cringed, and it took a few seconds before she cleared the entrance to our cell. I flew into our sty and immediately shut off our “end of the day shift” signal.

In the next cell, too, things were coming alive. Our teapot could have resurrected the blessed dead, and now two of our neighbors had been wakened from their erotic burrowings. Yet before we were treated to another Spanish theater scene — Sudermann with an Iberian cast — we took our guest out to the courtyard where she perched herself on a wine barrel. She refrained from reciting the line from Rilke’s poem on Confirmation Day — though she might well have cited it while remaining in character: “The feast is over. There is noise in the house / And the afternoon passes more sadly…” The three little dots are by Rilke, too. Our feast was over, but not quite yet.

Adele Gerstenberg grasped our hands and remained sitting, mute, overcome, and as if aged by several years. Adeleide inquired whether something had happened to our guest — a heat stroke? Arsenio, busy unharnessing his nag, suggested a cold drink. “Bring her right away to the cellar where it’s cool,” he said. Beatrice calmed him down: “She just wasn’t feeling well. She’ll be fine.” Without a word, the Giant hitched his gelding back between the wagon shafts. Taking a palm frond, Adeleide dusted off the seats. And then Arsenio stood waiting like an official coachman. Thus our guest from Vienna got her horse-drawn cab after all, and Beatrice’s “day” ended in less than total disaster. One of the Manse’s hired hands drove us back to the city. The tragedian didn’t want to go directly home — what about a visit to the Alhambra? We accompanied her. A little later, Friedrich joined us at their usual table.