Andres Neuman - Traveller of the Century

Biting her lips until they bleed, Lisa shuts herself in her room and blockades the door from inside. She lies on her bed, presses her face into the pillow and tries to ignore the stinging in her arms, back and buttocks. She struggles to stifle the sobs she feels neither her father nor her mother deserve to wring from her. She must stop crying like a child and learn to weep like a young lady — soundlessly, without gasping or snivelling, letting the tears roll down her cheeks dispassionately, as though she were thinking about something quite different. Groping around, she finds one of her old rag dolls. She sits up, holds it before her eyes and stares intently at it. Then she notices a seam unravelling between the doll’s arms and chest.

The first thing she sees when she comes round the corner is the blade. For a split second Frau Pietzine is so startled by the knife close to her neck she forgets to scream. When she does try to cry out, someone has already stopped her mouth with a handkerchief.

Herr Zeit is still haranguing Lisa from the other side of the door. Lisa doesn’t listen, she doesn’t want to listen to him, she concentrates on her old rag doll and the hole in its chest. As the pounding on the door continues, Lisa begins to pull at the loose threads. She pulls harder and harder, watching the doll’s chest gradually unravelling. She experiences a searing joy, a bitter sense of superiority, and begins making the hole bigger, ripping apart the doll’s chest.

Frau Pietzine’s dress tears slightly. She thrashes her legs about, waves her arms, then suddenly freezes as she feels the knife prick the side of her neck. She lies motionless, gasping, as though waiting for two different guillotines to drop. She does not begin to pray then. She thinks first of her children, then of the supper, and then of death. She feels no remorse, but that she is being punished. At the first touch of cold air on her legs, she begins to pray silently.

Lisa tears the doll in two and probes its entrails. Does it hold some hidden secret? What is it hiding? But she finds nothing of interest inside her beloved doll. Pieces of thread, cloth and cotton wool, nothing. On the other side of the door, trying to force the handle, her father is shouting her name.

In a final gesture of resistance, Frau Pietzine tenses her thighs and presses her arms to her sides — she has discovered a brute strength she didn’t know existed. The masked man gives a start. He freezes for a moment. He falters — this is the first time he has known the victim. He is on the point of letting her go. Withdrawing. But it feels too late to stop now. Besides, he is excited. Very excited. And deep down it is this unexpected element that thrills him. And so, in order to ease his struggle, the masked man finally pulls off a glove, releasing a faint smell of lard. As she lies doubled up, a shiver of panic coursing through her, Frau Pietzine thinks she recognises the hand, or that it is in some way familiar. Afterwards she thinks she is mistaken. She thinks she is hallucinating, having a terrible nightmare from which she will awake, that everything is spinning very fast, that the pain is filtering through a crack. Then she has the impression of slipping down a steep slope, and that nothing will matter to her any longer.

Herr Zeit bursts angrily into the room and remains motionless for a moment — his daughter Lisa is holding the rag doll’s torn off head, smiling absently, as if he weren’t standing there brandishing a leather strap.

As Frau Levin sat down and noticed the empty chair, she asked after Frau Pietzine. Over time she had grown to respect her, and, underneath all their differences, suspected they had much in common — Frau Pietzine’s compulsive chatter was nothing more than a manifestation of the same paralysing shyness she suffered from, and widowhood had plunged her into a state of solitude with which she, a married woman of many years, was only too familiar.

As she poured the first serving of tea, Sophie informed her guests she had received a note from Frau Pietzine, who was indisposed and excused herself from attending that Friday. When Sophie stopped next to Hans and leant over to fill his cup, she had the impression that he had raised his shoulder in order to brush against her breast. Although Rudi had his head turned and was talking to her father, Sophie decided to caution Hans by letting a few drops of tea splash into his saucer. Hans sat up with a start and whispered: Oh, never mind, Mademoiselle, never mind. Elsa and Bertold brought trays laden with bowls of consommé and fruit compote. There was a sound of scraping chairs and clinking spoons. Álvaro tried to catch Elsa’s eye, but she avoided him. Hans attempted to strike up a conversation with Rudi. He responded amiably and began regaling Hans with stories of his latest hunting expedition. Seeing them chatting together, Sophie gave a sigh of relief. Elsa left the garden. Álvaro rose to his feet and said he needed to go up to the bathroom.

After a scholarly tribute to Schiller from Professor Mietter (which earned him the praise of both Herr Levin and Herr Gottlieb), Hans said without thinking: Schiller studied for the priesthood and ended up being a doctor! For your information, young man, Professor Mietter replied sharply (at which Hans looked at him almost with gratitude, because he was bored), Schiller was one of our most eminent men, the only man equal to Goethe, he spent his life writing in defence of freedom and strove to fight disease, working until the day he died, I don’t see why you should find that amusing! I can see, said Hans with a grin, you would prefer us all to be serious. All right. Hölderlin, who was Schiller’s disciple, says that philosophy is the hospital of the poet, and I agree with him there. Schiller died ill, and still philosophising. This seems to me worthy of the greatest respect. What I don’t understand is why Schiller wrote odes to happiness in his youth, and then spent his life admonishing young poets, who, incidentally, were better than he. That is your view, protested Professor Mietter. No, said Hans, that is the view of poetry. Don’t be so conceited! Professor Mietter rebuked him, folding his arms. Sophie interceded gently: Do go on, Professor. Well, he nodded, straightening his wig, let us see. Schiller was merely pointing out the basic rules of art to the young poets, he was not censuring them, but reminding them of the need to study these rules. In doing so he was merely following the Critique of Judgement , and, if I remember rightly, Monsieur Hans has defended Kant on more than one occasion. Sophie turned to Hans, amused: Do you have anything to say, dear Hans? Hans, who had decided to remain silent to avoid generating further tension, saw the congratulatory pat Rudi gave Professor Mietter, his mocking smile, the haughty way he inhaled his snuff, and, fixing his eyes on Sophie, he replied: Our inestimable professor claims that Schiller followed Kant. True. Yet Kant was an independent critic, because he established his own norms. Thus, to obey Kant is to betray him. Do any of you truly believe we can speak of a universal judgement, an objective aesthetic, an inadequate use of beauty? What the devil does that mean? What was Schiller so afraid of? If it was the differences between the social classes then I understand, because those are imposed (Rudi, my love, Sophie distracted him, how do you find the compote?) but to say there can be no different aesthetics, to propose a consensus on taste is grotesque! Or should we create a law governing taste? Hasn’t Metternich given us enough laws already? Holding his pince-nez on his nose Professor Mietter countered: You are confusing censorship with rules. All freedom, whether in art or in society, requires order. And true fear derives from the denial of this self-evident fact. All right, replied Hans, waving his cup so that his tea spilt over into the saucer, but that order can never be permanent. As Kant said, that would be a return to infancy. The surrender of reason, the death of räsonieren . You have clearly misread Schiller, Professor Mietter concluded with a shrug. Perhaps, said Hans, and until the law takes it away from me, I assume I can still enjoy that privilege.