Andres Neuman - Traveller of the Century

Hans and Sophie lay, half-undressed, gazing at the ceiling, at the gentle progress of the spiders’ webs. He was breathing noisily and rubbing the tips of his toes together. She smelt faintly of violet water, and the stronger, damper odour of another flower. Sophie sat up, kissed his foot, told him she had to leave, and got up to drink water from the jug. The semen Hans had spilt over her thighs began to trickle down her legs as she walked. When she stepped over their discarded clothes, a drop fell onto an open-mouthed shoe.

(Before he met Sophie, Hans hated his feet, or he thought he hated them — they were hopeless at dancing, rather stubby and the slightest touch made them recoil. He felt they were guilty, but of what he did not know. Guilty of being the way they were, averse to being shoeless, getting cold at night. That afternoon when Sophie bared his feet for the first time, she studied them at length and gave them her simple blessing: I like your feet, she said. And she planted a kiss on the tip of his big toe. Nothing more. It is the small things in life that change you, reflected Hans. A man who has walked as much as you shouldn’t be ashamed of his feet, it would be churlish. From that moment on, Hans began walking barefoot around the room.

Hans and Sophie had decided to go on an outing to the country rather than stay inside working. The day was too splendid, too fragrant. Elsa gladly agreed to the change of plan as it allowed her to go to the market square duly accompanied and without the risk of arousing suspicion. Even so, she asked to take a separate carriage in order to conceal her lover’s identity, which, in any event, Hans and Sophie had known for a while.

Half-an-hour before going out, as he did every afternoon when he was expecting Sophie, Hans bathed his feet in warm water, salts and essential oils. He soaked them in the tin tub. He stirred the water with his ankles, let it ripple through his splayed toes, he massaged them, perceiving, as though for the first time, that they were ticklish. As he explored the wet soles of his feet, he noticed himself becoming excited, and experienced a delicious feeling of urgency and calm. He sat for a moment in the tub, closed his eyes. He emerged naked and went to shave in the front of the painting. Over the washbasin, he rubbed his face, hands and forearms with water, pounce and soap. He didn’t dry himself immediately. He thought about masturbating but didn’t, partly so he wouldn’t be late and partly as a sweet form of punishment. He used a soft towel to dry his body and a new sponge for his face. He dressed, pulled on his shoes with a sense of regret.

Although no longer high, the Nulte seemed satisfied with its slender line. Its blue-green waters flowed gently by. Hans and Sophie touched each other beneath their clothes; they spoke of everything, of nothing. In the shade of a poplar tree, they watched the light play over the cornfields. Sophie’s fingers grew longer, became entangled. Hans’s shoes were hot. The balmy air shimmered, circled through their arms. The poplars were good, steadfast. She felt a ball unravelling in her belly. He felt as if a branch were springing up from between his legs.

It’s a hiatus, isn’t it? Hans whispered, the summer, I mean. As if the rest of the year were the text and the summer were a separate clause, an additional comment. Yes, replied Sophie, pensive, and do you know what it says? “I am fleeting.” It’s curious, said Hans, I feel as if time has stopped, but at the same time I’m aware of how fast it is going. Is that what being in love is? she said, looking at him. I suppose so, he smiled. Sometimes, said Sophie, it feels strange not to think about the future, as though it were never going to happen. Don’t worry, said Hans, the future doesn’t think about us much either. But what about afterwards? she asked, when the summer is over?

The light was beginning to fade, casting a shadow on the meadow towards the east. Both had to go back to the city, but neither stirred. Evening was gradually closing in on them. And the light, in sympathy, lingered on.)

She was fastening her corset while Hans was opening his trunk. Today, he said, I’d like us to translate a young Russian poet I recommended to Brockhaus. But Hans, do you know any Russian, she asked? Me? he replied. Only the Cyrillic alphabet and a few dozen words. Well then? Sophie said, surprised. Ah, Hans chuckled, I told them you were fluent. We’ll translate using a third language, don’t worry. We have an original edition here — look: —a French translation, and an English one, and this nice Russian-German dictionary, what do you reckon?

They selected a few poems from the translations they had. They copied out the English and French versions, placing each stanza in a separate table. They checked each word in the dictionary in order to make sure they had understood the literal meaning of the original, then noted down the different meanings next to each table.

Do you know what? Sophie said playfully, this Pushkin’s adulterous loves are more believable than his spiritual ones. That’s typical of you, Bodenlieb! said Hans, looking over the draft they had just done:

Dorida’s long tresses hold me in thrall,

As does her blue-tinged gaze at the ball;

When yesterday I left, her charms

Enchanted me as I looked on her arms,

Every impulse leading me to more,

My desire sated as ne’er before.

But suddenly in the bitter gloom

Strange features filled the room;

A secret sadness made me start,

Another name was in my heart.

After Sophie had left, Hans reread the drafts of their translations. His head began to grow heavy, his muscles went slack and his cheek settled on the desk where it was warmed by the oil lamp. Before sitting up straight again, he had a strange fleeting nightmare — he dreamt he was going from one language to another like someone running through a line of sheets hung out to dry. Each time he encountered a language, his face became wet and he thought he had woken up in his mother tongue, until he got to the next sheet and realised his mistake. Still running, he began talking to himself, and could clearly visualise the language he was speaking — he was able to contemplate the words he was uttering, their structures, their inflexions, yet he always arrived too late. The moment he came close to understanding the language in which he was dreaming, he felt something slap him in the face, and he woke up in the next language. Hans ran like a madman, arriving once, a hundred times too late to perceive these languages, until suddenly he understood he had really woken up. Looming before his eyes he saw a huge oil lamp and a great mound of papers. He noticed, as he sat up, that one of his cheeks was burning. Then, with a sense of relief he began a train of thought, and for a moment he contemplated in amazement the logic of his own language, its familiar shape, its miraculous harmony.

Listen, the organ grinder implored, is this really necessary? Are you sure? (Hans looked at him reprovingly and nodded several times.) All right, all right, let’s do it.

Slowly, clumsily, as if with each garment he were peeling off a whole year, the old man finally took off his tattered shirt, his linen breeches and his worsted shoes. Just so you know, he added, as a last protest, I’m only doing this to please you. Separated from the organ grinder’s dry flaccid skin, the garments curled up into a stinking ball. The earth appeared to swallow them up.