Peter Camenzind (14 page)

At first these observations proved rewarding: I shed my naïve indifference and became interested in a wide range of people. I saw how much of what is everywhere taken for granted was foreign to me; I also realized how greatly my many trips and hikes had opened and sharpened my eyes. And because I have always been drawn to children, it gave me particular pleasure to be in their company.

Still, I found the observation of clouds and waves more enjoyable than the study of mankind. I realized with astonishment that man is distinguished from the rest of nature primarily by a slippery, protective envelope of illusions and lies. In a very short time, I observed this phenomenon among all my acquaintances. It is the result of each person's having to make believe that he is a unique individual, whereas no one really knows his own innermost nature. Somewhat bewildered, I noticed the same trait in myself and I now gave up the attempt to get to the core of people. In most cases the protective envelope was of crucial importance anyway. I found it everywhere, even among children, who, whether consciously or unconsciously, always play a role completely and instinctively instead of displaying who they are.

After a while I began to feel I was making no progress and was wasting my time with trivia. First I sought to locate the fault in myself, yet I could not long deceive myself: I was disillusioned, my environment simply did not provide the people I was searching for. I needed not characters but prototypes, which neither my circle of academicians nor my socialites provided. I thought of Italy with longing, and the friends and companions of my many hikes, the apprentice journeymen. Many a one I walked side by side with had turned out to be a fine fellow.

Visiting the local youth hostel or flophouses was useless. Drifting hoboes and tramps were of no help to me. So I was at a loss once more, and confined my studies to children. Then I started to hang around taverns, where, of course, I found nothing. There followed several unhappy weeks in which I doubted my judgment and concluded that my hopes and wishes were exaggerated and ridiculous. I spent much of my time roaming the countryside and brooded away many an evening over wine.

Around that time several stacks of books I would have preferred keeping instead of selling to the secondhand dealer accumulated on my table; there was no room for them on my bookshelves. To solve the problem, I went to see a carpenter and asked him to come to my quarters to take measurements for a bookcase.

One day he came: a slightly built, slow-moving man with a cautious manner. He measured the room, knelt on the floor, extended the measuring stick to the ceiling, and painstakingly noted dimension after dimension in inch-high figures in his notebook. He smelled faintly of glue. As he moved about, he jostled an armchair laden with books. A few of them dropped to the floor and he bent down to pick them up. Among them was a pocket dictionary of vocational slang. You can find this paperbound book in almost all lodging houses in Germany frequented by journeying tradesmen. It is a well-edited and delightful little volume.

When the carpenter noticed the familiar book, he shot a curious glance at me, half amused and half suspicious.

“What's the matter?” I asked.

“There's a book here I know. Do you really study it?”

“I studied it while I was out on the road,” I replied. “You feel like looking up an expression now and again.”

“Really!” he exclaimed. “You've been on the road yourself?”

“Not quite the way you mean. But I've covered a lot of ground on foot and spent many a night in a flophouse.”

Meanwhile he had restacked the books and was about to leave. “Where did you get to in your travels?” I asked him.

“From here to Koblenz and later down to Geneva. Wasn't the worst time of my life either.”

“Spent a night or two in jail, I suppose?”

“Just once, in Durlach.”

“I'd like it if you'd tell me more. We'll meet again, all right, over a glass of wine?”

“I wouldn't care too much for that. But if you'd like you can come up to my place after work and shoot the breeze. I don't mind, provided you're not pulling my leg.”

A few days later—Elizabeth was having open house —I stopped in the middle of the street and considered whether I wouldn't rather spend the evening with the carpenter instead. I turned around, went home and left my frock coat, and went to visit him. His workshop was closed and dark inside, and I stumbled through a gloomy hallway and a courtyard and climbed up and down the back staircase several times before finding a sign on a door with the master's name on it. Upon entering, I stepped directly into a tiny kitchen where a gaunt woman was preparing dinner and watching over three children at the same time, so that the narrow room was full of life and considerable noise. Somewhat taken aback, the woman led me into the adjacent room, where the carpenter sat at the window reading his paper in the twilight. First he grumbled, because he mistook me for an overeager client. Then he recognized me and shook my hand.

Because he had been taken by surprise and was embarrassed, I turned to the children, who ran back into the kitchen. I followed them. The sight of the carpenter's wife preparing a rice dish brought back memories of my Umbrian padrona and I lent a hand with the cooking. In our part of the world rice generally is boiled until it turns into a paste lacking all flavor, which sticks to your gums like glue. The same calamity was about to occur here and I saved the meal just in time by reaching for the pot and ladle and taking charge of the preparations myself. The woman submitted to my intrusion in astonishment, the rice turned out passably, she served it, turned on the lamp, and I had a plateful myself.

The carpenter's wife thereupon engaged me in such a detailed conversation about cooking that her husband scarcely got a word in edgewise and had to put off to another evening the story of his adventures as a journeyman apprentice. They sensed soon enough that I was a gentleman in appearance only and basically a farmer's son and the child of ordinary people, and so that first evening we were already on good terms. For just as they recognized me as their equal, I recognized my native atmosphere in this poor household. These people had no time for refinements, for posturing and sentimental charades. Their harsh and demanding life was much too dear for them to adorn it with pretty phrases.

I visited the carpenter more and more often and not only did I forget society's shabby nonsense but also my melancholy and my shortcomings. It was as if I had discovered a piece of my childhood and was continuing the life the monks had interrupted when they sent me to school.

Bent over a torn and yellowing, old-fashioned map, the carpenter and I traced our respective journeys and rejoiced over each city gate and street we both knew. We told all the old traveler's jokes and once even sang some of the old songs. We discussed the difficulties of the trade, the household, the children, the affairs of the city—and gradually our roles were reversed. I was grateful to him and he taught me and gave me something of himself. With immense relief, I felt surrounded by reality, rather than drawing-room noise.

Of his children, his five-year-old daughter caught my eye, because she was especially delicate. Her name was Agnes, and she was called Aggie. She was blond, pale, fragile, and had large, timid eyes and a gentle and shy nature. One Sunday when I came to join the family for a long walk, Aggie was sick. Her mother stayed with her, and we walked slowly to the outskirts of town. Behind St. Margaret's Church we two men sat down on a bench. The children went off in search of flowers, rocks, and bugs, while we surveyed the summer meadows, the Binning cemetery, and the beautiful blue range of the Jura Mountains. The carpenter was tired and depressed.

“What's wrong?” I asked when the children had gone. He looked at me sadly.

“Haven't you seen?” he said. “Aggie's dying. I've known it for a long time, and I'm only surprised she's lived as long as she has. She's always had death in her eyes, and now there's no doubt.”

I made an attempt to console him, but soon gave up.

“You see,” he smiled sadly, “you don't believe either that she'll live. I'm no fatalist, you know, and I go to church only once in a long while, but I can feel in my bones that the Almighty wants a word with me now. She's only a child, I know, and she's never been well, but God knows I love her more than the others.”

Shouting joyously, the children came running up to us with a thousand questions, pressed close to us, asked if I knew the names of weeds and flowers, and finally asked that I tell them a story. So I told them that each of the flowers, trees, and bushes had a soul of its own, like a child and its guardian angel. The father listened too and smiled, and here and there added a word for emphasis. We watched the blue of the mountains grow more intense, heard the tolling of evening bells, and started back. The crimson breath of evening hung over the meadows, the spires of the cathedral pointed small and thin into the warm air, the sky gradually changed from summer blue to a beautiful greenish-golden hue, the trees cast longer and longer shadows. The children were tired and subdued. Perhaps they were thinking of the guardian angels of poppies, pinks, and harebells, while we older ones thought of Aggie, whose soul was about to take wing and leave our timid little band behind.

The next two weeks, all went well. Aggie seemed to be rallying; she was able to leave her bed for a few hours a day and looked prettier and happier, propped on her cool pillows, than ever before. Then there were several feverish nights, and we realized without a word being said that she would not be with us for more than a few days, or a week. Only once did her father speak of it. It was in his workshop. I saw him rummaging about in his stack of boards and knew instinctively that he was selecting pieces for the child's coffin.

“It's a matter of days anyway,” he said. “And I'd rather do it after everyone's gone home.”

I sat down on one of the benches while he went on working at the other. When the boards were planed smooth, he showed them to me with a kind of pride. He'd used a good, sound, unblemished piece of pine.

“It's not going to be nailed together; I'll make the pieces dovetail, so that it'll be a good, lasting piece of work. But that's enough for today. Let's go on up to the wife.”

The midsummer days went by, each warmer and more lovely than the other, and every day I would sit with Aggie for an hour or two, telling her about lovely meadows and forests, holding her frail hand in my broad palm, my whole being absorbing the sweet clear grace that was hers to the last day.

Then we stood anxiously and sadly by her side, as the small, emaciated body gathered its last strength to wrestle with death; but death vanquished her easily. Her mother remained calm and strong, but her father flung himself across the bed and took a hundred farewells, stroking her blond hair and kissing his dead child.

A brief and simple burial service followed, and then uncomfortable evenings during which we could hear the children weeping in bed in the next room. Then came lovely walks to the cemetery, where we planted flowers on the fresh grave and sat on a bench in the cool grounds, gazing with changed eyes on the earth in which our dear one lay buried, and on the trees that grew above it, and on the birds whose song, uninhibited and as gay as ever, floated through the quiet churchyard.

Simultaneously the strict routine of work took its course, the children began to sing again, fighting among themselves, laughing, and asking for stories, and almost unawares we all became accustomed to not seeing Aggie ever again.

While all this was happening, I did not visit the professor's house once. I saw Elizabeth only a few times, and on these occasions I felt strangely constrained and at a loss during our tepid conversations. Now I went to visit both houses, only to find them locked for the summer. Everyone had gone to the country long ago. Only then did I realize that my friendship with the carpenter and my preoccupation with the sick child had made me forget all about the hot season and taking a holiday. Before, I would have found it impossible to remain in town in July and August.

I bid Basel goodbye for a short time and set out on a walking tour through the Black Forest. During the trip I had the rare pleasure of sending the carpenter's children picture postcards of all the places I visited, and imagining how I would describe to them everything I was seeing.

In Frankfurt I decided to take a few extra days and went on to Aschaffenburg, Nuremberg, Munich, and Ulm. I took renewed pleasure in the old works of art. Finally I even stopped briefly in Zurich. All these years I had avoided that city as if it were a grave; now I rambled down the familiar streets, sought out the old taverns and beer-gardens, and thought back on the wonderful years I had spent here.

Erminia was married. Someone gave me her address and one evening I went to call on her. I read her husband's name on the door, looked up at the window, and hesitated. Then the old days came alive within me and with a gentle ache my old love was roused out of its slumber. I turned back and did not spoil the idyllic picture of my beloved with a needless reunion. Walking on, I came to the garden by the lake where the artists had held their midsummer fete, and I looked up at the house in whose attic I had spent three years of my life, and from this stream of memories the name Elizabeth suddenly sprang to my lips. My new love was stronger after all than all previous infatuations. It was also quieter, less demanding, more grateful.

Pleased with my mood, I untied one of the boats and rowed with easy, leisurely strokes out onto the warm bright lake. Evening was near and a single lovely snow-white cloud hung high in the sky. I kept my eyes on it, giving it a friendly nod as I thought back on my childhood love of clouds, on Elizabeth, on that Segantini cloud in front of which I had seen her so beautiful and enraptured. Never before had I felt my love for her—untarnished by a single wrong word or low desire—to be so purifying and ennobling as now. At the sight of this cloud, I gazed back calmly and thankfully on everything good in my life, troubled no longer by the confusions and passions of my adolescence, experiencing the old yearning but in a more mature and tranquil way.