Peter Camenzind (7 page)

Richard and I went and found there a small coterie of artists. For the most part they were unrecognized, forgotten, or unsuccessful, which I found touching, although all of them seemed quite contented and merry. We were given tea, sandwiches, ham, and a salad. Because I didn't know any of the people and was not gregarious anyway, I gave in to my hunger pangs and for an hour did little but eat, quietly and persistently, while the others sipped their tea and chattered. By the time they were ready for food, I'd consumed almost half the ham. I'd assured myself that there would be at least another platter in reserve. They all chuckled softly and I reaped a few glances so ironical that I became furious and damned the Italian girl as well as her ham, rose to my feet, and excused myself, explaining curtly that I would bring my own dinner along the next time. Then I reached for my hat.

The Aglietti girl took back my hat, looked astonished at me, and begged me to stay. The soft lamplight fell on her face and I was struck by the wonderfully mature beauty of this woman. I suddenly felt very stupid and naughty, like a school boy who has been reprimanded, and I sat down again in a far corner of the room. There I stayed, leafing through a picture album of Lake Como. The others went on sipping their tea, paced back and forth, laughed, and talked. Nearby a cello and violins were tuning up. A curtain was drawn aside and I could see four musicians at improvised stands ready to perform a string quartet. Erminia came toward me, placed her cup on a side table, nodded kindly, and sat down beside me. The quartet played for some time, but I did not listen closely. I gazed with growing amazement at the slender, elegant woman whose beauty I had doubted and whose refreshments I had gobbled up. With mixed feelings of joy and apprehension, I now remembered that she had wanted to draw me. Then my thoughts returned to Rösi Girtanner, for whom I had climbed after rhododendron, and to the fable of the Snow Princess, all of which now seemed to me to have been preparation for the present moment.

When the music ended, Erminia did not leave me as I had feared she would, but sat quietly beside me and then began to talk. She congratulated me on one of my pieces she had seen in the newspaper. She joked about Richard, who was surrounded by girls and whose carefree laughter could be heard above the laughter of all the others. When she asked again if she could paint me, it occurred to me to continue our conversation in Italian. I was not only rewarded with a happy, surprised glance from her vivacious Mediterranean eyes, but had the pleasure of hearing her speak the language that best suited her lips and eyes and figure—the euphonious, elegant, flowing lingua toscana with a charming touch of Ticino Swiss. I myself spoke neither beautifully nor fluently, but this did not bother me at all. We agreed I was to come and sit for her the next day.

“Arrivederla,”
I said as we parted, giving as deep a bow as I could.

“Arrivederci domani,”
she smiled, nodding to me.

After leaving her house, I walked along the street until it reached the ridge of a hill and I beheld the dark landscape stretched out before me in beauty's strong repose. A solitary boat with a red lantern was gliding over the lake; its blackness was broken by flickering scarlet slivers, and an occasional wave fell in a silvery silhouette. Laughter, mandolin music from a nearby beer-garden. The sky was overcast and a strong warm breeze swept across the hills.

Like the wind that caressed and shook and bent the fruit trees and the black crowns of the chestnut trees and made them moan, laugh, and quiver, so my passion played within me. On that hilltop I knelt and groveled on the ground, leaped up and groaned, stomped about, tossed away my hat, buried my face in the grass, grasped the tree trunks, cried, laughed, sobbed, raged, wept with shame, shivered with bliss, and then felt utterly crushed.

After an hour of this frenzy, all tension left me and I felt choked by a kind of sultriness. My mind went blank. I could reach no decision, I felt nothing; like a sleepwalker I descended the hill, walked aimlessly back and forth through town, found a tavern still open, entered it without any real desire, drank two full measures of wine and got home, terribly drunk, in the early morning.

Erminia was quite startled when she saw me that afternoon.

“What happened? Are you ill?”

“Nothing serious,” I replied. “It seems I got very drunk last night, that's all.”

She propped me on a chair and asked me not to move. Soon I dozed off and slept through the entire afternoon in her studio. Presumably it was the smell of turpentine that made me dream of our skiff back home being freshly painted. I lay on the gravel and watched my father plying the paintbrush. Mother was there too and when I asked her if she hadn't died, she replied gently: “No. For if I were not here, you'd end up like your father.”

I was awakened by falling off the chair and found myself transplanted into Erminia Aglietti's studio. Though I could not see her, I gathered from the clattering of dishes and cutlery that she was preparing dinner.

“How are you?” she called to me.

“Fine. How long did I sleep?”

“Four full hours. Aren't you ashamed of yourself?”

“A little. But I had such a beautiful dream.”

“Tell it to me.”

“Only if you come here and forgive me.”

She came but would not forgive me until I told her the dream. So I recounted it in detail and in the process plunged deeply into half-forgotten childhood memories. By the time I stopped, when it had grown dark outside, I had told her and myself the story of my childhood. She gave me her hand, smoothed my wrinkled jacket, and invited me to sit for her again the next day, so that I felt she had understood, as well as forgiven, my behavior.

Though I posed for her hour after hour during the next few days, we scarcely talked at all. I simply sat, or stood calmly, as if enchanted. I listened to the soft rasp of the charcoal and inhaled the faint smell of paint, delighting in the proximity of the woman I loved, while her eyes rested on me all the time. The white studio light bathed the walls, a few sleepy flies buzzed against the panes, and in the small room adjacent to the studio the flame hissed in the spirit lamp, for at the end of each session she served me a cup of tea.

My thoughts remained with Erminia even when I was back in my attic. It did not diminish my passion that I was unable to admire her art. She herself was so beautiful, so good and self-confident—what did her painting matter to me? On the contrary, her industry had a heroic quality: a woman battling for her livelihood, a quiet, persevering, courageous heroine.

Anyway, there's nothing more futile than ruminating about someone you love; such thoughts are like a treadmill. That is one reason why my memory of the beautiful Italian girl, though not indistinct, lacks many of the small details and features that we notice more readily in strangers than in those who are close to us. For example, I cannot remember how she wore her hair, how she dressed, and so on, or even whether she was short or tall. Whenever I think of her, I see a dark-haired, nobly shaped head, a pair of radiant eyes set in a pale, vivacious face with a beautifully shaped mouth. And when I think of her and the time I was in love with her, I always return to that night on the hill with the wind blowing over the lake and myself weeping, overjoyed, going berserk; and to one other night that I will tell of now.

It had become clear to me that I would have to make some kind of profession of love and actually woo her. If we had not seen each other almost every day, I might have been content to worship her from afar and suffer in silence. But since I saw her so frequently, talked to her, shook her hand, entered her house, my heart was in a continuous state of torment and I could not endure it for long.

Some artist friends of hers arranged a small party in a beautiful garden beside the lake on a mild midsummer evening. We drank chilled wine, listened to music, and gazed at the red Japanese lanterns that were hung in garlands between the trees. We talked, joked, laughed, and finally burst out in song. Some foolish young painter was enjoying himself in the role of a romantic fop; he wore his beret at a rakish angle and lay with his back to the fence, fondling a long-necked guitar. The few artists of consequence who had been invited had not come or else sat off to the side. Some girls had shown up in light summer dresses; others wore the usual unorthodox costumes. Richard flirted with the girls, and I, despite my inner turbulence, felt cool, drank little, and waited for Erminia, who had promised to let me take her out in a boat. When she arrived, she made me a present of some flowers, and we got into a small rowboat.

The lake was as smooth as oil and as colorless as the night. I rowed the boat swiftly out onto the calm expanse, all the while gazing intently at the slender woman leaning back comfortably and contented against the stern. As the sky gradually darkened and one star after another glinted through the waning blue, the sounds of music and of people amusing themselves on shore drifted over to us. The sluggish water accepted the oars with gentle gurgling, and other boats drifted about here and there almost invisible in the calm. But I paid little heed to them. My eyes were riveted on my companion and my thoughts were fixed on a declaration of love that clasped my anxious heart like a steel ring. The beauty and poetry of the moment, the boat, the stars, the tranquil lake, made me hesitant; it seemed as though I would have to act out a sentimental scene on a beautifully set stage. Fearful and numbed by the profound stillness—for neither of us spoke—I rowed as hard as I could.

“How strong you are,” she said thoughtfully.

“You mean bulky, don't you?”

“No, I mean muscular,” she laughed softly.

It was not a very appropriate beginning. Sadly and angrily, I continued to row. After a while I asked her to tell me something about her life.

“What would you like to hear?”

“Everything,” I said. “Preferably a love story. Then I'll be able to tell you one of my own in turn. It is very brief and beautiful and it will amuse you.”

“Well, let's hear it!”

“No, you first. You already know much more about me than I do about you. I would like to know if you've ever been really in love or whether—as I'm afraid—you are far too intelligent and proud for that.”

Erminia pondered for a while.

“That's another of your romantic notions,” she said, “to have a woman tell you stories at night in the middle of a lake. Unfortunately I can't do it. You poets are accustomed to finding words for everything beautiful and you don't even grant that people have hearts if they are less talkative about their feelings than you. Well, you couldn't be more wrong in my case, for I don't think anyone can love more passionately. I am in love with a man who is married, and he loves me just as much. Yet neither of us knows whether we will ever be able to live together. We write to each other and occasionally we meet…”

“Can I ask whether this love makes you happy or miserable, or both?”

“Oh, love isn't there to make us happy. I believe it exists to show us how much we can endure.”

This I understood so deeply that I was unable to repress a little moan, which escaped my lips instead of a reply. She heard it.

“Ah,” she said, “so you know what it's like. And you are so young still! Do you want to tell me about it now—but don't unless you really want to.”

“Perhaps another time, Erminia. I don't feel up to it now and I'm sorry if I've spoiled your evening by bringing up the subject. Shall we turn back?”

“As you wish. How far from shore are we actually?”

I made no reply but dipped the oars violently into the water, swung the boat about, and pulled as though a storm were drawing near. The boat glided rapidly over the water. Amid the confusion and anguish and mortification seething within me, I felt sweat pouring down my face; I shivered at the same time. When I realized how close I had been to playing the suitor on his knees, the lover rejected with motherly and kindly understanding, a shudder ran down my spine. At least I had been spared that, and I would simply have to come to terms with my misery on my own. I rowed back like one possessed.

Erminia was somewhat taken aback when I left her as soon as we stepped on shore. The lake was as smooth, the music as lighthearted, and the paper moons as colorful and festive as before, yet it all seemed stupid and ridiculous to me now. I felt like hitting the fop in the velvet coat, who still carried his guitar ostentatiously on a silk band around his neck. And there were still fireworks to come. It was all so childish.

I borrowed a few francs from Richard, pushed my hat back, and marched off, out of town, on and on, hour after hour until I began to feel sleepy. I lay down in a meadow but woke again within the hour, wet with dew, stiff, shivering with cold, and walked on to the nearest village. It was early morning now. Reapers on their way to mow clover were in the streets, drowsy farmworkers stared at me wide-eyed from stable doors, everywhere there was evidence of farmers pursuing their summer's work.
You should have stayed a farmer,
I told myself, and stalked shamefaced through the village and strode on until the first warmth of the sun allowed me to rest. At the edge of a beech grove I flopped down on the dry grass and slept in the sun until late afternoon. When I awoke with my head full of the aroma of the meadow and my limbs agreeably heavy, as they can only be after lying on God's dear earth, the fete, the trip on the lake, and the whole affair seemed remote, sad, and half forgotten, like a novel read months ago.

I stayed away three whole days, let the sun tan me, and considered whether I should not head straight home—now that I was underway—and help my father bring in the second crop of hay.

Of course, my misery was not overcome as easily as all that. After I returned to the city, I fled the sight of Erminia. But it was not possible to keep this up very long. Whenever we met afterward, the misery rose up again in my throat.