The Emperor Waltz. Philip Hensher

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СКАЧАТЬ are a student of what, Herr Vogt?’ Neddermeyer said.

      ‘I am about to begin the study of art,’ Christian said.

      ‘Ah, excellent,’ Neddermeyer said. ‘An art historian. That is excellent. At the university here?’

      ‘No, Herr Neddermeyer,’ Christian said. ‘I am studying to become an artist.’

      ‘At my old school, then,’ Neddermeyer said. ‘Is it still in existence? I came here myself to study there, here in Weimar, when I was no more than nineteen, and I have never left. Thirty-eight years ago this autumn. We architecture students had little to do with the fellows on the painting and drawing side. I expect things are just the same now – one half thinks the other flibbertigibbets, and the other thinks them dull, money-grubbing fellows. Artists never change.’

      ‘You put it so well, Herr Neddermeyer,’ Frau Scherbatsky said. ‘But is the art school that you are thinking of still in existence, Herr Neddermeyer, even?’

      ‘I am enrolled at the Bauhaus,’ Christian said. ‘It is only just opening now.’

      ‘The Bauhaus,’ Neddermeyer said. There was a perceptible chilling; he set down his tea and tipped his head back slightly, inspecting Christian over the top of his glasses. ‘The Bauhaus.’

      Christian had the distinct impression that Neddermeyer was now about to change his mind about his previous brotherliness and to tell their landlady that, after all, it had been Christian who had smashed the aubergine pot.

      ‘I know the Bauhaus,’ Neddermeyer said. ‘There is wild talk in the town, both about them and, I must say, by them. When you are as old as I am, you have seen plenty of young men who hope to change the world by shocking their elders. And as time goes on, the shock fades away – the shock and the desire to shock. You hope only to make things as well as your ancestors made them. That may prove difficult enough. The Bauhaus. Well. They wish to make things new, I believe, and turn our lives upside down; to ask us to sit on tetrahedrons, and to live in houses made of glass, like tomatoes. I have seen plenty of wild young men, wanting to change the world by shocking their elders. I may have been one of them myself, once upon a time.’

      Christian inspected the cauliflower teapot; the inglenook fireplace; the padded window-seat. He did not object.

      ‘Young people will not like the same things as old people,’ Frau Scherbatsky said, smiling. ‘You must admit that if no new opinions ever came along we should be living in the houses of Augustus the Strong.’

      ‘I don’t think anyone wants to shock,’ Christian said. ‘I think we only want to start by making new things. But I haven’t been there yet. I am sure you know more about it than I do.’

      Neddermeyer had got up and, holding his leaf-shaped teacup, had gone over to the window, perhaps to hide his emotions. It seemed as if the mention of the Bauhaus struck some chord with him. ‘They seem very little interested in Weimar, where they are,’ he said. ‘I don’t believe they recruited any teaching staff from the town, though, Heaven knows, there are enough talents and experience to power a—’

      ‘Herr Neddermeyer feels strongly,’ Frau Scherbatsky said confidentially but audibly, leaning her whole body towards Christian from her chair. ‘He was very unfortunately—’

      ‘And here they come,’ Neddermeyer said, his voice raising gleefully as he looked out of the window. ‘I don’t know whether you have seen your colleagues and masters yet? They come this way every day, around this time, for their exercise. I promise you, I did not ask them to appear to prove any kind of a point.’

5.

      In the park, three hundred metres away, a small group of people was approaching. They had shaven heads that shone in the sun like wet pebbles by the lakeside. There were eight or nine of them; their smiles, too, shone in the light. It was their clothing that seemed most extraordinary. An elderly woman in a fur-collared overcoat was just now pausing, thirty metres from them, and watching them with open fascination. They wore floor-length robes in purple, flapping as they moved; home-made and evidently not well fitting. The robes looked very much like the garb of a wizard Christian had seen in a childhood pantomime. The tallest of the group, a man in his late twenties or early thirties, wore also a metal collar, like a pewter platter with the middle excised. The group surged around him; their combined movement was uniform, rippling, wavelike and unnervingly joyous. Christian felt that if he left the house and went towards this group he would be brought in; he would experience their joy, cut off from the delights and sorrows of the world about him. And yet he did not want to go towards them. The single, jogging, up-and-down rhythm of their heads, like a string ensemble approaching a climax, was unnatural and fruitless. What were they doing? They seemed to be going for a walk, but they were pressed together too tightly for that; they might have been a single body. Their smiles and joyous movements suggested that someone in there was talking, but you could not see that they were anything but silent as they walked. They moved to some music, audible only to themselves. With a shock, Christian saw that they were men and women mixed, brought into a uniformity of appearance by their heads being shaved.

      As they passed, their attention seemed forward-facing. But one of them – a woman, it looked like – must have felt the gaze of Frau Scherbatsky, Herr Neddermeyer and Christian upon her from the leaded window of the house. She turned, alone, as if rebelling against the will of the group and, with a habitual but pointless gesture, made a movement over her shaved head. Her wide and empty smile – her mouth was, he could see, too large for her little face – did not alter; he could not see whether she had, in fact, engaged with his look or seen the three of them through the window at all. He felt ashamed. In a moment the girl in her loose Biblical robe of purple turned away again, and the tightly knit procession, like a performance, moved on away from them.

      ‘They come every day, around this time,’ Frau Scherbatsky said. ‘I couldn’t tell you what it is all about. My neighbours are fascinated by it.’

      ‘I think it is some kind of newly invented religion,’ Neddermeyer said.

      ‘Oh, surely not,’ Frau Scherbatsky said. ‘At first we believed that it was some sort of advertisement for a children’s play, something of that sort – the seven noble wizards, you know, Herr Vogt.’

      ‘Do you know where they come from?’ Christian said. They resumed their seats; Neddermeyer continued to stand at the window, entranced.

      ‘Yes, indeed,’ Frau Scherbatsky said. ‘They come from the Bauhaus.’

      ‘The one at the front,’ Neddermeyer said. ‘Did you see? The one at the front, taller and older than the rest, he is actually a member of the teaching staff. I have heard that he has, indeed, invented a new religion, which he requires his students to follow. We were quite safe up here, but if you come close to them, seeing them by chance in the street, they emit an overpowering scent of garlic. I have heard that one of the tenets of the religion is that nothing else may be eaten. A sort of purge.’

      ‘Very inconsiderate to the rest of us,’ Frau Scherbatsky said.

      ‘If, when I was a student of architecture all those years ago, I had been told that my professor wished me to wear violet robes in public, to shave my head, to eat nothing but garlic, and to follow a new religion of his devising …’ Neddermeyer started to say.

      Frau Scherbatsky nodded, perhaps embarrassed on behalf of Christian. ‘Where is Herr Wolff, Herr СКАЧАТЬ