Anarchistbanjo's World

OD by Karl Hans Strobl and translated by Joe E Bandel

“Certainly, certainly,” Reißnagel assured him eagerly, “your attacked honor has been restored spotless. The opponents had to admit that you were falsely accused of not having made your inventions yourself, and that you had proceeded honestly and conscientiously in the conduct of business. But there is still this second lawsuit regarding the final accounting…”

He paused regretfully, deeply saddened by the wickedness of the world in withholding what was due to a man like Reichenbach.

“Well,” said Reichenbach, carefully concealing his triumphant feelings behind an air of equanimity, “just today, Doctor Neumann wrote to me that he has reached a settlement with the Salm heirs.”

“Well, and?” burst forth the Privy Councillor, in utmost tension of his entire being.

“I will be paid out one hundred forty-nine thousand gulden in Convention currency, in cash!” It gave him immense satisfaction to lay this out so calmly in front of this witness.

“Children!” screamed the actress, kicking her legs, “and this man hasn’t said a word about it until now. Wins such a monstrous lawsuit… a hundred, forty-nine… Children, help me, I’m getting dizzy, I can’t even pronounce such a huge amount of money…”

“I had more coming to me,” Reichenbach interjected, “it was a settlement. I only got a portion of it.”

“Oh come on, settlement this, settlement that… a chunk of money like that doesn’t come into the house every day. And here we are drinking Nussberger. You’re a cheapskate, dear Baron. There ought to be champagne for that.”

This exuberant, whirling, uninhibited creature enchanted Reichenbach precisely through such outbursts of playful high spirits. Art, duty, profession—that was one side of life; why shouldn’t one, detached from them, be merry and bold and wild? Reichenbach couldn’t do it, and neither the tender, clinging Ottane nor the serious, somewhat plaintive Hermine could draw such laughter from him. But a spitfire like Therese went bustling through everyday life, sparkling and fizzing like fireworks.

Reichenbach looked at the exuberant tragedienne with a smile: “Your wish, Your Highness, is my command.” And he bowed.

“Bravo! Very good!” Therese called after him, “for court chamberlain roles, I could recommend you to the Burgtheater.”

In the Chinese room, Reichenbach encountered Ottane. She came toward him with quick steps, a bright, cheerful expression on her face, inwardly elated. “Well, Father?”

“You’ve done splendidly,” Reichenbach praised, taking her hand, “one wouldn’t even notice that the lady of the house is actually missing.”

A faint shadow of disappointment darkened the young face: “Aren’t you satisfied with me?”

Ottane’s task was to oversee the household; she took her duties seriously, attending to everything, and she believed that even today she had omitted nothing to make the festival worthy and splendid. What did her father find to criticize? Or was there something to the malicious hissing of some older ladies, that her father was paying conspicuous attention to the beautiful Dommeyr?

“Not satisfied?” said Reichenbach, laughing a bit awkwardly and forcedly, “very satisfied, in fact. You’re my little housewife, my sunshine. But isn’t the burden a bit too heavy for such young shoulders?”

Ottane straightened her young shoulders: “I can bear it, if you have trust in me.”

“Yes, yes… then it’s all right.”

The youthful buoyancy overcame the small discomfort, and perhaps now, since she could credit herself with a little slight, she might boldly bring up the great request.

“May I… I have a favor to ask, Father,” said Ottane hesitantly, slipping her arm caressingly into her father’s.

“What is it, my child?”

“I would like… oh, I don’t dare.”

“Out with it. Am I such an ogre?”

“Well—” and now the timid face flushed, “—well, Max Heiland, the great painter, would like to make a portrait of me. May I…?”

“Heiland? Well, Heiland, he is a great artist, after all…”

“All the ladies from the first circles are having themselves portrayed by him,” Ottane continued quickly.

Reichenbach did not particularly like the painter; rumors whispered of certain relations between him and Dommeyr, and he had actually only been invited on Therese’s account, but the circumstances were such that one could not well say no.

“In God’s name,” Reichenbach decided with fatherly mildness, “let yourself be painted by him too. But let Hermine accompany you to the sittings!”

“Father!” Ottane took his face between her hands and kissed him on the forehead.

“Are you so delighted because you’re entering art history? Well! And now, please, have the champagne brought.”

The champagne had of course been chilling for a long time, and its appearance had only awaited the cue.

Therese Dommeyr had spoken the monologue of the Maid of Orleans. It was remarkable what a change came over the woman as soon as she stepped onto a stage, even if it was only a small wooden scaffold covered with a carpet. All exuberance fell away from her; she became the high priestess of art entirely, standing before the red velvet curtain, regal. Inaccessible, transported above all that is common, and she spoke the verses like long-rolling waves, like song.

The people were enraptured, enchanted, felt themselves gifted and graced.

Therese Dommeyr had already drunk six glasses of champagne beforehand; no one could tell.

But as the applause crashed over her, a gentle intoxication came over her. She slipped behind the curtain into the cabinet that lay next to the small stage, through a door into the corridor and into the blue room, where Max Heiland was waiting.

“Servus, Max!” she said and gave him a smack on the cheek.

“Excellent! Unsurpassable!” the painter praised, “that’s how I’d like to paint you once, in stage ecstasy!”

“If one can’t paint the other ecstasies well,” Therese laughed.

“And how’s your old man doing?”

“I believe, if I offered him the little finger, he’d take my whole hand.”

The painter suddenly grabbed her hips and wanted to pull her to him.

“No kissing!” the actress warded him off, “the people are coming.”

The admirers pressed in, surrounded Therese and hung on the hands that she had to let them have, several on each hand.

“Like leeches,” Therese laughed.

And now Hermine is to sing.

Hermine is very excited. Despite her evasion, the young Doctor Eisenstein has managed to corner her, outside on the terrace, as it grew dark and everyone was just going into the garden hall to hear Dommeyr. She had only wanted to catch a bit of fresh air and gather herself after all the hustle, prepare inwardly; he must have lain in wait for her exactly, and it is right into the conversation she wanted to avoid, and she had to say all the embarrassing things that her father had charged her with.

“How can your father demand that you sit at the microscope your whole life?” Eisenstein asks.

And: “Your father is a tyrant!” Eisenstein says bitterly.

One can think that; one has often said it to oneself; but one cannot admit it when another says it aloud, and so the conversation took a quite bitter, harsh end. No, Hermine certainly does not love Doctor Eisenstein, no question of it, but he is after all a young man who is courting a young girl’s hand—no small thing in the life of a young girl. And if one is not exactly pretty, my God, not exactly ugly, but also not pretty, by no means as pretty as Ottane… and with time one will get a crooked back from the microscopicing and the eyes will lose their sparkle.

And now Hermine is to sing, still stirred up from this conversation.

The great excitement after Dommeyr’s monologue has subsided, everyone has taken their places again, everyone is tense, the father makes an impatient face.

He comes up to Hermine, who still makes no move to mount the podium. “What are we waiting for?” he asks impatiently.

“Meisenbiegel isn’t here yet!” Hermine answers nervously.

“Isn’t the carriage back?”

“He hasn’t come back yet.”

Ah, Hermine’s teacher, the singing master Meisenbiegel, is an old gentleman; gout nests in his bones, asthma rattles in his chest, and in his head, the throbbing rages all too often. A good teacher, an excellent teacher, but frail, blown about by every draft. Two days ago, at the last singing lesson, he had complained of a cold; certainly a cough or sniffles has come of it.

“Nothing else will remain,” Reichenbach considers, “but to ask the Schuh to show his gas microscope first, and you sing afterward.”

But then the baron catches sight of Severin, who stands at the door and makes signs to him. “Well, there we have it,” he says after listening to the servant, “your Master Meisenbiegel is lying in bed, making his reckoning with heaven and sweating. Such an old ram… lays himself down to die every two weeks. Who is to accompany you now?”

He looked at Hermine angrily, as if she were somehow complicit in the poor old Meisenbiegel lying in bed and sweating. She could certainly not help it, but in any case, the program was in question; who was to accompany her now—a bitter embarrassment, no doubt.