Lili Read online

  “Grete,” he then said, “be thankful that you have believed in Lili to the last. You know that I have never been able to doubt her. I knew that the day would come … I am so happy.”

  *

  On the evening of this fateful day Andreas collapsed. His powers of resistance were at an end.

  Not until then did he dare to acknowledge to himself how great his torment and despair had been during these last years. Now he could be frank with himself. Now he must be … He badly needed help, but had a friend who would assist him, his brother-in-law, in whom he had confided for years and who knew the secret of Lili. Andreas poured out his heart to his distant relative.

  “29th January, 1930.

  “Paris.

  “Dear Christian,

  “You have not heard from me for a long time, because I have been able to tell you nothing good about Lili. From time to time I have been examined by several doctors, but without result. Throughout they prescribed sedative remedies, which left me no better nor wiser than I was before. For I want to know what is happening to me, even if it hurts. After consulting with Grete, Elena took me to one of her personal acquaintances, who received me three hours before he was leaving Paris. Then something happened which sounds almost like a miracle! I had a consultation with the famous surgeon and woman’s doctor Professor Werner Kreutz, of Dresden. Strangely enough, he resembled you. He examined me a long time, and then declared that my case was so rare that only one similar case had been known up till now. He added that in the condition in which I am at present, I could hardly be regarded as a living creature, because the ray treatment had been a great mistake, especially as it had not been preceded by microscopical examination. Now he fears that this treatment in the dark may have destroyed my organs completely – male as well as female.

  Consequently, he wants me to go to Berlin as quickly as possible for the purpose of a microscopical examination.

  “Some time afterwards he will operate on me himself. He wants to remove the dead (and formerly imperfect) male organs, and to restore the female organs with new and fresh material. Then it will be Lili who will survive!

  “Her weak girl’s body will then be able to develop, and she will feel as young as her new and fresh organs. Dear Christian, I am now sitting here and weeping like a child while I am writing you these lines. It seems so like a miracle that I dare not believe it. One thing, however, consoles me: that were it otherwise I must soon die. Grete and I believe we are dreaming, and are fearful of waking. It is too wonderful to think that Lili will be able to live, and that she will be the happiest girl in the world – and that this ghastly nightmare of my life is drawing to an end. This wretched comedy as a man! Without Grete I should have thrown up the sponge long ago. But in these dark days I have had a fresh opportunity of seeing what a splendid girl she is … she is an angel. Over-exertions, her own sufferings, have left her unscathed. She has contrived to work for two, now that I am no longer worth much. I do what I am able, of course, and have exhibited and sold with success in all the important Salons. But now all this is over. I am no longer fit for anything. I am like a wretched grub which is waiting to become a butterfly. The operation is urgent, and the doctor would like me to proceed to Berlin immediately, as some twenty days must elapse between the first examination and the operation. And I must be in Dresden on the day he is ready to create Lili. He will send me medicine, which I am to take, in order to support the internal organs and thereby keep me alive until then. For practical reasons I begged for some delay, and I told him that I should prefer so to arrange matters as to proceed to Berlin via Copenhagen, as I wanted first to hold an exhibition in Denmark. I would then proceed from Berlin to Dresden at the beginning of April.

  “This does not particularly please the doctor; but he understood that I had suggested this for practical reasons.

  “Now, I do not know whether it is due to excitement, but my condition has worsened to such an extent that I no longer feel able to make preparations for an exhibition and attend to everything it involves – I realize that I have no time to lose.

  “Hence, I want your help.

  “Will you lend me the money for the operation and the stay in the nursing home? I do not know how much it will cost. I only know that Elena has so arranged it that the Professor is taking an exceptionally low fee. Out of consideration for Grete I dare not take money from our savings; the less so as our trip to Rome and my illness has cost us so much.

  “I – or we – have deposited many pictures with Messrs Heyman and Haslund, of Copenhagen, and I estimate their value to be between 7,000 and 10,000 kronen. I do not, however, know what the operation will cost, but I estimate it will come to between 4,000 and 5,000 kronen in all. I give you all these pictures in Denmark by way of security in the event of my death – and in any event. If the affair turns out badly, the pictures can be sold, and if it turns out well, we can soon repay you the money. Our earning powers are good and we have many large orders.

  “Tell no one except my sister anything of the contents of this letter, and be good enough to let me know what you decide as quickly as possible, first by telegram and then by letter.

  “It is only because I have the feeling that death is on my track that I send you this letter. Up till now I have never incurred debts in any quarter. Warmest greetings to you and the sister from Grete and

  “Andreas.”

  Two days later his brother-in-law’s answer arrived: a short telegram:

  “Don’t worry. Whatever you need is at your disposal.”

  Andreas breathed again; he began to summon up new courage.

  Werner Kreutz had promised to send him early news, the signal to strike his tent.

  One evening he said to Grete: “I often find myself thinking of my old schoolmaster now. He used to tell us the story of the negroes of Saint Croix, who broke out into revolt a day before their emancipation from slavery. Now I understand their feelings. I feel I can wait no longer.”

  A few days later, on a Monday morning, Elena received a telegram from a friend in Berlin directing Andreas to arrive in Berlin not later than the following Saturday and to stay at a specified hotel, which the Professor frequented during his visits to Berlin. A letter would be awaiting Andreas in the hotel.

  Two days later Andreas was on his way to Berlin. Grete and Elena accompanied him to the train.

  Since the arrival of the telegram he had scarcely uttered a word. He seemed like a man living in a dream. Every joy and every sorrow he shut up in his heart. Even at the final moment of farewell he scarcely betrayed any excitement. To be alone … to get away … fleeing towards a new fate … fleeing from past and future … and to refrain from thinking until the goal was reached. … What goal?

  IV

  The train moved slowly away. Andreas had a seat by the window.

  Out of habit he had lit a cigarette. He smoked one after another … From time to time he mechanically flicked off the ashes.

  He was a prey to that complete mental lassitude which so frequently supervenes upon hasty travel preparations the moment the traveller suddenly finds himself alone in the departing train.

  Horrible ideas assailed him when he suddenly realized that he had now surrendered himself. He fell into a fever of apprehension.

  Suddenly he had a vision of two dear, beloved faces: Grete … Elena … and gradually the two faces changed into one … He had only one name for them both: home, and now, it occurred to him, Paris.

  He looked out, as if he were seeking them – Paris … Elena … Grete.

  When farewells were being said he had not once leaned out of the window. … The Eiffel Tower … the mirage in the sky of the towering dome of Sacré Coeur … Elena … Grete … all had vanished for ever.

  For ever? Yes, for ever! And he, Andreas Sparre, would never return to Paris.

  Perhaps another being … He was unable to pursue the thought to its end.

  Grete … Elena … Paris … This constant repetitive triad accompanied h
im, the fugitive. Now he heard it suddenly in the rhythm of the train: fugitive … fugitive …

  The train raced through northern France.

  Across the landscape new townships were springing up out of the ruins. Here and there were vast, strange-looking rectangles with fantastic crops. They were not cornfields: they were fields of crosses, soldiers’ cemeteries, plantations of the dead. Cross set close to cross as far as eye could see.

  And he thought of Grete. Why had he not allowed her to accompany him? She had implored him to do so. And yet he had forced her to remain behind in Paris … and to wait. He pulled himself together, lit a cigarette, and put the thought out of his mind.

  The train reached the frontier between France and Belgium. He gazed indifferently out of the window. The last seat in the compartment was now occupied.

  Through Belgium the train crawled at a snail’s pace. Andreas strolled up and down the dining-car and mixed a cocktail. It was not yet six o’clock. The train stopped at every tiny village on the way. Passengers alighted and entered in a leisurely way, as if they had endless time on their hands.

  Then the German frontier was reached, and a new engine imparted new energy to the journey. Slowly the night descended, and soon the train was rushing through the darkness.

  Andreas had lingered over his meal in the dining-car and had drunk more wine than usual to deaden his feelings and lull the pain caused him by the vibration and rolling of the train. But he must return to his compartment. He could scarcely keep on his feet. At length he sank back in his corner again, clenched his teeth, and closed his eyes. All his bridges were burned. Everything lay behind him. His whole life seemed to him to be something that was past, something that was lost.

  He resolved not to think. But his brain gave him no rest. Would it not perhaps be best to abandon this fantastic experiment? For what it was proposed to do to him was only an experiment after all. Would it not have been more rational to live out his life to the end as it was shaped for him, to let this life ebb away from him?

  He thought of the letter which he had lately written to Werner Kreutz:

  “Yours for life and death, if Lili survives.”

  Every particle of masculine pride that dwelt in him stirred and gripped him. “I must reach the goal. I must hold out.” He spoke his thoughts half aloud, and several fellow-travellers regarded him inquiringly.

  He had to laugh … Not in vain was he a native of Copenhagen, where nothing is ever taken seriously.

  “So,” said Andreas to himself, “let us write our obituary. It’s not a matter to be taken tragically.”

  And then he began rapidly to compose the sort of notice that would be published, appraising him as artist.

  “The painter Andreas Sparre is dead. He died in the train between Paris and Berlin. His fellow-travellers thought he had fallen asleep in one of the corner seats of his compartment. The cause of death was probably a heart attack.

  “A happy and harmonious artistic life here came to an abrupt close. He was a man in the prime of life. After searching for a long time and experimenting in various ways, he seemed to have found his style. His pictures, which mostly originated in France and Italy, were sometimes bright and bathed in colour, sometimes dark and somewhat sombre, but always charged with sentiment and natural feeling. Two subjects he preferred above all else: Paris, whose embankments, bridges, and towers he succeeded, with no little mastery, in reproducing in their lightly-veiled pearl-grey atmosphere, and landscapes under lowering skies, showing in vivid lights the trees and houses in the background. It was especially in pictures of the latter kind – these strong, very masculinely conceived storm pictures – that Andreas Sparre found an outlet for his talent.

  “We, who were acquainted with his soft, often effeminate appearance, and his laughing, joyous tones in conversation, noted this with astonishment, and the thought frequently struck us that whatever masculine force resided in him found its outlet in these strong, somewhat wild and wilful pictures.

  “He painted very quickly, and thus it happened that he found time to devote himself to many other things beside his art. His knowledge was really comprehensive. Very characteristic was an answer which we once heard from his own lips, in the Trianon, addressed by him to an older colleague. The latter had expressed his annoyance at the fact that a young colleague was beginning a picture in what he thought was too systematic a way. ‘You must pardon me if I don’t share your view,’ retorted Andreas Sparre, ‘but I do believe that it is impossible to paint a leaf of a rose correctly unless one knows the last thing about the influence of Assyrian bas-relief upon the sculpture of the Greeks.’

  “On another occasion he expressed himself in the following way: ‘I cannot understand how lightly most of my older colleagues take their art – how easily satisfied they are with their performances. As for me, I calculate I should require a thousand years to become a decent painter.’ Thus seriously did Andreas Sparre take his art, at any rate.

  “The greater portion of his life he had spent far from his Danish home – in Italy, Holland, Germany, and France. He lived mostly in Paris.

  “The reason why he turned his back in early manhood on Copenhagen, although his art was highly appreciated there from the beginning, was because Copenhagen and Denmark did not seem to him to be the right soil for his wife’s art. In Copenhagen he had frequently been obliged to hear how much his pictures were preferred to those of his wife. And that was perhaps the worst thing that could be said to him. In Paris, where the contrary was generally the case, he felt at home for this very reason. He felt his wife’s successes as his own successes, for his dominant characteristic was chivalry towards his wife, as towards women generally.

  “For the rest, his was a complex, enigmatic nature. Despite the inevitable influences to which every artist in Paris is exposed, he remained fundamentally a Northern painter, and his art, in its quintessence, had little affinity with Latin, but every affinity with Teutonic influences. His personal outlook was European. He maintained a constant intercourse with French philosophers and writers, with Polish violinists, with Russian architects, and German painters.

  “In collaboration with a French friend he wrote a book about Northern sagas, which passed through many editions in Paris. Of this he was not a little proud. And he took pleasure in the fact that through this book he had been the means of opening the eyes of the predominately Latin reading world to the Teutonic world of ideas, an undertaking which in the Post-War period (the book appeared in 1924) deserves praise as the throwing of an intellectual bridge between the Latin and the Teutonic worlds.

  “Without being himself a practised musician, he cherished a deep love of music.

  “In recent years his health had not been particularly good. He had frequently complained of pains, but always in a restrained and smiling way, so that even the doctors whom he was eventually obliged to consult were misled as to his real condition or were unable to realize the serious state of his health.

  “And now death has so abruptly – and to the deep sorrow of his many friends near and far – terminated this versatile artistic career, which to all of us who have known him must seem like an unfinished romance …”

  “Full stop,” said Andreas to himself. “Full stop.” And he thought that, in much the same language as he had just been using, someone else had secretly written down his career in a diary – Grete, his faithful life’s companion, as she too thought that he would die suddenly. One night he had found her asleep over her diary. He was careful not to let Grete suspect that he knew of the existence of it.

  The train had passed Aix long ago. Would they never reach Cologne? he moaned inwardly.

  Andreas had not booked a sleeping-berth. He did not care for this modern travelling comfort. To be perched aloft with perfect strangers was repellent to his fastidiousness. An unconquerable aversion forbade him to undress in the presence of other men. He had often been chaffed on this account. Only Grete understood his repugnance.

  At l
ast, Cologne! All his fellow travellers left the compartment. “They have sleeping-berths,” thought Andreas gleefully. He was left alone.

  After a short time the train started again. Andreas lit a fresh cigarette. Would the pain leave him in peace until he reached his destination, Berlin? If he could only sleep just this one night! If he could only banish thought for just this one night!

  He took off his coat and laid it under his head, so that he might lie higher, and wrapped himself in his cloak. Before he had felt too hot … now he began to shiver. He rose from his seat, drew down the curtains in front of the windows and switched off the light. Then he laid down again.

  The pains racked him afresh. He drew his cloak over his face.

  Then he fell asleep, and slept for several hours. “Hanover! … Hanover!” the porters were shouting, And then again, a long way off: “Hanover!”

  The sound of hammers was heard tapping the wheels, coming nearer and nearer. Doors were flung open and slammed.

  A shrill whistle blew and slowly the train moved off again.

  Andreas was half leaning, half lying on the seat in a drowsy state. Suddenly he jumped to his feet. The door of his carriage was flung open. The drawn curtains were pushed aside.

  A lady was standing in front of the door. Her silhouette was sharply defined against the light in the corridor.

  The darkness in his compartment seemed for a moment to intimidate her. But only for a moment. Then she threw a small trunk upon the rack and sank wearily into the nearest empty corner seat, next to the door leading to the corridor.

  Andreas switched on the light again.

  He suppressed his ill-humour at being thus suddenly jerked out of his solitude. “The train will not stop again until it reaches Berlin,” he thought, “and so there is no hope of being alone again.” Should he move into the adjoining compartment? Perhaps it was empty. But he immediately rejected the idea. He could not hurt the lady’s feelings by appearing discourteous.