He was standing miserably in the middle of the room as if on trial. His eyes were cloudy, wet … with brandy or possibly tears, Melkior could not tell. But all this can just as well be a dreadful drunken bug’s labyrinth of cynicism into which he intends to draw me, only to laugh in my face if I start to believe him.
“So why didn’t you fall in love … back then when you used to shave three times a day?” added Melkior derisively “to be on the safe side”—he did not believe him.
“I … did love, Eustachius, I did love!” Maestro waved his arms weirdly, his head thrown tragically back in the manner of the grand pathetic school of acting (thought Melkior). “And what was it I loved? The rosebush, the twigs, the thorns! My sighs, my kisses ended up spiked on thorns, while others plucked the flower!” Maestro was all but howling by the end.
Damn this — it’s genuine! thought Melkior in fright, feeling another kind of horror. The stench business had had him disgusted, but at least it had been at the level of Maestro’s superior-in-its-own-way cynicism, which Melkior sometimes admired for its insolent originality, but this “laying the soul bare” turned his stomach in a completely different way. He disliked intimate confession; this one was all the more odious coming from a man with a bloodied nose who had often declared himself old enough to be Melkior’s father. There was something sad and dirty at the same time in Maestro’s avowal which made Melkior ashamed, and the shame made him avert his eyes to avoid looking at the wretch standing before him … as if he’d been declaring a homosexual love for me … ptui, damn it all!
Maestro wasn’t looking at him, either. Head turned away, swollen livid hands pressed against his chest, he was overcome by a spasm of despair, here, judge me … Stupid, stupid, stupid! raged Melkior.
“You despise me now, Eustachius,” spoke up Maestro timidly, in the voice of a spurned lover. “Well, I never really expected you to fall on my neck and join me in tears. Although, ahem …” he abruptly pulled free of the spasm and went on in his “old” derisive tone, “that would be like a scene from a French vaudeville. …”
“What would be like some scene from a French vaudeville?” asked Melkior, his eyes still away.
“Well — the two of us weeping in each other’s arms,” (Melkior shuddered at the thought) “and our beloved serviced — or for all we know being serviced — by a third, hollow Frederick! Ha-ha-ha …”
All of a sudden Maestro broke into dreadfully mocking and unbridled laughter, thumping Melkior on the shoulder —“fraternally.”
Melkior startled at the touch, at the laughter, but Maestro’s words appeared not to have reached his mind yet. He was staring at Maestro in dull amazement.
“Yes indeed, Eustachius — which is why I’ve chosen you for this ceremony.”
“What accursed ceremony?” Melkior was angry. He had a flash of “revelation”: he was setting me up all along! Priming his “despair” as a trap, to have me fly into his embrace with “avowals.”
“It’s not ‘accursed,’” Maestro went serious again, “it’s a sad ceremony, perhaps even a last tribute to a man … or a former man.”
What’s this piece of buffoonery for the benefit of? Doesn’t sound like a joke … but then he’s a past master of hoaxes … Melkior was being cautious. He waited in silence.
“My laughter has misdirected your thoughts, Eustachius, which is a pity.” Maestro sat down heavily on a chair and dropped his head between his palms. (“The Great Confession posture,” thought Melkior with alarm.) “You will now find it hard to believe what I have to say, and there’s a great deal to be said.” Maestro filled his glass with brandy. Melkior also filled his (Might make it easier to listen to him). “That’s the spirit,” smiled Maestro. “Your good health, then. Only I’ll have to cut the brandy with beer, for I wouldn’t want you, sober Eustachius, to take this for drunken prattle … and also because I have … other reasons,” he added with a kind of worried hesitation. “She was married at the time to a colleague of mine, he used to work for our paper as sports editor. A young, cheerful, shallow journalist; spent more of his time at stadiums, swimming pools, playing fields, than at the office. The cult of the body. That’s how he found her, body and all — at some playing field or other, or was it at a swimming meet, breaststroke or backstroke, it now makes no difference which, but it would have been a … backstroke kind of thing, and married her … rather, he took the precious body home and put it in his bed. Like a sporting health deity, mens sana in corpore sano, that was a frequent tag in his athletic articles. But don’t think I hated him, honorable Eustachius … I only envied him, for reasons which are presumably still clear to you. He seemed to have a great deal of respect — you might even say liking — for me. He was forever inviting me, dragging me home for coffees, lunches, dinners, being a pest … in the beginning! But later on she joined in, and I came to look forward to visiting with them: a ‘home away from home’ (I’d become something of a household pet), not to mention the wonderful hostess, you’d think every object would like to caress her as she went by … (Melkior failed to stifle a sigh) … anyway, I got to dropping in uninvited, at all times of day, just to see her. She would receive me with childish delight, laugh at my every word, even when nothing I’d said was funny: she thought it was ‘witty’ and wished to show she had got the ‘point.’ Only later on did it dawn on me that I’d been playing the role of prattling entertainer … I was good at it then, I was inspired, made happy by her laughter, by the enjoyment of the superb body, I was seeing ‘soul’ there, would you believe it? I didn’t drink much in those days, just enough to get my tongue loosened and my fancy prancing, but even that was very genteel, always strictly within the bounds of bourgeois good manners. I tell you, I used to shave and bathe, change my shirts … I didn’t look like this at all.”
Maestro rubbed his forehead in a spasmodic gesture of despair, finished his drink and dropped his head between his hands again. He then gave a cruel and dry laugh: “Love …” he scoffed. “No one speaks to us with such feather-brained fickleness as love: it makes of us Apollos one moment and losers the next. In her company there, it seemed to me she was finding me ‘interesting’ (of course, I use that cautious term now that it’s all ‘water under the bridge’), and when she saw me out with a ‘do come again’ I felt dismissed as a servant who had done his day’s work. But I was grateful to her even for that: my love found in that invitation some ‘slyly concealed promise.’”
“Well, did you tell her eventually?” said Melkior, unable to contain himself.
His voice woke Maestro: he raised his head, looking at Melkior with a strange hatred — look who’s here! — as if he had only then remembered Melkior’s presence. He then laughed with scoffing viciousness:
“Did I tell her what, Eustachius …?” Melkior heard the implicit attribute “the Blockhead,” too. And said nothing.
“Tell her, indeed …” went on Maestro maliciously. “I didn’t have to, did I? She saw it herself … and proceeded to have fun.”
“At your expense?”
“No, at the expense of the City Savings Bank!” snapped back Maestro in irritation. “Don’t mock me, Eustachius. I may be floating in formaldehyde tomorrow,” he went on gloomily, his voice breaking with agitation. Melkior’s heart constricted. I mustn’t leave him alone tonight, even if it means sitting up until … “So please restrain, if you can, your pleasure at my disgrace. I’m sinking to lizard level under your very eyes, and all you can think of is cracking jokes!”