Not at once, of course, not the very moment it was built. When I first caught sight of it — I’d been abroad at the time it was completed — I was amazed, and that’s no exaggeration; I was in fact appalled. In the humble, simple, architecturally modest surroundings of Kosmajska Street of that time — where two plots away, at No. 45, stood my Aspasia, up to then the bravest of houses, and across the way, Kleont Negovan’s bungalow, the somber face of which was smooth as a serpent — in these surroundings, Stefan’s palace produced a truly disturbing effect, irritatingly perverse and pretentious, like an erratum, a coarse printing error in the elegant context of the street; or, to keep closer to its essential character, like a fit of madness which had suddenly taken hold of deranged, frustrated stone and which, with hysterical joy produced its own malignant currents like cancer, its swellings, lumps, tumors, lesions, humps, ganglions, haemotomes, and all that metastasis of distorted stone forms. I could go on listing comparisons indefinitely, and still only begin to give the displeasing impression which Stefan’s new house left on me at first sight.
Right from the beginning, at the moment of my first astounded repulsion, the seed of my later admiration was sown. I and Stefan’s house — I’m now loath to consider it Stefan’s — were like two beings at first sight divided by antipathy, but who began secretly to draw closer long before that antipathy was overcome and repudiated; moreover, quite unquestionably the initiative belonged to the house, or rather to its irresistibly extraordinary quality. I remember that, on returning to Kosančićev Venac a second time — Stefan hadn’t moved in yet — I was furious. (Why that anger, when the house wasn’t mine and had no reason to concern me? That a Negovan should make himself ridiculous before everyone could affect me personally only insofar as the uninformed might confuse the two of us.)
I shouted at Katarina that that irresponsible Stefan had built himself a monstrosity cheek by jowl with Aspasia — an unseemly stone aberration, une sépulture presumptueuse des pharaons, nécropole dans la petite version primitive balkanique, never mind what his original intentions had been; for certain, that gilded Georgian pumpkin had stuck her poisonous oar in; certainly it was far from responsible or considerate, not to mention cousinly, to contaminate the street with such a house and spoil — what am I saying, completely desolate — a whole area as if Belgrade were his patrimony, dowry, feudal domain, and not a public treasure subject to recognized laws, not to mention urban principles. “What’s more,” I said, “he must have greased someone’s palm generously to have been allowed to indulge in such madness, with no concern at all that there are still houses being rented on Kosmajska Street. Now, of course, with Stefan’s scarecrow alongside them, the question is whether they can be rented at all, never mind if there’ll be any rent out of them!”
“I thought that a palace like Stefan’s would raise the value of any street,” said Katarina.
“And when have I cared about the money?”
She could see how angered I was by the mere suggestion that I would agree to put my pocket before my devotion to building, my only true activity, for which property ownership was simply a kind of civic alibi: that exciting and intoxicating feeling that I, with my own hands (for in the final issue, it is I who guarantee the means) take from nature as from some usurious possessor earth and ore, stone and wood, and give form to that rough clay, to that stone and wood; the feeling that with my own hands (for here too, don’t I guarantee the means?) I transform them at my designers’ drawing boards into magnificent visions, build them up finally into people’s possessions, possessions which only by name and for a short time are mine. Seeing therefore that she had wounded me deeply, my wife conciliatingly exclaimed that it wasn’t revenue she had in mind at all, nor wealth either, but standing, prestige; la renommée bourgeoise was what she was concerned with, in mentioning which—la renommée bourgeoise—she was really only repeating rather clumsily my own aired opinion that a house’s standing and that of its occupants were in a reciprocal relationship, like a mirror and the face reflected in it: the inhabitants of a house heighten its reputation and the importance of its location, just as a house, by its position, its location, guarantees the importance of its tenants.
At that, I rather skillfully drew her attention to the fact that it was indeed my houses which built up all those suburban districts before what she understood by address became important, and that the opposite was not, or only very rarely, the case. Despite the unquestionably favorable status of those districts — and in no case would I underestimate or deny its real effect on the continuous rise in the value of my properties — if it hadn’t been for me and entrepreneurs like me, and our enterprise, sincerity, professional talents, persistence, farsightedness, and even diplomatic skill (first intelligence and then money, of course, for what can intelligence alone achieve, what good is intelligence without means?), there wouldn’t have been any addresses on the hill at all, and certainly not those worth making any kind of fuss about. Instead, there would have been the garrison’s stables and gun emplacements; they would still be breeding geese on the open fields of Dedinje and Topčider; and the village yokels would still be lightheartedly relieving themselves against the gates of the few carelessly thrown together weekend houses.
“That’s just what I’m saying, Arsénie. If your houses built up Dedinje, why shouldn’t Stefan’s help build up Kosmajska Street.”
“Because there’s no need for anyone to raise Arsénie’s already solid values, and certainly not that lout Stefan with his oafish house!”
“Well, like it or not, you’ll have to raise Aspasia’s rent now.”
“I know. Only then I’ll have to renew her façade and have her painted, and perhaps even install central heating.”
“Well, at least you don’t mind spending the money.”
“Of course I don’t mind!”
Even without the new rental, I had intended to refurbish Aspasia. Clearly I would have spared neither money nor effort in putting her back into shape, but I didn’t want to waste money on making her stand out in the neighborhood. Renovation was necessary for Aspasia, not for my landlord’s pride, and she certainly didn’t need to be surrounded by gypsy shacks.
“I don’t care about money, Katarina, but I do need it for new construction.”
“Always new construction,” she said dispiritedly.