O T H E R S ’ PA R A D I S E

P A U L L E P P I N

translated from the German by

Stephanie Howard and Amy R. Nestor

T W I S T E D S P O O N P R E S S

Prague • 2003

This edition copyright © 2003 by Twisted Spoon Press

Translation copyright © 1995 by Stephanie Howard and Amy R. Nestor

Cover photograph copyright © 2003 by Ervina Boková–Drtikolová

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form

or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording,

or any information storage and retrieval system, without the publisher’s

written permission.

isbn 80-901257-5-1 (cloth)isbn 80-86264-07-6 (paper)

C O N T E N T S

♦ ♦ ♦

The Doors of Life • 11

The Ghost of the Jewish Quarter • 47

The Wonderdoll • 57

The Funeral of Herr Muckenschnabel • 69

The House on the Riverbank • 83

Others’ Paradise • 97

The Dream of the Silver Eaves • 107

Retribution • 129

Others’ Paradise

I give this book to those women who seek

dead years in the lamp at night. Who

stare into their days, transfixed, as into a

light. Who know Resignation from the

romances and Sorrow from the ballads.

Who are ever Strangers among men.

The Doors of Life

I

The old house stood on a narrow, darkened street in

the Jewish Quarter. The rainy days that passed

before its windows became odd and unfamiliar as they

approached, and when the night wind rattled the faded shut-

ters, it brought the faint and sorrowful words it had found

on the streets outside. The gate was set deep and shadowed;

to the right, on a low wall, a doorknob of red glass almost

gleamed amidst the darkness. Inside, seven women sat in

the salon. There was no sun in the room; the window was

curtained and a legend had been painted on the panes, such

that no light could pass through. The tale of some mira-

cle that once, a thousand years ago, had occurred in the

13

— — then you became a grieving Widow, your dreams mute as a barred window —

from an old prayer book

city was traced on the window. Red velvet concealed half

of it; only a woman could be seen, her hand raised, her eyes

unspeakably fearful. When the sun shone on the panes, they

would become darkly colored, the woman’s eyes like fire.

Then the seven women would turn away, so that they

need not look there.

Only Veronika Selig looked there sometimes, during

the long and silent afternoons, as the others sat on the large

velveteen sofa, telling stories and kissing each other. To her,

it almost always seemed as if she must know those strange

eyes with their mystery. But she could not place them. Life

had gone beyond her long ago and would not come again.

Before, she had known many mothers, and the eyes on the

window as well. That she was a mother, that anxious

woman there on the window, this Veronika knew — it

was a remembrance from those years when she had still con-

cerned herself with men and hearts. Only the name was

unknown to her. It must have been a long and yielding

name, with a bruised and ailing a at the end, one which

she still held in her memory of life. A great saint had been

so named. A saint who had suffered much pain. Veronika

often thought of that.

She was the queen of the seven women, for she was the

tallest and had the most beautiful hair. She was also the

14

only one who heard the faint rapping and tapping that

would come — slowly, groping as if in search of someone

— over the darkened stairway, when the house was utterly

still. For two years — from the day she had come to the

old house — she had heard the knocking and searching;

now she sat through the afternoons, waiting.

The other women had often begged Veronika to tell

them her story when they were alone, holding each oth-

ers’ hands. But Veronika had always kept silent. She no

longer knew, she had forgotten all that had happened

once, in life. Thus it happened that the others did not know

her at all, that she was as much a stranger to them as the

image on the window. They all knew each other: each had

learned and come to love the fate of the others and live in

it. Their memories grew into each other, and as they talked

and talked, the paths of their lives lost themselves. Only

Veronika had her own fate — and this fate darkened her

eyes and made her the queen.

A hundred paces from the house stood the Old

Synagogue, the same one in which Veronika had prayed as

a child. When the rain-drenched afternoons came to the

street, the seven women could hear the faint singing; then

they fell mute, and remained silent. And when people

passed by the window, Veronika would listen carefully.

15

When the steps became ever more distant and did not

return, she would think, life has died. And now it was

coming, over the stairway, rapping and groping and search-

ing for Veronika. But Veronika sits in the red room and will

not let herself be found. She has become one of the seven

women. She no longer thinks of life at all. She just keeps

silent and gazes at the velvet curtain, at the two eyes on

the window.

16

ii

That summer, Roman Maria moved to the street, taking

an apartment almost opposite the house. Roman Maria was

a student — a hard and wild man with a pale and ravaged

face, who beat and trampled upon the prostitutes when he

was drunk on wine. Of whom no one knew, where he got

his money or how he lived. Who owned a rare, ancient

violin.

In the evenings he went to the taverns and drank. But

there were entire weeks when he stayed home. He would

lie on the faded green couch, staring, or cut strange and

alien silhouettes out of paper. Black, wicked faces, all with

spiteful laughs about their mouths. On such days, he

17

would often pick up his violin and play for hours on end,

as if he were lost to life. He played all that was in him, all

that he loved and went seeking: the wild and mysterious

adventures of the city; the hoarse songs of the cabaret

singers, their painted mouths, and their gestures —

defiant, resigned, and wanton — that exposed all to the

audience — like a heated dream that one shakes off. He

played the laughter of the tavern women as they sat on his

knee and the cigarette smoke veiled their eyes, his long-

ing for the suffering of others and the huge, secret tragedies

of the city. When Roman Maria played, then he might shut

the doors and windows, yet still be heard on the streets.

His songs pushed through the walls of the old houses.

And in his solitary weeks his playing was heard all the

way to the last house of the darkened alley. The tones of

the violin were soft and sorrowful, and yet clear and wild,

defiant and unspeakably ill.

Often now, the seven women in the house opposite also

heard Roman Maria playing his violin; they were already

acquainted with him and waited each day until he began.

Then it would be completely quiet in the red room.

Veronika would cast her hands over her face and sit still,

without stirring. Then the violin of Roman Maria would

come from the alley, as if from the distance, from deep,

18

deep in the city, pushing through the panes with the old

legend, through the velvet curtains at the window. And the

violin told again of all those things that happened outside,

in life, for it knew mad tales, passionate and melancholy,

about the love of others. Then it would become dark and

heavy like the night and speak of the streets and the long

days of the city; it would speak of the nights, when the lamps

blazed and the women wore red silk on their bodies and

paint on their lips, when the old stories of life were in the

champagne, as mad and grotesque as a theatre piece.

Strange stories, like silhouettes of reality, but with a spite-

ful laugh about the mouth. And when one spoke about

them, about the lamps of the rushing night, about the

Carnival of Life, one addressed them familiarly — oh you

and you — — —

The violin knew this. And when it had spoken it all,

the seven women would look at themselves and remem-

ber the night that was to come, that always came to them.

Where cigarettes veiled the eyes and the old stories of life

were in the champagne. Of life — that they did not want,

that could not enter the red room, that only Veronika

sometimes heard, tapping and groping on the stairs.

And once one of the women asked to whom the vio-

lin might belong. Then Veronika said to her:

19

But don’t you know, that Roman Maria has come to

our street — that he lives here?

They were all astonished: Roman Maria? —

Of course, Roman Maria, the student. Haven’t you

understood his violin? It has told us his name and spoken

his heart. It is still young, yet has already grown quite bit-

ter. But his violin plays beautifully. —

Since that night, they were at times all compelled to

think of the heart of Roman Maria.

20

iii

For thirteen days they had heard no more from the violin.

On the thirteenth, it fiddled a bit, laughed and shrieked.

Then an evening came into the room such as they had never

before known: outside, the darkened shadows of the syn-

agogue fell on the street, the legend stood red on the panes,

and the seven women were afraid. Not a single word was

spoken among them; sitting in the twilight, each only

heard, at moments, as one of them said a paternoster. For

Veronika, it was as if an evil dream had come over her —

a dream in which she again heard the steps on the stairs

outside, and between them, faintly, the singing of the Jews

in the synagogue. She could do nothing when the ancient

21

things, which she had almost completely forgotten, again

came to her — when she was compelled to think of her

child as she died. The child had had huge, spiteful eyes,

and she too had been named Veronika. Her father, King

Kaspar, had loved her exceedingly.

He had indeed been a king, in a golden crown decked

with colored tassels. A mad king in tights and mendacious

paint. In his eyes there had also been the longing — the

spiteful longing for pain and the squandering of life —

that gnawed at his heart, such that it had long ago become

bruised and sore; that he had given to his child; that had

once possessed her as well, years ago; that she again heard

wandering outside, searching and groping.

The evening sun lay on the panes. Veronika again

looked at the eyes on the window. All at once it came to

her — that she need ponder and question no more — that

she recognized the woman — and she rose, wanting to

greet her. All at once she knew that they were her own

eyes into which she had stared for two long years; that

it was the mother Veronika, with her fear and love for

Kaspar. The mother Veronika. And she also knew that

there, behind the red velvet, stood the coffin and the

candle. For two years she had sat there without ever lift-

ing the curtain, without knowing that her dead child lay

22

behind it, staring at her. Yet now she felt those eyes

through the heavy velvet: they were huge and alien and

without love. For the second time in her life, Veronika

wept.

Outside on the stairs, it was coming and seeking and

demanding. The seven women sat, holding hands. They

wanted to speak to each other, but could not — then they

realized that the fear had taken their voices. They sensed

that something was standing behind the door, that it

wanted to come to them. Their hearts pounded when

they saw Veronika weep.

The steps were coming down the hallway. Hands —

heavy and passionate, searching blind in the darkness —

were groping along the wall. Now they had found the

glass knob. Slowly the door opened. Roman Maria strode

into the room.

None of the seven women knew him, but at that

instant they all understood that it was he. He had wild hair

and a scar across his forehead. Silently, he looked around

him, as if he were seeking someone. Then he saw Veronika,

saw her reddened eyelids and asked:

Are you weeping?

Yes, she said, I weep. But come, we shall drink cham-

pagne together. I am Veronika Selig, and I must weep for

23

the eyes that my child bore when she died. Do you want

to sleep with me, Roman Maria?—

24

25

iv

And so it came to pass that the student took Veronika

with him, out of the old house, into his life. To him, she

was a rare and utter enigma, and he loved her. His love was

as wild and singular as his being — there were hours when

he kissed her eyes, in which he read his own destiny — and

there were days when he beat her. Veronika feared him. It

was miraculous to her that she had come home, back to

life. She thus loved Roman Maria with her huge and dam-

aged love — and because she knew it would be the last love

of her life, she threw her heart into its darkened fountain

— her heart — passionate and wasted, fraught with

wounds.

She was often compelled to tell him of her childhood,

and of Kaspar and his child. At night, he would write her

story on huge sheets of paper and speak to her of a

Romance, the Romance of her life. He no longer played

his violin, nor did he go to the taverns to drink. When he

was not writing, when Veronika had told of her earlier

love, then he would recount his own life to her: tangled,

wild adventures that held the unrestrained beauty of his

depraved longing; mad stories that brought Veronika fear,

whose proud and daring grandeur spoke his heart — his

bitter, wasted heart. How he had drunk and loved, the music

he had played to it, the ancient wonders he had told: the

empty night music of the winebars and music halls and tav-

erns, which knew nothing but street ballads and tunes;

which was false and dissonant at times, and sad; yet which

again and ever again bewitched — for Roman Maria feared

his heart. This fear drove him through the streets and the

darkness of his city, into its abysses and vices; it accom-

panied him on all paths and refused to ever leave him; it

was everywhere, in the wine and the songs of the cabaret,

with the prostitutes, in the tunes of the player piano. The

fear was in all his adventures. Roman Maria was unspeak-

ably frightened of his heart — for he knew much mystery

and awe and strangeness were in it, much pain and even

more longing.

26

When Veronika read in Roman Maria’s eyes his

thoughts about his heart, she would sit down next to him

and kiss him on the mouth. Her life was in her kisses, all

that had happened to her up to that day. Her huge and dam-

aged love was there, her pity and her memory. In such hours,

when she gave herself away, bestowed herself upon him,

it was wild and hungering and almost defiant — a fever

in her young body that consumed him.

But they never spoke to each other of his heart — in

their kisses and their love, they sought to forget it. Nor did

Veronika ever tell Roman Maria that she had heard his vio-

lin, that she had understood it, that she knew his heart.

27

28

v

from the Romance

veronika selig

by Roman Maria

When Veronika woke in the night and heard the current

rushing under the ancient bridge beyond the window-

panes, she always lay a while longer, with open eyes, think-

ing of King Kaspar. Often, she could lie thus for hours

on end, with burning hands, pondering his wild fate —

until the night disappeared from the streets outside and

the day came into her room. Then she always saw him

before her as she had greeted him with her passionate

heart a thousand times: Kaspar, as he stood in his red

doublet before the shuddering crowd, as the clouds behind

the city always became so flaming red at evening, when he

spoke the frightful words of death to his Queen. As he drew

the sword from his side and looked out at the evening

clouds, his eyes were so wretched and passionate and

hideous that each time it was like a redemption for

Veronika, when he had killed the Queen. —

Thus had she often seen him, King Kaspar, when the

wandering players performed his story in their theatre on

the outskirts of the city, where the puppets were like liv-

ing men, speaking and weeping, killing each other. And

when Kaspar came on stage in his velvet jacket, the chil-

dren ceased their stammering, the mothers their gossip. The

wind in the lindens was suddenly stilled — beneath it the

stage stood and waited. And Veronika held her breath. —

Red Kaspar spoke. His voice was hoarse and loud —

and perhaps it could be heard so clearly because all had

become so still around it. He spoke of his heart and looked

out into the evening. He raised his hand and pointed at

the people; his voice was accusatory and dark, his tongue

heavy. He spoke of his heart — how the people had stolen

it from him, sold it at market, drained it dry. Each time,

a shudder passed through the audience. The children

paled, their little hands grasped at their breasts to feel

29

whether their hearts still beat. The mothers looked at each

other, their eyes asked: Did you take the heart of Kaspar,

neighbor? — Everyone had pale lips and a bad conscience.

As the pain made Kaspar weep, as his fate came over

him, Veronika sat motionless, waiting for the scene with

the Queen who had betrayed him — each time, the

evening clouds became so red, blazing, as he spoke the

strange words to the Queen and killed her. She was then

always compelled to gaze long into Kaspar’s eyes — as

she looked at him so fearfully, it seemed to her as if a

thousand years had passed — until he drew his sword and

dealt the Queen a wound above her heart, such that she

collapsed, cursing Kaspar, and died. —

The play came to an end. The two sides of the curtain

came slowly together — the story of the Queen was over.

The wind sighed faintly in the lindens; it was noisy in the

city, the children shouted. But the people stayed for a long

time, sitting silently. For they knew that inside, behind the

curtain, Kaspar was still standing, gazing at the Queen —

that the play was not yet truly over, that it would never

come to an end. Veronika was always the last one to leave.

❂ ❂ ❂

30

As long as the summer lasted, Veronika went to her

strange theatre on the outskirts of the city. Many splen-

did things were performed there: fairy tales, stories of

enchantment, chivalric tragedies — but the story of Red

Kaspar was the most beautiful of all. Veronika always knew

during the day whether Kaspar was to be on the stage

that evening, for then the wind and the current of the

river and the city itself were much sadder, and the sun was

red. Kaspar had become the Prince of her maidenly dreams,

for he had a red doublet, and when he spoke, the wind in

the lindens had to be silent. She thought of him all win-

ter long and lay awake at night, brooding. She knew his

story by heart — yet when summer came, she still went

back there to listen. Thus it happened that she gradually

began to speak with the words of the characters in the play,

to move with their gestures. The look she cast upon the

world at times — that too she had learned from the story

of Kaspar. By this glance, people recognized that Veronika

had a heart different from that of normal men, and they

let her go her own way.

The summer she turned twelve years old, the itiner-

ant players with their theatre failed to appear and never

returned to Veronika’s city. She often still went out to the

lindens, but the square remained empty. Sometimes she

stood there, waiting. And when the deep red clouds of

31

evening blazed behind the houses, then Veronika knew

that Kaspar was standing on the stage in his velvet doublet,

speaking the magic words of death to his blanching Queen.

Here the first chapter closes.—

Long after, people were still talking about the frenzy

of the clown on that day.

How he stood on the rope, raising his right leg and mak-

ing a grimace, squinting at the tassels on his cap. How he

then cracked his whip and cried “Hopsasa,” bounding

madly about on the thin cord, so that it swayed and the

audience shrieked. A wild joy was in him that evening, and

he had painted his torn face with strange colors, a bloody

red and a sickly white, so that it looked like pus. With his

black baton, he had leapt into the crowd, laughing; like a

madman, he beat the metal bells that hung on silken strings

from the wooden frame. The music he made was crazed and

unrestrained — it laughed and jeered and shrieked — and

at the end, almost sobbed and begged — for Kaspar was

the lord and master, and it had to obey his baton. He

knew that he played on the hearts of the people — he felt

it, as they trembled and implored, as they shrieked at him

32

— and he continued playing his song without mercy. He

imagined that he was King Kaspar: a wild king in a red

crown bedecked with colored tassels; a great king in tights,

with mad grimaces under the paint; whom Veronika had

seen, years ago, as a puppet in a great theatre piece.

Veronika had immediately recognized him, and had called

him King Kaspar. The wooden puppet had perhaps died

long ago, but his kingdom had not perished — his red

Realm of Fools and his mysterious power over men.

Then he tossed his baton into the face of the crowd

and raised his hat high with his gaunt hand. Ten times he

cried Viva!, a hoarse Viva! out into the circus, where the

crowd murmured and gaped, watching his jests with whis-

pers. Taking the colored whip in his hand, he cracked it and

then ran over the streets, into the night, to his house. —

There, Veronika was still sitting in the narrow room,

crying for the first time in her life. She gazed at the coffin

holding her dead child — her eyes were still open and

Veronika feared them. Those eyes were alien and without

love. In them Veronika read the lament, the mute lament,

that she had betrayed Kaspar, her Kaspar, as had the

Queen under the lindens many years before. The mad

Kaspar who had loved his child so exceedingly, who would

now come and kill her. That evening — just as he was about

33

to go to the circus and had placed the golden crown with

the colored tassels on his head — she had spoken to him,

for she could no longer bear the gaze of her dead child. Like

a madman, he had stared at her — and laughed. Then he

had fallen silent and walked away.

And now, now he was already climbing the stairs. She

listened to him panting, to the rhythm of his wild breath.

Now he stood in the door — he had the red doublet on

his body, the Fool’s Cap on his head, the whip with the

colored ribbons in his fist. In his eyes it was written that

he would kill her.

Veronika cried out like an animal and raised her hands

in terror. Grasping her by the hair, Kaspar threw her to the

floor and trampled upon her; then he took the whip and

lashed her face until it bled.

Whore — he said.

Like a madwoman, Veronika cried out to her child.

There was a frenzied entreaty in that shriek — almost as

if she did not know that little Vroni were already dead. Then

she tore herself free and fled into the street. King Kaspar

opened the window and cried out after her, cursing her life.

Thus ends the tale of Roman Maria.

34

35

vi

When winter brought its poverty to the narrow street,

Roman Maria took his violin and went with Veronika to

a small cabaret on the outskirts of the city to earn money.

He played there in the evening, when the piano took a short

break; his name was written on the placard in large letters,

next to Veronika’s. She sang old, strange songs, as she had

learned them in childhood — and in life. She sang with

a beautiful, somewhat sad voice; she laughed, lifting her

skirts; and sometimes she accompanied Roman Maria’s

violin. It was extraordinary how utterly attentive people

became when he began to play. His black hair fell over his

brow, hiding the red scar; his soft and almost dreamy chin

rested on the violin; as always, his gaze was fixed and

lonely. He began. His violin told a wild story that not

one of the people — save he and Veronika — understood,

for it was the story of the two of them, of him and her,

and of their love. Then Veronika always performed a long

and wondrous dance. When her fate was near her, sound-

ing through the low room where the lamps flickered and

the snow outside struck the glittering window, she sang a

mad, keening song with a wild melody and a nonsensical

refrain:

So I broke the faith, shame, shame, shame

I am a merry dame, dame, dame

the faith — the faith —

Sometimes, Roman Maria would lay down his violin

and gaze at her as she danced. For she danced her entire

life then, with its pain and its longing, she exposed it

nakedly before the people — her childhood years with

the dreams and the shudders in the night. — She danced

slowly then, with a fixed, almost oblivious smile on her lips,

her steps lingering and unconscious. Then she would sud-

denly stop and gaze out over the people, far out into the

distance somewhere. There, Roman Maria would think,

36

King Kaspar is standing on the stage. Then for a long

time she would dance with singular, tormented, searching

steps: her hands sought to grasp something in the air —

but found nothing. Her eyes — darkened, ardent, yearn-

ing — held a confused wish, a burning shame — an

entreaty. — Poor Veronika, Roman Maria would think. But

then a wonder would come over her — a huge, spiritual

wonder, that made her hands hallowed and weary, her

mouth amazingly beautiful. She exulted in her wild song

and danced the dance of her love, her huge love for Kaspar

and his kingdom. Clapping her hands and raising her feet

like a conqueror, she danced. — Until her fate suddenly

came over her and her young life died in unspeakable

fright and wild shuddering. She shrieked the mad refrain

yet once more into the room, where the people sat, mute.

So I broke the faith, shame, shame, shame

I am a merry dame, dame, dame

the faith — the faith—

Then she threw her hands over her face and danced no

more.

37

38

vii

The Sun had browned thy pilgrim’s feetAnd Summer wild thine hair,

The Heart had long with suffering beat,When thou so sweetly didst me great

Midst penitence and care.

For paved with thorns and jagged stoneThy path had homeward led;

Thy feet so sore, so weary grown,Thy voice, with sorrows deeply sown,

Pure lamentations bred.

Thy Destiny had been engravedWith words both dark and cruel;

Thy battered Spirit — so long betrayed —In plaintive, yearning tones had prayed

For respite from Fate’s rule.

With harrowed Heart, at my Life’s Door,I thee one day did find —

Then were the wounds of deep dolor,The marks of woe that thy soul bore

Transformed to hallowed signs.

Like stars the tears on thy cheeks flamed,Thy hand, with pride endued,

Bled — wounded on the day it claimedThe dread, the never to be named —

The Sacrificial Wood.

On thy wild hair the years did placeA Grief heavy and old;

In your bright eyes I read the traceLeft there by Loss’ long embrace

Whence thy great longing flowed.

39

Now to myself I take the weightWith which thy Life was fraught;

Erase the letters of thy Fate,With Love those questions still and sate

That Days of Mourning wrought.

Roman Maria.

40

41

viii

In the second half of the winter, Peter Jordan came to the

ensemble of the music hall. His blonde wife was called Little

Rosa, and her hair was so long that she could go about in

it as if it were a cape. On an evening in February, they were

to play for the first time. Roman Maria was sitting next

to the piano, staring at his violin; Veronika sat beside him.

The tiny hall was full and all were whispering, for the

new comedian was to come and act out a grotesque farce

he had written himself.

When Peter Jordan trod onto the stage, Veronika

turned as pale as a dying woman. Before the people stood

a tall, extremely thin man with shadowed eyes and a

ridiculously long beard. He wore a red velvet jacket with

strangely-shaped buttons, and golden garters above his

bony knees. The Red Kaspar, Veronika said to Roman Maria.

Red Kaspar spoke. He glanced at Veronika and recog-

nized her — but she was dead to his life. His voice was

hoarse and loud — and perhaps it could be heard so clearly

because all had become so still around it. He spoke of his

heart and looked out over the people. He raised his hand

and his voice was accusatory and dark, his tongue heavy.

He spoke of his heart, how the people had stolen it from

him, sold it at market, drained it dry. Then a shudder

passed through the audience. One could hear the breath-

ing of the men and see how slowly, one after the other, the

cigars were extinguished. At the back of the room a few

people stood up and stared at Peter Jordan. He spoke and

shrieked. He held his large, gaunt hand out in front of him

and spoke, mad and low, a frenzied burlesque. He had

named his piece “Mother.”

Then Little Rosa entered, with her bewitching and

painted beauty, with her long hair that gleamed as the

flame in the lamp flickered, with her false and seductive

eyes. The wild and indescribable scene came. Red Kaspar

threw his wife to the ground and trampled upon her. Like

a maddened ape, he grasped her hair with his long arms

42

and was about to strangle her when the doors opened and

the ghost of her dead child entered the room and ate a piece

of bread and butter. Thus it went on, like a grotesque

shadowplay.

When the play had ended there arose — first slowly

and sporadically, then loudly, engulfing the entire room,

a sick and ugly laughter. Even Red Kaspar laughed, and

Veronika and Little Rosa, the prostitute. Only Roman

Maria kept silent. He stared at Little Rosa and his eyes

became ardent and blazing. Her long hair fell like a dress

over his wild, convulsive heart, covering the love that was

there, the love for Veronika Selig. He sought the glance of

Little Rosa and she sent it to him, smiling. All at once, there

was a hunger in him for her provocative, brazen beauty,

her voluptuous mouth. A hunger for her body, which

belonged to Red Kaspar, which Roman Maria wanted to

steal from him, like a thief.

When he began to play his violin — colored and gyp-

syish, false and full of longing — then Veronika knew that

Roman Maria had no more space for her in his heart. She

saw how his hand beckoned to another, an alien, to a venal

and painted love. She knew that by the next evening,

Roman Maria and the blonde prostitute would have

already betrayed the heart of King Kaspar — again.

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ix

The next night, when Veronika sought to enter Roman

Maria’s room, the heavy bolt on the door had been thrown

shut. She knocked and called. Then she heard Red Kaspar’s

woman laughing within, and Roman Maria’s voice saying

to her: Go away, Veronika, I don't want you anymore. Go

back to the seven women in the old lane. Life is too great

for you — you will never be able to bear it. Go home,

Veronika Selig.

Veronika went. Her heart was dark, there were no

more dreams in it. She felt that Roman Maria had spoken

the truth in his words — life was too great for her, too cruel

and merciless. She was terrified of this life, in which fate

returned again and again, such that it could, after years,

almost be recognized. In which the ancient sufferings

haunted, unable to die. In which love could be abandoned

for the sake of a whore. The rain struck her face as she went

on. Shuddering feverishly, she perceived that betrayal was

a curse upon the solitary heart. That King Kaspar had had

such a heart — that one would have to cross countless

erring paths to reach it — that no one had ever found his

convulsive heart. Not even Veronika, the mother Veronika.

Now, after years, she suddenly saw something like a path

to that heart — a path that she had first recognized as he

had played his life — and hers — before her. But it was

too late now, and she no longer had any yearning for love.

The doors of life were shut.

Veronika Selig passed through the streets in search of

the house of the seven women. It was already deep into

the night and not all the lamps were burning, so she had

to walk for long stretches in darkness. Something crept

along the streets after her, hiding itself by the walls of the

houses, laughing — the painful days of her new love,

which she had also lost and forgotten — her love for

Roman Maria, who was now with Red Kaspar’s blonde wife,

betraying him. Veronika imagined that in a few years Red

Kaspar would perhaps play the story of this night on some

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stage somewhere, before some crowd or another. The old

story of his heart and his woman.

And then Veronika was standing in the old alley. I want

to go home, she thought, when she saw the dim lantern

over the door. Then she opened the door and went in.

Seven women sat in the red room — the rays of the

lantern lay upon the ancient legend on the window. The

seventh was a stranger. Veronika did not yet know her. She

entered the room mutely and sat down, without a greet-

ing and without uttering a word.

Who is that, asked the seventh woman.

And one of them said:

That is Veronika Selig. A year ago she went with

Roman Maria, into life. She stayed there a long time —

in between, her eyes became darker. But now she is here,

again. —

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