The World's Illusion, Volume 1 (of 2): EvaWassermann, Jakob
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The World's Illusion, Volume 1 (of 2): Eva
Wassermann, Jakob
German fiction -- Translations into English
Amadeus sat there as though steeped in seething water. A few minutes
passed. Then the Walloon woman appeared from behind the partition.
The sailors looked up. One arose and gesticulated; one uttered a wild
laugh. The woman stood with lowered eyes--stubborn, careless, rubbing
one foot with the other. She was rather fat, quite without charm, and
the lines of her body had been destroyed.
But to Amadeus Voss she was like a supernatural vision, and he gazed
upon her as though his whole soul was in that gaze. His arms reached
out, and his fingers became claws, and his lips twitched. The fishermen
and the tavern keeper no longer saw the woman. They saw him. They felt
fear. So unwonted was the sight that they did not observe the opening
of the door. The tavern keeper’s whistled warning came too late.
Christian, who entered, still saw the naked woman as she hurried toward
the partition.
He approached Amadeus. But the latter took no notice of him. He stared
spell-bound at the spot where the woman had stood.
Christian laid a hand upon his shoulder. Amadeus roused himself from
his absorption, turned slow, questioning eyes upon his friend, and
strangely uttered with his quivering lips these words: “Est Deus in
nobis; agitante calescimus illo.”
Then he broke down, his forehead dropped on the table, and a shudder
shook his body.
The tavern keeper muttered morosely.
“Come, Amadeus,” said Christian very quietly.
The drunken fishermen and sailors stared.
Amadeus arose, and groped like a blind man for Christian’s hand.
“Come, Amadeus,” Christian repeated, and his voice seemed to make a
deep impression on Voss, for he followed him without hesitation. The
tavern keeper and the sailors accompanied them into the street.
The tavern keeper said to the men with him: “Those are what you call
gentlemen. Look how they behave! It shows you why the world is ruled so
ill.”
“The dawn is breaking,” said one of the fishermen, and pointed to a
purple streak in the eastern heaven.
Christian and Amadeus likewise stared at the purple seam of the east,
and Amadeus spoke again: “Est Deus in nobis; agitante calescimus illo.”
KAREN ENGELSCHALL
I
On the appointed hour of the appointed day Crammon arrived. He had
prepared himself to stay and to be festive; but he was disappointed.
Eva and her train were on the point of leaving. Maidanoff had proceeded
to Paris, whither Eva was to follow him.
Crammon had been informed of this new friendship of his idol. All other
news came to him too, and so he was aware that a quarrel had arisen
between Christian and Eva. He was the more astonished to see Christian
determined to follow Eva to Hamburg.
They had exchanged but a few words, when the transformation in
Christian struck him. He laid his hand on the young man’s shoulder, and
asked sympathetically: “Have you nothing to confide?”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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