them, because they might think that one measures the dead by their number. Nor can one tell them all the other things . . . Aegidius did not say either that he offered himself as a sacrifice for my sake . . . ‘Ad sum! Here I am!’ That is grand . . . but I cannot lie here and talk about it every night. There was something we found among father’s papers: ‘He who knows does not speak. He who speaks does not know.’ Erasmus was hit in the root so that he ran away into the field. He may be destroyed by it. He still thinks like a nobleman, and he who thinks so nowadays will perish. He is the last aristocrat of the family; neither Aegidius nor myself are. He is the defenseless one. All aristocrats are defenseless today. The tank is the symbol of our time, not the sword. The tank and the whip.”
The cuckoo was still calling and Amadeus got up. He took a tin of coffee from his haversack and put it on the hearth. Then he picked up his clothes and shoes and went out.
The morning dazzled him, and he stopped for a while leaning his back against the wall of the hut. Marvelous that the earth could be so new every morning, as if it had risen from the grave after the night.
The peat bog steamed in the morning sun. The rocks in the background sparkled like liquid gold. In the stunted pine trees the spiders’ webs were glistening. Nothing moved but the first buzzard, which circled above the peat mounds. No evil had ever been here – not yesterday, not a thousand years ago. Here had always been the harshness of nature and its creatures, but it was too lonely here for the wickedness of mankind.
Only the shepherd had been here, and he had been too old for the vengeance of man. He had not been worth their while. Since they had arrested him, Amadeus, and had led him away from here, all this had remained untouched. Like a bath which the angels had prepared for all those who had risen from the dead. Also for the defeated and terrified, nay, for them most of all.
But was there a healing power in nature? Was there salvation at all in this world? Yes, if Christoph had been saved, everything would be easier. He had had “the faith.” One need not have the same faith, but it was beautiful to look at somebody who had it, somebody who needed no staff, no philosophy, but who could see the little light in the heather, for whom there were no limits between the underworld and the heavenly world, who was included in the vast circle and who could say everywhere and at each moment, “Here I am, oh Lord!” Who could also say it when the caterpillar wheels rolled over his eyes and broke his body. He need not ask, “Why did I run away?” He only said, “Here I am, oh Lord!”
Amadeus sighed and went slowly through the low wood to the small pond at the edge of the moor. The dew wet his bare feet, and the coolness of the earth penetrated to his heart. He looked around for a long time before he undressed and got into the water. The bottom was soft and sandy and only at some distance from the shore became dark and swampy.
The cuckoo was still calling, but Amadeus did not count the years which it promised him. Life was not counted by years anymore.
“One must help him,” he thought, “before it consumes him and destroys the roots. Somebody must tell him that I have seen thousands die without moving a hand. One must stop asking, ‘Where is thy brother Abel?’, because the number of brethren has become millions. Yes, probably one must stop asking at all, instead existing quietly and without any question. The asking of questions has ruined the world since the serpent first asked.”
He dressed slowly and went back. The fire was burning on the hearth, and they drank their coffee in front of the door. Erasmus had carried out the small table and three chairs. A heron flew over the moorland and their eyes followed it for a long time. It was as quiet as at the beginning of the world after the seven days of creation.
“How do you manage to live here?” asked Amadeus at last.
“Oh, don’t worry, there is always something,” replied Erasmus. “They fell trees in the woods, and not everything has been stolen from the castle. The Americans came too quickly. And the things that have not been stolen, we sell one after another, or we barter them. Jakob comes up here every second day.”
“Who is Jakob?”
“Oh, a Jew from Poland. You know, we call him Kuba, because that’s what we used to say at home. He lives in a camp a good way from here. One morning he came up here, and he maintained that he was an honest man. He only wished, he said, to swap: from the right to the left hand, and from the left to the right. Perhaps he cheats us a bit, but that does not matter – at least he comes alone.
“Besides, we have a friend among the American officers down there: First Lieutenant Kelley, John Hilary Kelley. I like his name Hilary, Hilarius goes well with our funny names. And he goes well with us too. He is always smiling, but his smile is a little sad. War does not mean the same to him as it does to most of them. He speaks German very well.”
“And what does he want when he comes up here?”
“Oh, nothing particular, you know. He only likes to sit here for a while and forget his own people. He does not like them very much. He says they no longer have any ears – none of them – but only antennae made of wire. He might very well be a cousin of ours, from another part of the family. He does not think in terms of guilt and punishment as the others do. He does not feel a victor, but like somebody who had to join in the game. And he who joins in the game will get his share of profit and loss.”
“But what is going to happen now?” Amadeus asked.
“Nobody knows, brother,” replied Aegidius. “Sometimes in history there are short intervals in which nothing happens. At any rate nothing that our eyes can see. So much happened that those happenings have to settle down first before anything new can begin. And then I shall try to find some work – a field, a flock, a plow. It is hard for me to live without a plow – do you understand that, brother?”
Yes, Amadeus understood. Aegidius had been the only one who had “done something” – all his life long. Erasmus and he himself had done nothing, and perhaps they would go on doing nothing; or at least what people call nothing.
“I cannot stay with you very much longer,” Amadeus said after a while, shading his eyes with his hand against the rising sun.
“That is nonsense, brother,” replied Aegidius kindly. “For really none of us can live without the other two. That was already the case at school, and I am sure it has not changed. You must now try to understand your fate a little. It was hard enough that father went away.”
“I can only live alone,” said Amadeus in a low voice.
Aegidius glanced at him quickly, and then he gazed over the marshes again. “The times of Orestes are gone,” he answered, and there was no doubt in his voice. “And you are not a matricide, brother. We shall play together again, Amadeus, do you hear? We shall play Mozart, and there are no ghosts with Mozart.”
“I shall never play anymore,” said Amadeus, scarcely audible, gazing at his right hand which lay on the dark wood of the table.
“Why do you say that, brother?” asked Erasmus, frightened, leaning forward. “If I said that, I who have deserted the colors . . . but you who have only suffered?”
“I have not only suffered,” said Amadeus gloomily, slowly clenching his fist. “I have killed, too, with this hand. And what is more, or more wicked, as you would say: I would kill again at any time, if one of the faces which smiled while they tortured appeared here. There something within me changed; something that I had was taken away from me – and something that I did not have was added. Nothing has been taken away from you, nor has anything been added. You have remained the same. But if somebody were to paint us now as a triptych
