Sophie's Choice - William Styron [251]
But she need not worry. It is culture and business—not politics—which are on the Professor’s mind as he tactfully leads the conversation. Dürrfeld listens, wearing a thin smile. Polite, attentive, he is a sparely fleshed and handsome man in his mid-forties, with pink healthy skin and (she is struck by this detail) incredibly clean fingernails. They seem almost lacquered, painted on, the terminal edges crescent moons of ivory. His grooming is immaculate and his suit of tailored charcoal flannel, obviously English, makes her father’s broad bright pin-stripe look hopelessly dowdy and old-fashioned. His cigarettes, she notices, are also British—Craven A’s. As he listens to the Professor his eyes have a pleasant, amused, quizzical look. She feels attracted to him, vaguely—no, quite strongly. She finds herself blushing, knows that her cheeks are flushed. Her father is casting gemlike slivers of history around the table now, emphasizing the effect of German-speaking culture and tradition on the city of Cracow and indeed upon all of southern Poland. What a long-lasting and indelible tradition this has been! Of course, and it goes without saying (although the Professor is saying it), Cracow not so long ago was for three-quarters of a century under beneficent Austrian rule—natürlich, this Dr. Dürrfeld knew; but did he also know that the city was almost unique in Eastern Europe in possessing its own constitution, called even now “the Magdeburg rights” and based upon medieval laws formulated in the city of Magdeburg? Was it any wonder, then, that the community was richly steeped in German lore and law, in the very spirit of Germany, so that even now there was among Cracovian citizens the perpetual impulse to nurture a passionate devotion for the language which, as Von Hofmannsthal said (or was it Gerhart Hauptmann?), is the most gloriously expressive since the ancient Greek? Suddenly Sophie realizes that he has focused his attention on her. Even his daughter here, he continues, little Zosia, whose education had perhaps not been of the broadest, speaks with such fluency that she not only has perfect mastery of Hochsprache, the standard German of the schools, but of the colloquial Umgangssprache, and furthermore, can duplicate for the Doctor’s enjoyment almost any accent which lies in between.
There follows a distressing (to Sophie) several minutes in which, egged on pointedly by her father, she must utter a random phrase in various local German accents. It is a trick of mimicry which she picked up easily as a child and which the Professor has relished exploiting ever since. It is one of the misdemeanors he commits upon her from time to time. Sophie, who is shy enough anyway, detests being forced to perform for Dürrfeld, but, smiling a twisted embarrassed smile, complies, speaking at her father’s command in Swabian, then in the indolent cadences of Bavaria, now in the tones of a native of Dresden, of Frankfurt, quickly followed by the Low German sound of a Saxon from Hannover and at last—aware that the desperation shows in her own eyes—blurting out an imitation of some quaint denizen of the Schwarzwald. “Entzuckend!” she hears Dürrfeld’s voice, along with a delighted laugh. “Charming! Just charming!” And she can tell that Dürrfeld, fetched by the little act but at the same time sensing her discomfort, has brought her demonstration adroitly to an end. Is Dürrfeld offended by her father? She doesn’t know. She hopes so. Papa, Papa. Du bist ein... Oh merde...
Sophie is barely able to conquer her boredom but manages to remain attentive. The Professor has now turned subtly (without appearing to be inquisitive) to the subject second most dear to his heart—industry and commerce, especially German industry and commerce, and the power excitingly attending those activities, now so energetically