The Children's Book - A. S. Byatt [224]
Griselda blushed, and her voice faded, far behind. Dorothy continued to work for clarity.
“What would—what will—your wife think?”
“My wife is an artist. My wife models in clay and carves stone and teaches at the Damen-Akademie. Her name is Angela, and she is an Angel. She likes to be in the forefront of modern thinking. In principle, she would expect a family to welcome a discovered child. In practice, I do not know. How long are you in Munich? For if you are here for some time, we might proceed—delicately, soft-footed, sagaciously—”
Griselda was having more trouble with the translation as Anselm Stern—who chose his words carefully—began to use the slightly odd, poetical vocabulary his friends would have recognised.
“We are here for two or three months. We are studying. I am trying to learn German. I have to pass my matriculation. I am not gifted at languages, Mr. Stern. But I will try.”
“Not gifted at languages? But serious, not a hausfrau. An interesting kind of daughter. What are your gifts, your inclinations, your hopes, Miss Dorothy?”
“I mean to be a doctor. The training is very hard. I should like to be a surgeon.”
“Let me see your hands.”
He put aside the limp puppet—his own hands seemed uneasy without occupation. Dorothy moved closer to him, and he took both her hands in his. Both pairs were thin, wiry and strong. They were the same kind of hands.
“Strong hands,” said Anselm Stern. “Capable hands, delicate hands.” He gave a dry little cough. “I am moved.”
Dorothy went red, and then white. Tears threatened, and she held them in.
“You are tired, young ladies,” said Anselm Stern. “A great effort has been made, strain has been endured. We should go and drink coffee, or chocolate, and eat a pastry, and talk calmly and generally, about Life and Art, and begin to know each other? Yes?”
That night, Dorothy said to Griselda “His name suits him.”
“Stern.”
“Yes. He looks stern. Serious and stern.”
Griselda gave a little laugh.
“Stern in German doesn’t mean stern.”
“What…?”
“It’s the German word for a star.”
“Oh,” said Dorothy, revisiting the imagined figure in her mind. “A star.”
31
The events, so far, had been initiated by Humphry’s lapse, and controlled by Dorothy’s will. To her surprise—and in some ways, to her relief—Anselm Stern now took over the control of the story, which he began almost to direct as though it had been the structure of a play. He arranged meetings, of different kinds, in different places. He took his new daughter for walks in the Englische Garten, with Griselda walking like a shadow a few paces behind. He wore a swinging coat with wide skirts, and a wide-brimmed hat. In his pockets, it turned out, puppets were tucked, with strings and bars. A wistful female child, a wolfman with a snarling smile and a fur coat, a strange mooncalf, luminous green with huge eyes. He held them out and they tripped along beside him. Passers-by waved to them. Anselm said to Dorothy
“I do not know whether I believe they have souls, or temporary souls, or intermittent souls.” He looked searchingly at Griselda. “Du kannst übersetzen? I think I believe that we are all fragments of one great soul—that the earth is one living thing, and the clay and the wood and the catgut these are made of are forms of life, as is the movement I lend them.”
Dorothy nodded seriously, pink. She had a pretty straw hat with a midnight-blue ribbon.
“I have embarrassed you,” he said. “No.”
“Oh yes. I knew I would. But I always walk here, with these creatures—these manikins—and I wish my daughter to know me as I am.”
The little figures danced on the path, and stopped, and looked