The Blue Flower by Penelope Fitzgerald Page B

believe everything that was said there. She did not believe in life after death.
    ‘But Sophie, Jesus Christ returned to earth!’
    ‘That was all very well for him,’ said Sophie. ‘I respect the Christus, but if I was to walk and talk again after I was dead, that would be ridiculous.’
    ‘What does your stepfather say when you tell him you don’t believe?’
    ‘He laughs.’
    ‘But when you were younger, what did your teacher tell you? Surely you must have had a teacher?’
    ‘Yes, until I was eleven.’
    ‘Who was he?’
    ‘The Magister Kegel from the seminary here in Gruningen.’
    ‘Did you pay him attention?’
    ‘Once he was angry with me.’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘He could not believe that I could understand so little.’
    ‘What could you not understand?’
    ‘Figures, and numbers.’
    ‘Numbers are not more difficult to understand than music.’
    ‘Ach, well, Kegel beat me.’
    ‘Surely not, Sophie.’
    ‘Yes, he struck me.’
    ‘But what did your stepfather say to that?’
    ‘Ach, well, it was difficult for him. A teacher must be obeyed.’
    ‘What did the Magister Kegel do?’
    ‘He collected the money that was owing to him, and left the house.’
    ‘But what did he say?’
    ’” On reviendra, mam’zell .”’
    ‘But he did not come back?’
    ‘No, now I am too old to learn anything.’
    She looked at him a little anxiously and added, ‘Perhaps if I saw a miracle, as they did in the old days, I should believe more.’
    ‘Miracles don’t make people believe!’ Fritz cried. ‘It’s the belief that is the miracle.’
    He saw that, having done her best, she looked disappointed, and went on: ‘Sophie, listen to me. I am going to tell you what I felt, when I first saw you standing by the window. When we catch sight of certain human figures and faces … especially certain eyes, expressions, movements - when we hear certain words, when we read certain passages, thoughts take on the meaning of laws … a view of life true to itself, without any self-estrangement. And the self is set free, for the moment, from the constant pressure of change … Do you understand me?’
    Sophie nodded. ‘Yes, I do. I have heard of that before. Some people are born again and again into this world.’
    Fritz persevered. ‘I did not quite mean that. But Schlegel, too, is interested in transmigration. Should you like to be born again?’
    Sophie considered a little. ‘Yes, if I could have fair hair.’
    Herr von Rockenthien pressed young Hardenberg to stay longer. If he noticed that this son of an ancient house was courting his stepdaughter, he was not at all against it, although it might be said that his temperament led him to encourage almost everything. Frau von Rockenthien, serene and apparently in radiant health, but supportedby cushions numberless, also nodded kindly. She mentioned, however, that Sophie’s elder sister, Friederike von Mandelsloh, would soon be coming back home to Gruningen on a long visit, and would be a companion for Sophgen.
    ‘Let them all come back to us, I say,’ Rockenthien declared. ‘Partings are painful! Isn’t that what they sing at Jena at the end of the year, when the students leave?’
    ‘They do,’ said Fritz, and Rockenthien, in a voice as deep as the third level of a copper-mine, but with inappropriate cheerfulness, broke into the plaintive song: ‘ Scheiden und meiden tut weh …’
    ‘Now that I am leaving your hospitable roof, I should like your permission to write a letter to your stepdaughter Sophie,’ said Fritz. Rockenthien broke off his song, and gathering the tattered remnants of his responsibilities around him, said that there would be no objection, as long as her mother opened it and read through it first.
    ‘Of course. And I should like her, if you see fit, to be permitted to write an answer.’
    ‘Permission! If that is all that is needed, I permit!’

23
I Can’t Comprehend Her
    F RITZ wrote in his journal, ‘I can’t comprehend her, I can’t