Free Remember Me by David Stacton Page A

age when men of his type begin to be admired by women, or that, like most matinée idols and all cats, he must have his evening on the tiles.
    Besides, he found it fun to be in favour once again. It was not Paul’s fault if he wanted to please so much, that he did not care whom he pleased. Why should he not be so? He was a creature of pleasure. Pleasure was his natural element, on the surface of which he skimmed like a water-scooter in search of food, held up by the surface tension of its own environment.
    Meanwhile, Ludwig did not have to know and did not yet know that Paul kept an actress up the back stairs. It was almost the magic month of May again, and they both intended to make the most of it. Like most people wholong to experience an ecstasy, Ludwig had convinced himself of the genuineness of the next best thing. Already he felt May breaking over him like a flood. He had never prepared for May before in quite this way. Last year the pink month had solaced him for the absence of the Great Friend. This year the works of the Great Friend solaced him for what he lacked in having Paul. It was a kindly month, but inwardly he walked alone in it, as always, against the blue sky. Beauty in a man was the eternal promise of something else. Did not Schiller say that that which appeared as beauty on earth would meet us on the other side as truth? All people were alembics. Given warmth, they could distil anything.
    That was the value of Paul. It was a German friendship , coming to a boil. The only condition of their indissolvable and soon to be dissolved friendship was that they should not touch, or even meet except in the fever garden on the roof. For Schwärmerei is an emotion not known to other races. The Germans believe in immanence, and at the same time hold that the immanent is the transcendent. That which is holy is not in everything, but only to be found in particular stones, rocks, trees, and combinations of words. The everyday world, to them, is out of focus. Heighten the focus and the blurred edges of what we call reality become sharply transfigured. And this is true of German emotions, too. Find the right words, and they then contain something that they did not contain otherwise. The whole husky German language is saturated with this sudden, cooling cologne. Their words may often be meaningless, but they have the smell of heaven. That is what Paul and Ludwig did. They sharpened the focus.
    They lived in a perpetual condition of belladonna, until their eyes ached. Indeed the failing of the House ofWittelsbach was not something so genetic as the Hapsburg Jaw, the Romanov haemophilia, but that their eyes ached with too much light, as a fast film will granulate too coarsely.
    Ludwig was at a fever pitch to carry this emotion safely with him into May. With Paul he felt almost safe. He could do without Wagner. For that reason he commanded a performance of one of the operas, to prove to the Master that though the work was immortal, the Master himself was no longer necessary. It was as though the congregation was at last sufficiently holy to serve the Mass itself.
    And then he ruined everything. On the last day of April he was alone with Paul and failed himself. He could not help it, but it ruined everything. The body should not have the power to force upon us its necessity.
    He was horrified.
    Paul did not understand. His performance had been admired so much, that he had only had the desire to please still more. He was clearly terrified to lose favour, for he lived by pleasing princes. That was the vocation hereditary in his family. He did not know what he had done, but he tried to roof over the misunderstanding with words. Not being able to think of anything else to do, he rushed back to his own apartments and wrote Ludwig an impassionedly apologetic letter.
    It was delivered that night. Alone in the wintergarden, Ludwig persuaded himself to believe the letter. So, too, did Elsa of Brabant believe that she had never asked the