The restaurant was filling up: a waiter pushed von Üxküll’s wheelchair, and Una was holding my cap under her arm. “Here!” she said cheerfully as she kissed me on the cheek. “You forgot this.”—“Yes, thanks,” I said, blushing. I shook von Üxküll’s hand while the waiter removed a chair, and I declared somewhat solemnly: “Freiherr, delighted to meet you.”—“Likewise, Sturmbannführer. Likewise.” Una pushed him into place and I sat down opposite him; Una came and sat down between us. Von Üxküll had a severe face, very thin lips, gray hair in a crew cut: but his brown eyes seemed sometimes curiously laughing, with crow’s feet. He was simply dressed, in a gray woollen suit with a knit tie, no medals, and his only piece of jewelry was a gold signet ring, which I noticed when he placed his hand on Una’s: “What will you have to drink, darling?”—“Some wine.” Una seemed very cheerful, happy; I wondered if she was forcing it. Von Üxküll’s stiffness was obviously entirely natural. They brought the wine, and von Üxküll asked me some questions about my wound and my convalescence. He drank as he listened to my answer, but very slowly, in little sips. Then, since I didn’t really know what to say, I asked him if he had been to a concert since he arrived in Berlin. “There’s nothing that interests me,” he answered. “I don’t like that young Karajan much. He’s much too full of himself, too arrogant.”—“So you prefer Furtwängler, then?”—“There are rarely any surprises with Furtwängler. But he is very solid. Unfortunately, they don’t let him conduct Mozart’s operas anymore, and that’s what he does best. Apparently Lorenzo da Ponte was half Jewish, and The Magic Flute is a Masonic opera.”—“You don’t think it is?”—“It may be, but I challenge you to show me a German spectator who would realize it on his own. My wife told me you like old French music?”—“Yes, especially the instrumental works.”—“You have good taste. Rameau and the great Couperin are still far too neglected. There is also a whole treasure trove of music for viola da gamba from the seventeenth century, still unexplored—but I’ve been able to consult some manuscripts. It’s superb. But the early French eighteenth century is truly a high point. No one can write like that anymore. The Romantics spoiled everything, we’re still struggling to emerge from it.”—“You know that Furtwängler did conduct, this week,” Una interrupted. “At the Admiralpalast. That Tiana Lemnitz sang there, she isn’t half bad. But we didn’t go. It was Wagner, and Berndt doesn’t like Wagner.”—“That’s an understatement,” he went on. “I detest him. Technically, there are some extraordinary discoveries, some truly new, objective things, but that’s all lost in bombast, gigantism, and also the coarse manipulation of emotions, like the vast majority of German music since 1815. It’s written for people whose main musical reference is still basically the military fanfare. Reading Wagner’s scores fascinates me, but I could never listen to them.”—“Is there any German composer who finds favor with you?”—“After Mozart and Beethoven? A few pieces by Schubert, some passages from Mahler. And even there, I’m being indulgent. At bottom, there’s almost no one but Bach…and now, of course, Schönberg.”—“Excuse me, Freiherr, but it would seem to me that it would be difficult to describe Schönberg’s music as German music.”—“Young man,” von Üxküll retorted dryly, “don’t you try to give me lessons in anti-Semitism. I was an anti-Semite before you were born, even if I remain old-school enough to believe that the sacrament of baptism is powerful enough to wash away the strain of Judaism. Schönberg is a genius, the greatest since Bach. If the Germans don’t want him, that’s their problem.” Una let out a ringing burst of laughter: “Even the VB still talks about Berndt as one of the great representatives of German culture. But if he were a writer, he would be either in the United States with Schönberg and the Manns, or in Sachsenhausen.”—“Is that why you haven’t produced anything in ten years?” I asked. Von Üxküll shook his fork as he answered: “First of all, since I’m not a member of the Musikkammer, I can’t. And I refuse to have my music played abroad if I can’t present it in my own country.”—“So why don’t you enroll, then?”—“Out of principle. Because of Schönberg. When they threw him out of the Academy and he had to leave Germany, they offered me his place: I told them to go screw themselves. Strauss came to see me in person. He had just taken the place of Bruno Walter, a great conductor. I told him he should be ashamed, that it was a government of gangsters and bitter proletarians and that it wouldn’t last. Anyway, they kicked Strauss out two years later, because of his Jewish daughter-in-law.” I forced myself to smile: “I’m not going to get into a political discussion. But it’s hard for me, listening to your opinions, to understand how you can think of yourself as an anti-Semite.”—“But it’s simple,” replied von Üxküll haughtily. “I fought against the Jews and the Reds in Courland and in Memel. I advocated the exclusion of the Jews from German universities, from German political and economic life. I drank to the health of the men who killed Rathenau. But music is different. You just have to close your eyes and listen to know right away if it’s good or not. It has nothing to do with blood, and all great music is equal, whether it’s German, French, English, Italian, Russian, or Jewish. Meyerbeer isn’t worth anything, not because he was Jewish, but because he’s not worth anything. And Wagner, who hated Meyerbeer because he was Jewish and because he had helped him, is scarcely any better, in my opinion.”—“If Max repeats what you’re saying to his colleagues,” Una said, laughing, “you’re going to have problems.”—“You told me he was an intelligent man,” he replied, looking at her. “I’m doing you the honor of taking you at your word.”—“I’m not a musician,” I said, “so it’s hard for me to answer you. What I’ve heard of Schönberg I’ve found inaudible. But one thing is certain: you are definitely not in tune with the mood of your country.”—“Young man,” he retorted, shaking his head, “I’m not trying to be. I stopped meddling in politics a long time ago, and I’m counting on politics not to meddle with me.” We don’t always have a choice, I wanted to reply; but I held my tongue.
