The children of many families in Lauscha had to leave for the big city to earn a living in the factories that were springing up like mushrooms after rain. Johanna and her husband, Peter Maienbaum, however, had no such worries for their twins, who would take over the family business when the time came.
Marie spoke up again, as though she had been reading Sawatzky’s thoughts. “Of course I’m happy that our Christmas baubles are still selling as well as ever. Especially these days . . . But it’s just a matter of time until the others notice that I’ve run out of ideas. I always feel so tired and empty! I just find everything dreadfully dull. Whenever I have to come up with a new design, I feel that I’ve painted it all before. I’d like to throw all my dreary little sketches in the trash, but we have to publish a catalog every year, don’t we! And the inquiries from America about new designs keep coming. Woolworth’s the worst; he won’t leave us alone. . . Do you think I might have used up all my ideas? Have I designed everything I have in me?” Her eyes were suddenly wide with fear, as though this were the first time she had dared to speak such thoughts aloud.
Sawatzky looked at her. Her shoulders were drawn together, her nose seemed almost sharp, and a thousand sparks seemed to be fading away unnoticed in her dark-gray eyes.
All of a sudden he pictured another Marie in his mind’s eye. She had been eighteen years old back then, slim as a willow, with a high forehead and narrow cheeks—and eyes that any man would gladly have drowned in if only she had let him. But Marie had no time to think of anything but her art back then, and she had let nothing and no one distract her. He smiled at the memory. The first time he had shown her where the art and design books were shelved, she hadn’t been able to believe that so many people shared her passion.
“Are these all books about art?”
She had been so eager back then. She had spent all the money she had earned with her first commission on the books she loved. It had been hours before she left the shop with a big stack of books under her arm, with Magnus faithfully following. She had been so devoted to her art that she had never even noticed how smitten he was with her.
Marie hardly looked any different now. She still had the figure of a girl and even her face was unchanged, with large eyes and high cheekbones. Sawatzky chewed thoughtfully on his lip. It was nothing new for an artist to go through a fallow period. But for a booklover like her to turn down the offer of books was more than worrying.
Suddenly he felt a powerful urge to get to his feet and shake Marie by the shoulders. Instead he said, “What you need is a new source of inspiration. You’ve just been here in the forests for too long, that’s all. You’ve spent years studying the chickadees and the finches, looking at their feathers. And I must admit I’m amazed you managed to get decades of inspiration out of pinecones—speaking for myself, I’ve never found nature studies terribly interesting.”
Marie frowned.
“What you need, my dear Marie, is inspiration from elsewhere—from other art, from other artists. Nobody can work for years on end with only themselves for company—not even the great glassblower Marie Steinmann!” He winked as he said it so that she knew he was not mocking her.
Struck by an idea, he reached for a shabby little volume buried in the pile of books behind him. The poet Else Lasker-Schüler had written a book in memory of her friend Peter Hille when he died, and he had been meaning to give Marie some of Else’s poetry for some time. Lasker-Schüler did with language exactly what Marie was trying to do with glass; her poems and stories pushed words to the limits, putting them to new use.
He leafed through it for a moment until he found the poem he was looking for. All the same, he hesitated. Marie was in a bleak mood—would she be able to see the symbolism at work here? The poem was not an easy one to understand. But she had surprised him often enough in the past with how readily she could find her way into difficult texts. Well, it was certainly worth a try, he decided, and held the open book out to her.
“Would you be so good as to read aloud for both of us?”
Reluctantly, she did as he asked. “I fled from the city and sank down exhausted before a cliff, and I rested for one drop of a lifetime, deeper than a thousand years . . .”
Sawatzky shut his eyes and listened to Marie’s voice as she puzzled her way through the poet’s strange choice of words.
“And a voice tore itself free from the peak of the cliff and called out, ‘You are so miserly with your self-substance!’ And I cast my eyes upward and I blossomed forth, and a happiness took hold of my heart that had chosen me alone.”