VI

In the meantime, the evening ceremonies at my uncle’s home have acquired an almost professional inflexibility: the family assembles at or around the tree. My aunt comes in, the candles are lit, the dwarfs begin to hammer, and the angel whispers “Peace, peace”; then a few carols are sung, cookies are nibbled, there is some casual conversation, and everyone retires with a yawn and a “Merry Christmas, everyone!”—at which point the young people turn to seasonal diversions while my kindly uncle and Aunt Milla go to bed. Candle smoke remains behind in the room, together with the mild aroma of heated fir branches and the spicy odor of Christmas cookies. The dwarfs, slightly phosphorescent, stand stiffly in the darkness, their arms raised menacingly, and the angel glows in its silvery robe, which is apparently also phosphorescent.

It may be superfluous to remark that the whole family’s pleasure in the real Christmas festivities has been greatly diminished. We can, if we so wish, admire a traditional Christmas tree at any time in our uncle’s home—and it often happens, when we are sitting on the veranda on a summer evening, after the labors of the day, imbibing Uncle’s mild orange punch, that the tinkling of glass bells comes from within, and in the dusk the dwarfs are to be seen hammering away like nimble little devils, while the angel whispers “Peace,” and again, “Peace.” And we are still taken aback when, in the middle of summer, my uncle suddenly calls out to his children: “Light the tree, please, Mother will be here any minute.” At that point, usually right on time, the prelate arrives, a mild old gentleman whom we have all taken to our hearts because he plays his part so beautifully, assuming he even knows he is playing a part and which part. But never mind: he plays it, white-haired, smiling, and the patch of purple below his collar lends the last touch of refinement to his personality. And it is an unusual experience to hear, on warm summer nights, the anxious cry “The candle snuffer—quick, where’s the candle snuffer?” It has happened more than once that, during a violent thunderstorm, the dwarfs suddenly felt impelled, without the effect of heat, to raise their arms and swing them wildly, thus providing a kind of unscheduled concert, a fact that the family tried to explain, without much imagination, by the dry word “electricity.”

One not wholly inconsiderable aspect of this arrangement is the financial one. Even though, generally speaking, our family is not strapped for cash, such extraordinary expenditures upset all calculations. For, despite every precaution, the wear and tear on dwarfs, anvils, and hammers is, of course, enormous; and the sensitive mechanism enabling the angel to speak requires constant care and maintenance and must from time to time be replaced. Incidentally, I have meanwhile discovered the secret: the angel is connected by a cable to a microphone in the next room, and in front of the mike there is a constantly rotating phonograph record that whispers at intervals “Peace,” and again, “Peace.” All these items are especially costly in that they are designed for use on only a few days in the year but now have to stand up to hard wear all year round. I was amazed when my uncle told me one day that the dwarfs had actually to be renewed every three months and that a complete set cost no less than a hundred and twenty-eight marks. He had asked an engineer friend of his to reinforce them with a latex coating but without impairing the beauty of their sound. This attempt failed. The consumption of candles, spekulatius, and marzipan, the tree contract, medical bills, and the token of appreciation due every month to the prelate: all that, said my uncle, amounts to a daily average of eleven marks, not to mention the wear and tear on his nerves and other impairments to his health that were then beginning to make themselves felt. But that was in the fall, and these deleterious effects were ascribed to a certain autumnal sensitivity, a matter of quite common observation.