TEMPTATIONS OF DR. HOFFMANN
413
up all her courage to act on the side of righteousness: her mother?s
side always. "You told me that when I was born his mother faked a
heart attack and that he was at her bedside instead of yours." The
giri made me uncomfortable and I watched with embarrassment her
raw, even ruthless, intensity, which in its lack of subterfuge impugned
her decorous parents. "That was wrong, wasn't it?" she insisted,
giving a heavy stress to the word
wrong.
"Tsk! Tsk !" Mrs. Ho·ffmann said gaily. "I'm always astonished
by you. How in the world did you remember that story? Really, it's
amazing! I'd forgotten all about it myself." I hadn't thought it pos–
sible the situation could be turned into a joke, but that was what
was happening. Mrs. Hoffmann was smiling and shaking her finger
at her daughter as if she were teasing her about a childish love affair.
"You told me yourself!" Elsa repeated. She was nervously work··
ing her fingers in and out as if they were cramped and I sympathized
with her frustration even though her temperament appalled me. Evi–
dently she could no longer bear to have her feelings exposed and
sh~
got up, like some defeated but still recalcitrant crusader, and said she
was going to her room to read the Bible.
I was taken aback by this in spite of the fact that I had known
Elsa went to church and that she had had a solid Protestant educa–
tion. When we were alone, Mrs. Hoffmann whispered to me, "She's
very religious, and in quite a funny way. Not like her father." I was
hoping she would clarify this by telling me something about Dr. Hoff..
mann but I was disappointed. She said merely that Elsa was strait
laced and more interested in her fear of God than in the teachings
of Christ, and then she gave up altogether her attempt to discriminate.
I knew what she meant, or at least I thought I detected
in
Elsa
some of the feelings I had once experienced. While we were talking
Dr. Hoffmann returned and I was relieved to find he had managed
during his walk to regain his composure. He was a little out of breath
and, though he still seemed dejected, his eyes snapped vigorously and
he was enough interested in conversation to make me repeat what
I had said about his daughter's religious turn. I told him I thought
Elsa was going through a dreary period of Protestant asceticism and
that she was searching for prohibitions and would have welcomed
dis–
cipline of a more rigorous kind than
his
system demanded. He neither
agreed nor disagreed with me. (My only justification for my analysis
was my remembrance of the elation I had once felt in giving up
dancing and picture shows for a year. The joy in my own purity was
intensified by the actions of my older sisters who in that same year
