“In the tropics,” asks the General politely, “didyou sometimes play the Polonaise-Fantaisie?” They arenow eating the beef, savoring it with real appetite,concentrating as they chew in the way of old peoplefor whom eating is no longer merely the ingestion of nourishment but has become a ceremonial and archaic ritual.
They chew and swallow as if deliberately gathering strength, because strength is essential if they are to act, and strength can be drawn from rare-roasted meat and rich, dark wine. Their jaws work audibly and with absolute purpose, as if table manners have ceased to count and what matters is to masticate every shred of beef, draw out its store of energy and put it to use. Their gestures may be elegant, but they eat like tribal elders at a feast: unstoppably and without restraint.
From his corner the majordomo keeps an anxious eye on one of the servants who is in the act of using both hands to balance a large tray laden with chocolate ice cream wreathed in a tongue of bluish-yellow flame from the ignited alcohol.
The other servants pour champagne for the guest and his host. The two old men sniff the wine knowledgeably as it pours from the great bottle that is almost as large as a baby.
The General tastes it, then pushes his glass away and signals that he would like more red wine. The guest watches the gesture, blinking a little. Both men are flushed from all the food and drink.
“In my grandfather’s day,” says the General, looking at the wine, “a quart of ordinary wine was set in front of every guest as his individual portion. Ordinary table wine. My father told me that even the King had his guests served with crystal carafes of ordinary table wine, one each. It was called table wine because it stood on the table and each guest could drink as much as he wanted. Vintage wines were served separately. That was how wines were served at court.”
“Yes,” says Konrad, his face flushed, busy digesting. “Everything was well ordered in those days,” he adds blandly.
“He sat here,” says the General as if in passing, his eyes indicating the King’s place at the center of the table. “My mother to his right, the priest to his left. He sat in this room in the place of honor. He slept upstairs in the yellow bedroom. And after dinner he danced with my mother,” he says softly, his voice passing through old age and back to second childhood as he remembers. “Do you see, there’s no one with whom one can talk about such things anymore. Which is another reason that I’m glad you came back,” he says with utter sincerity. “Once you played the Polonaise-Fantaisie with my mother. Did you not play it again, later, in the tropics?” he asks again, as if he had just remembered what was really important.
The guest thinks for a moment. “No. I never played Chopin in the tropics. You know, this music sets loose a lot of things in me. The tropics make one more vulnerable.”
Now that they have eaten and drunk, the formality and uneasiness of the first half-hour have dissipated. The blood flows hotter in their hardened arteries, and the veins stand out on their temples and foreheads. The servants bring fruit from the hothouse. They eat grapes and medlars. The room has warmed up, and the evening breezes ruffle the gray curtains at the half-open windows.
“We could have our coffee on the other side,” says the General.
At that moment a violent gust of wind pushes open the windows, the curtains begin to blow, and even the heavy crystal chandelier starts swaying as if it is in a ship in a storm. The sky lights up for a moment and a sulfurous yellow bolt of lightning slices down through the night like a golden dagger impaling the body of the sacrifice. The storm is already loose in the room, extinguishing the frantic flames of the candles; suddenly it is dark. The majordomo hurries to the window and, groping in the blackness with the help of two servants, finds and closes both wings of the French doors. Then they see that the town, too, has gone dark.
The lightning has struck the municipal electric station. They sit in silence in the dark, the only light coming from the fireplace and two candles which have not blown out. Then the servants arrive with more lights.
“The other side,” the General repeats, quite untroubled by either the lightning or the darkness.
A servant lifts a candelabra and leads the way. Silently, wobbling a little like shadows on a wall, they walk in this ghostly glow from the dining room through one cold salon after another until they reach a room whose only furniture consists of a grand piano with its lid raised and three chairs around a great-bellied, hot porcelain stove. They sit down and look out through the long, white curtains at the dark landscape. The servant sets the coffee on a small table along with cigars and brandy, then places the silver candelabra with the fat church candles on the ledge of the stove. They each light a cigar, and sit in silence warming themselves. The heat from the logs in the stove pours out in steady waves and the candlelight dances above their heads. The door has been closed. They are alone.
13
We don’t have long to live,” the General says abruptly, as if he were pronouncing the clinching statement in an unvoiced argument. “Another year, maybe two, perhaps not even that much. We don’t have long to live, because you came back. As you are well aware. You had plenty of time to think, in the tropics and then in your house near London. Forty-one years is a long time. You thought it all over, didn’t you? . . . But then you came back, because you couldn’t do anything else. And I’ve been waiting for you, because I couldn’t do anything else. And we’ve both known that we would meet again, and then it would be all over with life and everything that gave our existence meaning and tension. A secret of the kind that lurks between the two of us has extraordinary power. It burns through the fabric of life like a scorching beam, and yet at the same time it also gives it tensile strength. It forces us to live. . . . For as long as we still have things to do here on earth, we’ll stay alive. I am going to tell you what I went through, alone in this forest for forty-one years while you were out in the world and the tropics. Solitude is very strange too . . . and sometimes as filled with dangers and surprises as a virgin forest. I know all its ways. The boredom against which you mount a hopeless struggle by means of an ordered life. The sudden moments of revolt. Solitude is as full of secrets as the jungle,” he repeats stubbornly. “You live a perfectly ordered existence, and one day you run amok, like those Malays of yours. You have a house, a title and a rank, and a way of life that is painfully exact. And one day you run away from it all with a weapon in your hand, or not—which may be even more dangerous. You run out into the world, wild-eyed, and your old friends and comrades get out of your way. You go to a city, you buy yourself women, everything around you turns to chaos, you look for fights everywhere and you find them. And, as I said, that is by no means the worst of it. Maybe you are struck down as you run like a mangy, rabid dog. Maybe you run full-tilt into a wall, against all life’s obstacles, and break every bone in your body. What’s even worse is if you take this upsurge of feeling, which has accumulated in your heart over so many lonely years, and you push it back inside. And you don’t run. And you don’t kill anyone. And what do you do instead? You live, you maintain discipline. You live like a monk of some heathen worldly order. But it’s easy for a real monk, because he has his belief. A man who has signed away his soul and his fate to solitude is incapable of faith. He can only wait. For the day or the hour when he can talk about everything that forced him into solitude with the man or men who forced him into that condition. He prepares himself for that moment for ten or forty or forty-one years the way one prepares for a duel. He brings his affairs into order in case he dies in the duel. And he practices every day, as professional duelists do. And what weapon does he practice with? With his memories, so that he will not allow solitude and time to cloud his sight and weaken his heart and his soul. There is one duel in life, fought without sabers, that nonetheless is worth preparing for with all one’s strength. And it is the most dangerous. And one day the moment comes. What do you think?” he asks courteously.
“I quite agree,” says the guest, and looks at the ash of his cigar.
“I’m so glad you take the same view,” says the General. “The anticipation keeps one alive. Of course, it, too, has its limits, like everything in life. If I hadn’t known that you would come back one day, I would have probably set out myself to find you, in your house near London or in the tropics or in the bowels of hell. You know I would have come looking for you. Clearly one knows everything of real importance, and—you’re right—one knows it without benefit of radio or telephone. Here in my house I have no telephone, only the steward has one down in the office, nor do I have a radio, as I have forbidden any of the stupid, sordid daily noise of the outside world in the rooms where I make my home.
“The world holds no further threat for me. Some new world order may remove the way of life into which I was born and in which I have lived, forces of aggression may foment some revolution that will take both my freedom and my life. None of it matters. What matters is that I do not make any compromises with a world that I have judged and banished from my existence. Without the aid of any modern appliances, I knew that one day you would come to me again. I waited you out, because everything that is worth waiting for has its own season and its own logic. And now the moment has come.”
“What do you mean by that?” asked Konrad. “I went away, which was my right. And it might be said I also had just cause. It is true that I went away without forewarning and without farewell. But I am sure you sensed and understood that I had no choice, and that it was the right thing to do.”
“That you had no choice?” says the General, glancing up. His eyes are blade-sharp and they reduce his guest to the status of an object. “That is the heart of the matter. I have been breaking my head over it for a considerable time now. Forty-one years in fact, if I am not mistaken.”
And, because the other man remains silent, “Now that I am old, I spend a lot of time thinking about my childhood. Apparently this is normal. One remembers the beginning more clearly, the closer one comes to the end. I see faces and I hear voices. I see the moment when I introduced you to my father in the garden of the academy. Because you were my friend, he accepted you as his. He was not a man who was quick to accept someone as a friend, but once he gave his word, it was for life. Do you remember that moment? We were standing under the chestnut tree at the great entrance, and my father gave you his hand. ‘You are my son’s friend,’ he said. ‘You must both honor this friendship,’ he added earnestly. I think nothing in life was as important to him as this. Are you listening to me? . . . Thank you. I want to tell you what happened, and to make sure I get it all in the correct order. Please do not worry, the carriage is waiting and will take you back to town whenever you would care to leave. And do not be concerned that you might have to sleep here even if you don’t wish it. I could imagine that this might be uncomfortable for you. But of course if you would care to do so, you can spend the night,” he adds. And as the other makes a gesture of refusal: “As you wish. The carriage is outside. It will take you back to town and in the morning you can set off for your house near London, or the tropics, or wherever you choose. But before then I ask you to listen to me.”
“I am listening,” says the guest.
“Good,” answers the General in a lighter tone of voice. “We could also talk of other things. Two old friends on whom the sun is setting have much to remember. However, since you are here, let us speak only of the truth. So: I have begun by reminding you that my father accepted you as his friend. You know exactly what that signified to him, you knew then that any person to whom he had given his hand could count on him, no matter what blows of fate, or suffering, or need, life brought. He did not often give his hand, it is true, but once done it was without any reservation. That was how he gave you his hand in the courtyard of the academy under the chestnut trees. We were twelve years old, and it was the last moment of our childhood. Sometimes at night I see him with absolute clarity, the way I see everything really important. To my father, friendship meant the same as honor. You knew that, because you knew him. And allow me to tell you that it may have meant even more to me. Forgive me if what I am telling you makes you uncomfortable,” he says softly, almost affectionately.
“I am not uncomfortable,” says Konrad, just as softly. “Tell me.”
“It would be good to know,” the General says, as if debating with himself, “whether such a thing as friendship actually exists. I do not mean the opportunistic pleasure that two people experience in encountering each other when they think the same way about certain things at certain moments of their lives, when they share the same tasks or the same needs. None of that is friendship. Sometimes I almost believe it is the most powerful bond in life and consequently the rarest. What is its basis? Sympathy? A hollow, empty word, too weak to express the idea that in the worst times two people will stand up for each other. Or perhaps it’s something else . . . perhaps buried deep in every relationship between two people is some tiny spark of erotic attraction. Here alone in the forest, trying to make sense of life, I thought about that now and then. Friendship, of course, is quite different from the affairs of those driven by morbid impulses to satisfy themselves in some fashion with others of the same sex. The eros of friendship has no need of the body. . . . That would be more of a disturbance than an arousal. And yet, it is eros all the same. Eros is present in love just as it is present in every mutual relationship. You know, I have done a great deal of reading,” he says, as if to excuse himself. “These days such things are written about much more freely. But I have also repeatedlyre-read Plato, because in school I wasn’t yet ready to understand him. Friendship, I thought—and you who have seen the world certainly know this better than I do alone here in my village—is the noblest relationship that can exist between human beings. And it is interesting that it also exists among animals. Animals are capable of friendship, selflessness, and the desire to help others.
“A Russian prince—I’ve forgotten his name—has written about it. Lions, grouse, all sorts of creatures of every species have apparently come to the aid of others of their breed in trouble, and I’ve seen this for myself even when the animals are completely unrelated. Did you ever witness something of the kind on your travels? . . . Friendship out there must surely be different, more advanced, more contemporary than it is here in our backward world. Kindred species organize mutual assistance. . . . Occasionally they have to struggle desperately against the obstacles they encounter, but there are always strong members in every community, well disposed to help. The animal world has shown me hundreds of such examples. Not so the human world. I have seen sympathy build between people, but it has always foundered in a morass of vanity and egoism. Sometimes camaraderie and fellowship look like friendship; common interests can bring about relationships akin to friendship, and in an attempt to escape loneliness, people are only too happy to involve themselves in confidences that they will later regret, but that temporarily may appear to be a variety of friendship. None of it is genuine. It is far more the case—my father knew it to be so—that friendship is a duty.
“Like the lover, the friend expects no reward for his feelings. He does not wish the performance of any duty in return, he does not view the person he has chosen as his friend with any illusion, he sees his faults and accepts him with all their consequences. Such is the ideal. And without such an ideal, would there be any point to life? And if a friend fails, because he is not a true friend, is one allowed to attack his character and his weaknesses? What is the value of a friendship in which one person loves the other for his virtue, his loyalty, his steadfastness? What is the value of a love that expects loyalty? Isn’t it our duty to accept the faithless friend as we do the faithful one who sacrifices himself? Is disinterest not the essence of every human relationship? That the more we give, the less we expect? And if a man gives someone his trust through all the years of his youth and stands ready to make sacrifices for him in manhood because of that blind, unconditional devotion, which is the highest thing any one person can offer another, only then to witnes
s the faithlessness and base behavior of his friend, is he permitted to rise up in protest and demand vengeance? And if he does rise up and demand vengeance, having been deceived and abandoned, what does that say about the validity of his friendship in the first place? You see, these are the kinds of theoretical questions that have occupied me since I have been alone. Of course, solitude did not provide me with any answers. Nor, in any complete sense, did books, neither the ancient texts of Chinese, Jewish, and classical thinkers, nor contemporary tracts that spell everything out, absolutely bluntly, while all they’re giving you is words and more words and not any articulation of the truth. Is there, in fact, anyone who has ever given words to the truth, and set them on paper? I thought about this a great deal after I began my reading and self-questioning. Time went by and life around me seemed somehow to darken, and the books and my memories started to mass together and pile up. And for every crumb of truth in any individual book, my memories provided a corresponding retort that human beings may learn everything they want about the true nature of relationships, but this knowledge will make them not one whit the wiser. And that is why we have no right to demand unconditional honor and loyalty from a friend, even when events have shown us that this friend was faithless.”