‘My dear child ...’
But at this she flared up. ‘Don’t keep on calling me “your dear child”. You know I can’t bear it. You’re not so much older than I am. Perhaps I may be permitted to wonder at your not being very surprised and, above all, not ... not very ... interested. And by the way, why shouldn’t you be pleased? After all, you too will be having a holiday, for this place will be shut up for several months. And so you’ll be free to sit about and play tarock with your friends in the café and be relieved of the boring business of playing the Good Samaritan. Oh yes, I can well believe that you’re pleased! You have a nice, easy time to look forward to.’
There was something so offensive in her tone that her words got right under my skin. My conscience pricked me. I must have given myself away. In order to divert her anger — for by now I was familiar with the dangerous consequences of her irritability — I tried to introduce a certain spirit of jocularity into the whole discussion.
‘Easy time — that’s what you civilians think! An easy time for a cavalryman — July, August and September! Don’t you know that’s the very time when one works like a slave and gets hauled over the coals? First of all there are the preparations for manœuvres, then chasing about here, there and everywhere, to Bosnia or Galicia, then the manœuvres themselves and all sorts of reviews. The officers in a state of nerves, the men worn out, one long round of parades, drilling, exercises from morning to night. And so the dance goes on until well into September.’
‘Until the end of September ... ?’ She suddenly grew thoughtful. She seemed to have something on her mind. ‘But when ...’ she began at length, ‘will you come to us?’
I did not understand her. I really did not understand what she meant, and inquired with complete näiveté:
‘Come where?’
Once more her brows lifted. ‘Don’t keep asking such idiotic questions! To see us, to see me!’
‘In the Engadine?’
‘Where do you think? In Tripstrill?’
And only now did I realize what she meant; the idea that I, I who had just spent my last seven crowns in cash on flowers and to whom every trip to Vienna was a luxury despite the fifty per cent reduction on the fare, should go off just like that for a holiday in the Engadine was too absurd even to contemplate.
‘So now we know,’ I said, with a perfectly genuine laugh, ‘what sort of idea you civilians have of military life: one long round of cafés, billiards, strolling on the promenade, and just when one feels like it, changing into mufti and gadding about the world for a few weeks. The simplest thing on earth, an excursion of that kind! You raise your two fingers to your cap and say, “Bye-bye, Colonel, I don’t feel like playing at soldiers at the moment. See you later, when I’m more in the mood!” A fine idea you civilians have of what it’s like on the Imperial treadmill! Don’t you know that we soldiers, if we want even an hour’s extra leave, have to click our heels smartly when we report and ask “gehorsamst” for the great favour? Yes, I tell you, we have to go through all that mumbo-jumbo and ceremony even to get an hour off. And to get a whole day at least a dead aunt or some other family funeral is necessary! I should just like to see the Colonel’s face if I were humbly to inform him bang in the middle of the manœuvres that I had a fancy to go careering off to Switzerland on a week’s leave! I bet there’d be a few expletives flying about that you wouldn’t find in any dictionary fit for a young lady. No, my dear Fräulein Edith, you have far too simple an idea of the whole thing.’
‘Nonsense! Everything is simple if you really set your mind on it. Don’t get it into your head that you’re indispensable. Someone else would drill your Ruthenian blockheads while you were away. And by the way, Papa could fix up things with regard to your leave in half an hour. He knows a dozen people at the War Office, and at a word from higher quarters you’ll get what you want. It really wouldn’t do you any harm, either, to see something of the world outside your riding school and parade ground. No more excuses now — the matter’s settled. Papa will see to it.’
It was silly of me, but her casual tone irritated me. After all, a few years in the army do drill into one a certain consciousness of the dignity of one’s calling, and the fact that a mere chit of a girl should be able to dictate, as it were, to the generals at the War Office — whom we looked upon as gods — as though they were her father’s employees, seemed to me to cast a slur on the whole profession. All the same, despite my irritation, I preserved my jocular tone.
‘Very good — Switzerland, leave, the Engadine — not half bad! Excellent, if it’s all actually going to be served up to me on a silver tray, as you seem to imagine, without my having to beg for it “gehorsamst”. But your father would have to wheedle a special travelling scholarship for Herr Leutnant Hofmiller out of the War Office, in addition to leave.’
And now it was her turn to look up in surprise. She sensed something behind my words which she did not understand. The brows above the impatient eyes were arched more tautly. I saw that I should have to speak even more plainly.
‘Now, do be sensible, my child ... I beg your pardon, I mean, let’s talk sensibly, Fräulein Edith. The whole thing is not as simple as you think. Tell me, have you ever considered what a trip of that kind costs?’
‘Oh, is that what you mean?’ she said with an utter lack of embarrassment. ‘That won’t come to so very much. A few hundred crowns at the most. That surely can’t make any difference.’
And now I could no longer restrain my indignation. For this was a point on which I was highly sensitive. I believe I have already said what a torture it was to me to be one of the officers without private means and to be dependent merely on my pay and the wretched little allowance made me by my aunt. Even in my own circle it always caught me on the raw to hear money spoken of contemptuously in my presence just as if it grew like thistles. This was my sore spot. In this respect I was lame, I walked on crutches. It was solely for this reason that I was so immoderately upset by the fact that this spoiled, pampered creature, who herself suffered all the pangs of hell at being at such a physical disadvantage, should not understand my feelings. In spite of myself I was almost rude.
‘A few hundred crowns at the most, eh? A trifle, isn’t it? A mere trifle for an officer! And you, of course, think it very bad form on my part to mention such a bagatelle? Bad form, petty, niggling? But have you ever considered what we soldiers have to scrape along on? What a struggle we have to make ends meet?’
And as she continued to stare at me with the same puzzled and, as I foolishly thought, contemptuous look, I was suddenly seized with an impulse to expose the full extent of my poverty to her. Just as she, on one occasion, had hobbled defiantly across the room on purpose to torture us, who were sound of limb, to revenge herself on us for our smug good health, so did I now feel a kind of angry pleasure in revealing to her in an exhibitionistic way the restricted and dependent state of my existence.
‘Have you the remotest idea what the pay of a lieutenant is?’ I snapped. ‘Have you ever given a thought to it? Well, I may as well tell you; two hundred crowns on the first of the month, which has to last the whole thirty or thirty-one days as the case may be, and what’s more he is expected to live up to his station in life. Out of this pittance he has to pay his mess bills, his rent, his tailor’s bill, his shoemaker’s bill, and buy all the little luxuries incidental to his rank. Not to mention anything that may happen, God help him, to his horse! And if he’s managed jolly well, he’ll just have a few coppers left for carousing in that paradise of a café which you’re always throwing up at me; if he has really pinched and scraped like a labourer, he can purchase all the delights of this world in a cup of coffee.’
I know now that it was stupid, criminal of me, to let myself be so carried away by my bitter feelings. How should a seventeen-year-old child pampered and brought up in seclusion, how should this crippled girl, permanently chained to her room, have any idea of the value of money and a soldier’s pay and our splendid poverty
? But the desire to take my revenge on someone for innumerable minor humiliations had suddenly overwhelmed me, and I struck out, blindly, heedlessly, as one always does in anger, without realizing how hard I was hitting.
But the moment I looked up I realized how brutally I had hit out. With the acute perception of the sick she had immediately sensed that she had unwittingly touched me on a very sore spot. Try as she might — and I could see how she struggled to control herself and how she quickly put her hand up to her face — she could not help flushing; some quite definite thought had evidently sent the blood rushing to her cheeks.
‘And then ... and then you go and buy me such expensive flowers.’
A painful moment ensued and seemed to last for ever. I felt ashamed in front of her, and she felt ashamed in front of me. We had each of us unintentionally wounded the other and were afraid to say another word. All of a sudden we could hear the wind blowing warm through the trees, the cackling of the hens down below in the courtyard, and every now and then from the distance the faint rumble of carriage-wheels on the high-road. Then she pulled herself together.
‘And to think I was stupid enough to be taken in by all that nonsense of yours! Really, I am stupid and I’m still furious with myself. Why need you bother about the cost of the trip? If you come to us, it goes without saying that it will be as our guest. Do you think Papa would allow you to be put to expense if you were so kind as to come to see us? What nonsense! And to think that I let you fool me! Well then, not another word on the subject — no, not a word, I tell you!’
But this was the very point on which I could not yield. Nothing — as I have said before — was so intolerable to me as the thought of being taken for a sponger.
‘Oh yes! There is another word to be said. Don’t let’s have any misunderstanding. I tell you flatly, I will not allow anyone to wangle leave for me, I will not allow anyone to keep me. It’s not my way to ask for special privileges. I want to be on exactly the same footing as my comrades. I don’t want special leave or any sort of patronage. I know you mean well and that your father means well. But there are some people who simply cannot have all the good things of this life. Don’t let’s talk of it any more.’
‘So you don’t want to come?’
‘I didn’t say I didn’t want to. I was merely explaining to you why I can’t come.’
‘Not even if my father begs you to?’
‘Not even then.’
‘And not even ... if I ask you to? If I ask you as a dear friend?’
‘Don’t do it. It would be useless.’
She hung her head. But I had already noticed the ominous quivering and twitching at her mouth which infallibly heralded a dangerous outburst. This poor spoiled child, round whom the whole household revolved, had had a new experience: she had come up against opposition. Someone had said ‘No’ to her, and that was a bitter pill. Impulsively she snatched my flowers from the table and hurled them in an angry arc far over the balustrade.
‘Very well,’ she hissed through her teeth. ‘At least I now know how far your friendship goes. It’s just as well to have put it to the test! Merely because one or two of your friends might wag their tongues in the café, you shelter behind all these excuses. Just because you’re afraid of getting a bad mark in the regiment, you ruin a friend’s pleasure ... Very well, then! The matter’s settled. I’m not going to plead with you any more. You don’t want to come ... good! That’s that!’
I could tell that her agitation had not yet died down completely, for she kept on repeating with a certain obstinate persistence, ‘Very well! Very well!’ Gripping the arms of her chair convulsively, she levered herself up, as though about to make a physical attack on me. Suddenly she veered round sharply.
‘Very well! The matter’s over and done with. Our humble request has been refused. You refuse to come and see us. It doesn’t suit your book. Very well! We shall get over it. After all, we’ve managed quite well without you in the past ... But there’s one more thing I should like to know — will you answer me frankly?’
‘Why, of course.’
‘I mean honestly? On your word of honour? Give me your word of honour.’
‘If you insist — my word of honour.’
‘Very well then.’ She kept repeating this harsh, biting ‘very well’ as though hacking away at something with a knife. ‘Very well. Don’t be afraid, I shan’t insist any further on your Highness’s visit! But there’s just one thing I’d like to know — you have given me your word, remember. Just one thing. Well, it doesn’t suit your book to come, either because you don’t like the idea or because it’s a nuisance — or for some other reason — it’s all the same to me. All right, very well! That’s that. But now tell me frankly and plainly: in that case why do you come to see us at all?’
I had been prepared for any other question but this. In my confusion, and in order to gain time, I stammered out:
‘Why ... why, it’s quite simple ... You didn’t need my word of honour for that ...’
‘Oh, I see ... simple, is it? Good! So much the better! Get on with it then.’
And now evasion was no longer possible. It seemed simplest to tell the truth, but I realized that I must put things very tactfully.
‘Why, my dear Fräulein Edith,’ I began with apparent unconstraint, ‘don’t look for any mysterious reasons. After all, you know me well enough to know that I am the sort of person who doesn’t think a great deal about his own motives. It has never entered my head to ask myself why I go to see this person and that, why I like some people and not others. On my word ... I really can’t give you any more coherent reason than that I come here again and again ... simply because I like coming here and because I feel a hundred times happier here than anywhere else. I think you civilians are rather too apt to picture the life of a cavalryman as something out of light opera, an everlastingly riotous, gay existence, a sort of perpetual feast. Well, from within things don’t look nearly so splendid, and as for all the vaunted camaraderie, it sometimes lets you down with a bump. When a few dozen men are harnessed to the same cart, one always pulls harder than the others, and when it’s a question of promotion and seniority, it’s easy to tread on the toes of the man ahead of you. At every word one utters one has to be on one’s guard; one’s never quite sure whether it isn’t going to arouse the disapproval of the bigwigs; there’s always a storm in the offing. The word “service” comes from serving, and serving means being dependent. And then you can’t really feel at home in barracks or an inn; no one needs you, and no one cares a straw about you. Oh yes, you sometimes have one or two really loyal friends, but you never get a feeling of ultimate security. Whereas when I come to see you people, I shed all my doubts the moment I take off my sword, and when I find myself chatting away so happily with you, then ...’
‘Well ... what then?’ she rapped out impatiently.
‘Then ... well, you’ll probably think it cheeky of me to speak so frankly ... I tell myself you like to have me here, that I belong here, that I am a hundred times more at home here than anywhere else. Whenever I look at you, I have a feeling that ...’
I faltered involuntarily. But she broke in as vehemently as before; ‘Well, what about me?’
‘ ... that here is someone to whom I’m not so terribly unimportant as I am to the fellows in the regiment ... Of course, there’s not a great deal to me, and sometimes I myself keep on wondering that you haven’t long since found me boring. Often ... you don’t know how often I have been afraid lest you should be tired of me ... but then I keep on remembering that you are all alone in this big, empty house, and that you may enjoy having someone to come and see you. And it’s that, you see, that keeps giving me courage ... When I find you on your terrace or in your room, I tell myself that it was a good thing for me to have come instead of letting you spend the whole day alone. Can’t you really understand that?’
Her reaction was most unexpected. The grey eyes grew glassy; it was as though something in my words had
turned her pupils to stone. Her fingers, on the other hand, grew more and more restless; they roamed up and down the arms of the chair, and began, at first softly, then more and more vigorously, to drum on the polished wood. Her mouth was slightly contorted.
‘Yes, I see,’ she said abruptly. ‘I understand perfectly ... Now ... now, I really believe you’ve told the truth. You’ve expressed yourself very politely and very tortuously. But I have understood you perfectly ... perfectly ... You come here, you tell me, because I’m so “alone” — that is, in other words, because I’m tied to this confounded chaise-longue. That’s the only reason you come trotting out here every day, simply to play the Good Samaritan to a “poor, sick child” — that’s what you all call me, I expect, when I’m not there — I know, I know. It’s only out of pity that you come. Oh yes, I believe you — what’s the use of denying it now? You’re one of those so-called “good” people, you like to be called so by my father. “Good people” of that kind take pity on every whipped cur and every mangy cat — so why not on a cripple?’
And suddenly she sat bolt upright, and a spasm shook her rigid frame.
‘Thank you for nothing! I can do without the kind of friendship that is only shown me because I’m a cripple ... Yes, you needn’t screw your eyes up like that! Naturally, you’re upset at having let the cat out of the bag, at having admitted that you come to see me only because I “make your heart bleed”, as that charwoman said — except that she said it frankly and straight out. You however, as a “good person” express yourself far more tactfully, far more “delicately”; you beat about the bush, and say you come just because I have to sit about here alone all day long. It’s simply out of pity that you come, I’ve felt that in my bones for ages, merely out of pity, and you would like, moreover, to be admired for your noble selflessness — but I regret to have to inform you that I refuse to allow anyone to sacrifice himself on my behalf! I refuse to tolerate that from anyone — least of all from you ... I forbid you to do it, do you hear me? I forbid it ... Do you really imagine that I am dependent on your sitting around with a “sympathetic”, sloppy look in your eyes, or on your “tactful” conversation? ... No, thank God, I can do without the lot of you ... I can manage all right, I can manage alone. And when I can’t stand it any more, I know how to get rid of you all ... Look!’ — she suddenly thrust out her hand toward me, palm uppermost — ‘Look at this scar! I made one attempt, but I was clumsy and couldn’t sever the artery with my blunt scissors; and the stupid thing was that they came along in time to bind it up, or I should have been rid of you all and your measly pity! But next time I’ll do the job properly, you may be sure. Don’t imagine for a moment that I’m entirely in your hands! I’d rather die than allow myself to be pitied! There!’ — she suddenly burst out laughing, and the sound was as sharp and jagged as a saw — ‘There, you see, my devoted father forgot one thing when he had the tower fitted up for me ... His idea was simply that I should have a lovely view to look at ... plenty of sun, plenty of sun and fresh air, the doctor ordered. But it never occurred to any of them, neither to my father, nor the doctor, nor the architect ... to what good purpose I might one day be able to put this terrace ... Take a good look ...’ — she had suddenly levered herself up and had propelled her swaying body in one convulsive movement towards the balustrade, which she now clutched frantically with both hands — ‘there are four — five storeys, and down at the bottom hard concrete ... that would do ... and thank God I have still enough strength in my muscles to get over the balustrade — oh yes, hobbling on crutches strengthens the muscles! Just one jerk would be needed and I should be free for ever of you and your cursed pity. And you’d all feel relieved, Papa, Ilona and you — all of you, to whom I’m nothing but a horrible encumbrance and ... look, it would be quite simple! One would just have to lean over a little bit, like this ... just like this ...’