And now ‘Congratulations,’ says my brother, coming solemnly up to me; I see that he’s holding his top-hat in his hand ... and I seem to detect a note of offensive contempt in his voice ... And ‘Congratulations, congratulations!’ echo the others, nodding and bowing ... But how ... how have they all got to know about it, and how is it they’re all here together? ... I thought Aunt Daisy had fallen out with Ferdinand ... and I haven’t told anyone.
‘Congratulations, by Jove! You’ve done pretty well for yourself — seven million, that’s fine! Seven million, the whole family can come in on this.’ They all chatter away at once, broad grins on their faces. ‘Splendid, splendid!’ says Aunt Bella, smacking her lips, ‘Carli will be able to go on with his studies. An excellent match!’ ‘I hear, moreover, it’s one of the oldest families in the country,’ bleats my brother from behind his top-hat, but Aunt Daisy screeches like a cockatoo: ‘Well, we shall have to look into that!’ And now my mother comes up and lisps timidly, ‘Aren’t you going to introduce your bride to us?’ Introduce her? That’s the last straw, they’ll all see her crutches, see what a hell of a mess I’ve got into with my infernal pity ... I shall have to head them off ... And then, how can I possibly introduce her when we’re in Condor’s flat, up on the third floor of a building in the Florianigasse? The poor lame creature could never in all her life climb up eighty stairs ... But why are they all turning round as though something were happening in the next room? I can tell myself by the draught at my back ... that someone must have opened the door ... Is someone coming, then? Yes, I can hear someone coming ... I can hear something groaning and creaking and squeaking on the stairs ... there’s something pulling and dragging and snorting its way up ... tap-tap, tap-tap ... great heavens, surely she’s not coming up? She wouldn’t go and disgrace me like that with her crutches! I should sink through the floor with shame in front of this sneering crowd ... but my God, this is awful, it really is she! It can only be she ... tap-tap, tap-tap ... I know that sound ... tap-tap, tap-tap, it’s coming nearer and nearer ... she’ll be right up in a moment ... I’d better lock the door. But my brother has taken off his top-hat and is bowing over his shoulder in the direction of the tap-tapping ... To whom is he bowing, and why is he bowing so low? And suddenly they all burst out laughing so loudly that the window-panes rattle. ‘A-a-h, now we know, now we know! A-ha! a-ha! ... So that explains the seven million, that explains it! A-haa! a-haa! So the crutches are thrown in with the dowry!’
Aah! I started up in a panic. Where was I? I stared around me wildly. My God! I must have fallen asleep, fallen asleep in this wretched little tavern. I gazed timidly around me. Had they noticed anything? The landlady was nonchalantly polishing the glasses, the Uhlan had his broad, sturdy back turned pointedly towards me. Perhaps they hadn’t noticed anything. I could have dozed off for only a minute or two at the most, for the stub of my cigarette was still glowing in the ashtray. My confused dream could only have lasted a minute or two at the most. But it had washed away all the warm drowsiness from my body, and suddenly I knew with icy-cold clarity what had happened. Away, I must get away from this grog-shop! Throwing the money down on the table, I made for the door, and the Uhlan immediately stood to attention. I could feel the workmen eyeing me curiously as they glanced up from their game, and I knew that when I closed the door behind me they would begin to chatter about the queer fish in officer’s uniform, that from now on everyone would laugh at me behind my back. All, all, all of them, and no one would have pity on the foolish slave of his own pity.
Where was I to go now? Anywhere but home. Anywhere but up to my empty room, where I should be alone with these horrible thoughts.
The best thing would be to have another drink, something cold, something with a bite in it, for once more I had that foul, bitter taste in my mouth. Perhaps it was the thoughts I wanted to spew up — oh, if only I could swill them away, burn them, deaden, obliterate them all! Oh, it was ghastly, this horrible feeling! Into the town! And, wonder of wonders — the café in the Rathausplatz was still open. Light shone through the gaps between the curtains of the windows. Oh for a drink — a drink!
I stepped inside, and could see from the door that they were all sprawling round our usual table, Ferencz, Count Steinhübel, the regimental doctor, the whole gang of them. But why was Jozsi staring at me in such consternation, why did he give his neighbour a furtive nudge, and why were they all goggling at me like that? Why had the conversation come to a sudden stop? They had just been having a violent argument and shouting at one another so loudly that I heard the noise on the doorstep; and now, no sooner did they see me than they all sat mute like a lot of stuffed fish. There must be something the matter.
Well, I couldn’t turn back now that they had seen me. So I sauntered up to them as nonchalantly as possible. I didn’t feel at all comfortable, and I hadn’t the slightest desire for a lot of ragging and chatter. And, moreover, I felt a certain tension in the atmosphere. Usually they waved to a fellow or hurled a ‘Servus’ like a cannon-ball across the room, but today they all sat there stiffly like schoolboys caught out in a prank.
‘D’you mind?’ I said sheepishly, as I drew up a chair.
Jozsi looked at me oddly. ‘What do you fellows say?’ he inquired, nodding across at the others. ‘Do we mind? Ever known a fellow stand on such ceremony? Well, well, that’s only to be expected of Hofmiller now!’
This must have been a gibe on the wretched fellow’s part, for the others either smirked or smothered a malicious laugh. Yes, something was definitely the matter. Usually when one of us turned up after midnight he was questioned in detail as to where he had been and why, and the shafts were barbed with pointed innuendoes. Today not one of them said a word to me; they all seemed confoundedly ill-at-ease. I must have broken in upon their comfortable lethargy like a stone hurled into a stagnant pool. At length Jozsi leaned back and half-closed his left eye as though about to take aim.
‘Well, may one congratulate you?’ he asked.
‘Congratulate me — what on?’ I was so taken aback that I really did not know at first what he was getting at.
‘Why, your friend the apothecary — he’s just gone — had some yarn of how the butler had rung up from Kekesfalva and told him that you had ... become engaged to the ... to the ... well, let us say the ... young lady out there.’
And now they all looked at me. One, two, three, four, five, six pairs of eyes were all fixed on my mouth; I knew that if I admitted the charge there would be an outburst of whistling, joking, jeering, mocking and ironical congratulations. No, I could not admit it. Impossible in the presence of these hilarious mockers.
‘Nonsense!’ I growled, trying to get out of it. But this attempt to extricate myself was not enough for them. Ferencz, genuinely curious, patted me on the back.
‘Tell me, Toni, I am right after all? It isn’t true, is it?’
He meant well, the good, loyal fellow, but he shouldn’t have made it so easy for me to say ‘No’. I was seized with an unutterable feeling of disgust at this unabashed, bantering curiosity. I felt how absurd it was to try to explain at this café table something I could not explain even in the privacy of my own soul.
‘No, not a word of it!’ I protested irritably, without pausing to reflect.
For a moment there was silence. They all gazed at one another in surprise and, I imagine, in some disappointment. I had obviously spoilt their fun for them. But Ferencz proudly propped his elbows on the table and roared triumphantly:
‘There, what did I tell you! I know old Hofmiller as well as my own trouser-pockets! I told you straight away it was a lie — a dirty lie on the part of that damned apothecary. Well, I shall have a thing or two to say to him tomorrow morning, the lousy pill-mixer. He’d better palm his muck off on someone else and not on us! I’ll give him a piece of my mind, and a thick ear into the bargain! Infernal cheek! To go and drag a decent fellow’s name in the dirt like that! To go and blabber out a low-down story like that about one of us!
But you see — I said at once Hofmiller wouldn’t do a thing like that! He wouldn’t sell his good pair of legs, not for a mint of money!’
He turned to me and gave me a friendly slap on the back with his heavy hand.
‘Really, Toni, I’m damned glad it isn’t true. It would have disgraced you and all of us, disgraced the whole regiment.’
‘And how!’ added Count Steinhübel. ‘Just fancy, the daughter of that old money-lender, who ruined poor old Uli Neuendorff with his dirty tricks. Quite bad enough that people like that are allowed to make a pile and buy estates and titles. It’d just suit him to get one of us tied up with his daughter. The low hound! He knows very well why he avoids me when he meets me in the street.’
As the din increased, Ferencz grew more and more excited. ‘That rogue of an apothecary — upon my soul, I’ve a good mind to go and ring his night-bell and rout him out and punch him on the jaw. Blasted impudence! Just because you’d been out to their place a few times, to go and tell a dirty lie like that about you!’
And now Baron Schonthäler, a slender, aristocratic grey-hound of a fellow, joined in.
‘I say, Hofmiller,’ he said, ‘I didn’t like to interfere — chacun à son goût! But if you want my frank opinion, from the start I wasn’t too pleased when I heard that you were spending so much time with those people. We officers have got to consider whom we’re honouring by going to their houses. What his business is, or was, I don’t know, and it’s not my affair. I don’t go about checking up on people. But we fellows must maintain a certain reserve — you can see for yourself, before you know where you are all sorts of gossip goes flying around. We simply can’t mix with people we don’t really know. We must keep our hands clean, always. You can’t touch pitch without being defiled. Well, I’m jolly glad you haven’t got yourself into a worse mess.’
They all talked excitedly at once, they let fly at the old man, they dug up the most fantastic stories, they made merry at the expense of that ‘monstrosity’, his daughter; and again and again one of them would turn to me to commend me for not really having got myself mixed up with ‘that riff-raff’. And I — I sat there mute and motionless; their beastly praise was such martyrdom to me that I felt like roaring at them: ‘Shut your filthy mouths!’ or yelling, ‘I’m the blackguard! The apothecary told you the truth! He wasn’t lying, but I am. I am the cowardly, pitiable liar!’ But I knew it was too late, too late to do anything. I couldn’t draw back now, couldn’t go back on my denial. And so I sat there mute and motionless, staring straight ahead, the cigarette extinguished between my tightly closed lips, and was horribly aware of the dastardly act of treachery that, by my silence, I was committing against the poor, innocent Edith. Oh, if only the earth would open and swallow me! If I could do away with myself! Finish myself off! I did not know where to look, did not know what to do with my hands, which might any moment betray me by their trembling. Cautiously I clasped them to me and twisted my fingers together till they hurt, in order to master my extreme agitation for a few minutes longer.
But even as my fingers were convulsively intertwined I felt a hard, foreign object between them. Involuntarily I groped for it. It was the ring which Edith had blushingly slipped on my finger only a few hours ago. The engagement ring that I had accepted from her. I no longer had the strength to tear this glittering proof of my mendacity from my finger. With the cowardly furtiveness of a thief I quickly turned the stone inwards before holding out my hand in farewell to my friends.
The Rathausplatz stood out in ghostly relief in the glacial whiteness of the moonlight, every contour of the cobblestones sharply outlined, every line traced cleanly from cellar to rooftop. I felt the same icy clarity within me. Never had my thoughts been more lucid and clear-cut than at that moment: I knew what I had done, and knew what it was my duty to do. At ten o’clock in the evening I had got engaged, and three hours later I had cravenly repudiated that engagement. In the presence of seven witnesses — a captain, two lieutenants, a regimental doctor, two second lieutenants and an ensign of my regiment — I had, with the engagement ring on my finger, allowed myself to be commended for my blackguardly lie. I had perfidiously compromised a girl who loved me passionately, a suffering, helpless, unsuspecting creature; I had without a protest allowed her father to be blackguarded, and a stranger who had told the truth slanderously to be called a liar. By the morning the whole regiment would know my shame, and then all would be over. Tomorrow the very men who had this evening patted me cordially on the back would cut me dead. As one who had been exposed as a liar I should no longer be able to wear the epaulettes of an officer, nor should I ever be able to go back to those I had betrayed, slandered. Even as far as Balinkay was concerned I was done for. Those three minutes of cowardice had ruined my life; the only thing left for me was a revolver.
Even while I had been sitting at the table I had been clearly aware that there was only one way to retrieve my honour; and what I now pondered as I wandered alone through the streets was merely the manner in which I should put my resolve into effect. The thoughts arranged themselves quite clearly in my head, as though the white moonlight had penetrated my cap, and I portioned out the next two or three hours, the last of my life, as casually as though it were a matter of taking a rifle to pieces. I must see that everything was settled up decently, must not forget anything, overlook anything. First a letter to my parents apologizing for the pain that I was having to cause them. Then a written request to Ferencz not to have a row with the apothecary, since the matter would be settled by my death. A third letter to the Colonel, requesting him to prevent as far as possible all publicity; I should like to be buried in Vienna, no representatives from the regiment, no wreaths. Perhaps a few brief lines to Kekesfalva, asking him to assure Edith of my warmest affection and to tell her not to think too hardly of me. Then put my room in perfect order, make a note of all my little debts, and leave instructions for my horse to be sold to cover any outstanding bills. I had nothing to leave. My watch and the few clothes I possessed were to go to my batman — oh yes, and the ring and the gold cigarette-case I should like returned to Herr von Kekesfalva.
What else? Ah, of course, burn Edith’s two letters, in fact all letters and photographs. Leave behind nothing of myself, no memory, no trace. Disappear, as I had lived, as inconspicuously as possible. All the same, there would be more than enough to do in the two or three hours left to me, for each letter must be carefully written so that no one should be able to attribute my action either to fear or an unbalanced mind. Then the last, the easiest, thing of all: lie down in bed, pull two or three blankets closely over my head and pile the heavy eiderdown on top of them so that the detonation should not be heard in the next room or in the street — that’s how Captain Felber had done it. He had shot himself at midnight, and no one had heard a sound; it was not until next morning that they had found him with his brains blown out. Then press the barrel right up against my temple underneath the blankets. I knew I could rely on my revolver, for I happened to have oiled the bolt quite recently, and I knew I had a steady hand.
Never in my life — I must repeat — had I made clearer, more precise, more exact arrangements for anything than I did that night for my death. When, after an hour of apparently aimless wandering, I arrived outside the barracks, the whole programme was worked out in my mind, minute by minute, with all the precision of an official instruction. My step during the whole of that time was unhurried, my pulse regular, and I noticed with a certain pride how steady my hand was when I put the key into the lock of the little side-door which we officers always used after midnight. Even in the darkness I did not miss the little opening by a single inch. Now all I had to do was to cross the courtyard and climb three flights of stairs. Then I should be alone with myself, and could begin — and end — everything.
But as I approached the dark entrance from the moonlit quadrangle a figure moved in the doorway. Confound it! I thought. One of the fellows getting back just before me; he’ll buttonhole me and ke
ep me talking for God knows how long! The next moment, however, to my extreme discomfiture, I recognized the broad shoulders of Colonel Bubencic, my commanding officer, who had given me such a dressing-down only a few days before. He seemed deliberately to have stationed himself in the doorway; I knew that the old martinet did not care to see us subalterns arriving back late. But hell, what did it matter to me now! I should be reporting to Someone very different tomorrow. And so I was about to go doggedly on my way, as though I had not noticed him, when he stepped forward out of the shadow. His grating voice pulled me up sharply.
‘Lieutenant Hofmiller!’
I went up to him and stood to attention. He looked me up and down keenly.
‘The latest fashion among you young gentlemen, I suppose, wearing your coats half open. D’you imagine you can wander about after midnight like a sow dragging her teats on the ground? The next thing will be you’ll be slouching around with your flies open as well. I won’t have it, I tell you! I expect my officers to go about properly dressed even after midnight. Understand?’
I clicked my heels smartly. ‘Yes, Herr Oberst.’
He wheeled round with a look of contempt and stamped off towards the staircase without saying goodnight, his broad back massive in the moonlight. But I was seized with fury to think that the last word I was to hear in my life should be a reprimand, and to my own surprise, acting involuntarily, as though merely obeying the dictates of my own body, I took a few hasty steps and hurried after him. I knew that what I was doing was completely absurd. Why try, an hour before my last hour on earth, to explain things to this obstinate old buffer, to set things right? But it is an absurdly inconsequential characteristic of suicides that, ten minutes before they are to become mangled corpses, they yield to the vanity of trying to make as tidy an exit from life as possible (from that life of which they will no longer know anything); that they shave themselves and put on clean underlinen (for whom?) before putting a bullet through their heads: indeed, I even remember hearing of a woman who made up her face and had her hair waved and scented with the most expensive perfume before throwing herself from the fourth floor of a building. It was only this logically inexplicable impulse that urged my legs forward, and if I now ran after the Colonel, it was — I must emphasize — in no sense from fear of death or from sudden cowardice, but simply from an absurd instinct for tidiness, a desire not to vanish into nothingness leaving behind a lot of loose ends.