Only once did she start. She felt as if, looking around, she had suddenly met her husband’s eyes on the other side of the street, gazing at her with that strange, hard, piercing expression that she had only recently seen in them. Apprehensively, she looked again, but the figure had disappeared behind a passing vehicle, and she reassured herself by remembering that he was always in court at this time of day. Her agitation and her search were making her lose all sense of time, and she was late for lunch. But as usual he was not home yet himself, and did not arrive until a couple of minutes later. She thought that he seemed a little upset about something.
Now she was counting the hours until evening, and was alarmed to find how many there still were. How odd that was—you needed so little time to say goodbye, everything seemed worthless when you knew you couldn’t take it with you. A kind of drowsiness came over her. She mechanically went up and down the street again, at random now, without thinking or looking. The driver of a carriage pulled back his horses at a crossing; she had only just seen the pole of the carriage in front of her in time. The driver swore at her; she hardly turned. An accident would have meant safety, or postponement. Well, chance had spared her the decision. Wearily, she went on. It was good to think of nothing at all, just feel a confused, vague sense of the approaching end, a mist gently rising and enveloping everything.
When she happened to look up and saw the name of the street, she shuddered. In her confused wanderings, chance had brought her almost to the building where her former lover lived. Was that a sign? Perhaps he might yet be able to help her. He must know the woman’s address. She was trembling almost joyfully. Why hadn’t she thought of that before? It was the simplest solution! All at once her limbs felt stronger, hope gave new vigour to the sad, bewildered ideas in her head. He must go to that person with her and put an end to it once and for all. He must threaten the woman, force her to stop her blackmailing. Perhaps a good sum of money might even get her out of the city entirely. She suddenly felt sorry to have spoken as she did to the poor creature recently, but he would help her, she was sure of that. How strange that this hope of rescue came only now, at the last minute.
She hurried up the steps and rang the bell. No one came to the door. She listened; she felt as if she had heard cautious footsteps on the other side. She rang the bell once more. Silence again. And again a faint noise inside. Then her patience was exhausted—she rang and rang the bell without stopping. No less than her life was at stake.
At last there was movement behind the door, the lock clicked, and it was opened just a crack. “It’s me,” she quickly said.
Now he did open the door, looking as if her visit was a shock. “You … ah, so it’s you, dear lady,” he stammered, switching to a more formal tone and visibly embarrassed. “I was just … forgive me … I wasn’t expecting … wasn’t expecting to see you. Do please forgive my outfit.” He indicated his shirtsleeves. His shirt was open at the neck, and he wore no collar.
“I have to speak to you. It’s urgent. You must help me,” she said—uneasily, because he was keeping her standing in the hall like a beggar. “Won’t you let me come in and listen to me for a moment?” she added, her nerves on edge.
“Well,” he murmured awkwardly, with a surreptitious glance behind him, “it’s just that at this minute … I can’t really …”
“You must, must listen to me. It’s your fault, after all, it’s your duty to help me … you must get back the ring for me, you must! Or at least tell me her address. She’s been persecuting me, and now she’s disappeared … you must help me, listen, you must.”
He was staring at her. Only now did she realise that she was gasping out her words disjointedly.
“But of course, you don’t know … Well, she, I mean your mistress, the other one, the woman saw me leave you that last time, and since then she’s been pursuing me, blackmailing me … torturing me to death. Now she has my ring, and I must, I must get it back. I must have it by this evening, I said that today I’d … oh, will you help me?”
“But … but I …”
“Will you or won’t you?”
“But I don’t know any such person. I don’t know who you’re talking about. I’ve never had anything to do with any such woman.” He sounded almost angry.
“So … so you don’t know her? She just said so, she plucked it out of thin air? And she knows your name, too, and where I live. So perhaps it’s not true that she’s been blackmailing me? Perhaps I’ve simply been dreaming the whole thing?”
She burst into shrill laughter. He was clearly uncomfortable. For a moment it passed through his mind, as he saw her sparkling eyes, that she might be mad. Her behaviour was disturbed, her words made no sense. Anxiously, he looked around.
“Please calm down, dear lady … I assure you, there’s some mistake. It’s quite out of the question, it must … no, I can’t understand it myself. I don’t know any women like that. The couple of relationships I’ve had here since my … well, as you know, I haven’t been here long, and they weren’t that kind of … I don’t want to name names, but this is ridiculous. I assure you there must be some mistake.”
“So you won’t help me?”
“But of course … if I can.”
“Then … then come with me. We’ll visit her together.”
“Visit her? Who do you mean?” Again, as she seized his arm, he had a terrible feeling that she was deranged.
“Her … Will you come or not?”
“Of course, of course.” His suspicions were reinforced by the strength of her urgings. “Of course I will.”
“Then come along … this is life or death to me.”
He had to make a great effort to prevent himself from smiling. Then he suddenly became formal in his manner.
“Please forgive me, dear lady, but it’s out of the question at the moment. I’m giving a piano lesson … I can’t leave now …”
“I see … I see.” Her shrill laughter rang out in his face. “So this is how you give piano lessons, in your shirtsleeves … You liar!” And suddenly, as an idea came to her, she lunged forwards. He tried to hold her back. “So she’s here, that blackmailer, here with you, is she? Perhaps you’re both playing this game. Perhaps the two of you share everything you’ve extorted from me. But I’m going to get my hands on her. I’m not afraid of anything now.” She was shouting at the top of her voice. He held her firmly, but she fought with him, tore herself away and ran to the bedroom door.
A figure quickly retreated. Someone who had obviously been listening behind the door. The horrified Irene found herself staring at a lady who was a total stranger to her. Her dress was rather disarranged, and she hastily turned her face away. Irene’s lover, thinking her mad, had followed to restrain her and prevent any misfortune, but she was already on her way out of the bedroom again. “Excuse me,” she murmured. She felt utterly confused. She understood none of it, she felt nothing but endless revulsion and a great weariness.
“Excuse me,” she said again, seeing him look uneasily at her. “Tomorrow … tomorrow you’ll understand it all … that’s to say, I … oh, I don’t understand any of it myself any more.” She spoke to him as if he were a stranger. Nothing in this man reminded her that she had ever listened to a word he said, and she scarcely felt her own body. Now everything was even more confused than it had been. All she knew was that there must be a lie somewhere. But she was too tired to think any more, too tired to go on looking. With her eyes almost closed, she went down the steps like a condemned criminal going to the gallows.
The street was dark when she went out into it. Perhaps, the thought crossed her mind, she’s waiting outside now; perhaps all will be well at the last minute. She felt as if she ought to fold her hands and pray to her forgotten God. Oh, if she could just buy herself a few months, the few months between now and summer, and then spend the summer holiday peacefully in the country, where the blackmailer couldn’t get at her, living among the fields and meadows. Just one summer, but it would b
e so full, so complete that it would count as more than a whole human lifetime. She looked longingly down the now-dark street. She thought she saw someone standing in the entrance of a building, but as she came closer the figure retreated into the entrance hall. For a moment she thought she saw some similarity to her husband. It was the second time today that she had feared meeting him suddenly in the street with his eyes bent on her. She hesitated, hoping to make sure, but the figure had disappeared into the shadows. Uneasily, she went on with a curiously tense sensation at the nape of her neck, as if transfixed by a burning glance behind her. She turned around once, but there was no one in sight.
It was not far to the pharmacy. She went in, shivering slightly. The pharmacist took her prescription and went to make it up. In that one minute she absorbed the sight of everything in the shop—the shining scales, the delicate little weights, the small labels, and up on the shelves the rows of essences with their strange Latin names. Unconsciously, she looked along them all, spelling them out. She heard the clock ticking, breathed in the characteristic aroma of the place, that sweetish, greasy aroma of medicaments, and suddenly remembered that as a child she had always asked her mother to let her go and fetch anything from the pharmacy, because she liked the smell and the strange look of all the shiny little pots. At the same time she realised, horrified, that she had forgotten to say goodbye to her mother, and she felt dreadfully sorry for the poor woman. What a shock it would be to her, thought Irene in alarm, but the pharmacist was already counting out the colourless drops from a big-bellied vessel into a little blue bottle. She watched, spellbound, as the death that would soon be streaming through her veins moved from that larger vessel into the smaller one, and a chill ran though her. Mindlessly, in a kind of hypnotic trance, she watched his fingers as he put the stopper into the full bottle and stuck the label over its curving sides. All her senses were paralysed, numbed by the terrible idea.
“That’ll be two crowns, please,” said the pharmacist. She woke from her rigid calm, and looked around her strangely. Then she automatically put her hand in her bag to take out the money. Everything was still like a dream. She looked at the coins without recognising them at once, and involuntarily took her time about counting the money out.
At that moment she felt her arm pushed vigorously aside, and heard coins clinking as they were dropped into the glass dish on the counter. Beside her, a hand reached out and picked up the little bottle.
Instinctively, she turned, and her glance froze. It was her husband standing there, his lips tightly compressed. His face was pale, and damp beads of perspiration shone on his forehead.
She felt close to fainting, and had to hold on to the counter for support. All at once she realised that she had indeed seen him in the street earlier, and he had been waiting in the entrance to that building just now. Something in her had guessed that he was there. For a split second she wildly recollected the day’s events.
“Come along,” he said in a low, choked voice. She looked fixedly at him, and marvelled inside herself, at a very deep and dark level of her mind, for obeying him. And for the way her steps matched themselves to his without her knowing it.
They crossed the road side by side. Neither looked at the other. He was still carrying the little bottle. Once he stopped, and wiped his damp brow. She slackened her own pace too, not meaning to and unaware of it. But she dared not look at him. Neither spoke a word. The noise of traffic in the street surged between them.
On the steps outside their building, he let her go ahead of him. And as soon as he was no longer beside her, she began swaying as she walked. She stopped, and did not move on. Then he was supporting her arm. At the touch she started, and hurried up the last steps more quickly.
She went into the drawing room, and he followed her. The walls shone with a dark glow, the pieces of furniture could hardly be told apart. They still had not said a word. He tore the paper off the wrapping, opened the little bottle, and poured its contents away. Then he flung it violently into a corner. She shrank at the clattering sound as it fell.
Still they were silent. She felt him controlling himself, felt it without looking at him. At last he came over to her. Came close, and then very close. She could feel his heavy breathing, and with her fixed and clouded gaze she saw the glitter of his eyes standing out in the darkness of the room. She waited for his outburst of anger, shivering in spite of the firm grasp of his hand holding her. Irene’s heart stood still, only her nerves vibrated like the strings of a musical instrument at high tension. Everything in her was expecting chastisement, and she almost wanted to hear his fury. But he still said nothing, and with endless surprise she felt that his approach to her was gentle. “Irene,” he said, and his voice was strangely soft, “how much longer are we going to torment each other?”
Then it all broke out of her suddenly, convulsively and with overpowering force, like one great, mindless, animal scream. At last it burst out, all the sobbing she had suppressed and fought down in these last weeks. An angry hand seemed to grasp her from inside, shaking her hard, she was staggering as if she were drunk, and would have fallen to the floor if he had not supported her.
“Irene,” he soothed her, “Irene, Irene.” He spoke her name more and more softly, reassuringly, as if he could calm the desperate turbulence of her overstrained nerves by uttering it with increasing tenderness. But only sobs answered him, wild gasps and choking sounds of pain that passed through her whole body. He led, or rather carried, her convulsed form to the sofa and laid it down. But the sobbing would not stop. A fit of weeping shook her limbs like electric shocks, waves of shivering and cold seemed to run through her tortured body. Her nerves, which had been expecting the worst for weeks now, were torn apart, and the torment raged through her numbed body unchecked.
Greatly dismayed, he held her shuddering form, clasped her cold hands, kissed her dress and the back of her neck first soothingly, then wildly, in fear and passion, but the tremors still kept passing through her hunched figure as if something were tearing her apart. And the tumultuous wave of her sobbing, liberated at last, rose from inside her. He felt her face—cool, bathed in tears—and the throbbing veins at her temples. Unspeakable fear came over him. He knelt down so that he could speak closer to her face.
“Irene.” He kept touching her. “Why are you crying like that? It’s all over … all over now … why are you still tormenting yourself? You mustn’t be afraid any more. She’ll never come back, never again …”
Her body reared up again, but he held her firmly with both hands. He was afraid when he sensed the desperation tearing at her tormented body. It was as if he had murdered her. He kissed her again and again, stammering out words of apology.
“Never again … never. I swear it. How could I have known you’d take it so badly? I only wanted to … to bring you back to your duties here … get you to leave him … for ever, and come back to us. When I found out by chance, what else could I do? I couldn’t tell you myself … I thought, I kept thinking you’d come back … that’s why I sent that poor creature to hunt you down … and she really is a poor creature, an out-of-work actress. She was reluctant to agree, but I wanted … now I see it was wrong, but I did want you back. I’ve always shown you I was ready to … that I only wanted to forgive, but you didn’t understand. But I never … never meant to drive you so far … I’ve suffered so much seeing all this. I was watching every step you took … if only because of the children, you understand, I had to make you … it was because of the children … But it’s all over now, everything will be all right again now …”
Faintly, from an endless distance away, she heard words spoken close to her, but did not understand them. There was a roaring sound inside her that rose above everything else, a tumult of the senses in which all feeling was lost. She sensed touches on her skin, kisses, caresses, and her own tears, now cooling down, but the blood inside her was full of sound, full of a sombre, droning note that swelled powerfully and was now pealing like a thunderous
chime of bells. And then everything distinct was lost. Coming round from her faint, still confused, she felt that she was being undressed, saw her husband’s face, kind and anxious, as if through dense clouds. Then she fell down into the dark, down into the long, black, dreamless sleep that she had needed for so long.
When she opened her eyes next morning, it was light and bright in her room. And she felt light and bright herself, the clouds had lifted, and her own blood felt cleansed as if by a thunderstorm. She tried to think what had happened to her, but it all still seemed like a dream. The throbbing inside her seemed improbable, light, liberated, like floating through spaces in sleep, and to make sure that she was not dreaming she tentatively felt her own hands.
Suddenly she came to herself with a start; her ring was back, sparkling on her finger. All at once she was wide awake. The confused words, heard and yet not heard while she was half-fainting, a sombre presentiment she had felt even earlier, but had never allowed to become real thought and suspicion, suddenly came together, showing a clear connection. All at once she understood everything—her husband’s questions, her lover’s baffled astonishment, the whole mesh was unravelled, and she saw the terrible net in which she had been entangled. Bitterness and shame overwhelmed her, once more her nerves began to quiver, and she was almost sorry to have woken from that calm and dreamless sleep.
Then she heard laughter in the next room. The children were up and about, noisily greeting the new day like birds waking up. She distinctly heard her son’s voice, and for the first time, surprised, realised how like his father he sounded. A quiet smile came to her lips, and rested there. She lay with her eyes closed to relish, at a deeper level, her real life or what it was, and it was now her happiness too. Something still hurt her, deep inside, but it was a promising pain, burning but mild, just as wounds burn when scar tissue is about to close over them for ever.