They had risen politely and were offering him their hands. The old man trembled. But the girl’s warm presence, placating him, lay soft and intoxicating against his arm. His will was paralysed as he shook the three hands one by one, sat down in silence, took out a cigar and bit grimly into the soft end of it. Above him, the casual conversation went on, in French, with much high-spirited laughter from several voices.
The old man sat there, silent and hunched, biting the end of his cigar until his teeth were brown with tobacco juice. They’re right, he thought, they’re right, I deserve to be spat at … now I’ve shaken their hands! Shaken hands with all three, and I know that one of them’s the villain. Here I am sitting quietly at the same table with him, and I don’t strike him down, no, I don’t strike him down, I shake hands with him civilly … they’re right, quite right if they laugh at me … and see the way they talk, ignoring me as if I weren’t here at all! I might already be underground … and they both know, Erna and my wife, that I don’t understand a word of French. They both know that, both of them, but no one asked me whether I minded, if only for form’s sake, just because I sit here so foolishly, feeling so ridiculous. I might be thin air to them, nothing but thin air, a nuisance, a hanger-on, something in the way of their fun … someone to be ashamed of, they tolerate me only because I make so much money. Money, money, always that wretched, filthy lucre, the money I’ve spent indulging them, money with God’s curse on it. They don’t say a word to me, my wife, my own child, they talk away to these idlers, their eyes are all for those smooth, smartly rigged-out dandies … see how they smile at those fine gentlemen, it tickles their fancy, as if they felt their hands on bare female flesh. And I put up with it all. I sit here listening to their laughter, I don’t understand what they say, and yet I sit here instead of striking out with my fists, thrashing them with my stick, driving them apart before they begin coupling before my very eyes. I let it all pass … I sit here silent, stupid, a coward, coward, coward …
“Will you allow me?” asked the Italian officer, in laborious German, reaching for his lighter.
Startled out of his heated thoughts, the old man sat up very erect and stared grimly at the unsuspecting young officer. Anger was seething inside him. For a moment his hand clutched the handle of the stick convulsively. But then he let the corners of his mouth turn down again, stretching it into a senseless grin. “Oh, I’ll allow you!” he sardonically repeated. “To be sure I’ll allow you, ha ha, I’ll allow you anything you want—ha ha!—anything I have is entirely at your disposal … you can do just as you like.”
The bewildered officer stared at him. With his poor command of German, he had not quite understood, but that wry, grinning smile made him uneasy. The gentleman jockey from Germany sat up straight, startled, the two women went white as a sheet—for a split second the air among them all was breathless and motionless, as electric as the tiny pause between a flash of lightning and the thunder that follows.
But then the fierce distortion of his face relaxed, the stick slid out of his clutch. Like a beaten dog, the old man retreated into his own thoughts and coughed awkwardly, alarmed by his own boldness. Trying to smooth over the embarrassing tension, Erna returned to her light conversational tone, the German baron replied, obviously anxious to maintain the cheerful mood, and within a few minutes the interrupted tide of words was in full flow once more.
The old man sat among the others as they chattered, entirely withdrawn; and you might have thought he was asleep. His heavy stick, now that the clutch of his hands was relaxed, dangled useless between his legs. His head, propped on one hand, sank lower and lower. But no one paid him any more attention, the wave of chatter rolled over his silence, sometimes laughter sprayed up, sparkling, at a joking remark, but he was lying motionless below it all in endless darkness, drowned in shame and pain.
The three gentlemen rose to their feet, Erna followed readily, her mother more slowly; in obedience to someone’s light-hearted suggestion they were going into the music room next door, and did not think it necessary to ask the old man drowsing away there to come with them. Only when he suddenly became aware of the emptiness around him did he wake, like a sleeping man roused by the cold when his blanket has slipped off the bed in the night, and cold air blows over his naked body. Instinctively his eyes went to the chairs they had left, but jazzy music was already coming from the room next door, syncopated and garish. He heard laughter and cries of encouragement. They were dancing next door. Yes, dancing, always dancing, they could do that all right! Always stirring up the blood, always rubbing avidly against each other, chafing until the dish was cooked and ready. Dancing in the evening, at night, in bright daylight, idlers, gentlemen of leisure with time on their hands, that was how they charmed the women.
Bitterly, he picked up his stout stick again and dragged himself after them. At the door he stopped. The German baron, the gentleman jockey, was sitting at the piano, half turned away from the keyboard so that he could watch the dancers at the same time as he rattled out an American hit song on the keys, a tune he obviously knew more or less by heart. Erna was dancing with the officer; the long-legged Conte Ubaldi was rhythmically pushing her strong, sturdy mother forward and back, not without some difficulty. But the old man had eyes for no one but Erna and her partner. How that slender greyhound of a man laid his hands, soft and flattering, on her delicate shoulders, as if she belonged to him entirely! How her body, swaying, following his lead, pressed close to his, as if promising herself, how they danced, intertwined, before his very eyes, with passion that they had difficulty in restraining! Yes, he was the man—for in those two bodies moving as one there burnt a sense of familiarity, something in common already in their blood. He was the one—it could only be he, he read it from her eyes, half-closed and yet brimming over, in that fleeting, hovering movement reflecting the memory of lustful moments already enjoyed—he was the man, he was the thief who came by night to seize and ardently penetrate what his child, his own child, now concealed in her thin, semi-transparent, flowing dress! Instinctively he stepped closer to tear her away from the man. But she didn’t even notice him. With every movement of the rhythm, giving herself up to the guiding touch of the dancer, the seducer leading her, with her head thrown back and her moist mouth open, she swayed softly to the beat of the music, with no sense of space or time or of the man, the trembling, panting old man who was staring at her in a frenzied ecstasy of rage, his eyes bloodshot. She felt only herself, her own young limbs as she unresistingly followed the syncopation of the breathlessly swirling dance music. She felt only herself, and the fact that a male creature so close to her desired her, his strong arm surrounded her, and she must preserve her balance and not fall against him with greedy lips, hotly inhaling his breath as she abandoned herself to him. And all this was magically known to the old man in his own blood, his own shattered being—always, whenever the dance swept her away from him, he felt as if she were sinking for ever.
Suddenly, as if the string of an instrument had broken, the music stopped in the middle of a bar. The German baron jumped up. “Assez joué pour vous,” he laughed. “Maintenant je veux danser moi-même.”—“You’ve had your fun. Now I want to dance myself!” They all cheerfully agreed, the group stopped dancing in couples and moved into an informal, fluttering dance all together.
The old man came back to his senses—how he wanted to do something now, say something! Not just stand about so foolishly, so pitifully superfluous! His wife was dancing by, gasping slightly from exertion but warm with contentment. Anger brought him to a sudden decision. He stepped into her path. “Come with me,” he said brusquely. “I have to talk to you.”
She looked at him in surprise. Little beads of sweat moistened his pale brow, his eyes were staring wildly around. What did he want? Why disturb her just now? An excuse was already forming on her lips, but there was something so convulsive, so dangerous in his demeanour that, suddenly remembering the grim outburst over the lighter just now, she reluctantl
y followed him.
“Excusez, messieurs, un instant!” she said, turning back apologetically to the gentlemen. So she’ll apologise to them, thought the agitated old man grimly, she didn’t apologise to me when she got up from the table. I’m no more than a dog to her, a doormat to be trodden on. But they’re right, oh yes, they’re right if I put up with it.
She was waiting, her eyebrows sternly raised; he stood before her, his lip quivering, like a schoolboy facing his teacher.
“Well?” she finally asked.
“I don’t want … I don’t want …” he stammered awkwardly. “I don’t want you—you and Erna—I don’t want you mixing with those people.”
“With what people?” Deliberately pretending not to understand, she looked up indignantly, as if he had insulted her personally.
“With those men in there.” Angrily, he jerked his chin in the direction of the music room. “I don’t like it … I don’t want you to …”
“And why not, may I ask?”
Always that inquisitorial tone, he thought bitterly, as if I were a servant. Still more agitated, he stammered, “I have my reasons … I don’t like it. I don’t want Erna talking to those men. I don’t have to tell you everything.”
“Then I’m sorry,” she said, flaring up, “but I consider all three gentlemen extremely well-brought up, far more distinguished company than we keep at home.”
“Distinguished company! Those idlers, those … those …” Rage was throttling him more intolerably than ever. And suddenly he stamped his foot. “I don’t want it, I forbid it! Do you understand that?”
“No,” she said coldly. “I don’t understand any of what you say. I don’t know why I should spoil the girl’s pleasure …”
“Her pleasure … her pleasure!” He was staggering as if under a heavy blow, his face red, his forehead streaming with sweat. His hand groped in the air for his heavy stick, either to support himself or to hit out with it. But he had left it behind. That brought him back to his senses. He forced himself to keep calm as a wave of heat suddenly passed over his heart. He went closer to his wife, as if to take her hand. His voice was low now, almost pleading. “You … you don’t understand. It’s not for myself … I’m begging you only because … it’s the first thing I’ve asked you for years, let’s go away from here. Just away, to Florence, to Rome, anywhere you want, I don’t mind. You can decide it all, just as you like. I only want to get away from here, please, away … away, today, this very day. I … I can’t bear it any longer, I can’t.”
“Today?” Surprised, dismissively, she frowned. “Go away today? What a ridiculous idea! Just because you don’t happen to like those gentlemen. Well, you don’t have to mingle with them.”
He was still standing there, hands raised pleadingly. “I can’t bear it, I told you … I can’t, I can’t. Don’t ask me any more, please … but believe me, I can’t bear it, I can’t. Do this for me, just for once, do something for me …”
In the music room someone had begun hammering at the piano again. She looked up, touched by his cry despite herself, but how very ridiculous he looked, that short fat man, his face red as if he had suffered a stroke, his eyes wild and swollen, his hands emerging from sleeves too short for him and trembling in the air. It was embarrassing to see him standing there in such a pitiful state. Her milder feelings froze.
“That’s impossible,” she informed him. “We’ve agreed to go out for that drive today, and as for leaving tomorrow when we’ve booked for three weeks … why, we’d make ourselves look ridiculous. I can’t see the faintest reason for leaving early. I am staying here, and so is Erna, we are not—”
“And I can go, you’re saying? I’m only in the way here, spoiling your … pleasure.”
With that sombre cry he cut her short in mid-sentence. His hunched, massive body had reared up, he had clenched his hands into fists, a vein was trembling alarmingly on his forehead in anger. He wanted to get something else out, a word or a blow. But he turned abruptly, stumbled to the stairs, moving faster and faster on his heavy legs, and hurried up them like a man pursued.
Gasping, the old man went hastily up the stairs; he wanted only to be in his room now, alone, try to control himself, take care not to do anything silly! He had already reached the first floor when—there it came, the pain, as if a burning claw were tearing open his guts from the inside. He suddenly stumbled back against the wall, white as a sheet. Oh, that raging, burning pain kneading away at him; he had to grit his teeth to keep himself from crying out loud. Groaning, his tormented body writhed.
He knew at once what was wrong—it was his gall bladder, one of those fearful attacks that had often plagued him recently, but had never before tortured him so cruelly. Next moment, in the middle of his pain, he remembered that the doctor had prescribed ‘no agitation’. Through the pain he grimly mocked himself. Easily said, he thought, no agitation—my dear good Professor, can you tell me how to avoid agitation when … oh, oh …
The old man was whimpering as the invisible, red-hot claw worked away inside his poor body. With difficulty, he dragged himself to the door of the sitting room of the suite, pushed it open, and fell on the ottoman, stuffing the cushions into his mouth. As he lay there the pain immediately lessened slightly; the hot nails of that claw were no longer reaching so infernally deep into his sore guts. I ought to make myself a compress, he remembered, I must take those drops, then it will soon be better.
But there was no one there to help him, no one. And he himself had no strength to drag himself into the next room, or even reach the bell.
There’s no one here, he thought bitterly, I shall die like a dog sooner or later, because I know what it is that hurts, it’s not my gall bladder, it’s Death growing in me. I know it, I’m a defeated man, no professors, no drinking the waters at spas can help me … you don’t recover from this sort of thing, not at sixty-five. I know what’s piercing me and tearing me from the inside, it’s Death, and the few years I have left will not be life, just dying, dying. But when did I ever really live? Live my own life, for myself? What kind of life have I had, scraping money together all the time, always for other people, and now, what help is it to me now? I’ve had a wife, I married her as a girl, I knew her body and she bore me a child. Year after year we lay together in the same bed … and now, where is she now? I don’t recognise her face any more … she speaks so strangely to me, and never thinks of my life, of all I feel and think and suffer … she’s been a stranger to me for years now … Where has my life gone, where did it go? … And I had a child, watched her grow up, I thought I’d begin to live again through her, a brighter, happier life than was granted to me, in her I wouldn’t entirely die … and now she steals away by night to throw herself at men. There’s only me, I shall die alone, all alone … I’m already dead to those two. My God, my God, I was never so much alone …
The claw sometimes closed grimly inside him and then let go again. But another pain was hammering deeper and deeper into his temples; his thoughts, harsh, sharp, were like mercilessly hot gravel in his forehead, he mustn’t think just now, mustn’t think! The old man had torn open his jacket and waistcoat—his bloated body quivered, plump and shapeless, under his billowing shirt. Cautiously he pressed his hand to the painful place. All that hurts there is me, he felt, it’s only me, only this piece of hot skin … and only what’s clawing around in it there still belongs to me, it is my illness, my death … I am all it is … I am not a Privy Commercial Councillor any more, with a wife and child and money and a house and a business … this is all I really am, what I feel with my fingers, my body and the heat inside it hurting me. Everything else is folly, makes no sense now … because what hurts in there hurts only me, what concerns me concerns me alone. They don’t understand me any more, and I don’t understand them … you are all alone with yourself in the end. I never felt it so much before … But now I know, now I lie here feeling Death under my skin, too late now in my sixty-fifth year, just before dying, now while the
y dance and go for walks or drift aimlessly about, those shameless women … now I know it, I lived only for them, not that they thank me for it, and never for myself, not for an hour. But what do I care for them now … what do I care for them … why think of them when they never think of me? Better die than accept their pity … what do I care for them now? …
Gradually receding, the pain ebbed away; the cruel hand did not grasp into the suffering man with such red-hot claws. But it left behind a dull, sombre feeling, barely perceptible as pain now, yet something alien pressing and pushing, tunnelling away inside him. The old man lay with his eyes closed, attending carefully to this soft pushing and pulling; he felt as if a strange, unknown power were hollowing something out in him, first with sharp tools, then with blunter ones. It was like something coming adrift, fibre by fibre, within his body. The tearing was not so fierce now, and did not hurt any more. But there was something quietly smouldering and rotting inside him, something beginning to die. All he had lived through, all he had loved, was lost in that slowly consuming flame, burning black before it fell apart, crumbling and charred, into the lukewarm mire of indifference. Something was happening, he knew it vaguely, something was happening while he lay like this, reflecting passionately on his life. Something was coming to an end. What was it? He listened and listened to what was going on inside him.