What more can I say? I took a liking to this girl just as everyone else did. But I can add that she also took a liking to me. And though any man could say as much, others did not dare while I dared, and so I married her.
2
This is how it came about. One afternoon, as I was leaving the dining hall, I ran into Dinah. I said to her, “Are you busy, nurse?”
“No, I’m not busy.”
“What makes today so special?”
“Today is my day off from the hospital.”
“And how are you celebrating your day off?”
“I haven’t yet considered the matter.”
“Would you allow me to give you some advice?”
“Please do, doctor.”
“But only if I am paid for the advice. Nowadays you don’t get something for nothing.”
She looked at me and laughed. I continued, “I have one good piece of advice which is actually two — that we go to the Prater and that we go to the opera. And if we hurry, we can stop first at a cafe. Do you agree, nurse?” She nodded yes good-humoredly.
“When shall we go?” I asked.
“Whenever the doctor wants.”
“I’ll take care of what I have to as soon as possible and I’ll be right over.”
“Whenever you come, you’ll find me ready.”
She went to her room and I to my responsibilities. A little while later, when I arrived to pick her up, I discovered that she had changed clothes. All at once she seemed a new person to me, and with the metamorphosis her charm was doubled, for she had both the charm I felt in her when she was in uniform and that which was lent her by the new clothes. I sat in her room and looked at the flowers on the table and by the bed, and after asking her whether she knew their names, I recited the name of each flower, in German and in Latin. But I quickly became apprehensive that a serious patient might be brought in and I would be paged. I got up from my seat and urged that we leave at once. I saw she was disturbed.
“Is something bothering you?” I asked.
“I thought you’d have something to eat.”
“Right now, let’s go, and if you are still so kindly disposed toward me, I’ll come back to enjoy everything you give me, and I’ll even ask for more.”
“May I count on that?”
“I’ve already given you my word. Not only that, but, as I said, I’ll ask for more.”
As we left the hospital court, I said to the doorman, “You see this nurse? I’m taking her away from here.” The doorman looked at us benevolently and said, “More power to you, doctor. More power to you, nurse.”
* * *
We walked to the trolley stop. A trolley came along, but turned out to be full. The next one that arrived we thought we would be able to take. Dinah got onto the car. When I tried to climb up after her, the conductor called out, “No more room.” She came down and waited with me for another car. At that point I commented to myself, Some people say that one shouldn’t worry about a trolley or a girl that has gone because others will soon come along. But those who think that are fools. As far as the girl is concerned, can one find another girl like Dinah? And as to the trolley, I regretted every delay.
Along came a suburban trolley. Since its cars were new and spacious and empty of passengers, we got on. Suddenly (or, according to the clock, after a while), the trolley reached the end of the line and we found ourselves standing in a lovely place filled with gardens, where the houses were few.
We crossed the street talking about the hospital and the patients and the head nurse and the professor, who had instituted a fast once a week for all patients with kidney ailments because someone with kidney pains had fasted on the Day of Atonement and afterward there was no albumen in his urine. Then we mentioned all the cripples the war had produced, and we were pleased by the setting for our walk because there were no cripples around. I threw up my arms suddenly and said, “Let’s forget about the hospital and cripples and speak about more pleasant things.” She agreed with me, even though from her expression one could tell she was concerned that we might not find any other subject for conversation.
Children were playing. They saw us and began to whisper to each other. “Do you know, Fraulein,” I asked Dinah, “what the children are talking about? They are talking about us.”—“Perhaps.” “Do you know what they’re saying?” I went on. “They’re saying, ‘The two of them are bride and groom.’” Her face reddened as she answered, “Perhaps that’s what they are saying.”
“You mean you don’t object to it?”
“To what?”
“To what the children are saying.”
“Why should I care?”
“And if it were true, what would you say?”
“If what were true?”
I summoned my courage and answered, “If what the children say were true, I mean, that you and I belong together.” She laughed and looked at me. I took her hand and said, “Give me the other one, too.” She gave me her hand. I bent over and kissed both her hands, then looked at her. Her face became still redder. “There is a proverb,” I told her, “that truth is with children and fools. We’ve already heard what the children say, and now listen to what a fool has to say, I mean, myself, for I have been touched with wisdom.”
I stuttered and went on, “Listen, Dinah…” I had hardly begun to say all that was in my heart before I found myself a man more fortunate than all others.
3
Never was there a better time in my life than the period of our engagement. If it had been my opinion that marriage exists only because a man needs a woman and a woman a man, I now came to realize that there is no higher need than that one. At the same time, I began to understand why the poets felt it necessary to write love poems, despite the fact that I would have no part of them or their poems, because they wrote about other women and not about Dinah. Often I would sit and wonder, How many nurses there are in the hospital; how many women in the world; and I am concerned with one girl alone, who absorbs all my thoughts. As soon as I saw her again, I would say to myself, The doctor must have lost his wits to put her in the same category as other women. And my feelings toward her were reciprocated. But that blue-black in her eyes darkened like a cloud about to burst.
Once I asked her. She fixed her eyes on me without answering. I repeated my question. She pressed against me and said, “You don’t know how precious you are to me and how much I love you.” And a smile spread across her melancholy lips, that smile which drove me wild with its sweetness and its sorrow.
I asked myself, If she loves me, what reason could there be for this sadness? Perhaps her family is poor. But she said they were well-to-do. Perhaps she had promised to marry someone else. But she told me she was completely free. I began to pester her about it. She showed me still more affection, and she remained silent.
Nevertheless, I began to investigate her relatives. Perhaps they were rich but had been impoverished and she felt bad about them. I discovered that some of them were industrialists and some were people of distinction in other fields, and they all made comfortable livings,
I grew proud. I, a poor boy, the son of a lowly tinsmith, became fastidious about my dress, even though she paid no attention to clothes, unless I asked her to look at them. My love for her grew still greater. This was beyond all logic, for, to begin with, I had given her all my love. And she, too, gave me all her love. But her love had a touch of sadness in it which injected into my happiness a drop of gall.
This drop worked its way into all my limbs. I would ponder, What is this sadness? Is that what love is supposed to be like? I continued to beleaguer her with questions. She promised an answer but persisted in her evasiveness. When I reminded her of her promise, she took my hand in hers and said, “Let’s be happy, darling, let’s be happy and not disturb our happiness.” And she sighed in a way that broke my heart. I asked her, “Dinah, what are you sighing about?” She smiled and answered through her tears, “Please, darling, don’t say anything more.” I was silent and asked no more questions. But my mind was not at ease. And I still awaited the time when she would agree to tell me what it was all about.