Don Juan.
I have met men who thought they were Don Juans, none of them was.
The name is much usurped.
Why do you claim it then?
Did I?
You are right. It was I who asked you, and I believe you.
She moved away and continued in a flatter voice: When shall we make the trip to Verona which you proposed to us?
I love you.
The uncannily still flames of the candles emphasized how tightly the skin of her face was drawn over the pronounced bones of her skull.
If we were at home we would ride into the forest, now, while he is out of the room we would go.
Turn your face towards me.
He places his hand on her nose and mouth so that they are covered. Inside the warmth of his hand he feels her nose like a gentle tonsil. Her eyes are laughing. Then, with his hand a little damp from her breath, he smooths the skin across her hard cheekbones towards her rather red, deeply convoluted ear.
I am not the same, she whispered.
Von Hartmann paused at the door, contemplated the two figures by the fireplace and walked pensively into the room. It occurred to neither G. nor Marika to wonder how long he had stood there.
It seems, he announced, that Rome has decided upon war. It is only a matter of time. He put his hand on G.’s shoulder. So after all you will have to choose between us and the Internat.
I have time, said G. You don’t have to be a political man to hear war coming, like an avalanche. I haven’t heard it here yet.
If there is going to be war, said Marika, we must make our journey to Verona before it is too late. Let us go tomorrow.
Sometimes you astonish me like a child, said von Hartmann to his wife. Verona is nothing but a name for you. Why do you want to go there?
I want to travel.
There are no horses there. There is a theatre.
I hate this city. She began walking towards the far end of the room where the white tiled temple was installed and the walls were lined with books up to the ceiling. Nobody is interested in anything here except insurance. If we are going to be at war before the week is out, we should go immediately.
It is inconceivable that we should leave at a moment like this. Her husband sat down, smiled at G. and continued: It seems as if war is certain, but it will not be for two weeks at least.
Is that what you heard on the telephone? shouted Marika, for she was now at the other end of the room, twenty metres away.
No, that is what I deduce from what I heard.
She climbed a library ladder which stood by the bookshelves and, mounting the topmost step, her hair almost touching the ceiling, her face in darkness and the light falling on the folds of the skirt of her dress which, seen from that angle, appeared to have no waist but to be skirt to the shoulders, she declared: Let us bet on it! I am prepared to bet one thousand crowns that we shall be at war in one week.
Impossible, said von Hartmann.
Very well, she cried again, one thousand crowns. No, there is a better wager. If I win, the young Italian is released. I go to the governor myself and ask him. If I lose, if we are not at war by next Sunday, I will pay you one thousand crowns.
I can only conclude this young Italian must be your lover! said von Hartmann.
She turned her back, as though to look at the books on the top shelf, and said bitterly in German: In the end like all Germans you are ordinär.
Von Hartmann replied in dulcet Italian. There is no need to be angry, I have the greatest respect for your feelings. Since he was leaving the country, I doubt very much whether he would have returned. Since he was leaving, your interest in him is both generous and disinterested.
What happened next, happened so quickly that none of the three people in the room would later be able to recount more than a single impression. Their three impressions would, however, confirm one another. Marika jumped from the ladder. Neither she nor either of the two men ever considered the possibility of her having fallen. Undoubtedly she leaped. Perhaps she had intended to land with her feet on the seat of a large leather arm-chair near by and below. In any case the chair was knocked over and she lay on the floor. Yet despite the speed with which it all happened and the impossibility of recording the exact sequence of events afterwards, the moment when she was in mid-air seemed at the time interminable.
Tomorrow morning G. will meet Dr Donato and Raffaele (he has never met either of them singly) in the café off the Piazza Ponterosso. They will ask him about Marco. If he tells them that Marco may be released within the week, they will suspect he is an Austrian agent. If he tells them he has failed to do anything for Marco, they may try to force him to leave Trieste. He will tell them there is a reasonable chance of Marco being released by the twentieth. They will say that that is too late, by then the two countries may be at war. They will insist that G. tries to have something done sooner. He will tell them they are absurdly unrealistic. He will ask them how they expect an Italian businessman to intervene in a question of Austro-Hungarian law. Raffaele, resentful of being told that he is unrealistic, will be on the point of shouting out that they already know G. is an Austrian agent and if he were not, how could he get Marco released even by the twentieth? But Dr Donato will interrupt Raffaele. He only allows Raffaele to blunder when it doesn’t matter. He will suggest a walk along the sea front. They will stroll beside the aborted canal until they reach the Molo. All the time Dr Donato will be talking. He will talk about Voltaire. By the waterfront on the fourth side of the Piazza Grande they will see a goods train slowly coming towards them along the quay. Let us watch the train, Dr Donato will say. The wheels of the engine will be taller than the three men who stare up at it. After the locomotive will come the trucks, black, with wheels which appear to be loose after the solemnity of the locomotive’s. In the brief spaces between the trucks above the rusty heavy couplings, the three men will glimpse the sea. Dr Donato, having stopped talking, will suddenly take hold of G.’s arm with both hands at the same time. Raffaele will fling an arm round G.’s back and together they will force him forward until his face is a few inches from the blackened boards of the slow-passing truck. G. will try to hurl himself backwards. Dr Donato will kick G.’s heels towards the lines. The right heel and the left. After a brief, interminable moment they will let him break free. You almost tripped, Raffaele will say, you want to be careful in a city like Trieste, there are a lot of accidents here. You see, the lawyer will say, we have very little time.
Let us say Marika was ascending, not falling. Let us say that the floor and everything else in the room was also ascending, but that there was a very slight difference in the speed of ascent, the floor mounting a little quicker than she. That is how it seemed. She leaped upwards. She never seemed to move downwards. Rather, she seemed to hang in the air like a white and damson fuchsia. Her dress lifted a little to disclose white stockings and knees. Her mouth opened but there was no sound. Perhaps the moment was too brief for sound to register. Nevertheless the silence was one of the things which made the moment seem interminable. Suspended there like a fuchsia, she was still herself. She was the woman who had been lying in bed that morning when Wolfgang gazed down at her. She was the woman in every particularity of her physical being whom G. desired. Her very substantiality, there in mid-air, was more far-reaching than any idea. Then she lay in a heap on the floor.