I said 'Do you think this is by chance?'
You said 'Oh, I think chance might be to do with heaven.'
We got into a position like that of a circle divided into two shapes like tadpoles: these fit into each other to make the circle whole. I thought — Or the world is on the back of an elephant, the elephant is on a tortoise, the tortoise is on the sea.
I said 'I am older than you.'
You said 'I know you are older than me.'
I said 'Hold on tight.'
You said 'Or shall we go over.'
When the others came back up the hill from the valley they were having their arguments about the meaning of the scenes from Faust, Part II: why was Faust saved? was it just because of his ceaseless striving? And what of Helena, who had appeared and disappeared; what was the point? People were talking about these things as if there might be answers in words.
We had been lying very still. Oh yes, of course, we had from time to time used more words.
When the others were back I said 'You've got my address?'
You said'Yes.'
I said 'And I've got yours.'
I thought — I suppose we have to go down, like angels, do we, to the cities of the plain.
Franz and Bruno and Minna had been joined by the boys who had been with you; also by a few of the Nazi boys. They all came and sat round our fire. They bobbed to and fro; they drank wine and beer.
You said 'We have to leave very early.'
I said 'That does not matter?'
You said'No.'
The people round the fire were not paying much attention to us. I thought — We are too embarrassing: we have been into and out of the fire.
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— Do not look at us and we are there: look at us and I suppose we go away.
Bruno was encouraging Minna to take off her clothes. The Nazi boys were clapping. I thought — She is like that child of Faust and Helena: she may be destroyed by the fire.
One of the Nazi boys put an arm round Franz's shoulders. Franz looked at me. Then, when I looked at him, he looked away.
You had gone back to your camp and were sitting on your own by your fire.
I thought — Oh strange and terrible world, you should not be destroyed! There are people whom you can love: who love you -
— Just let us know, every now and then, what might be an ark.
One of the Nazi boys picked a flaming stick out of the fire and held it out towards Minna. The stick seemed slightly to burn her. Minna was half naked, dancing round and round the flames.
Bruno called out 'Nellie, come and join us!'
I thought — Oh but I am happy sitting here with my head in my hands, my cage -
— Or am I a child in a pram looking up towards the leaves, the sunlight?
The next morning you and your group had gone. I did not know whether or not I had heard you leaving. I had been having a dream. We were in the courtyard of a castle. There were ladies and gentlemen on the grass. Then the ground flipped over, and there were huts and watchtowers.
I thought — The dream leaves the dreamer: what is left to the dreamer of the dream?
I had the piece of paper with your name and address on it.
That next evening there was going to be a performance of a play by Brecht. I did not know at the time much about Brecht. I had been told that he was a left-wing anarchist, that he mocked left-wing anarchists, that he was a scourge of the bourgeoisie, that the bourgeoisie were still flocking to his Die Dreigroschenoper which had opened in Berlin the previous year. The play of his that was going to be put on had at one time been called Spartakus because it had been about the Spartacist rising in 1919 in Berlin: I thus had a special interest in the play because, of course, some of my earliest memories were of this rising in Berlin. Also I wanted to see a play by Brecht because people talked about him in a way that I had come to associate with what might be life-giving: they suggested that his plays were original and disturbing without being able to say why. I
thought — But you, could you not have stayed for this play by Brecht?
I tried to imagine what you might be doing. We had not yet got the image, had we, of those particles that if you do this to this one here then that happens to that one there -
I thought — I am mad to have let you go!
I went down to the castle that evening with Franz and Bruno and Minna and the Nazi boys — I was, I suppose, feeling somewhat demented: why indeed had you gone away? I thought — Should I after all commit myself to someone or something practicaclass="underline" to Franz or to Bruno; or to a battle with the Nazis in Berlin? But still I seemed to be part of something leading a quite separate life around me — lungs, veins, heartbeat — and from this there seemed to be some thread pulling me through the maze. I was watching myself being pulled; was my watching the thread pulling me? (Well, where were you?) I was a child left lying on the edge of a bed. I was going to a play by Brecht.
Now I must say something about this play because it was representative of something happening and being demonstrated at the same time.
Franz and Bruno and Minna and I were sitting on the grass. We were with the two Nazi boys with whom we seemed to have made friends. We were looking up at the restored fagade of the castle. I was wondering about you.
At first it was difficult to know what was going on in the play: people seemed to be saying what was occurring just in the backs of their own heads; one had become accustomed, I suppose, to people in plays pretending to make sense. There was also the impression of vast and imponderable events elsewhere — but these were nevertheless of almost no importance. I had not seen a play like this before: it was like life! There was a middle-aged couple in an apartment in Berlin; they had a daughter who had been engaged to a soldier who had gone missing in the war; she was carrying on with a war profiteer. Her parents wanted her to forget her old love and marry the war profiteer. I thought — Well, I am too young to have carried on with a war profiteer, but do you not see that this is like life? (Who was I talking to? Franz? Bruno? you? Anyone who will listen?) After a time the daughter yields to the pressures of her parents and becomes engaged to the war profiteer: but just at this moment her old lover turns up (you would say — Of course!). He has been a prisoner of war (well, what were you doing in that
forest?); they meet; he learns that she has become engaged to a war profiteer; he wanders off again; he acts somewhat demented; I mean you did act somewhat sad, didn't you? All this is taking place against the background of the Sparticist revolution; the rifles and machine-guns in the streets, the storming of a newspaper building. But of course the two main characters in the play are not paying much attention to this: it is boring. But then, what is not? It is for the sake of what this might be that the girl and her ex-lover have gone wandering off again: did you not say that what matters is what turns up? And in the meantime the other people in the play are carrying on seeing, saying, just what is trapped within their own heads. And Franz and Bruno and Minna and I and the Nazi boys were watching, sitting on the grass. Of course, I had not seen a play like this before! Plays were usually about people acting as if they did not know they were acting. Here everyone seemed to know this: and so it was as if they were not.
Sometimes when the girl and her ex-lover were on the stage they seemed to be searching amongst the audience and to be saying — Is it you? Is it you? Then they bumped into each other again; he learned that she was pregnant by the war profiteer; they wandered apart again. And all the time there were the machine-guns, the storming of the newspaper building, the characters like politicians appearing and disappearing in the streets. Most of these were drunk. But then why, in the end, should not the business of the girl being pregnant by the war profiteer also be boring? Oh, I had never before seen a play like this!