He realized that he wanted to look at the soldier with the bayonet over his arm, who was standing in the sentry box at the entrance to the Elysée Palace. What’s more, he thought, I’m going to do it! He watched the tip of the bayonet swaying back and forth; but when the soldier suddenly began to look at him, he quickly averted his eyes and looked at his watch. How imperturbably the second hand kept running along! There was something almost comforting in the passage of time. Keuschnig went on acting as if; he looked around as if … No, no one to call out to as if he’d been waiting for him. What about that street sweeper — it must be all right to look at him? But in this neighborhood even a street sweeper seemed to sweep as a mere pretext, and someone who watched him couldn’t be an innocent passer-by.
He would have preferred to pass through the gate with other people. Could he be the last? Is that why there was no one else? What time was it? (He had looked at his watch before, as if a mere glance sufficed to tell you the time!) Had he come to the right place? In any case, he could see the French Television truck in the courtyard. He showed his invitation and was waved through the gateway. On the top floor of the Palace a window banged; behind another window a waitress in a white cap passed; the driver of a black Citroen limousine at one of the side entrances pushed down his radio antenna while looking up at the dark sky; a man on a motorbike disappeared through a small gate in the park wall. These happenings made the building seem almost homelike; looking at things was tolerated. — An officer frisked him, another examined his attaché case. Looking between his upraised arms at the lid of the case as the officer carefully reclosed it, Keuschnig thought: At last something is being done with no help from me — something I can watch without taking part. A free second! He wanted to be grateful to someone for something … At that moment, to his surprise, the impersonal touch of the hands patting his shoulders had the feel of an encouragement, and in the next free second, under the spare professional movements of the officer feeling his chest, the ugly, prolonged suffering of that day dissolved into a pleasant, compassionate sadness. This time, thought Keuschnig, I mustn’t forget everything so quickly. Today, at six o’clock in the afternoon, I experienced the touch of those hands, which were only doing their job, as a caress.
He trembled. At the same time his face went blank with anxious self-control. The empty, pompous solemnity of a Fascist, he himself thought. The officer glanced at him in astonishment, then he and his fellow officer laughed very briefly at that stupid face.
Keuschnig had never expected to see anyone run in these surroundings — and now he himself was running across the courtyard, past the potted trees to the main entrance. No one blew a whistle and summoned him to halt. Some men in dark suits approached in the opposite direction, and the moment he saw them he slowed to a walk. He remembered that, as a child, if people came along while he was running he had always stopped and continued at a walk until they passed. Then he had broken into a run again. Now the men had passed — why didn’t he start running? — So many situations, so many places in which he had stopped for people had suddenly occurred to him — so many different people as well — that in recollection he could only walk. And something else had surprised him: that with his first running steps the surroundings, which had receded from him until nothing remained but a number of vanishing points — nothing there for him to look at! — were again surrounding him protectively. Where previously he had seemed to be passing the backs of things, he now saw details, which seemed to exist for him as well as for others. — Running again, Keuschnig noticed glistening puddles in the gravel beside the freshly watered potted trees and in that moment he had a dreamlike feeling of kinship with the world. He stopped still outside the entrance and shook his head as though arguing against his previous disgruntlement. Now he was able to look freely in all directions. Before going in, he cast a last hungry glance over his shoulder to make sure he had missed nothing. How his surroundings had expanded! It took free eyes to see them so rich — so benevolent. Now the sky with its low-lying clouds seemed to be sharing something with him. Keuschnig gnashed his teeth. — As he ran up the stairs, he was surprised to find himself reenacting a run that had happened in a dream. Then, for the first time in a dream, there had been actual motion in his running.
As a participant in a press conference devoted to the program of the new government, Keuschnig had nothing to worry about for the present. In such a place the omens of death seemed unthinkable. He no longer had to picture his own future, there was no further need to fear surprises; just to sit here — and better still, to sit here ecstatically taking notes along with so many others — was today his idea of peace. Up front, far in the distance, the President of the Republic was explaining the program, and as he spoke Keuschnig was conscious of an animal certainty that everything would get better and better. When a journalist asked if a certain project wasn’t absurd, the President replied: “I cannot afford to look on what I am doing as absurd.” That answer struck Keuschnig’s fancy and he wrote it down. Here nothing was said that was not meant to be taken down; that in itself was comforting! Keuschnig no longer understood why he had been so relieved some months before when after the elections the good old advertisements had replaced campaign posters on the city’s walls. Had the campaign posters represented a threat that something would HAPPEN? Why at the time had he felt the elections to be meaningless and unreal? Now he felt strangely secure in the thought that a policy was being formulated for him. It was so comforting to be able to think about oneself in terms formulated by others; the program he, along with the others, was taking down told him what kind of person he was and what he needed; it even prescribed a specific order of succession! And that part of him which was not defined in the program could be ignored — since it was only a holdover from rebellious adolescence and he himself was to blame if he hadn’t got it under control. I’ve been defined! he thought — and that flattered him. Being defined had the advantage of making him inconspicuous, even to himself. How could he have let a stupid dream upset him so? Who was he that he should presume to see meaning in life only on high holidays? He had indulged his strictly private caprices long enough! He set too much store by mental games that other people simply couldn’t afford. — And what if he found himself in danger again as today? Then, if only he could learn to see everything in its proper place like an adult, he would have a foolproof system by which to redefine himself at any time. — If I can manage that, Keuschnig thought contentedly, no one will ever find out who I really am! — The President’s THOUGHT-MOLDED face … Through the most tortuous sentence he found his way to a sure conclusion. To the most surprising question he had an immediate answer, and once it was uttered he shut his mouth as though EVERYTHING had now been said. Keuschnig felt he was in good hands. He heard the succession of questions and answers, the hum of the TV cameras, the baying of the Nikons, as utility music devised especially for him. But then a flashbulb exploded. A bird outside bumped into one of the high narrow windows, fluttered away, and collided with another window. A panic broke out in Keuschnig when he thought of the lengths he had again gone to in feigning to feel secure. There was no more room for diversions. This was really a life-and-death matter. — The wind had died down, but when in the stillness a flock of pigeons flew up from the court, it sounded to him like the first squall signaling a hurricane. The President, who had been made up for television and wasn’t missing a trick, thrust out his lips; he had planned every move in advance; that was his charm. Now Keuschnig knew what was troubling him: that the government’s program existed for everyone and not for him alone. He took refuge, as he had done when attending lectures at the university, in looking out the window: the white, looped-back curtains — but that swishing sound — where did it come from? Ah, he thought with pleasure, it’s raining. It had begun with a crackling, as when a heavily loaded hay wagon is set in motion. Then, high above the Elysée Palace, thunder rolled, and a sudden sense of security made his skin tingle.