That’s exactly what I’m talking about. What we’ve got, then, is only this nothing.
Furiously, she held her peace.
There is nothing, I shouted.
I’m talking nonsense.
I said, in that case I am very sorry that I’m so obtuse. Obviously, my talents do not reach this far.
But if I really wanted to leave, I should go ahead, of course. Ultimately, she didn’t want to make me do anything I didn’t want to do, and she couldn’t, anyway.
On the one hand she knows very well she could; if she couldn’t, I wouldn’t be standing here like a jerk. On the other hand I don’t want to go away so much because if I did, I wouldn’t have come in the first place.
Well, that’s really very witty, she answered, sharp and sarcastic. But she was afraid I had no more time for further witticisms.
I didn’t understand that; I said I didn’t understand. I didn’t understand why this was witty.
While we were talking I paid no attention to what was happening around us, though I must have seen and heard more and sensed every smell and odor more keenly than before. Now suddenly everything changed. As if she had pushed me out of herself, making me feel like a drunkard. I understood neither the words nor the sentences. Only the fragrance that emanated from her enormous hair, full of glittering beads of drizzle, from her soft white skin under the collar, and from her bare neck — perhaps only that fragrance had not changed. Her posture had changed, the color and tone of her voice had changed, and her comportment had changed. It was as if with my sense of smell, stunned by the acridity of an exceptional perfume, I were trying to reach her true fragrance while becoming so deeply immersed in both fragrances that I couldn’t hope to separate them. It was improbable that we were still standing here in this storm, roaming over each other’s face, knowing that it was all hopeless. I should have jumped into the Danube from the Árpád Bridge. I planned to leave here as soon as possible, yet I couldn’t even give up the enjoyment of hopelessness. Or perhaps it was her fragrance that kept me; the gusty wind thrust it toward me and carried it away from me.
And she had a contradicting sentence for every one of my words; I could not allow that, but she wasn’t going to allow anything either.
She laughed again — my uncomprehending face must have looked funny. I sensed that a long time was going by, but there was another computation of time in which not even one of our shared moments could have passed and only the surface of everything could be touched, where everything remained hurried and volatile.
And, as if because of the words, we only snatched at issues in a desultory way, unable to talk them through to the end.
She motioned to me to look behind me.
A car was parked along the curb. I remembered having heard it stop there.
I looked at her and then at this odd, shiny automobile from another world, from before the war. I couldn’t decide what to do. I was furious, pouting about the way she might be forcing me to do something senseless. The person at the wheel did not move, seemed not even to notice us. His face could not be seen, he must have had a coat on, maybe a leather coat, and for a few moments he remained but an indifferent shadow. The windshield wipers kept swishing. And then he must have lost patience, having to wait so long. He leaned across the passenger seat and threw open the curbside door; his movement sizzled. People started coming out of the church, the organ sounded its loud farewell with great blows of air.
Don’t be angry, but I’m not coming, I said. I won’t. I said it as someone whose self-respect was important, but by saying it only once, I couldn’t make myself accept this declared intention.
When would she see me then, she asked, without the slightest change in her face. No annoyance, no sorrow. Raised eyebrows, engraved in her forehead. Perhaps her large eyes and pursed lips awaited an answer, but whatever my answer might be, no response would touch her being. A face made of large, white, motionless, and indifferent fields.
She looked so lovely that it hurt me to say what I was about to say, but I said it, I don’t know when we can see each other again.
And in that very instant her husband honked.
He barely touched the horn; it was nothing but another signal, but now the woman too seemed to lose patience. The various fields on her face twisted in anger, she pulled up her shoulders a little as if ready to attack. She shook herself, became ugly, and then yelled into my face to stop shitting around, what the hell was I shitting around for about a stupid little thing like this.
Now it was my turn; I burst out laughing. I said, all right, let’s not shit around. But it was easier to say that than to follow her and also satisfy every unexpected demand of the new situation.
The Lovely Angel of Revenge
Baron Schuer took his customary place at the large oval table as head of the family; Countess Auenberg sat opposite him, at the place to which the lady of the house had shown her. They were in the smaller dining room, which was used on weekdays. Its walls were covered in deep-green silk embossed in old gold; its white-lacquered neo-Baroque furniture was upholstered in the same silk; double doors and two large windows gave onto the terrace and because of the summer weather were left open.
One could see down the enfilade of rooms.
The two of them began to talk politely, rather coolly even, a bit offhandedly, as if barely able to control a mutual dislike. Even though from the very first word they felt such an urge to converse that they scarcely had the patience to await the other’s responses. As if they had spent too much time on the high, neutral plane of politeness. While beneath them, in the depths, beyond the formalities, they saw all sorts of other things — nimble fish, gently floating water plants — which in a little while they would dip down to obtain, without breaking off their mutual glances, rapidly filling with increasing joy.
For long minutes after the maids had left silently, having served the cold fruit soup topped with whipped cream in cavernous Rosenthal bowls, incredulity and shock reigned around the table on account of the two of them, shock underlying the restlessness and the continual babble of voices; the others, despite their formal discipline, felt the maddening whirlpool-like tug of a potential scandal.
That’s it, Schuer cried to himself, so pleased with his idea that he could have jumped for joy, as if arriving at an important station in his life. This did not necessarily have amorous significance, at least not directly. She will create the right conditions for me in Budapest, and once again he carefully scrutinized the young woman the better to see who it was whom he had to win over for his undertaking. Yet he couched his professional plans, which had arisen because of her, in terms of endearment. As if to say, all I need to do is touch her, and she will bloom.
Oh, why didn’t I think of this before.
He saw clearly that she was the being he should have waited to marry, no one else.
They did not acknowledge that in their great bewilderment about each other they were talking at cross-purposes while hearing and understanding the words of the others at the table, who, prompted by a similar bewilderment if not embarrassment, had been interrupting their duet and one another too. The two of them heard this duet they were creating — how could they not — but they didn’t understand the others, because they were no longer curious about them. This time he must not be too hasty, Schuer warned himself. Not every day does one meet someone who will be a queen tomorrow.
Nothing changed in the pleasantly cool dining room shaded by gigantic maple trees, or outside in the splendid rose garden, to warrant a mutual emotional excitement of such proportions.
Someone should have stopped talking, if only out of obligatory courtesy.