They put the money down at the end of the bar counter and left quietly so that Hirschhardt, who was caught up in the general heartiness, failed to notice their departure and without anyone else remarking that they had paid and disappeared; from which fact, said Korin, the young lady might be able to deduce what was to follow, and indeed there was no need for him to tell her what followed for it was plain as the nose on her face what would, effectively, follow, although it was quite different hearing it in his words to reading it on the page, there being no comparison between the two experiences, and particularly in the case of the passage on this subject, an extraordinarily beautiful passage about the last evening with their walk home along the bank of the Rhine and how they then sat on the edge of their beds at their accommodation, waiting for the dawn without saying a word, at which time a conversation did begin, albeit with some difficulty, a conversation about the cathedral of course, about the point to the southwest of it from where, henceforth, they would no longer—never more said Korin — have the privilege of observing it as a solid, perfectly compact mass, with those splendid buttresses, the wondrous relief work on the walls and the vibrant ornamentation of the façade that concealed the weight and mass of the whole, and their talk kept straying to the deep metaphysical aspect of this unsurpassable masterpiece of the human imagination, to heaven and earth and the underworld, and the governance of such things, the way these invisible domains were created, and, needless perhaps to say, how, from the moment Hirschhardt’s account had made it clear what the order to clear the Festungsgürtel had meant, they had immediately resolved to leave the place, this Cologne, to depart at first light, said Bengazza, and allow the military art of destruction, the art of soldiers as Korin put it studying his dictionary, to replace the unique spirit of the art of construction, and he knew, added Korin, that as another chapter in the lives of Kasser and his companions drew to a close, that nothing had been resolved or had grown any less mysterious, that there was still no clue as to what all this was leading to or what the manuscript was really about, what we should think as we read it or listened to its words, for as we do so we keep feeling that somehow we are looking in the wrong place for clues, in studying, for instance, its descriptions of the shadowy form of Kasser, for naturally one would like to understand what it all added up to, or at least Korin himself would, but the details did not help: he was left contemplating the whole thing, the sum of the images, and that was all he could see as he worked at the keyboard transcribing the manuscript, watching Kasser and his companions speed away from Cologne that morning, the dust of the mail-coach billowing behind them; and the image of the curly-headed young servant as he appears in front of the cathedral, folding chair in one hand, the other casually in his pocket, a light breeze raising the locks on the young man’s head as he puts the chair down directly facing the west front then stands beside it, waiting, and nothing happening as he continues to stand there, both hands now tucked into his pockets, there is no one about in the square at dawn and the chair is still vacant.
V TO VENICE
It was about quarter past two at night and even from a distance you could tell that he was very drunk, since from the moment he came through the door and bellowed Maria’s name he kept blundering against the wall, and the sound of repeated thumps, scufflings and curses made that fact ever more unambiguously clear as he drew closer while she did her best to snuggle under the eiderdown showing neither feet nor hands, not even her head, but hid and shuddered, hardly daring to breathe, flattening herself against the wall so that there should be the greatest possible room left in the bed and so that she should occupy the smallest possible space — but just how drunk he really was could not be properly gauged from inside the room, only once, after a long struggle, he managed to find the door handle and turn it so the bedroom door was flung open, when it became obvious that he was on the point of losing consciousness, and then he did indeed collapse on the threshold, collapsed as soon as the door opened, and there was perfect silence, neither the interpreter nor the woman moving a muscle, she beneath the covers using every muscle to suppress her breathing so that her heart beat loud with fear, an effort she could not maintain forever with the result that, precisely because of the strain involved in trying to keep absolutely quiet, she finally gave a little groan under the sheets then spent minutes in petrified stillness, but still nothing happened, and there was no sound except the radio of the neighbor downstairs where the deep bass of Cold Love, by Three Jesus boomed faintly on without the petulant whine of the singer or the howl of the synthesizer, the bass alone penetrating to the upper floor, continuous yet fuzzy, and eventually she, thinking it possible at last that the interpreter would remain where he was now till the morning, tentatively put her head above the cover to take stock of the situation and maybe help a little, at which point, astonishingly and with extraordinary vigor, the interpreter leapt from the threshold as if the whole thing had been some kind of joke, sprang to his feet and swaying a little, stood in the doorway and with a possibly intentional evil half-smile on his face stared at the woman on the bed, until, just as unexpectedly, his expression suddenly became deadly serious, his eyes grew harder and as sharp as two razors, terrifying her to the extent that she dared not even cover herself with the sheet but simply trembled and hugged the wall as the interpreter once again bellowed MARIA, strangely extending the “i” as if mocking her or in hatred of her, then stepped over to the bed and with a single movement tore first the covers then her nightdress off her so she did not even dare to scream as the nightdress ripped across her body but crouched there naked, not screaming, prepared to be wholly obedient as the interpreter, in a voice that was more a croaking whisper, ordered her to turn on her front and raise herself on her knees on the bed, muttering, get that ass higher you filthy whore, as he pulled his dick out, though since he was speaking in Hungarian, she was left to guess what it was he wanted, as guess it she did, raising her buttocks while the interpreter entered her with brutal power, and she squeezed her eyes tight with the pain, still not daring to cry out, because he was squeezing her neck with equal power at the same time, so that by all rights she should have been screaming but instead it was tears that began to course down her face and she bore it all until the interpreter released his hold on her neck because it was her shoulders he needed to grasp, it being plain, even to him, that if he failed to do so the woman would simply collapse under the weight of his ever more violent thrusting, so he grabbed her again and with increasing frustration yanked her onto his lap though he was incapable of coming to a climax and eventually, having grown exhausted, simply tossed her aside, tossed her across the bed, then lay back, spread his legs and pointed to his softening member, gestured her over again, indicating that she should take the thing into her mouth, as she did, but the interpreter still failed to come so he hit her across the face with great fury, calling her a filthy Puerto Rican whore, and the force of the blow left her on the floor, where she remained because she had no strength left to get back on and try something else, though by this time the interpreter had lost consciousness again and lay flat out, starting to snore through his open mouth, leaving her with a faint vestige of hope that she might sneak away somehow, which she did, as far as possible, covering herself with a rug, and tried not to look at the bed, not to even glance at him lying there utterly senseless so that she might not see that open mouth with its trail of spittle, taking in air, the spittle slowly dribbling down his chin.