Collected Stories (41 page)

Tomorrow he’ll be talking to Fräulein Anna, about ordinary things at first, as is natural, but suddenly he won’t be able to keep it from her any longer: Last night, Annie, after the party, you remember, I was with a man the like of whom you’ve certainly never seen. He looked – how can I describe him to you? – like a stick dangling in the air, he looked, with a black-haired skull on top. His body was clad in a lot of small, dull-yellow patches of cloth which covered him completely because they hung closely about him in the still air of last night. Well, Annie, does that spoil your appetite? It does? In that case it’s my fault, then I told the whole thing badly. If only you’d seen him, walking timidly beside me, reading infatuation on my face (which wasn’t very difficult), and going a long way ahead of me so as not to disturb me. I think, Annie, you’d have laughed a bit and been a bit afraid; but I was glad of his company. For where were you, Annie? You were in your bed, and your bed was far away – it might just as well have been in Africa. But sometimes I really felt as though the starry sky rose and fell with the gasping of his flat chest. You think I’m exaggerating? No, Annie. Upon my soul, no. Upon my soul which belongs to you, no.

And I didn’t spare my acquaintance – we had just reached the first steps of the Franzensquai – the smallest fraction of the humiliation he must have felt at making such a speech. Save that my thoughts grew blurred at this moment, for the Moldau and the quarter of the town on the farther shore lay together in the dark. A number of lights burning there teased the eye.

We crossed the road in order to reach the railing along the river, and there we stood still. I found a tree to lean
against. Because of the cold blowing up from the water, I put on my gloves, sighed for no good reason, as one is inclined to do at night beside a river, but then I wanted to walk on. My acquaintance, however, was staring into the water, and didn’t budge. Then he moved closer to the railing; his legs were already against the iron bar, he propped his elbows up and laid his forehead in his hands. What next? After all, I was shivering and had to put up the collar of my coat. My acquaintance stretched himself – his back, shoulders, neck – and held the upper half of his body, which rested on his taut arms, bent over the railing.

‘Oh well, memories,’ said I. ‘Yes, even remembering in itself is sad, yet how much more its object! Don’t let yourself in for things like that, it’s not for you and not for me. It only weakens one’s present position without strengthening the former one – nothing is more obvious – quite apart from the fact that the former one doesn’t need strengthening. Do you think I have no memories? Oh, ten for every one of yours. Now, for instance, I could remember sitting on a bench in L. It was in the evening, also near a river. In summer, of course. And on such evenings it’s my habit to pull up my legs and put my arms around them. I had leaned my head against the wooden back of the bench, and from there I watched the cloudlike mountains on the other shore. A violin was playing softly in the hotel by the river. Now and again on both shores trains chuffed by amid shining smoke.’

Turning suddenly around, my acquaintance interrupted me; he almost looked as though he were surprised to see me still here. ‘Oh, I could tell you much more,’ I said, nothing else.

‘Just imagine,’ he began, ‘and it always happens like this. Today, as I was going downstairs to take a short walk before the evening party, I couldn’t help being surprised by the way my hands were dangling about in my cuffs, and they were doing it so gaily. Which promptly made me think: Just wait, something’s going to happen today. And it did, too.’ He said
this while turning to go and looked at me smiling out of his big eyes.

So I had already got as far as that. He could tell me things like that and at the same time smile and look at me with big eyes. And I – I had to restrain myself from putting my arm around his shoulders and kissing him on the eyes as a reward for having absolutely no use for me. But the worst was that even that could no longer do any harm because it couldn’t change anything, for now I had to go away, away at any price.

While I was still trying urgently to think of some means by which I could stay at least a little while longer with my acquaintance, it occurred to me that perhaps my long body displeased him by making him feel too small. And this thought – although it was late at night and we had hardly met a soul – tormented me so much that while walking I bent my back until my hands reached my knees. But in order to prevent my acquaintance from noticing my intentions I changed my position only very gradually, tried to divert his attention from myself, once even turning him toward the river, pointing out to him with outstretched hands the trees on the Schützeninsel and the way the bridge lamps were reflected in the river.

But wheeling suddenly around, he looked at me – I hadn’t quite finished yet – and said: ‘What’s this? You’re all crooked! What on earth are you up to?’

‘Quite right. You’re very observant,’ said I, my head on the seam of his trousers, which was why I couldn’t look up properly.

‘Enough of that! Stand up straight! What nonsense!’

‘No,’ I said, my face close to the ground, ‘I’ll stay as I am.’

‘You really can annoy a person, I must say. Such a waste of time! Come on, put an end to it.’

‘The way you shout! In the quiet of the night!’ I said.

‘Oh well, just as you like,’ he added, and after a while: ‘It’s a quarter to one.’ He had evidently seen the time on the clock of the Mühlenturm.

I promptly stood up straight as though I’d been pulled up by the hair. For a while I kept my mouth open, to let my agitation escape. I understood: he was sending me away. There was no place for me near him, or if there were one, at least it could not be found. Why, by the way, was I so intent on staying with him? No, I ought to go away – and this at once – to my relatives and friends who were waiting for me. But if I didn’t have any relatives and friends then I must fend for myself (what was the good of complaining!), but I must leave here no less quickly. For in his eyes nothing could redeem me any longer, neither my length, my appetite, nor my cold hand. But if I were of the opinion that I had to remain with him, it was a dangerous opinion.

‘I wasn’t in need of your information,’ I said, which happened to be true.

‘Thank God you’re standing up straight again. All I said was that it’s a quarter to one.’

‘That’s all right,’ said I, and stuck two fingernails in the gaps between my chattering teeth. ‘If I didn’t need your information, how much less do I need an explanation. The fact is, I need nothing but your mercy. Please, take back what you said just now!’

‘That it’s a quarter to one? But with pleasure, especially since a quarter to one passed long ago.’

He lifted his right arm, flicked his hand, and listened to the castanetlike sound of his cuff links.

Obviously, this is the time for the murder. I’ll stay with him and slowly he’ll draw the dagger – the handle of which he is already holding in his pocket – along his coat, and then plunge it into me. It’s unlikely that he’ll be surprised at the simplicity of it all – yet maybe he will, who knows? I won’t scream, I’ll just stare at him as long as my eyes can stand it.

‘Well?’ he said.

In front of a distant coffeehouse with black windowpanes a policeman let himself glide over the pavement like a skater. His sword hampering him, he took it in his hand, and now he glided along for quite a while, finally ending up by almost
describing a circle. At last he yodeled weakly and, melodies in his head, began once more to skate.

It wasn’t until the arrival of this policeman – who, two hundred feet from an imminent murder, saw and heard only himself – that I began to feel a certain fear. I realized that whether I allowed myself to be stabbed or ran away, my end had come. Would it not be better, then, to run away and thus expose myself to a difficult and therefore more painful death? I could not immediately put my finger on the reasons in favor of this form of death, but I couldn’t afford to spend my last remaining seconds looking for reasons. There would be time for that later provided I had the determination, and the determination I had.

I had to run away, it would be quite easy. At the turning to the left onto the Karlsbrücke I could jump to the right into the Karlsgasse. It was winding, there were dark doorways, and taverns still open; I didn’t need to despair.

As we stepped from under the arch at the end of the quay onto the Kreuzherrenplatz, I ran into that street with my arms raised. But in front of a small door in the Seminarkirche I fell, for there was a step which I had not expected. It made a little noise, the next street lamp was sufficiently far away, I lay in the dark.

From a tavern opposite came a fat woman with a lantern to see what had happened in the street. The piano within continued playing, but fainter, with only one hand, because the pianist had turned toward the door which, until now ajar, had been opened wide by a man in a high-buttoned coat. He spat and then hugged the woman so hard she was obliged to raise the lantern in order to protect it.

‘Nothing’s happened!’ he shouted into the room, whereupon they both turned, went inside, and the door was closed.

When I tried to get up I fell down again. ‘Sheer ice,’ I said, and felt a pain in my knee. Yet I was glad that the people in the tavern hadn’t seen me and that I could go on lying here peacefully until dawn.

My acquaintance had apparently walked on as far as the
bridge without having noticed my disappearance, for it was some time before he joined me. I saw no signs of surprise as he bent down over me – lowering little more than his neck, exactly like a hyena – and stroked me with a soft hand. He passed it up and down my cheekbone and then laid his palm on my forehead. ‘You’ve hurt yourself, eh? Well, it’s icy and one must be careful – didn’t you tell me so yourself? Does your head ache? No? Oh, the knee. H’m. That’s bad.’

But it didn’t occur to him to help me up. I supported my head with my right hand, my elbow on a cobblestone, and said: ‘Here we are together again.’ And as my fear was beginning to return, I pressed both hands against his shinbone in order to push him away. ‘Do go away,’ I said.

He had his hands in his pockets and looked up the empty street, then at the Seminarkirche, then up at the sky. At last, at the sound of a carriage in one of the nearby streets, he remembered me: ‘Why don’t you say something, my friend? Do you feel sick? Why don’t you get up? Shall I look for a cab? If you like, I’ll get you some wine from the tavern. In any case, you mustn’t lie here in the cold. Besides, we wanted to go up the Laurenziberg.’

‘Of course,’ said I, and got up on my own, but with great pain. I began to sway, and had to look severely at the statue of Karl IV to be sure of my position. However, even this would not have helped me had I not remembered that I was loved by a girl with a black velvet ribbon around her neck, if not passionately, at least faithfully. And it really was kind of the moon to shine on me, too, and out of modesty I was about to place myself under the arch of the tower bridge when it occurred to me that the moon, of course, shone on everything. So I happily spread out my arms in order fully to enjoy the moon. And by making swimming movements with my weary arms it was easy for me to advance without pain or difficulty. To think that I had never tried this before! My head lay in the cool air and it was my right knee that flew best; I praised it by patting it. And I remembered that once upon a time I didn’t altogether like an acquaintance,
who was probably still walking below me, and the only thing that pleased me about the whole business was that my memory was good enough to remember even a thing like that. But I couldn’t afford to do much thinking, for I had to go on swimming to prevent myself from sinking too low. However, to avoid being told later that anyone could swim on the pavement and that it wasn’t worth mentioning, I raised myself above the railing by increasing my speed and swam in circles around the statue of every saint I encountered. At the fifth – I was holding myself just above the footpath by imperceptible flappings – my acquaintance gripped my hand. There I stood once more on the pavement and felt a pain in my knee.

‘I’ve always admired,’ said my acquaintance, clutching me with one hand and pointing with the other at the statue of St. Ludmila, ‘I’ve always admired the hands of this angel here to the left. Just see how delicate they are! Real angel’s hands! Have you ever seen anything like them? You haven’t, but I have, for this evening I kissed hands—’

But for me there was now a third possibility of perishing. I didn’t have to let myself be stabbed, I didn’t have to run away, I could simply throw myself into the air. Let him go up his Laurenziberg, I won’t interfere with him, not even by running away will I interfere with him.

And now I shouted: ‘Out with your stories! I no longer want to hear scraps. Tell me everything, from beginning to end. I won’t listen to less, I warn you. But I’m burning to hear the whole thing.’ When he looked at me I stopped shouting so loud. ‘And you can count on my discretion! Tell me everything that’s on your mind. You’ve never had so discreet a listener as I.’

And rather low, close to his ear, I said: ‘And you don’t need to be afraid of me, that’s quite unnecessary.’

I heard him laugh.

‘Yes, yes,’ I said. ‘I believe that. I don’t doubt it,’ and so saying I pinched him in the calves – where they were exposed. But he didn’t feel it. Whereupon I said to myself:
‘Why walk with this man? You don’t love him, nor do you hate him, because all he cares about is a girl and it’s not even certain that she wears a white dress. So to you this man is indifferent – I repeat: indifferent. But he is also harmless, as has been proved. So walk on with him up the Laurenziberg, for you are already on your way, it’s a beautiful night, but let him do the talking and enjoy yourself after your fashion, for this is the very best way (say it in a whisper) to protect yourself.’

And now – with a flourish, as though it were not the first time – I leapt onto the shoulders of my acquaintance, and by digging my fists into his back I urged him into a trot. But since he stumped forward rather reluctantly and sometimes even stopped, I kicked him in the belly several times with my boots, to make him more lively. It worked and we came fast enough into the interior of a vast but as yet unfinished landscape.