Auto-Da-Fé

by Elias Canetti

  He waited for her answer, she for his. Since he gave none, she pushed him aside and glided to the writing desk. Right, there was the will. She noticed that the penultimate figure was now five instead of seven; a new nought she couldn't see anywhere. So, he had quickly cut her down still more, the old miser. As the figure was written there it was only a matter of twenty schillings. But if the new nought were there it would be 200. And if both the noughts were there it would be 2,000. She was not going to be done out of 2,000 schillings. What would the superior young man say, if he were to find out? 'Excuse me, dear lady, that's at the expense of our new business?' She must look out, or he would throw her out like the others. He needed a decent woman. He couldn't be bothered with a slut.

  She turned round and said to Kien — he was behind her: 'The five has no business to be there!'

  He took no notice. 'Give me your will !' he ordered curtly.

  She heard him very well. Since yesterday she had been on the watch and noted his slightest motion. In all the many years of their life together she had not brought so much presence of mind to bear as now in these few hours. She grasped that he was demanding a will from her. The theoretical part of the sermon she had preached week after week came to her mind at once — 'At the registry office both parties ought...'. Not a second had passed since his command before she delivered her counterstroke:

  'Excuse me, is this a registry office?'

  Genuinely indignant at his suggestion, she left the room.

  Kien wasted no conjectures on her sharp answer. He assumed that she did not yet want to hand over her document. The wearisome visit to the solicitor was thus spared for to-day; all the better; he accepted the arrangement with joy and gave himself up to his familiar thesis.

  The dumb show between the two of them lasted a few days. While he became calmer and calmer in the face of her silence — he was almost his old self again — her agitation grew from hour to hour. At meals she had to do herself physical violence to say nothing. In his presence she put not a single morsel into her mouth, for fear lest a word should fall out of it. Her hunger grew with her apprehensions. Before she sat down to table with him, she ate her fill in the kitchen. She trembled at every movement of his features; who could tell whether such a movement might not suddenly transform itself into the word 'Lawyer'! Every now and then he did utter a sentence; they were rare. She feared each one like a death sentence. Had he spoken more, her fear would have been splintered into a thousand little fears. He spoke so little, it was a consolation to her. But her fear remained vast and overpowering. When he began with 'To-day ... ' she would say to herself swiftly and with determination: 'There are no lawyers to-day!' and repeat this sentence with a speed which was for her new and unheard of. Her body broke out in sweat, even her face; she noticed it; if only her face didn't betray her! She rushed out and fetched a plate. She read wishes from his face which he did not have. She would have done anything for him now, if only he would not speak. Her officiousness aimed at those noughts but he had the advantage of it. She apprehended some fearful disaster. At her cooking she took especial pains; if only he would like it, she thought, and wept. Perhaps she wanted to fatten him up; to infuse him with strength for those noughts. Perhaps she only wanted to prove to herself how dearly she had earned her noughts.

  Her contrition went deep. On the fourth night it occurred to her what the superior young man was: a sin. She called no longer on his name; when he crossed her path she gave him an ugly look and said: 'Everything in its proper time!' and nudged him with her foot, so that he should understand. The business no longer went well. A business must be earned before it can go well. One refuge yet remained, die kitchen; there she still seemed to herself the simple modest creature she had been before. There she almost forgot that she was the lady of the house, for there was no expensive furniture round about. One thing disturbed her even here, the directory which lay there dead, her property. For safety's sake she cut out the names of all the lawyers and disposed of them out of the house with the rubbish.

  Kien noticed nothing of all this. It was enough for him that she was silent. Poised between China and Japan, he paused to assure himself that this was the outcome of his clever diplomacy. He had taken from her every excuse for speech. He had plucked out the sting of her love. In these days he was fertile in happy conjectures. An unspeakably corrupt text he had rehabilitated within three hours. The right characters simply streamed from his pen. The old thesis was completed at the end of three days. Of new ones, two had been started. Word by word, older litanies came back to him and he forgot hers. Gradually he was steering back to the time before his marriage. Her skirt reminded him occasionally of her existence, for it had lost much of its symmetry and stiffness. It rustled more swiftly and was emphatically no longer so well ironed. He ascertained the fact but did not worry his head about the causes. Why shouldn't he leave the door into her bedroom open? She never took advantage of his condescension and was careful not to disturb him. His presence at meals soothed her. She feared that he might put into practice his threat of discontinuing their common meals, and behaved herself, for a woman, with tact. He would have preferred rather less officiousness. She would doubtless get out of the habit: too may plates were superfluous. Each time she merely interrupted him in an important train of thought.

  When, on the fourth day at seven o'clock, he had left the house for his usual walk, Thérèse glided — to all appearances the image of discretion — to the writing desk. She did not trust herself to go to it at once. She circled round it once or twice and without having accomplished anything started to tidy up the room. She felt that she had not yet got as far as she hoped and postponed her disappointment as long as possible. Suddenly she remembered that criminals were known by their fingerprints. She fetched her beautiful gloves out of her trunk (those very ones which had procured her husband for her), pulled them on, and cautiously — so as not to soil her gloves — she searched for the will. The noughts were still not on it. She feared that perhaps they really were there, but drawn so thin that no one would be able to make them out. A more exhaustive examination set her at ease. Long before Kien's return both of them, herself and the room, looked as though nothing in the least unusual had happened. She disappeared into the kitchen and re-enveloped herself in the universal gloom which she had broken at seven o'clock.

  On the fifth day the same thing happened. She spent a little longer with the will and spared neither time nor gloves.

  The sixth day was Sunday. She got up without enthusiasm, waited for her husband to go out for his walk, and looked as she had done every preceding day at the malicious figure written in the will. Not only the number itself, 12,650, but the very outline of each figure seemed to be written into her own flesh. She went to fetch a strip of newspaper and wrote down the number exactly as it was written in the will. The figures resembled Kien's to the last hair; not even a graphologist could have told them apart. She made use of the strip of paper lengthwise so that she could put on as many noughts as she liked, and added a round dozen. Her eyes brightened at the colossal result. She caressed the strip two or three times with her rough hand and said: 'Isn't it beautiful!'

  Then she took Kien's pen, bent over the will and changed the figure 12,650 into 1,265,000.

  Her handiwork with the pen was as clean and precise as that which she had just performed with the pencil. When she had completed the second nought she was unable to straighten herself. The pen clutched at the paper and began to outline another nought. Owing to the lack of space this one would have had to be smaller and more compressed. Thérèse recognized the danger in which she was poised. Any further penstroke would have implied an error in the size and formation of the other letters and figures. It would draw attention to this very spot. She had all but destroyed her own creation. The strip with the many noughts lay close at hand. Her glance which, to gain time, she had diverted from the will, now fell on it. Her desire to make herself at one stroke wealthier than any furniture shop in the w
hole world, became larger and larger. If only she had thought of this sooner she could have made the first two noughts smaller and so have squeezed in a third. Why was she such a fool, everything could have been in order by now!

  She struggled desperately with the pen which wanted to write. The effort was beyond her strength. With greed, anger and exhaustion she began to gasp. The jerkiness of her breathing communicated itself to her arm: her pen threatened to splutter ink on to the paper. Terrified at this, Thérèse drew hurriedly back. She noticed that she had now straightened the upper half of her body and began to breathe again — rather more regularly. 'One must be moderate,' she sighed, and thinking of her lost millions interrupted her task for perhaps three minutes. Then she looked to see if the ink was dry, put away the beautiful strip of paper, folded up the will and laid it back where she had found it. She did not feel at all satisfied; her desires aimed yet higher. Since she had achieved only part of what was possible, her mood changed; suddenly she saw herself as a swindler and decided to go to church. It was Sunday after all. On the door of the flat she pinned a note: 'Am in church, Thérèse,' just as if this had been her most usual and natural port of call for years.

  She sought out the largest church in the town, the cathedral. A smaller one would only have reminded her how much more was owing to her. On the steps it occurred to her that she was not dressed. She felt utterly depressed, but turned round all the same and changed her blue starched skirt for her other blue starched skirt, which looked exacdy the same. In the street she forgot to notice that all the men stared at her. In the cathedral she felt ashamed of herself. People were laughing at her. Is that a thing now, to laugh in church? She took no notice for she was a respectable woman. A respectable woman, she said in her thoughts with great emphasis, repeated it, and took refuge in a quiet corner of the cathedral.

  There hung a picture of the Last Supper, painted in expensive oil colours. The frame was gilded all over. The tablecloth did not satisfy her. People don't seem to know what's beautiful, besides it was dirty. The money-bag looked as though you could touch it, thirty beautiful pieces of silver were inside, you couldn't see them, but still the moneybag was large as life. Judas held it tight. He wouldn't let go, he was so greedy. He grudged every penny. Just like her old man. That was why he had betrayed the Lord. Her old man is thin, Judas is fat and has a red beard. In the middle of it all sits the superior young man. Such a beautiful face, all pale, and eyes just as they should be. He knows everything. He's superior, but he's clever too. He looks at that money-bag. He wants to know how much. Anyone else would have to count it schilling by schilling; he doesn't have to, he knows it just by looking. Her husband's a dirty miser. To do such a thing for twenty schillings. She won't be done; the figure there was a seven. Then he goes and quickly makes it into a five. Now that's two thousand schillings. The superior young man will tell her off. She can't help it. She is the white dove. She is flying just above his head. She shines white, because of her innocence. The painter would have it that way. He must know what he's after, it's his job. She is the white dove. Let Judas try any of his tricks. He won't catch hold of her. She will fly wherever she wants. She will fly to the superior young man, she knows what's beautiful. Judas can say what he likes. He can go and hang himself. The money-bag won't help him either. He'll have to leave it behind. The money belongs to her. She is the white dove. Judas doesn't understand that. He thinks of nothing but his money-bag. That's why he gives the dear Lord a kiss and does him down. Soon the soldiers will come. They will seize him. Let them try. She will step forward and say: 'This isn't Our Lord. This is Mr. Brute, a simple salesman in the shop of Gross and Mother. You mustn't lay a finger on him. I'm his wife. Judas is always trying to do him down. It's not his fault.' She must look out that nothing happens to him. Judas can go and hang himself. She is the white dove.

  Thérèse had knelt down before the picture and was praying. Again and again she was the white dove. She said it from the depths ofher heart and kept her eyes fixed on the dove. She fluttered down into the hands of die superior young man; he caressed her softly, for had she not often saved his life, besides that's how people do treat doves.

  When she got up, she was amazed to find she had knees. For a moment she doubted their reality and felt for them. When she left the church, it was her turn to laugh at the others. She laughed, in her own fashion, without laughing. People looked at her gravely and dropped their eyes, ashamed. What faces! a lot of criminals! The people who go to church these days! She managed to avoid the verger with the bag. Before the doors innumerable doves fluttered to and fro; not one of them was white. Thérèse was sorry she had brought nothing for them. At home there was so much stale bread and crumbs. Behind the cathedral a genuine white dove was perched on a stone statue. Thérèse looked at it: it was the Christ with Toothache. She thought to herself, what a bit of luck that the superior young man doesn't look like that. He'd be ashamed.

  On the way home suddenly she heard music. Here come soldiers playing the loveliest marches. That's jolly, that's what she likes. She turns round about and glides along in time with them. The bandmaster never takes his eyes off her. The soldiers too, there's nothing in it, she looks back at them, she must thank them for the music. Other women join the crowd — she is the most beautiful of all. The bandmaster looks like something. That's a fine figure of a man, and how well he understands the music! The band wait for his wand. Without a sign from him not one of them moves. Now and again the music stops. She throws back her head, the bandmaster laughs and at once starts something new. If only there weren't all these children about. They get in her way. You ought to listen to music like this every day. The trumpets are best of all. Since she's joined the band, everyone has noticed how beautiful it is. Soon there s a huge crowd. She doesn't care. They make way for her. Not one forgets to look at her. Softly she hums in time with the music: like thirty, like thirty, like thirty.

  CHAPTER XII

  THE MILLION

  Kien found the note on his door. He read it, because he read everything, and as soon as he sat down at his writing desk, forgot all about it. Suddenly somebody said: 'Here I am back again!' Behind him stood Thérèse and drenched him in a downpour of words.

  'Yes indeed, such a huge legacy! Just three doors off there's a lawyer. You can't leave a legacy like that lying about. The will may get dirty. It's Sunday to-day. To-morrow's Monday. You'll have to give the lawyer something. Or he'll do it all wrong. It needn't be much. It would be a shame for the good money. All that stale bread and crumbs at home. Anybody may be a dove. Naturally they don't get a crumb to eat. The soldiers play the loveliest marches. Marching along and looking at everything at the same time, you've got to be superior to do that. And who did the bandmaster keep looking at? I wouldn't tell anybody. People don't understand a joke. 1,265,000. What big eyes Mr. Brute will make to be sure! He's got beautiful eyes. All the women are after him. Maybe I'm not a woman? Handsome is as handsome does. I'm the first woman with a fortune....'

  Certain of victory, still flushed with the military music and the gaze of the bandmaster, she had come into the room. Everything to-day was beautiful. Days like this ought to happen every day. She had to talk. She drew the figure — 1,265,000 — on the wall, and tapped with her hand on the library in her skirt pocket. Who knows what that may not be worth. Maybe twice as much again. Her keys rattled. She puffed out her cheeks to talk. She spoke without pause because she had been silent for a week. In her ecstasy she betrayed her secret and most secret thoughts. She did not doubt that she had attained everything which could be attained; a determined woman. For all of an hour she talked at the creature in front of her. She forgot who he was. She forgot the superstitious fear with which, during the last few days, she had hung on every quiver of his features. He was human, she could tell him everything, she needed someone like that just now. She poured out the least little thing which had crossed her path or come into her mind that day.

  He felt he had been out-manceuvred, som
ething exceptional had happened. For a week she had behaved in an exemplary manner. That she should break in upon him in this uncouth fashion must obviously have a special reason. Her speech was confused, reckless and joyful. He tried to follow what she was saying; slowly he understood:

  Some superior person had left her a million, apparently some sort of a relation, and in spite of his wealth a bandmaster, for that very reason, superior. A man who at any rate must have thought highly of her, or he would not have named her his heiress. With this million she wanted to start a furniture shop; she had learnt of her good fortune only to-day and had therefore hastened to church to give thanks, and had recognized in a painting of the Saviour the features of the dead benefactor. (Gratitude as a cause of hallucinations!) In the cathedral she had made a vow to feed the doves regularly. She objected to the practice of bringing them stale breadcrumbs from home. Doves have feelings like human beings (why not!); to-morrow she would like him to take the will to the lawyer with her, to have it proved. She was anxious lest the lawyer should ask too much, seeing that so huge a legacy was involved, and wished his fee to be settled before the consultation. Thrifty and a housekeeper to the million.

  But was this legacy such a very big one? 1,265,000 — how much was that? Let us compare it with the value of the library? The entire library had cost him the absurdly small sum of not quite 600,000 gold kroner. His father had left him 600,000 gold kroner, and there was a small fragment left over. What was this she wanted to do with her legacy? Set up a furniture shop? Nonsense! The library could be enlarged. He would rent the neighbouring flat and have the partition wall removed. In this way he would gain four more large rooms for the library. He would have the windows walled up and skylights inserted as he had already done in his own flat. In eight rooms there would be space for a good sixty thousand volumes. Old Silzinger's library had recently been offered for sale, it would hardly have been sold already, it contained about twenty-two thousand books, not to be compared with his of course, but one or two important things in it. He would take a round million then for his library, and she could do just what she liked with the rest. Possibly the remainder would be enough for a furniture shop, but he knew nothing about that; in any case he didn't care, he would have nothing to do with money and commerce. He would have to inquire whether old Silzinger's library had gone yet. He had all but lost an important acquisition. He buried himself too much in his studies. In this way he deprived himself of the means which were essential to learned researches. A sharp eye for the book-market was as much a part of a scholar's equipment as knowledge of the current rates to a gambler on the stock exchange.