The Black Obelisk

by Erich Maria Remarque

  Her mother was with her in church. I've seen them and I've seen Bodendiek, and Wernicke as well, visibly exuding pride at his success. I have walked around the garden and already given up hope; now all at once Isabelle is walking toward me alone between the lines of almost leafless trees. I stop. She approaches, slender and light and elegant, and suddenly all my yearning returns, heaven and the surging of the blood. I cannot speak. Wernicke has told me she is well, that the shadows have dispersed, and I realize that myself; all at once she is here, changed, but wholly here; no trace of sickness any longer stands between us; love in all its power springs from my hands and eyes, and dizziness rises like a silent whirlwind through my veins into my brain. She looks at me. "Isabelle," I say.

  She looks at me again, a small crease between her eyebrows. "Yes?" she says.

  I do not understand right away. I think I must remind her. "Isabelle," I repeat. "Don't you know me? I am Rudolf—"

  "Rudolf?" she repeats. "Rudolf—what is it, please?"

  I stare at her. "We have often talked to each other," I say then.

  She nods. "Yes, I have been here a long time. But I have forgotten a great deal, please forgive me. Have you been here a long time too?"

  "I? I've never been here! I only come to play the organ! And then—"

  "Oh yes, the organ," Geneviève Terhoven replies politely. "In the chapel. Yes, I remember now. Excuse me for letting it slip my mind. You play very well. Many thanks."

  I stand there like an idiot. I don't know why I do not leave. Obviously Geneviève doesn't know either. "Excuse me," she says. "I still have a lot to do; I'm leaving soon."

  "You're leaving soon?"

  "Yes," she replies in surprise.

  "And you don't remember anything? Not even the names that are shed at night and the flowers that have voices?"

  Isabelle raises her shoulders in bewilderment. "Poems," she exclaims presently, smiling. "I've always loved them. But there are so many! You can't remember them all."

  I give up. My foreboding has come true! She is cured, and I have slipped out of her mind like a newspaper dropping from the hands of a sleepy woman. She remembers nothing any more. It is as though she has awakened from an anesthetic. The time up here has been wiped from her memory. She has forgotten everything. She is Geneviève Terhoven and she no longer knows who Isabelle was. She is not lying, I can see that. I have lost her, not as I feared I would, not because she comes from a different social world and is going back to it, but far more completely and irrevocably. She has died. She is alive and breathing and beautiful, but at the moment when the strangeness of her sickness was removed she died, drowned forever. Isabelle, whose heart flew and blossomed, is drowned in Geneviève Terhoven, a well-brought-up young lady of good family who someday will unquestionably marry a rich man and will no doubt become a good mother.

  "I must go," she says. "Many thanks again for the organ music."

  "Well?" Wernicke asks. "What have you to say?"

  "To what?"

  "Don't act so dumb. Fräulein Terhoven. You must admit that in the three weeks since you last saw her she has become a quite different person. Complete success!"

  "Is that what you call success?"

  "What would you call it? She is going back into life, everything is in order, that earlier time has disappeared like a bad dream, she has become a human being again—what more do you want? You've seen her, haven't you? Well then?"

  "Yes," I say. "Well then?"

  A nurse with a red peasant face brings in a bottle and glasses. "Are we to have the additional pleasure of seeing His Reverence Vicar Bodendiek?" I ask. "I don't know whether Fräulein Terhoven was baptized a Catholic, but since she comes from Alsace I assume so—His Reverence, too, will, then, be full of joy at having retrieved a lamb for his flock from the great chaos."

  Wernicke grins. "His Reverence has already expressed his satisfaction. Fraulein Terhoven has been attending mass daily for the past week."

  Isabelle, I think. Once she knew that God still hangs on the cross and that it was not just the unbelievers who crucified Him. "Has she been to confession too?" I ask.

  "I don't know. It's possible. But is it necessary for someone to confess what he has done while mentally ill? That's an interesting question for an unenlightened Protestant like me."

  "It depends on what you mean by mentally ill," I say bitterly, watching that plumber of souls drain a glass of Schloss Reinhartshausener. "No doubt we have different views on the subject. Besides, how can one confess what he has forgotten? No doubt Fraulein Terhoven has suddenly forgotten a good deal."

  Wernicke fills his glass again. "Let's finish this before His Reverence arrives. The smell of incense may be holy, but it ruins the bouquet of a wine like this." He takes a sip, rolling his eyes, and says: "Suddenly forgotten? Was it so sudden? There were signs long ago."

  He is right. I, too, noticed it earlier. There were moments when Isabelle seemed not to recognize me. I remember the last occasion and drain my glass angrily. Today the wine has no flavor for me.

  "It's like an earthquake," Wernicke explains contentedly, beaming with self-satisfaction. "A seaquake. Islands, even continents, that formerly existed disappear and others emerge."

  "What about a second seaquake? Does that have the reverse effect?"

  "That, too, happens sometimes. But almost always in cases of a different kind; those associated with increasing hebetude. You've seen examples here. Is that what you'd like for Fraulein Terhoven?"

  "I want the best for her," I say.

  "Well then!"

  Wernicke pours the rest of the wine. I remember the hopelessly sick, standing or lying in the corners, with spittle dribbling from their mouths, soiling themselves. "Of course I hope she will never be sick again," I say.

  "It is to be assumed that she will not. Hers was one of those cases that will be cured once the causes are eliminated. Everything went very well. Mother and daughter now feel, as sometimes happens in such instances when a death occurs, that in some vague way they have been betrayed—and so they are like orphans and thereby brought closer together than before."

  I stare at Wernicke. I have never heard him speak so poetically. But he doesn't mean it altogether seriously. "You'll have a chance to see for yourself at noon," he remarks. "Mother and daughter are coming to lunch."

  I want to leave, but something compels me to stay. Anyone given to self-torture does not readily miss a chance for it. Bodendiek appears and is surprisingly human. Then mother and daughter come in, and a commonplace, civilized conversation begins. The older woman is about forty-five, a trifle stout, inconsequentially pretty, and full of light, polished phrases which she scatters effortlessly. She has an unreflective answer for everything.

  I watch Geneviève. Sometimes, fleetingly, I think I perceive in her features that other beloved, wild, and disturbed countenance, rising toward the surface like the face of, a drowning woman; but it is instantly submerged in the ripples of the conversation about the modern facilities of the sanitarium—neither lady calls it anything else—the pretty view, the old city, various uncles and aunts in Strasbourg and in Holland, the difficulty of the times, the necessity of faith, the merits of Lothringian wines, and the beauty of Alsace. Not a word of what so overwhelmed and excited me. It is gone as though it had never existed.

  Soon I take my leave. "Good-by, Fräulein Terhoven," I say. "I hear you are leaving this week."

  She nods. "Are you coming back this evening?" Wernicke asks me.

  "Yes, for the evening devotion."

  "Then come up to my room for a drink. You'll join us too, won't you, ladies?"

  "With pleasure," Isabelle's mother replies. "We were going to evening devotion anyway."

  Geneviève does not reply. There is a small crease in her forehead as though she were brooding over something.

  The evening is even worse than noon. There is something traitorous about the soft light. I saw Isabelle in chapel; the glow of the candles hovered over her h
air. She hardly moved. The faces of the patients swung around at the sound of the organ like bright, flat moons. Isabelle was praying; she was well.

  Afterward it gets no better. I succeed in meeting Geneviève at the door of the chapel and walking alone with her for a way. We go along the allée. I do not know what to say. Geneviève pulls her coat around her. "How cold the evenings are already," she says.

  "Yes. So you are leaving this week?"

  "That's what I plan. It has been a long time since I was home."

  "Are you glad?"

  "Certainly."

  There is nothing more to say. But I can't help myself—her walk is the same, her face in the darkness, the soft presentment—"Isabelle," I say as we are about to emerge from the allée.

  "I beg your pardon?" she asks in amazement.

  "Oh," I say. "That was just a name."

  For a moment she looks at me. "You must be mistaken," she replies then. "My first name is Geneviève."

  "Yes, of course. Isabelle was someone else's name. We talked about her occasionally."

  "So? Perhaps. One talks of so much," she remarks apologetically. "Then you forget this and that."

  "Oh yes."

  "Was it someone you knew?"

  "Yes, that was it."

  She laughs softly. "How romantic. Forgive me for not remembering at once. Now I recall."

  I stare at her. She remembers nothing, as I can see. She is lying to be polite. "So much has happened in the last weeks," she says lightly and in a slightly superior way. "Everything gets a little confused." And then, once more out of courtesy, she asks: "How has it been going recently?"

  "What?"

  "Oh that! It is over! She died."

  She stops horrified. "Died? 1 am so sorry. Forgive me, I didn't know—"

  "It makes no difference. I only knew her slightly anyway."

  "Died suddenly?"

  . "Yes," I reply. "But in such a way that she didn't even know it. That counts for something."

  "Of course." She extends her hand to me. "It really makes me very sad."

  Her hand is firm and narrow and cool—no longer feverish. It is the hand of a young lady who has been guilty of a slight faux pas and has rectified it. "A beautiful name, Isabelle," she says. "I used to hate my given name."

  "And now you don't?"

  "No," Geneviève says in a friendly way.

  She remains friendly too. It is the odious courtesy to people in a small city whom you meet in passing and will soon forget. Suddenly I am aware of being clad in an ill-fitting suit, made by Sulzblick, the tailor, out of my old uniform. Geneviève, on the other hand, is beautifully dressed. She always was, but it has never struck me so forcibly. Geneviève and her mother have decided to go to Berlin for a few weeks before returning home. Her mother is all consideration and affection. "The theater! And the concerts! It's always so stimulating to be in a real metropolis. And the shops! The new styles!"

  She pats Geneviève's hand. "We'll just spoil ourselves thoroughly for once, won't we?"

  Geneviève nods. Wernicke beams. They have caught her in their net. But just what have they caught? I wonder. Perhaps it is something that is buried, hidden in each of us, but what, in fact, is it? And is it then in me too? Has it, too, been caught in a net or was it never free? Does it exist; is it something that existed before me and will exist afterward, something more important than I? Or was it only a moment of confusion that seemed profound, a distortion of the senses, an illusion, nonsense that seemed like wisdom, as Wernicke maintains? But then why did I love it; why did it leap upon me like a leopard leaping on an ox; why can I not forget it? Was it not, despite Wernicke, like opening a door in a locked room so that you could see rain and lightning and the stars?

  I get up. "What's the matter with you?" Wernicke asks. "Why, you're as jumpy as—" he pauses and then goes on—"as the dollar exchange."

  "Oh, the dollar," Geneviève's mother says with a sigh. "What a misfortune! Luckily Uncle Gaston—"

  I do not listen to what Uncle Gaston has done. Suddenly I am outdoors. I only remember saying to Isabelle, "Thanks for everything," and her surprised reply: "But for what?"

  Slowly I walk down the hill. Good night, sweet, wild heart, I think. Farewell, Isabelle! You have not drowned! You have flown away, or rather you have suddenly become invisible, like the ancient gods; a wave length has changed; you are still here, but you are no longer to be touched; you will always be here and you will never disappear. Everything is always here; nothing is ever destroyed. It's just that light and shade pass over it; it is always here, the countenance before birth and after death, and sometimes it shines through what we call life and dazzles us for an instant and afterward we are never the same!

  I notice that I am walking faster. I breathe deeply and then break into a run. I am wet with sweat; my back is wet. I come to the gate and then go back. I still have the same feeling; it is like a mighty liberation; every axis suddenly runs through my heart, birth and death are only words, the wild geese have been flying over me since the beginning of the world, and there are no longer any questions or any answers!

  Farewell, Isabelle! Salute, Isabelle! Farewell, Life! Salute, Life!

  Much later, I notice it is raining. I lift my face to the drops and taste them. Then I walk to the gate. A tall figure, smelling of wine and incense, is waiting there. We walk through the gate together. The watchman closes it behind us. "Well?" Bodendiek asks. "Where have you been? Searching for God!"

  "No. I have found Him."

  He squints at me suspiciously from under his broad-brimmed hat. "Where? In nature?"

  "I don't know where. Is He to be found in special places?"

  "At the altar," Bodendiek rumbles and then, pointing to the right, "This is my way. And yours?"

  "All of them are right," I reply.

  "Surely you haven't drunk that much," he growls behind me, somewhat startled....

  As I near home someone jumps on me from behind our door. "Now I've got you, you swine!"

  I shake him off, thinking it some kind of joke. But he is on his feet again instantly and butts me in the stomach with his head. I fall against the obelisk but manage to plant a kick in his belly: a weak kick because I am falling. The man leaps on me again, and I recognize the horse butcher Watzek. "Have you gone crazy?" I ask. "Can't you see who I am?"

  "I see all right!" Watzek seizes me by the throat. "I see you well enough, you bastard! But this is the end of you."

  I don't know whether he is drunk, but I have no time to consider the question. Watzek is smaller than I, but he has the muscles of a bull. I succeed in carrying him over backward and pinning him against the obelisk. He lets go halfway. I throw myself and him to one side and knock his head against the foundation. He lets go completely. To make sure, I give him a blow under the chin with my shoulder, get up, go to the gate, and turn on the light. "What's all this?" I say.

  Watzek gets up slowly. He is shaking his head, still somewhat dazed. I watch him. Suddenly he runs at me again with his head aimed at my stomach. I step to one side, put out my leg, and he hits the obelisk again with a dull thud, this time between the socles. Anyone else would have been knocked silly; Watzek hardly reels. He turns around with a knife in his hand. It is his long, sharp, butcher's knife, as I can see in the electric light. He has drawn it from his boot and now he is running at me. I indulge in no superfluous- heroism; it would be suicide against a man like the horse butcher, who knows how to use a knife. I spring behind the obelisk; Watzek after me. Fortunately I am quicker and lighter on my feet than he. "Are you crazy?" I hiss. "Do you want to be hanged for murder?"

  "I'll teach you to sleep with my wife!" Watzek gasps. "Blood will flow!"

  Finally I realize what is happening. "Watzek!" I shout "You're murdering an innocent man!"

  "Shit! I'll slit your throat!"

  We race around the obelisk. It doesn't occur to me to call for help. Everything is happening too fast; besides, who could really help me? "You're decei
ved!" I gasp. "What's your wife to me?"

  "You're sleeping with her, you devil!"