From that moment on something had come between them, and at the same time they felt a nervous need to talk to each other a great deal. They discussed the most ordinary matters at length, and felt almost alarmed when the talking stopped. Where did those grey clouds above the mountains come from, what weather might they expect tomorrow, why was the water a different colour at different times of day? They held long conversations about such things. When they went out walking they strolled further from their house more often than they had done before, taking the path along the bank of the lake, where there were more buildings. That gave them many opportunities to discuss the people they met. If any young men happened to be coming towards them Marie was particularly reserved, and if Felix commented on the summer outfits of sportsmen, oarsmen or climbers, she went so far as to pretend—hardly aware that it was pretence at all—that she hadn’t even noticed them, and she could only with difficulty be persuaded to observe them more closely if they met again. She found his look at such moments painfully embarrassing when she felt it resting on her. Then they might walk side by side in silence for quarter-of-an-hour. And sometimes they sat on the balcony without exchanging a word, until Marie often, but without any intention of hiding anything, as a last resort hit on reading aloud to him from the paper. Even when she saw that he wasn’t listening any more she read on, glad to hear the sound of her own voice, glad not to have total silence between them. And yet in spite off all these efforts, which were a strain, they were both occupied solely with their own thoughts.
Felix confessed to himself that he had been acting out a ridiculous comedy for Marie’s benefit. If he had been serious in his wish to spare her the coming misery, his best course would have been just to leave her. He could have found some quiet place to die in peace. He was surprised to find himself considering these questions with perfect indifference. But when he began seriously thinking how to execute such a plan, when he pictured all the details in his mind’s eye during a terribly long, wakeful night—how he would get up and leave at dawn next day, without any goodbye, going alone to his imminent death and leaving Marie behind in the sunny, laughing life now lost to him—then he felt powerless, was profoundly convinced that he could not do it, would never be able to do it. So what now? The day when he must go and leave her behind was inexorably coming closer and closer. His whole existence was the expectation of that day, nothing but a painful respite, worse than death itself. If only he hadn’t learned from youth onwards to observe himself! Then he could have ignored all the symptoms of his illness, or at least considered them minor troubles. His memory summoned up the images of people he had known who had been consumed by the same mortal sickness now consuming him, but who had been cheerfully looking to the future, full of hope, only a few weeks before they died. He cursed the hour when his uncertainty had taken him to the doctor whom he had badgered with lies and an assumption of false dignity until he learned the whole merciless truth. And so here he lay, damned a hundred times over, no better off than a prisoner condemned to death whom the hangman may lead to the place of execution any morning now, and he realised that he had never really for a moment been able to understand clearly the full horror of his present existence. In some remote corner of his heart there still lurked, treacherous and cajoling, the hope that refused ever to leave him entirely. But his reason was stronger, it gave him clear, cold counsel again and again, and he heard it ten, a hundred, a thousand times over in the endless nights when he lay awake, and during the monotonous days that none the less were passing too fast. It told him that there was only one way out, one thing that could save him: to stop waiting, not to wait an hour, a second longer, to make an end of it himself—that would be less pitiable. And it was almost a comfort to think that there was no compelling reason for him to wait. He could end it all at any time if he only wanted to.
But she, she! By day in particular, when she walked with him or read aloud to him, it often seemed as if it wouldn’t be so difficult to part from this creature after all. She was no longer a part of his essential being. She belonged not to him but to the life all around him that he must leave. At other moments, however, particularly by night, when she lay fast asleep beside him in her youthful beauty, her eye-lids closed, he loved her immeasurably, and the more calmly she slept, the more remote from the world her slumbers, the further her dreaming soul seemed from his waking torment, the more madly he adored her. Once, on the night before they were to leave the lake, an almost irresistible desire came over him to wake her from her delicious sleep, which to him suggested malicious disloyalty, shake her and shout in her ear, “If you love me, then die with me, die now.” But he let her sleep on. He would say it to her tomorrow, yes, tomorrow—perhaps.
She had sensed his eyes on her in those nights more often than he guessed. She had pretended to be asleep more often than he guessed, because a paralysing fear kept her from entirely opening her lids, though she sometimes peered through them in the half-light of the bedroom to see his figure sitting upright in the bed. The memory of that last grave conversation would not leave her, and she trembled at the thought of the day when he would ask her his question again. But why did it make her tremble? The answer was so obvious. She would stay with him to the last second, never leave his side, kiss every sigh from his lips, every tear of pain from his eyelashes! Did he doubt her? Was any other answer possible? How could it be? What answer? For instance: “You’re right, I’ll leave you. I’ll just keep the memory of that interesting invalid. I’m leaving you on your own now so that I can love your memory better?” And then? She couldn’t help picturing everything that must follow that answer. In her mind she sees him before her, cool, smiling. He stretches out his hand, saying, “Thank you”. Then he turns away from her, and she hurries off. It’s a summer morning, glowing with a thousand waking joys. And she hurries further and further into the golden dawn, just to get away from him as quickly as possible. Suddenly she isn’t under a spell any more. She is alone again, free of pity. She no longer feels that look resting on her, the sad, questioning, dying look that has tormented her so terribly all these last months. She belongs to joy, to life, she can be young again. She hurries away, and the morning wind flutters after her, laughing … And how doubly miserable she seemed to herself when this picture surfaced in her troubled dreams! She suffered from the mere idea that she had ever seen it.
How pity for him gnawed her heart too, how she shuddered when she thought of what he knew and of his hopelessness! How she loved him, loved him more and more deeply the closer the day came when she must lose him! There could be no doubt of her answer. It was such a small thing to stay beside him and suffer with him! To see him waiting for death, share those months of mortal fear with him, that was so little! She wants to do more for him, she thinks, to give the best, the highest that she can. If she promised to kill herself on his grave he’d die doubting whether she would really do it. Die with him—no, she will die before him. When he asks, she will have the strength to say, “Let’s bring this torment to an end! We’ll die together, and we’ll die now!” And even as this idea intoxicated her, she saw the woman whose picture had appeared to her just now—hurrying over the fields with the morning wind caressing her, running away towards life and joy, and saw that it was herself, a despicable, vile figure.
The day came when they had planned to leave. A wonderfully mild morning, as if spring were returning. Marie was already sitting on the balcony and breakfast was ready when Felix came out of the living-room. He took a deep breath. “Ah, what a lovely day!”
“Yes, isn’t it?”
“I have something to say to you, Marie.”
“What?” And she quickly went on, as if to take the words out of his mouth. “Oh, are we going to stay here a little longer?”
“Well, no, but we won’t go straight back to Vienna. I don’t feel bad today, not bad at all. We can stop somewhere on the way.”
“Just as you like, darling.” She suddenly felt happier deep inside her than she had for
a long time. He hadn’t spoken in so natural a tone of voice all that week.
“I thought we could stay in Salzburg, child.”
“Anything you say.”
“We’ll still be back in Vienna soon enough, don’t you think? And it would be rather a long railway journey for me.”
“Well,” said Marie briskly, “we’re in no hurry.”
“We’re all packed, aren’t we, sweetheart?”
“Oh, long ago. We can set off at once.”
“I think we’ll hire a carriage. It will be a drive of four or five hours, and much more comfortable than a rail journey. Yesterday’s heat always lingers in the railway carriages.”
“Just as you like, darling.” She told him to drink his glass of milk, and then pointed out the beautiful, shimmering silver light on the crest of the waves. She talked a great deal, in bubbling high spirits. His replies were friendly and innocuous. At last she offered to go and order the carriage to come at midday and drive them to Salzburg. Smiling, he accepted this offer. She quickly put on her broad-brimmed straw hat, kissed Felix on the mouth a couple of times, and then went out into the road.
He hadn’t asked his question—and he wasn’t going to ask. She could see that clearly from his cheerful face. So there was nothing hidden behind his friendly manner today, as there sometimes was when he deliberately cut short an innocent conversation with a sharp remark. She had always known in advance when some such thing was coming, and now she felt as if he had shown her great mercy. There had been something generous, reconciliatory in his mild manner.
When she returned to the balcony she found him reading the newspaper which had arrived during her absence.
“Marie,” he called, his glance telling her to come closer, “here’s something strange, very strange.”
“What is it?”
“Read this! That man—Professor Bernard, I mean—he’s dead!”
“Who?”
“The man who—well, whom I—the doctor who gave me such a gloomy diagnosis.”
She took the newspaper from him. “What, that Professor Bernard?” The remark ‘It serves him right!’ was on the tip of her tongue, but she bit it back. They both felt as if this incident held some special meaning for them. The very man who, in all the overweening wisdom of his own bounding good health, had taken all hope from the patient who came to him for help, had been carried away himself within a couple of days. Only now did Felix understand how much he had hated the man—and the fact that Fate had taken such a sudden revenge seemed to the sick man a favourable sign. He felt as if an ominous ghost had ceased to haunt him. Marie threw the newspaper down and said, “Yes, indeed, what do we humans know of the future?”
He eagerly took up the idea. “What do we know of tomorrow? Nothing, nothing at all!” After a brief pause he suddenly changed the subject. “Did you order the carriage?”
“Yes,” she said, “for eleven.”
“Then we could take a little boat trip on the water first, couldn’t we?”
She took his arm, and they both walked down to the boathouse with a sense of well-earned satisfaction.
Late that afternoon they drove into Salzburg. To their surprise, they found most of the buildings in the city flying flags; the people they met were in their best clothes, some wearing cockades. In the hotel where they took a room with a view of the Mönchsberg they heard that a great festival of vocal music was taking place in the city, and were offered tickets for the concert to be given at eight in the Kurpark, with magnificent illuminations. Their room was on the first floor, and the river Salzach flowed below their window. They had both dropped off to sleep during the drive, and now felt so refreshed that they spent only a short time indoors, and went out into the streets again before dusk.
There was a cheerful, lively mood all over the city. Almost all the people of Salzburg seemed to be out in the streets, and the singers, adorned with their cockades, were walking among them in merry groups. There were many foreigners around too, and visitors had come in even from the surrounding villages, pushing their way through the crowd in their rustic Sunday clothes. Flags in the city colours flew from the gables, triumphal arches decked with flowers had been erected in the main thoroughfares, a restless torrent of human beings surged through all the streets, and the sky of a fragrant summer evening spread above them, comfortably mild.
From the banks of the Salzach, where pleasant silence surrounded them, Felix and Marie had reached the more hectic hurry and bustle of the city centre, and after spending such a quiet time in their lakeside retreat all the unaccustomed noise almost confused them. But they had soon recovered the confidence of city dwellers, and allowed the scene to make its effect on them. Felix was not very pleasantly struck by the cheerfulness of the crowd—well, that had always been his way. Marie, however, soon seemed to feel very much at home, and like a child she stopped now and then to look first at some women in Salzburg costume, then at a party of tall male singers adorned with sashes who were strolling past. Sometimes she glanced up and admired the particularly handsome decoration of a building. From time to time she turned to Felix, who was walking beside her rather listlessly, with a lively “Do look, how pretty!” and received no answer but a silent nod of his head.
“Seriously, do tell me,” she said at last, “weren’t we lucky to come just now?”
He looked at her with an expression which she couldn’t quite interpret. At last he said, “I suppose you’d like to go to that concert in the Kurpark too?”
She only smiled, and then replied, “Well, we don’t have to go out at once!”
That smile irritated him. “I do believe you really would expect it of me!”
“Oh, what are you thinking of?” she cried in alarm, and at the same time her eyes wandered to the other side of the street, where an elegant, good-looking couple who looked like honeymooners were just walking past in smiling conversation. Marie walked on beside Felix, but without taking his arm. Quite often the crowd parted them for a few seconds, and then she found him keeping close to the walls of the buildings, obviously reluctant to come into more direct contact with all the people. Meanwhile it was getting darker, the street lights were coming on, and coloured lanterns had been put up here and there around the city, particularly on the triumphal arches,. The main throng was making for the Kurhaus. It would soon be time for the concert. At first Felix and Marie were carried along by the crowd, then he suddenly took her arm and, turning into a narrow side street, they were soon in a quieter and less brightly lit district. After walking along in silence for a few minutes, they found themselves in a remote place on the banks of the Salzach, where the monotonous sound of the river rushing by rose to them.
“What are we going to do here?” she asked.
“Rest,” he said in an almost peremptory tone. And when she did not reply, he went on in a voice of nervous agitation “We don’t belong there. Coloured lights, cheerful singing, the company of people who are young and laughing aren’t for us now. This is the place for us, where we won’t hear any of the rejoicing and can be alone; this is where we belong.” And then, lapsing from that agitated tone into one of cold scorn: “Or at least, where I belong.”
As he said that, she felt that she was not as deeply moved as usual, but she explained it by telling herself that she had often heard him say such things when he was obviously exaggerating. She replied, in a mild and conciliatory tone, “I don’t deserve that, I really don’t.”
But he, as so often before, retorted sarcastically “Oh, do forgive me.”
She went on, holding his arm and pressing it, “We neither of us belong here.”
“Yes, we do!” he almost screamed.
“No,” she gently replied. “I don’t want to go back and join all those crowds either. I disliked them just as much as you did. But why should we run away as if we were outcasts?”
At that moment a full orchestral sound rang out, making its way to them through the pure, windless air. They could hear it clearly, a
lmost note by note. The trombone played solemn fanfares; it was a festival overture clearly designed to open the concert.
“Let’s go,” said Felix suddenly, after standing with her and listening for a while. “Music heard from a distance makes me sadder than almost anything else on earth.”
“Yes,” she agreed, “it does sound very melancholy.”
They walked quickly towards the city. Here the music was not as distinct as down by the river-bank, and when they were back in the brightly lit streets full of people Marie felt her old affectionate pity for her lover return. She understood how he felt again, she forgave him everything. “Shall we go back to the hotel?” she asked.
“No, why? Are you sleepy?”
“Oh no!”
“Then let’s stay out-of-doors a little longer, shall we?”
“Of course—if you’d like to. Are you sure it’s not too cool for you?”
“This is sultry weather. Positively hot” he replied fretfully. “Let’s eat out in the open.”
“That would be very nice.”
They were approaching the Kurpark. The orchestra had finished its overture, and now all the hundreds of sounds made by a crowd of people talking cheerfully could be heard from the park, which was illuminated as brightly as if it were day. A few people still on their way to the concert hurried past. Two male singers, arriving late, quickly overtook them too. Marie looked at them as they went by, and next moment, not without some anxiety and as if she must atone for some misdemeanour, she looked at Felix. He was gnawing his lip, and a look of carefully repressed irritation could be read on his brow. She thought he was sure to say something, but he did not. And his sombre glance turned away from her and back to the two men just disappearing through the entrance to the park. He knew his own feelings. There before him went what he most hated. A part of what would be still here when he was gone, would still be young and lively, would laugh when he couldn’t laugh or weep any more. Here beside him, now pressing closer to his arm than before in the knowledge of her guilt, walked another such specimen of laughing, living youth, unconsciously feeling a relationship with those men. And he knew it; it churned around in his mind with raging pain. For several long seconds neither of them said anything. At last he sighed deeply. She tried to see his face, but he had turned it away. Suddenly he said “This would be all right.”
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