Beware of Pity (46 page)

“Oh well, oh well, so that’s it! Ha ha ha, so that’s what his seven million look like, here comes his famous seven million … and those crutches too as her dowry! Ha ha ha …”

I wake with a start. Where am I? I stare frantically around me. My God, I must have dropped off to sleep, I went to sleep in this wretched hovel. I look round in some alarm. Did anyone notice? The landlady is calmly polishing glasses, the lancer is still
there but showing me only his broad, sturdy back. Perhaps no one saw me go to sleep. I can’t have nodded off for more than a minute, two minutes at the most, because my cigarette end is still glowing in the ashtray. But that dream has drained all the warmth from my dazed mind; all at once I know, with icy clarity, what has happened. I must get out of this inn! I throw down some money on the table, go to the door, and at once the lancer stands to attention. I can still feel the strange looks the workmen give me as they look up from their cards, and I know that as soon as I close the door they will start gossiping about the eccentric officer who came in here wearing his uniform, I know that from this day on everyone will be laughing at me behind my back. Everyone, everyone, no one will show any pity to a man fooled by his own pity.

Where now? Not home, anyway! Not up to my empty room, alone with my dreadful thoughts! It would be a good idea to have another drink, something cold, strong, because once again my mouth tastes unpleasantly of gall. Perhaps it’s my thoughts that I would like to vomit up—I must wash them away, burn them away, dull their edge. It is a dreadful feeling! I’ll go into the town! And wonderful to relate, the café on the town-hall square is still open. Light shows between the drawn curtains over the windowpanes. I need something to drink now, something to drink!

I go in, and as soon as I am through the door I see they are still all together at our regular table, Ferencz, Jozsi, Count Steinhübel, the regimental doctor, all my friends. But why is Jozsi staring in such surprise, why does he surreptitiously nudge
his neighbour, why are they all giving me such piercing glances? Why does their conversation suddenly stop dead? Just now they were still in the middle of a lively discussion, all talking at once so hard that I could hear them all the way to the door. Now, as soon as they set eyes on me, they all sit there in silence, looking embarrassed. Something must be going on.

Well, I can’t turn back now that they have seen me. So I stroll over as casually as possible. I don’t feel happy about this, I don’t feel in the least like merriment or cheerful talk. And also, I sense some kind of tension in the air. Usually one of them will wave to me, or send a cheery, “Evening!” flying halfway across the room like a cannonball, but today they sit there like schoolboys caught in mischief of some kind. Feeling stupidly self-conscious I pull up a chair, saying, “May I join you?”

Jozsi gives me an odd look. “Well, what do
you
lot say?” he asks, nodding to the others. “Do we let him join us? Ever known him stand on such ceremony before? This is certainly old Hofmiller’s day for ceremony!”

This sally must have been meant as some kind of joke on Jozsi’s part, for the others grin or stifle suggestive laughter. Yes, there’s something going on. Usually, when one of us turns up after midnight, they ask where he’s been and why and lard their joking with heavy insinuations. Today no one turns to me, they all seem embarrassed. I must have intruded on their comfortable, lazy evening like a stone dropped into water. At last Jozsi leans back, half-closes his left eye like a marksman taking aim, and asks, “Well, are congratulations in order?”

“Congratulations? On what?” I am so surprised that for a moment I really have no idea what he is talking about.

“Why, the pharmacist—he’s only just left—said something about the manservant up at the castle, how he telephoned him
to say that you had … had got engaged to … to, well, let’s say to the young lady up there.”

Now they are all looking at me. Two, four, six, eight, ten, twelve eyes staring at me. I know that if I admit it there’ll be uproar next minute, witticisms, jeers, mockery, ironic congratulations. No, I can’t admit it. Impossible in front of my exuberant comrades, all of them ready to make fun of me!

“Nonsense,” I snap, trying to get myself out of it. But that evasive denial isn’t enough for them. My friend Ferencz, genuinely curious, slaps me on the back.

“Tell us, Toni, then I was right, was I—it isn’t true?”

He means well, he’s a good sort, but he shouldn’t have made it so easy for me to say “No.” Nausea seizes me in the face as I anticipate their jovial, mocking curiosity. I feel how absurd it would be to declare, here at this table, something that I can’t explain even to myself. Without thinking properly, I reply angrily, “Not a bit of it.”

Silence reigns for a moment. They look at one another, surprised and, I think, slightly disappointed. Obviously I’ve spoilt their fun. However, Ferencz props his elbows on the table and bellows proudly, triumphantly, “There, didn’t I tell you so? I know Hofmiller inside out! Like I just told you, it’s a lie, a lying tale invented by the pharmacist. I’ll have something to say to that stupid pill-roller tomorrow, I’ll tell him to leave us officers alone, he can go smearing other men’s reputations! I’ll tell him so to his face, might well knock him down into the bargain. Who does he think he is? Dragging a decent man’s good name down into the gutter like that—that wagging tongue of his playing a dirty trick on one of us! But there you are—see, didn’t I say so? Hofmiller would never do a thing like that! He’s not selling off his good straight legs, not at any price!”

Then, turning to me, he claps me on the shoulder with his heavy hand in the friendliest way imaginable.

“Toni, I’m really glad it’s not true! You’d have brought shame on yourself and all the rest of us, you’d have shamed the whole regiment.”

“And to shame us all in
that
way!” Count Steinhübel joins in. “With the daughter of that old profiteer who ruined Uli Neuendorff with his dirty tricks. It’s bad enough that such folk can get rich and buy castles and noble titles. Oh yes, I’m sure he’d like to hook one of us for his darling daughter! What a villain! He knows best why he avoids me in the street.”

In the increasing uproar, Ferencz is getting more and more worked up. “That bastard the pharmacist—I’ve a good mind to go and ring the night bell at his shop and box his ears! If you ask me, it’s outrageous! Just because you go visiting at the castle a few times, that’s no reason to tell such dirty lies about you!”

At this point Baron Schönthaler, a lean and aristocratic greyhound of a man, joins in.

“D’you know, Hofmiller, I didn’t like to say anything—
chacun à son goût
and all that. But if you really want to know, I didn’t much care for it when I heard how you kept going up there. We officers ought to be careful when we do someone the honour of calling on him. I don’t know much about the kind of business that fellow Kekesfalva did or does, nothing to do with me, and I don’t go around poking my nose into other people’s affairs. But we have to stand on our dignity a little—well, you see how easily talk starts going the rounds. We don’t want to mix with persons we don’t know. Our sort have to keep our hands clean, y’know—touch pitch and some of it will stick. I’m only glad you didn’t get drawn further in.”

They are all talking excitedly at the same time, abusing the old man, coming out with wild stories about him, they make fun of “his lovely daughter the cripple”, again and again one turns to another to praise me for not getting better acquainted with “such riff-raff”. And I sit there in silence, rigid, tortured by their unwelcome praise, I feel like shouting, “Keep your filthy mouths shut!” or, “I’m the villain! It’s not the pharmacist, he told the truth, I didn’t! He wasn’t lying, I’m lying. It’s me, I’m the cowardly, pitiful liar!” But I know it’s too late—too late for everything! I can’t change my mind now, I can’t take back what I said. So I sit there staring ahead of me in silence, a cold cigarette between my grimly clenched teeth, and I am horribly aware that with my silence I have wickedly, murderously let that poor, innocent girl down. I wish I could sink into the ground! I wish I could destroy myself, dissolve into thin air! I don’t know where to look, I don’t know what to do with my hands. Their shaking might give me away. I cautiously clasp them, lacing my fingers together with painfully hard pressure, hoping that will help me to control my tension for a few moments.

But as my fingers link I feel something hard, some foreign body between them. My fingers instinctively explore it. It is the ring that Edith gave me an hour ago, blushing as she put it on my finger. The engagement ring that I willingly accepted! I no longer have the strength to take this sparkling evidence of my mendacity off my finger, so with the furtive gesture of a thief I quickly turn the stone towards the inside of my left-hand finger before giving my comrades my right hand as I say goodnight.

The town-hall square lay spectrally clear in the glacial white of the moonlight. The edges of every paving stone were clear-cut, every line pure and straight, pointing up to the rooftops. I felt the same icy clarity. My mind had never been clearer and less clouded than at that moment; I knew what I had done, and I knew what my duty was now. I had become engaged at ten in the evening, and three hours later I had cravenly denied my engagement. In front of seven witnesses—one captain, two first lieutenants, one regimental doctor, two first lieutenants and an ensign of my regiment, and with the engagement ring on my finger, I had gone behind the back of a girl who loved me passionately. I had compromised a suffering, helpless, unsuspecting human being. I had let my comrades abuse her father without a word of protest, I had let them unjustly call a man who told them the truth a liar. Tomorrow the whole regiment was sure to know my shame, and then it would all be over. The comrades who had just been clapping me in fraternal fashion on the shoulder would refuse to shake hands or exchange any greeting with me tomorrow. Once unmasked as a liar, I could no longer wear the sword of an officer, but nor could I go back to the others, the family I had betrayed and allowed to be slandered. Even Balinkay would have no more to do with me. Those three minutes of cowardice had destroyed my life; there was nothing for me now but my revolver.

Sitting at that table, I had already been well aware that this was the only way for me to redeem my honour. As I wandered down the street, all I thought about now was the precise method of carrying out my decision. All the thoughts in my head fell neatly into place, as if the white moonlight were shining on them through my cap, and I felt as indifferent as if I were taking a rifle apart as I divided up my time for the next two or three
hours, the last hours of my life. I must do everything properly, I mustn’t forget or overlook anything. First a letter to my parents, apologising for inevitably causing them pain. Then one to Ferencz, asking him in writing not to challenge the pharmacist to account for himself; my death would settle the matter. Then a third letter to the Colonel, requesting him to hush it all up as far as possible and saying that I would like my funeral to be in Vienna, no delegation from the regiment, no wreaths. A few words, perhaps, to Kekesfalva, simply asking him to assure Edith of my heartfelt affection, and hoping she would not think too badly of me. Then to put my affairs in order, with a list of any small debts to be paid, a note that my horse should be sold to cover anything outstanding. I had nothing to leave to anyone. My batman was to have my watch and my few clothes—oh, and I would like the ring and the gold cigarette case to be returned to Herr von Kekesfalva.

What else? Oh yes, I remind myself I must burn Edith’s two letters, and indeed all the letters and photographs in my possession. I want to leave nothing of myself behind, no memory, no trace. I hope to attract as little attention as possible in my death, just as I have lived without ever causing much of a stir. All the same, it adds up to a good deal of work for two or three hours, because every letter must be neatly written, so that no one can think afterwards that I had acted in fear or confusion. Then would come the last and easiest part—to lie down in bed, cover my head well with two or three blankets and the heavy quilt on top of them, so that no one in the next room or the street outside hears the detonation when I fire the shot—that was what Captain Felber had done once. He shot himself at midnight, and no one heard a sound. They didn’t find him with his skull shattered until morning. And then I must put the
barrel of the gun against my temples under the bedclothes. My revolver is reliable; it so happens that I oiled the breechblock only yesterday. And I know I have a steady hand.

Never in my life, I must repeat, have I done anything more clearly, precisely and exactly than in making these arrangements for my death. By the time I reach the barracks after an hour of apparently aimless wandering, I have the list all worked out in my head, minute by minute. My steps have been steady all that time, my pulse regular, and with a touch of pride I notice how steady my hand is as I put the key into the keyhole of the little side door that we officers always used after midnight. I haven’t missed the tiny opening by so much as a fraction of an inch. Now to cross the yard and climb the three flights of stairs. Then I will be alone, I can begin what I have to do and at the same time put an end to it all. But as I approach the shadow of the gateway across the moonlit quad, I see a figure moving. Damn it all, I think, one of my comrades coming back and getting in just before me. He’ll want to say good evening and maybe have a long chat.

Next moment, however, I am irritated to recognise, from the broad shoulders, that it is Colonel Bubencic. Colonel Bubencic, who bawled me out only a few days ago. He seems to be waiting in the gateway on purpose. I know the old boy doesn’t like his officers coming in late. But what the hell? That’s no business of mine. Tomorrow I’ll be reporting to a very different authority. So I walk on with grim determination, pretending not to have noticed him. However, he is already stepping out of the shadows. He growls sharply at me, “Lieutenant Hofmiller!”