Night Games: And Other Stories and Novellas (23 page)

The gate was open and a man carrying milk canisters was just now
coming out. Albert walked the few steps through the gate very calmlybut suddenly, just as he was about to step up the first stairs, the full consciousness of what had happened, what was happening now, and what he
would learn went through him. He felt as though he had walked the distance from his house to this point half asleep and was just now suddenly
jolted awake. He clutched both hands to his heart before he went on. So
these were the stairs ... he had never seen them before. They were still
half in darkness; small gas lamps burned on the wall.... The flat was on
the second floor. What was that? ... Both sides of the door were openhe could see the reception room-but there was no one there. He opened
a small door which led into the kitchen. No one was there either. For a
while he remained standing, undecided. Then the door that led to the living quarters opened and a maid came out quietly without noticing him.
Albert walked up to her.

"How's your mistress?" he asked.

The girl looked at him distractedly. "She died half an hour ago," she
said. Then she turned and went into the kitchen.

Albert felt as though the world around him had suddenly become
deathly quiet. He was sure that at this moment all hearts had stopped beating, all carriages had stopped in the streets, and all clocks had
stopped ticking. He felt that the whole living and moving world had
stopped living and moving. So that is death, he thought ... I didn't understand it, even yesterday....

"I beg your pardon," said a voice next to him. It was a man dressed
all in black who wanted to go from the stairway into the reception room
and whose way Albert was blocking. Albert took another step into the reception room and let the man pass. The man paid no attention to him but
rushed into the flat and left the door half open. Now Albert could see into
the next room It was almost dark, as if all the shades had been drawn. He
saw a few figures who had been sitting around a table and who now
stood up to greet the newcomer. He heard them whisper.... Then they
disappeared into an adjoining room. Albert remained standing at the door
and thought: she's lying in there ... it's less than a week since I held her
in my arms ... and I can't go in. He heard voices on the staircase. Two
women came in and went past him. One of them, the younger one, had
eyes red from crying. She looked like his beloved. It must be her sister,
of whom she had sometimes spoken to him. An elderly lady came to
meet the two women, embraced them, and sobbed softly. "A half an hour
ago," said the old lady-"quite suddenly." . . . Tears choked her voice
and prevented her from continuing. The three of them disappeared
through the half-dark room into the adjoining one. No one paid any attention to him.

I can't keep on standing here, thought Albert. I'll go downstairs and
return in an hour. He left and was in the street a few minutes later. The
bustle of the morning had begun; many people rushed past him, and carriages were rolling down the street.

In an hour there will be more people up there and I'll be able easily
to lose myself among them. How certainty consoles! ... I feel better than
I did yesterday, even though she has died.... A half an hour ago.... In a
thousand years she won't be farther from life than she is now ... and yet,
the knowledge that she was still breathing just an hour ago makes me
think that maybe she still has some awareness of existence, something
that it's impossible to understand as long as one is still breathing ... perhaps that incomprehensible moment in which we pass from life to death is our poor eternity.... Yes, and now there will be no more waiting in
the afternoon.... I'll never stand at the little window in the door againnever, never.... And now all these hours appeared to him as unspeakably beautiful. Only a few days ago he had been so happy-yes, happy. It
had been a deep, sultry bliss. Oh, when her feet hurried over the last few
steps ... when she fell into his arms ... and when they were lying wordlessly and utterly motionless on the white pillows at twilight in the room
filled with the scent of flowers and cigarettes.... Gone, gone! ...

I'll go away, that's the only thing left for me to do. Will I even be
able to go into my room at all now? I'll have to cry, cry for days and
days, cry and cry, always, always....

He passed a cafe. He realized that he hadn't eaten a thing since yesterday noon, so he went in and breakfasted. As he left the place it was already past nine. Now I can go back-I've got to see her once more-but
what will I do there? ... Will I be able to see her? ... I've got to see
her ... yes, I've got to see my, yes my, my beloved, dead Anna once
more. But will they let me into the death chamber? ... Of course. There
will be many people there, and all the doors will be open.

He hurried there. The housekeeper was standing at the gate and
greeted him as he went past. He ran ahead of two men who were also
going up the steps. There were already some people in the reception
room, and the door was wide open. Albert went in. The curtain of one of
the windows had been drawn back and a little light was falling into the
room. There were about a dozen people around, sitting or standing, and
speaking very softly. The old lady he had seen before was sitting crumpled up in the corner of a dark red sofa. When Albert went past her she
looked at him; he stood still and gave her his hand. She nodded her head
and began to cry again. Albert looked around; the second door, which led
to the adjoining room, was closed. He turned to a man who was standing
at the window and absentmindedly looking through the opening in the
curtains.... "Where is she?" he said. The man pointed to the right. Albert opened the door softly. He was suddenly blinded by a strong light
that flowed toward him. He found himself in a very light, small room
with white and gold tapestries and light-blue furniture. No one was there.
The door to the next room was ajar. He went in. It was the bedroom-

The window shutters were closed; a lamp was burning. The body
was lying stretched out on the bed. The covers had been pulled to her
lips, and at her head, on a small side table, a candle was burning and
throwing its glare on the ashen-grey features. He wouldn't have recognized her if he hadn't known it was she. Only gradually did he see a resemblance-only gradually did it become Anna, his Anna, who was
lying there, and for the first time since the beginning of these terrible
days he felt tears come to his eyes. A hot and burning pain was in his
breast. He wanted to cry out, to sink down next to her, to kiss her
hands.... Only now he noticed that he wasn't alone with her. Someone
was kneeling at the foot of her bed, had buried his face in the sheets, and
was holding the dead woman's hand in both of his. At the moment that
Albert was tempted to go a step closer to her, the man raised his head.
What am I going to say to him? But suddenly he felt the man grasp his
right hand and press it, and he heard him say in a sobbing voice, thank
you, thank you.... And then the crying man turned away again and let
his head sink sobbing into the bedcovers. Albert remained standing for a
while and looked at the dead woman's face with a kind of cold interest.
Tears once more failed to come to him. His pain suddenly became thin
and insubstantial. He knew that some day this meeting would seem to
him horrible and comical at the same time. He would have felt very
ridiculous had he stayed to cry together with this man.

He turned to go. At the door he stopped once more and looked back.
The flickering of the candle made it seem to him as if a smile were playing around Anna's lips. He nodded to her as if he were saying goodbye
and she could see him. Then he turned to go, but suddenly it seemed to
him as though she were holding him there with this smile. And suddenly
it became a contemptuous, strange smile, which seemed to speak to him
and which he could understand. And the smile said: I loved you, and now
you stand there like a stranger and deny me. Tell him that I was yours,
that it is your right to kneel in front of this bed and to kiss my hands. Tell
him! Why don't you tell him'?

But he didn't dare. He held his hands before his eyes so that he
would no longer see her smile.... He turned around on tiptoe, left the
room, and closed the door behind him. Trembling, he went through the light salon and crept past all the people who were whispering to one another in the half-dark room and among whom he was not entitled to stay.
Then he rushed through the reception room and down the stairs. After he
passed through the gate, he crept along the wall of the house, and his
steps became ever faster as he felt something driving him away from the
house; and, deeply ashamed, he hurried through the streets, for it seemed
to him as if he was not entitled to mourn her like the others, as if his dead
beloved were chasing him away because he had denied her.

I WAS TWENTY-THREE YEARS OLD at that time, and it was my seventh duel-not my own, but the seventh in which I participated as a second. You can smirk if you want. I know it's become fashionable these
days to make fun of such events. But I don't think that does them justice,
and I assure you, life was more beautiful and certainly had a more elevated air in those days-among other reasons, precisely because one
sometimes had to put one's life on the line for something that in a higher
or at least in a different sense possibly did not exist or which at leastmeasured by today's standards-was not worth it. For honor, for example, or the virtue of a beloved woman, or the good reputation of a sister,
or for some other such triviality. Nevertheless it's important to remember
that in the course of the last decades people were required to sacrifice
their lives for even more insignificant things, completely needlessly and
at the command or wish of others. True, one's own discretion always
played a role in a duel, even when it apparently was a matter of compulsion, convention, or snobbishness. That one at least had to come to terms
with the possibility or even the unavoidability of duels within social circles-that alone, believe me, gave social life a certain dignity or at least a
certain style. And it gave the people in these social circles, even the most
worthless or the most ridiculous of them, a certain attitude-yes, the appearance of being constantly ready to die-even if this phrasing should
appear to you altogether too grandiose in this context.

But I digress even before I've begun. I want to tell you the story of
my seventh duel, and you are smirking as you did before, because I'm talking about my duel again, even though, as appeared to be my fate, I
was once again merely a witness and not a dueler. At eighteen, when I
was a volunteer in the cavalry, for the first time I was a second in an affair of honor between a comrade and an attache of the French embassy.
Soon after that the famous rider Vulkovicz chose me to be his second in a
duel with the Prince of Luginsfeld, and after that, even though I was neither a nobleman nor a professional officer, and was even of Jewish descent, people turned to me, especially for the more difficult cases when a
second was required. I won't deny that I sometimes regretted participating in these affairs only as a secondary figure. Just once I would have
liked to have stood opposite a dangerous opponent. I don't even know
what I would have preferred-to win or to die. But it never came to that,
even though there wasn't really any lack of opportunities and, as you
may imagine, there was never the slightest doubt about my willingness to
duel. Maybe that's why I never received a challenge or why in those
cases when I was forced to issue a challenge, the matter was settled in a
gentlemanly fashion. In any case, I was a second in body and soul. The
consciousness of being put in the midst of destiny, or, more accurately, at
the periphery of a destiny, has for me always had something moving, exciting, and grand about it.

But this seventh duel that I want to tell you about today was different from all my other ones either before and after, because in this case I
moved from the periphery right into the middle of everything and
changed from a secondary to a central figure-and also because till today
no one has ever heard this strange story. I wouldn't have told you anything about it either, you with your eternal smirk-but since you don't
actually exist, I'll continue to do you the honor of talking to you, a young
man who in any case has enough tact to remain silent.