Night Games: And Other Stories and Novellas (29 page)

The singer nodded several times. "Yes, it's about her. Are you my
friend?"

Leisenbohg nodded. He felt a slight shiver. A warm wind was coming from the sea. "I'm your friend. What do you want from me?"

"Do you remember the evening that we parted, baron, after we had
dinner together at the Bristol and you accompanied me to the railroad
station?"

Leisenbohg nodded again.

"I'll wager you had no idea that Clara was leaving Vienna with me
on the same train."

Leisenbohg let his head fall heavily on his chest.

"Nor did 1." Sigurd continued. "I only saw Clara the next morning
in the breakfast carriage. She was sitting with Fanny Ringeiser in the dining room, drinking coffee. Her behavior led me to believe that I owed
this meeting to chance. But it wasn't chance."

"Go on," said the baron, and looked at the green plaid blanket
swaying lightly to and fro.

"Afterward she confessed to me that it had not been by chance.
From that morning on we stayed together, Clara, Fanny, and I. We
stopped at one of your delightful small Austrian lakes. We lived there in a
charming house between the water and the forest, far from other people.
We were very happy."

He spoke so slowly that Leisenbohg thought he would go out of his
mind.

Why did he call me here? he wondered. What does he want from
me'? ... Did she confess to him? ... What business is it of his? ... Why
is he staring at me so fixedly? ... Why am I sitting here in Molde on a
veranda with a Pierrot? ... Maybe in the end it's a dream after all? ...
Am I perhaps resting in Clara's arms? ... Is it still the same night after
all? ... And instinctively he opened his eyes wide.

"Will you revenge me?" Sigurd suddenly asked.

"Revenge'? ... Why? what's happened?" asked the baron, and
heard his own words as though from afar.

"Because she has ruined me, because I'm lost."

"Tell me already," said Leisenbohg in a hard, dry voice.

"Fanny Ringeiser was with us," continued Sigurd. "She's an honest
girl, don't you think?"

"Yes, she's an honest girl," answered Leisenbohg, and all at once he
remembered the dimly lit room with the blue velvet furniture and corduroy drapes where he had spoken with Fanny's mother several hundred
years ago.

"But she's a rather stupid girl, don't you think?"

"I believe so," replied the baron.

"I know it for sure," said Sigurd. "She had no idea how happy we
were." And he was silent for a long time.

"Go on," said Leisenbohg, and waited.

"One morning Clara was sleeping late," Sigurd began anew. "She
always slept late into the morning. But I went for a walk in the forest.
Suddenly Fanny came running after me. `Flee, Herr Olse, before it is too
late; leave town, because you're in grave danger!' Strangely enough, she
didn't want to tell me anything more at the beginning. But I insisted and
finally found out what kind of danger she thought was threatening me.
Ah, she believed that I could still be saved, otherwise she certainly
wouldn't have told me anything."

The green blanket on the railing blew upward like a sail, and the
lamplight on the table flickered a little.

"What did Fanny tell you?" asked Leisenbohg sternly.

"Do you remember the evening," asked Sigurd, "when we were all
guests in Clara's house? On the morning of that day Clara had gone with
Fanny to the cemetery, and on the grave of the prince she had revealed
the horror to her friend."

"The horror?" The baron trembled.

"Yes. You know how the prince died? He was thrown from his
horse and lived only an hour afterward."

"I know."

"No one was with him except Clara."

"I know."

"He wanted to see no one except her. And on his deathbed he uttered a curse."

"A curse?"

"A curse. 'Clara,' the prince said, 'don't forget me. I will have no
rest in the grave if you forget me.' 'I won't ever forget you,' answered
Clara. 'Will you swear that you'll never forget me?' 'I swear.' 'Clara, I
love you, and I have to die.'"

"Who's speaking?" cried the baron.

"I'm speaking," said Sigurd, "and I speak for Fanny, and Fanny
speaks for Clara, and Clara speaks for the prince. Don't you understand
me?"

Leisenbohg listened with effort. He felt as if he heard the voice of
the dead prince resound in the night through the triple-sealed casket.

"'Clara, I love you, and I have to die! You are so young, and I have
to die.... And there will be someone else after me.... I know it; it will
happen.... Another will hold you in his arms and will be happy with
you.... He shall not-he cannot! I curse him. Do you hear, Clara? I
curse him! ... The first one that kisses these lips, that embraces this
body after me, shall go to hell! ... Clara, heaven hears the curse of the
dying ... beware! ... beware! ... To hell with him! in madness, misery,
and death! Beware! Beware! Beware!'"

Sigurd, from whose mouth the voice of the dead prince sounded,
had gotten up and now stood tall and strong in his white flannel suit,
looking into the bright night. The green plaid blanket fell from the railing
into the garden. The baron was freezing. He felt as though his whole
body were turning to stone. He wanted to scream but only opened his
mouth wide.... He found himself at this moment back in the small room
of the singing teacher Eisenstein where he had seen Clara for the first
time. A Pierrot stood on the stage and declaimed, "With this curse on
his lips Prince Bedenbruck died, and ... hear ... the unhappy one, in
whose arms she lay, the miserable one that will fulfill the curse, am I! ...
I! ...I! "

Then the stage collapsed with a loud noise and sank into the sea
under Leisenbohg's eyes. But he himself fell noiselessly backward with
his chair, like a marionette.

Sigurd sprang up and called for help. Two servants came and lifted
the unconscious man up and put him in an easy chair near the table, one of them ran for a doctor, the other brought water and vinegar. Sigurd
rubbed the baron's forehead and temples, but he did not move. Then the
doctor came and examined him. It didn't take long. At the end he said,
"This man is dead."

Sigurd Oise was overwhelmed, asked the doctor to do what was
necessary, and left the terrace. He went through the salon, walked upstairs to another floor, went into his bedroom, turned on a light, and hurriedly wrote the following words: "Clara! I received your message in
Molde, to where I fled without stopping. I'll admit to you that I didn't believe you; I thought you wanted to calm me with a lie. Forgive me. I
don't doubt you anymore. Baron von Leisenbohg was with me. I asked
him to come. But I didn't ask him about anything, since as a man of
honor he would have had to lie to me. I had an ingenious idea. I told him
about the curse of the dying prince. The effect on him was surprising: the
baron fell backward with his chair and died on the spot."

Sigurd paused, turned very serious, and seemed to reflect. Then he
placed himself in the middle of the room and lifted his voice in song.
First his voice was unsure and veiled, then slowly it brightened and resounded strong and beautiful through the night, in the end so powerfully
that it seemed as though it were echoing from the waves. A calm smile
played over Sigurd's features. He breathed in deeply. He went back to the
desk and to his letter added the following words:

"Dear Clara! Forgive me-everything is all right again. In three
days I'll be with you again...."

HE STILL DOESN'T QUITE UNDERSTAND IT; it all happened so fast.

For two summer days she lay sick in bed at the villa, two summer
days so beautiful that the bedroom windows looking out into the blossoming garden could be left open all day, and then on the evening of the
second day she had died, almost abruptly, without anyone's being prepared for it. And today she had been carried out, over there, up the gradually rising street that he can now follow from his easy chair on the
balcony all the way to the end, to where the low white walls encircle the
small cemetery where she was laid to rest.

It is evening now. The street on which the sun had burned down
only a few hours ago as the black carriages had rolled slowly upward
now lies in shadow, and the white cemetery walls no longer gleam.

They had left him alone; he had asked them to. The mourners had
all driven back to town; and the grandparents, upon his request, had
taken the child along with them for the first few days that he wanted to be
alone. In the garden it is now very quiet, too; only now and then does he
hear a whispering from below: the servants are standing under the balcony, speaking quietly with one another. He feels more tired now than he
has ever felt before, and as his eyelids close again and again, he once
more sees, though his eyes are closed, the street in the haze of the afternoon sun, the carriages rolling slowly upward, the people milling around
him-even the voices resound in his ears once more.

Almost everyone who had not gone too far away for the summer
had been there. Everyone was very moved by the young woman's prema ture and sudden death, and had uttered kind words of comfort to him.
Some had come quite a distance, people that he had never even thought
of, and many whose names he hardly knew had grasped his hand. Only
the one he most longed to see, his best friend, had not been there. True,
he was far away-at a beach resort on the North Sea, and he must have
received the news of her death too late for him to leave so as to arrive in
time. He wouldn't be there until tomorrow.

Richard opens his eyes again. The street is now completely in
shadow; only the white walls still shimmer in the darkness, and that
makes him shudder. He stands up, leaves the balcony, and walks into the
adjacent room. It is-was-his wife's. He hadn't realized that it was her
room when he walked in quickly; and even now he can't make out anything in the darkness; only a familiar fragrance wafts toward him. He
lights the blue candle standing on the desk, and, now able to see the
whole room in all its brightness and friendliness, he sinks down onto the
sofa and cries.

He cries for a long time-wild and empty tears, and when he stands
up again his head is dull and heavy. There is a flickering before his eyes;
the flame of the candle burns dimly. He wants more light; he dries his
eyes and lights all seven candles of the candelabrum standing on the
small pedestal next to the piano. And now a brightness floods the room
and illuminates every corner; the delicate gold background of the tapestry glistens, and it looks as it did on many an evening when he would
come in and find her bent over a book or some letters. She would look
up, turn toward him with a smile, and await his kiss. But now the indifference of the objects around him, glittering as they had before, as
though they didn't know that they had become sad and eerie, wounds
him. Before now he had not felt as keenly how lonely he had become;
and never before had he longed for his friend so powerfully. But now as
he pictures him coming and saying comforting words, he feels that there
might still be some consolation for him. If only he were here already! ...
He will come for sure; early tomorrow morning he will be here. And of
course he'll stay with him a long time, many weeks; he won't let him go
until he has to. They'll walk together in the garden and talk about profound and unusual things beyond the realm of the ordinary, just as they used to. And in the evenings they'll sit on the balcony just as they used
to, the dark sky above them, so still and so enormous, and they'll talk together late into the night, just as they had so often done long after she,
whose fresh and lively personality had found little pleasure in serious
conversation, had smilingly bid them good night and gone up to her
room. How often had these conversations lifted him above the worries
and pettiness of everyday life!-but now they would mean even more;
they would be a blessing, even a salvation for him.