The last word of the song stopped short, as if cut off by a knife. And in some alarm I felt a void before me, a sense of silent hostility as if I had broken something. Only slowly did my eyes adjust to the room, which was almost empty: it contained a bar counter and a table, and the whole place was obviously just a means of access to other rooms behind it, whose real purpose was immediately made obvious by their opened doors, muted lamplight, and beds made up and ready. A girl sat at the table, leaning her elbows on it, her tired face made up, and behind her at the bar was the landlady, stout and dingy grey, with another girl who was not bad-looking. My greeting sounded harsh in the space, and a bored response came back with some delay. Finding that I had stepped into such a void, so tense and bleak a silence, I was ill at ease and would rather have left at once, but in my embarrassment I could think of no excuse, so I resigned myself to sitting down at the table in front of the bar. The girl, remembering her duties, asked what I would like to drink, and I recognised her as German at once from the harsh accent of her French. I ordered beer, she went out and came back again with the lethargic bearing that betrayed even more indifference than the empty look in her eyes, which glowed faintly under their lids like lights going out. Automatically, and in accordance with the custom of such places, she put a second glass down next to mine for herself. As she raised her glass she did not turn her blank gaze on me, so I was able to observe her. Her face was in fact still beautiful, with regular features, but inner weariness seemed to make it coarse, like a mask; everything about her drooped, her eyelids were heavy, her hair hung loose, her cheeks, badly made up and smudged, were already beginning to fall in, and broad lines ran down to her mouth. Her dress too was carelessly draped, her voice hoarse, roughened by smoke and beer. All things considered, I felt that this was an exhausted woman who went on living only out of habit and without feelings, so to speak. Self-consciously and with a sense of dread I asked a question. She replied with dull indifference, scarcely moving her lips, and without looking at me. I felt I was unwelcome. At the back of the room the landlady was yawning, and the other girl was sitting in a corner glancing in my direction, as if waiting for me to summon her. I would have liked to leave, but everything about me felt heavy, and I sat in that sated, smouldering air, swaying slightly as the sailors do, kept there by both distaste and curiosity, for this indifference was, in a way, intriguing.
Then I suddenly gave a start, alarmed by raucous laughter near me. At the same time the flame of the light wavered, and the draught told me that someone must have opened the door behind my back. “Oh, so here you are again, are you?” said the voice beside me shrilly, in German. “Slinking round the house again, you skinflint? Well, come along in, I won’t hurt you.”
I spun round, to look first at her as she uttered this greeting, in tones as piercing as if her body had suddenly caught fire, then at the door. Even before it was fully open I recognised the trembling figure and humble glance of the man who had been almost glued to the outside of the pane just now. Intimidated, he held his hat in his hand like a beggar, trembling at the sound of the raucous greeting and the laughter which suddenly seemed to shake her apathetic figure convulsively, and which was accompanied by the landlady’s rapid whispering from the bar counter at the back of the room.
“Sit down there with Françoise, then,” the woman beside me ordered the poor man as he came closer with a craven, shuffling step. “You can see I have a gentleman here.”
She said this to him in German. The landlady and the other girl laughed out loud, although they couldn’t understand her, but they seemed to know the new guest.
“Give him champagne, Françoise, the expensive brand, give him a bottle of it!” she called out, laughing, and turning to him again added with derision, “And if it’s too expensive for you then you can stay outside, you miserable miser. I suppose you’d like to stare at me for free—you want everything for free, don’t you?”
The tall figure seemed almost to collapse at the sound of this vicious laughter; he hunched his back as if his face were trying to creep away and hide like a dog, and his hand shook as he reached for the bottle and spilled some of the wine in pouring it. He was still trying to look up at her face, but he could not lift his gaze from the floor, where it wandered over the tiles. And only now, in the lamplight, did I clearly see that emaciated face, worn and pale, his hair damp and thin on his bony skull, his joints loose and looking as if they were broken, a pitiful creature without any strength, yet not devoid of malice. Everything about him was crooked, awry, cringing, and now, when he raised his eyes, though he immediately lowered them again in alarm, they had a gleam of ill will in them.
“Don’t trouble yourself about him!” the girl told me in French, roughly taking my arm as if to turn me round. “This is old business between the two of us, it’s nothing new.” And again, baring her teeth as if ready to bite, she called out to him, “Listen to me, you old lynx! You just hear what I say. I said I’d rather jump into the sea than go with you, didn’t I?”
Once again the landlady and the other girl laughed, loud and foolish laughter. It seemed to be a familiar joke to them, a daily jest. But I found it unpleasant to see that other girl, Françoise, suddenly press close to him with pretended affection, wheedling him with flattery from which he shrank, though he didn’t have the courage to shake her off, and I was alarmed when his wandering gaze, awkward, anxious, abject, rested on me. And I felt dread of the woman beside me, who had suddenly been roused from her apathy and was full of such burning malice that her hands trembled. I threw some money on the table and was going to leave, but she wouldn’t take it.
“If he annoys you I’ll throw him out, the bastard. He must do as he’s told. Come along, drink another glass with me!”
She pressed close to me with a wild, abrupt kind of tenderness which I knew at once was only pretended, to torment the other man. At every movement she quickly looked askance across the table, and it was dreadful to me to see how he began to wince whenever she paid me some little attention, as if he felt hot steel branding his flesh. Without paying any attention to her, I stared only at him, and shuddered to see something in the nature of anger, rage, envy and greed arising in him, yet he cringed again if she so much as turned her head. She now pressed very close to me, her body trembling with her vicious pleasure in this game, and I felt horror at her garishly painted face with its smell of cheap powder, at the fumes emanating from her slack flesh. I reached for a cigar to keep her away from my face, and while my eyes were searching the table for a match she ordered him, “Bring us a light!”
I was more horrified than he was at such an imposition, making him serve me, and quickly set about looking for a light myself. But he snapped to attention at her words as if at the crack of a whip, came over to us, reeling, with unsteady footsteps, and put his own lighter on the table quickly, as if he might burn up if he touched the tabletop. For a second I met his eyes: there was boundless shame in them, and crushing embitterment. That servile glance of his struck a chord in me as another man, a brother. I felt the force of his humiliation at the woman’s hands and was ashamed for him.
“Thank you very much,” I said in German—she started at that—“but you shouldn’t have troubled.” Then I offered him my hand. A hesitation, a long one, then I felt damp, bony fingers, and suddenly, convulsively, an abrupt pressure in thanks. For a second his eyes shone as they looked at mine, and then they were hidden again by those slack eyelids. In defiance of the woman, I was going to ask him to sit down with us, and I must already have begun to trace the gesture of invitation, for she quickly ordered him, “You sit down again and don’t disturb us here.”
All at once I was overcome by disgust at the sound of her caustic voice and this scene of torture. What did I care for this smoky bar, this unpleasant whore and the feeble man, these fumes of beer, smoke and cheap perfume? I craved fresh air. I pushed the money over to her, stood up and moved away with decision as she came flatteringly closer to me. It revolted
me to help her humiliate another human being, and the determined manner of my withdrawal clearly showed how little she attracted me sensually. Her blood was up now, a line appeared around her mouth, but whatever word sprang to her lips she took care not to utter it, just turning on him and flouncing with undisguised hatred. But he was expecting the worst, and at this threatening movement he rapidly, with a hunted look, put his hand in his pocket and brought out a purse. It was obvious that he was afraid of being left alone with her now, and in his haste he had trouble untying the purse-strings—it was the kind of knitted purse adorned with glass beads that peasants and the lower classes carry. Anyone could see that he wasn’t used to throwing his money about, unlike the sailors who produce the coins clinking in their pockets with a sweeping gesture and fling them down on the table; he was clearly in the habit of counting money carefully and weighing the coins up in his fingers. “How he trembles for his dear, sweet pfennigs! Are we going too slowly for you? Wait!” she mocked, and came a step closer. He shrank back, and seeing his alarm she said, shrugging her shoulders and with unspeakable revulsion in her eyes, “Oh, I won’t take anything from you, I spit on your money. I know you’ve counted all your dear, nice little pfennigs. No one in the world must have too much money. And then of course,” she added, suddenly tapping his chest, “there’s the banknotes you’ve sewn in there so that no one will steal them!”
Sure enough, like a man with a weak heart suddenly clutching at his breast, he reached with a pale and trembling hand for a certain place on his coat, his fingers instinctively felt for the secret hiding-place and came away again, reassured. “Miser!” she spat. But then, suddenly, a flush rose to her victim’s face; he threw the purse abruptly at the other girl, who first cried out in alarm, then laughed aloud, and he stormed past her and out of the door as if escaping from a fire.
For a moment she still stood there, eyes flashing with fury. Then her eyelids fell apathetically again, weariness relaxed her body from its tension. She seemed to grow old and tired within a moment. Something uncertain and lost blurred the gaze now resting on me. She stood there like a drunk waking up, feeling numb and empty with shame. “He’ll be weeping and wailing for his money outside. Maybe he’ll go to the police and say we stole it. And he’ll be back tomorrow, but he won’t have me all the same. Anyone else can, but not him!”
She went to the bar, threw coins down on it and swallowed a glass of brandy in a single draught. The vicious light was back in her eyes, but blurred as if by tears of rage and shame. I felt nauseated by her, and that destroyed pity. “Good evening,” I said, and left. “Bonsoir,” replied the landlady. She did not look round but just laughed, shrill and scornful laughter.
When I stepped outside there was nothing in the alley but night and the sky, a sultry darkness with the moonlight veiled and endlessly far away. I greedily took great breaths of the warm yet reviving air, my sense of dread turned to amazement at the diversity of human fate, and I felt again—it is a feeling that can make me happy to the point of tears—how fate is always waiting behind every window, every door opens on new experience, the wide variety of this world is omnipresent, and even its dirtiest corners swarm with predestined events as if with the iridescent gleam of beetles decomposing. Gone was the distasteful part of the encounter, and my tension was pleasantly resolved, turning to a sweet weariness that longed to turn all I had just seen and heard into a more attractive dream. Instinctively I looked around me, trying to work out my way back through this tangle of winding alleys. Then a shadow—he must have come close without making any noise—approached me.
“Forgive me,”—and I immediately recognised that humble tone of voice—“but I don’t think you know your way around here. May I—may I show you which way to go? You are staying, sir, at…?”
I told him the name of my hotel.
“I’ll go with you… if you’ll permit me,” he immediately added humbly.
Dread came over me again. This stealthy, spectral step, almost soundless yet close beside me, the darkness of the sailors’ alley and the memory of what I had just witnessed all gradually turned to a dreamlike confusion of the emotions, leaving me devoid of judgement and unable to say no. I felt without seeing the subservience in his eyes, and noticed how his lips trembled; I knew that he wanted to talk to me, but in my daze, where the curiosity of my heart mingled uncertainly with physical numbness, I did nothing to encourage or discourage him. He cleared his throat several times, I noticed that he was trying and failing to speak, but some kind of cruelty which had, mysteriously, passed from the woman in the bar to me enjoyed watching him wrestle with shame and mental torment, and I did not help him, but let the silence lie black and heavy between us. And our steps, his quietly shuffling like an old man’s, mine deliberately firm and decided, as if to escape this dirty world, sounded odd together. I felt the tension between us more strongly all the time; it was a shrill silence now, full of unheard cries, and it already resembled a violin string stretched too taut by the time he at last—and at first with dreadful hesitation—managed to bring out his words.
“You saw… you saw… sir, you saw a strange scene in there. Forgive me… forgive me if I mention it again… but it must seem strange to you… and I must look very ridiculous. That woman, you see…”
He stopped again. Something was constricting his throat. Then his voice sank very low, and he whispered rapidly, “That woman… she’s my wife.” I must have given a start of surprise, for he quickly went on as if to apologise. “That’s to say, she was my wife… four or five years ago, it was in Geratzheim back in Hesse where I come from… sir, I wouldn’t like you to think ill of her… perhaps it’s my fault she’s like that. She wasn’t always… I… I tormented her. I took her although she was very poor, she didn’t even have any household linen, nothing, nothing at all… and I’m rich, or that’s to say well off… not rich… at least, I was then… and you see, sir, perhaps—she’s right there—perhaps I was tight-fisted with money… but then I always was, sir, before this misfortune… and my father and mother before me, we all were… and I worked hard for every pfennig… and she was light-minded, she liked pretty things… but she was poor, and I was always reproaching her for it… I shouldn’t have done it, I know that now, sir, for she is proud, very proud. You mustn’t think she’s really the way she makes out… that’s a lie, and she does herself violence only… only to hurt me, to torment me… and… and because she’s ashamed. Perhaps she’s gone to the bad, but I… I don’t think so, because, sir, she was very good, very good…”
He wiped his eyes in great agitation and stood still. Instinctively, I looked at him, and he suddenly no longer struck me as ridiculous. I found that I could even ignore his curiously servile manner of speech, the way he kept calling me “sir”, as only the lower classes do in Germany. His face was greatly exercised by his internal struggle to put his story into words, and his eyes were fixed as he began walking unsteadily forward again, on the roadway itself, as if there, in the flickering light, he were laboriously reading the tale that so painfully tore its way out of his constricted throat.
“Yes, sir,” he uttered now, breathing deeply, and in quite a different voice, a deep voice that seemed to come from a gentler world within him, “yes, she was very good… to me too, she was very grateful to me for saving her from poverty… and I knew that she was grateful, too, but… but I wanted to hear her say so… again and again, again and again… it did me good to hear her thank me… sir, it was so good, so very good, to feel… to feel that you are a better human being, when… when you know all the same that you’re not… I’d have given all my money to hear it again and again… and she was very proud, so when she realised that I was insisting she must be grateful, she wanted to say so less and less. That’s why… that, sir, is the only reason why I always made her ask… I never gave anything of my own free will… I felt good, making her come to beg for every dress, every ribbon… I tormented her like that for three years, I tormented her more and more??
? but it was only because I loved her, sir… I liked her pride, yet I still wanted to make her bow to me, madman that I was, and when she wanted something I was angry… but I wasn’t really, sir… I was glad of any chance to humiliate her, for… for I didn’t know how much I loved her…”
He stopped again. He was staggering as he walked now, and had obviously forgotten me. He spoke mechanically, as if in his sleep, in a louder and louder voice.
“And I didn’t know… I didn’t know it until that dreadful day when… when I’d refused to give her money for her mother, only a very little money… that is, I had it ready for her, but I wanted her to come and ask me once again… oh, what am I saying?… yes, I knew then, when I came home in the evening and she was gone, leaving just a note on the table… ‘Keep your damned money, I want no more to do with you,’ it said… nothing more… sir, I was like a lunatic for three days and three nights. I had the river searched and the woods, I gave the police large sums of money, I went to all the neighbours, but they just laughed and mocked me… there was no trace of her, nothing. At last a man came with news from the next village… he said he’d seen her… in the train with a soldier, she’d gone to Berlin. I followed her that very day… I neglected my business, I lost thousands… they stole from me, my servants, my manager, all of them… but I swear to you, sir, it was all the same to me… I stayed in Berlin, I stayed there a week until I found her among all those people… and went to her…” He was breathing heavily.
“Sir, I swear to you… I didn’t say a harsh word to her… I wept, I went on my knees… I offered her money, all my fortune, said she should control it, because then I knew… I knew I couldn’t live without her. I love every hair on her head… her mouth… her body, everything, everything… and I was the one who thrust her out, I alone… She was pale as death when I suddenly came in… I’d bribed the woman she was staying with… a procuress, a bad, vicious woman… she looked white as chalk standing there by the wall… she heard me out. Sir, I believe she was… yes, I think she was almost glad to see me, but when I mentioned the money… and I did so, I promise you, only to show her that I wasn’t thinking of it any more… then she spat… and then… because I still wouldn’t go… then she called her lover, and they both laughed at me… But, sir, I went back again day after day. The people of the house told me everything, I knew that the rascal had left her and she was in dire need, so I went once again… once again, sir, but she flew at me and tore up a banknote that I’d secretly left on the table, and when I next came back she was gone… What didn’t I do, sir, to find her again? For a year, I swear to you, I didn’t live, I just kept looking for her, I paid detective agencies until at last I found out that she was in Argentina… in… in a house of ill repute…” He hesitated a moment. The last words were spoken like a death rattle. And his voice grew deeper yet.