“I want to ask you just one thing, Alfred! However you find him, I beg you, don’t tell him anything!”
“What are you thinking of? Come on, it won’t be as bad as all that. Is he still asleep?”
“No, he’s awake.”
“What kind of night did he have?”
“He slept until four in the morning. After that he was restless.”
“Leave me alone with him first. You must get a little peace into that pale little face of yours. You can’t go in to him like that.” Smiling, he pressed her hand, and entered the bedroom alone. Felix had drawn the covers up to his chin, and nodded at his friend. Alfred sat down on the edge of the bed, saying, “Well, it’s good to have you home again. You’ve recovered splendidly, and I hope you left your melancholy behind in the mountains.”
“Oh yes!” replied Felix. His expression was unchanged.
“Sit up a moment, please. I make such early visits only in my medical capacity.”
“Very well,” said Felix indifferently.
Alfred examined the invalid, asked some questions that Felix answered briefly, and finally said “Well, we can be reasonably satisfied so far.”
“Don’t try deceiving me,” replied Felix morosely.
“And don’t you persist in foolishness. We want to attack this thing head on. You must summon up the will to get better, stop acting the part of a man resigned to his fate. It doesn’t suit you.”
“So what do you suggest I do?”
“First of all, stay in bed for a few days, understand?”
“I don’t feel like getting up anyway.”
“That’s all to the good.”
Felix became more animated. “There’s just one thing I’d like to know. What happened to me yesterday? Seriously, Alfred, you must explain it to me. It’s all like a vague dream. The train journey, arriving, how I came up here and found myself in bed … “
“What is there to explain? You don’t have a giant’s strength, and when you’re overtired it’s easy to account for such things!”
“No, Alfred. Weariness such as I felt yesterday is something quite new to me. I’m still tired today, but I can think clearly again. Yesterday wasn’t so very unpleasant, but I don’t like remembering it. When I think that something of the kind could happen to me again—”
At this moment Marie entered the room.
“Well, you have Alfred to thank for this,” Felix told her. “He’s appointing you sick-nurse. I’m to lie here from now on. I have the honour of presenting you to my deathbed.”
Marie looked horrified.
“Don’t let this idiot bewilder you,” said Alfred. “He has to stay in bed for a few days, and I’m sure you’ll be kind enough to look after him.”
“Oh, Alfred, you have no idea what a ministering angel I have at my side,” cried Felix with heavy sarcasm.
Alfred gave her extensive instructions on the way to nurse and care for Felix, and finally said, “I’m telling you now, my dear Felix, I’ll come to see you as a doctor only every other day. That’s all you need. And we won’t say a word about your condition on the days in between. I’ll visit just to talk to you as usual then.”
“Good God,” cried Felix, “what a psychologist the man is! You can keep those tricks for your other patients, particularly the more simple-minded among them.”
“Felix, I’m talking to you man to man, so listen. It is true that you’re ill. But it’s also true that with proper nursing you’ll get better. I can’t say any more or any less than that.” With these words, he rose to his feet.
Felix’s eyes followed him with suspicion. “One might almost be tempted to believe him.”
“That’s up to you, my dear Felix,” replied the Doctor briefly.
“There, Alfred, now you’ve given yourself away again,” said the sick man. “That brusque manner to the severely ill—everyone knows that trick.”
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” said Alfred, turning to the door. Marie followed, and was going to accompany him out. “No, stay there,” he whispered in a peremptory tone. She closed the door behind him as he left.
“Come here, little one!” said Felix as she busied herself at the table with her needlework, a cheerful smile on her face. “Yes, here. There, you’re a good, good, very good girl.” These affectionate words were spoken in a sharp, bitter tone.
For the next few days Marie never moved from his bedside, and was full of kindness and devotion; she radiated a quiet, unaffected cheerfulness that was meant to do the invalid good, and sometimes really did. Often, however, he was irritated by the gentle good humour with which Marie tried to surround him, and then, when she began chattering about some piece of news in the paper, or saying she thought he looked better or talking of their future life once he really was better, he would interrupt, asking her to be good enough to leave him alone and spare him all that stuff. Alfred called daily, sometimes twice a day, but hardly seemed to be troubled about his friend’s physical state. He spoke of mutual friends, told stories about the hospital, and embarked upon artistic and literary discussions, although taking care that Felix wasn’t called upon to say too much. Both his lover and his friend acted so naturally that Felix sometimes had difficulty in defending himself against the audacious hopes that forced themselves upon him. He told himself that those two were only doing their duty in acting out the comedy always performed, with varying degrees of success, for the benefit of the very ill. But although he thought he was simply going along with them and acting in the play too, he often found himself talking of the world and other people as if he were destined to spend many more years in the sunlight, among the living. And then he remembered that exactly this strange sense of well-being was often said to be a sign of the approaching end in victims of his own illness, and bitterly rejected all hope. He even reached the point where he thought vague anxious feelings and dark moods were a good sign, and almost felt glad of them. Then he thought how senseless that kind of logic was—only to realise at last that there could be no knowledge and no certainty in his case. He had begun reading again, but couldn’t enjoy novels; they bored him, and many, particularly those offering a long-term view of a flourishing future full of incident, left him in a dark mood. He turned to philosophers, and asked Marie to take Schopenhauer and Nietzsche out of the bookshelves for him. But their wisdom brought him peace only for a short while.
One evening Alfred found him just as he had lowered a volume of Schopenhauer to his bedspread, and was staring straight ahead of him with a gloomy expression. Marie was sitting beside him, busy with some needlework.
“I’ll tell you something, Alfred,” he told the visitor with an almost agitated voice. “I’m going to go back to reading fiction.”
“What’s all this about?”
“Well, at least they’re honest storytelling, good or bad, about artists or failures. But these gentlemen,” and he glanced at the volume lying on his bed, “are shocking poseurs.”
“I see!”
Felix sat up in bed. “Despising life when you’re as healthy as a god, looking death calmly in the eye when you’re walking around Italy and life around you is blooming in the brightest of colours—that’s what I call posturing. Shut one of those gentlemen up in a bedroom, condemn him to be feverish and breathless, tell him he’s going to be buried some time between the first of January and the first of February next year. And then get him to philosophize to you!”
“Oh, come on,” said Alfred. “What kind of paradox is that?”
“You don’t understand. You can’t understand! But it nauseates me. Poseurs, all of them!”
“What about Socrates?”
“A play-actor. A man behaving naturally fears the unknown, and at the very best he contrives to hide it. I’ll tell you straight out, people falsify the psychology of the dying, because all the great figures of world history of whose deaths we know anything felt duty-bound to put on an act for posterity. And what about me? What am I doing? Yes, what? If I talk calmly to
you about all kinds of things that are no longer anything to do with me, what exactly am I doing?”
“Come on, don’t talk so much, particularly not such nonsense.”
“I too feel in duty bound to pretend, whereas in reality I’m prey to a boundless, raging fear of a kind that healthy people can’t imagine. They’re all afraid, and that includes the heroes and the philosophers, only they make the best play-actors.”
“Do calm down, Felix,” Marie begged him.
“And I expect,” the invalid continued, “you two, like all the rest, believe you can look eternity steadily in the eye, but that’s because you have no real idea of it yet. You have to be condemned, like a criminal—or like me, then you can talk about it. As for the poor devil who goes to the gallows with composure, the great sage who thinks up maxims after draining the cup of hemlock, the captured freedom fighter smiling as he sees the guns levelled at his chest, they’re all pretending, I know they are—I know their composure, their smiles are a pose, because they’re all afraid, horribly afraid of death. It’s as natural as dying itself.”
Alfred had sat down on the bed calmly, and when Felix had finished he replied, “Be that as it may, first it’s not sensible of you to talk so much and in such a loud voice. And second, you’re as tasteless as all-be-damned and a terrible hypochondriac!”
“Just now, when you’re doing so well!” cried Marie.
“Does she really think so, after all?” asked Felix, turning to Alfred. “Do please explain to her, will you?”
“My dear friend,” replied the Doctor, “you’re the one who needs an explanation. But you’re being wilful today, and I must decline to give one. In two or three days, as long as you don’t launch into any more long speeches, you’ll probably be fit to get up, and then we’ll have a proper discussion of your state of mind.”
“If only I didn’t see through you so clearly,” said Felix.
“Very well, very well,” replied Alfred. “Don’t look so upset,” he added, to Marie. “Even our friend here will see reason again some time. And now, why aren’t there any windows open here? It’s a perfect autumn day outside.”
Marie rose and opened a window. Dusk was just beginning to fall, and the air that came in was so refreshing that she longed to let it caress her for longer. She stayed by the window, leaning out. Suddenly she felt as if she had left the room itself. She might have been out-of-doors on her own; it was many days since she had experienced such a pleasant sensation. Now, as she put her head back into the room, the musty sickroom atmosphere met her and lay oppressively on her breast. She saw Felix and Alfred talking and couldn’t make out the exact words, but there was no need for her to take part in their conversation. Once again she leaned out. The road was quiet and empty, and only the muted sound of passing carriages came from the nearby main street. A few people out walking strolled along the pavement at their leisure. A couple of servant girls were standing at the entrance of the building opposite, talking and laughing. Like Marie herself, a young woman in that building was looking out of a window. At that moment Marie couldn’t imagine why the young woman didn’t go for a walk instead. She envied all these people; they were all happier than she was.
September brought mild and pleasant days. The evenings came early but were warm, without any wind.
Marie had fallen into the habit of moving her chair away from the invalid’s bedside and sitting by the open window as often as she could. She could sit there for hours, particularly when Felix was asleep. Deep fatigue had come over her, an inability to be perfectly clear in her mind about what was going on, indeed a pronounced disinclination to think much at all. There were hours on end when she entertained neither memories nor ideas of the future. She was dreaming with her eyes open, and was glad when a little fresh air wafted into her face from the street. Then, when she caught a faint moan from the sickbed, she woke with a start. She realised that the gift of sympathy had gradually left her. Her pity had turned to nervous strain, her grief to mingled fear and indifference. She certainly had nothing to reproach herself for, and when the doctor in all seriousness called her an angel, as he had done recently, she need hardly feel ashamed. Yet she was tired, infinitely tired. It was ten or twelve days since she had been out of the house. Why? Why? She had to think about it. Well, of course, the thought came to her like a flash of inspiration, because it would have wounded Felix, that was why! And she was happy to stay with him, of course. She adored him no less than before. It was just that she was tired, and that was only human. And her longing for a few hours out-of-doors became stronger and stronger. She was being childish in denying herself its satisfaction. Felix himself ought to understand, after all. And now she realised yet again how infinitely she must love him, since she wanted to keep even the vaguest sense of injury away from him. She had let her needlework slip to the floor, and glanced at the bed, which now lay entirely in the shadow of the bedroom wall. It was dusk, and the sick man had fallen asleep after a quieter day. She could actually have gone out now, and he would have known nothing about it. Oh, to go down into the street, and then around the corner, and be among other people again, walk on to the Stadtpark and then to the Ring, past the bright lights of the opera house in the middle of a busy crowd of people—and she longed so much to be in that crowd! But when would she know anything like that again? It could only be when Felix was better, and what were the street and the park and other human beings to her, what was life itself to her without him?
She stayed at home. She moved her chair close to his bed, took the sleeping man’s hand and wept sad, quiet tears over it, and she was still weeping when her thoughts had long ago strayed from the man on whose pale hand her tears fell.
When Alfred visited Felix next day he found him better than he had been for a few days past. “If this goes on,” he told him “I’ll let you get up in a day or so.” The invalid received this with suspicion, as he did everything said to him now, answering with a morose “Yes, yes.” Alfred, however, turned to Marie, who was seated at the table, and said, “I’d like to see you looking a little better yourself.”
Even Felix, who looked more closely at Marie on hearing these words, noticed how very pale she was. He was used to quickly dismissing those thoughts of her self-sacrificing kindness that sometimes crossed his mind. At times he suspected that her martyrdom was not entirely genuine and felt upset by the patient manner she wore, just for show. At other times he wished she would be impatient. He was waiting for the moment when she would give herself away with a word, a look, and he could angrily throw the facts in her face: he hadn’t been taken in for a moment, her hypocrisy revolted him, she’d better leave him to die in peace. Now that Alfred had mentioned her appearance she flushed slightly, and smiled. “I’m feeling perfectly well,” she said.
Alfred came closer to her. “It’s not as simple as that. Your Felix won’t have much joy of his recovery if you’re the next to fall ill yourself.”
“But I really am well.”
“Tell me, are you getting any little fresh air?”
“I truly don’t feel the need for it.”
“Felix, you tell me—is she with you all the time?”
“You know she is,” said Felix. “She’s an angel.”
“Forgive me for saying so, Marie, but that’s just plain stupid. It’s useless, childish to put such a strain on yourself. You must get some air. It’s necessary, I prescribe it.”
“Oh, what do you want me to do?” asked Marie, with a faint smile. “I assure you that I don’t feel I need it.”
“Never mind that. If you don’t feel you need it, that’s a bad sign too. You must go out today. Sit in the park for an hour. Or if you don’t feel happy about that, take a cab and go for a drive, around the Prater, for instance. It’s wonderful there at the moment.”
“But—”
“No buts. If you go on like this, if you’re a ministering angel all the time, you’ll ruin your health. Take a look in the mirror. I tell you, you’ll ruin you
r health.”
As Alfred said this Felix felt a sharp pang go to his heart. Grim anger raged in him. He thought he saw an expression of deliberate endurance inviting sympathy on her face, and it went through his mind, like an irrefutable truth, that this woman had undertaken to suffer with him, die with him. She’ll ruin her health? Well, yes, of course. Did she intend to go about with pink cheeks and shining eyes while he himself hastened towards his end? And does Alfred really believe, Felix thought, that the woman who is his lover has any right to think beyond the hour that would be his last? Will she herself perhaps dare—
With avid rage, Felix studied the expression on Marie’s face while the doctor kept repeating what he had just said in a tone of displeasure. At last he induced Marie to promise that she would go out for a breath of fresh air today, explaining that keeping this promise was as much part of her nursing duties as all the rest. Yes, because I don’t count any more, thought Felix. Because they might as well leave a man who’s done for anyway to get worse and worse. He shook hands apathetically with Alfred when his friend left at last. He hated him.
Marie went no further than the bedroom door with the doctor, and then came straight back to Felix. He was lying there with his lips compressed and a deep furrow of anger on his brow. She understood him, she understood him so well. Leaning down, she smiled at him. He took a deep breath, wanting to speak, to fling some outrageous insult in her face. He felt as if she deserved it. But she, stroking his hair and still with that tired, patient smile on her face, whispered lovingly, very close to his lips, “I won’t go out.” He did not reply. She sat at his bedside all through that long evening and until far into the night, when at last she fell asleep in her chair.
When Alfred called next day, Marie tried to avoid talking to him. But he didn’t seem interested in her own appearance today, and turned all his attention to Felix. He said no more about getting up soon, and the invalid felt reluctant to ask him. He was feeling weaker than he had for a few days, and less like talking than ever; he was glad when the doctor had left, and gave only curt, fretful answers to Marie’s questions. When, after hours of silence, she asked late in the afternoon “How are you feeling now?” he replied, “What does it matter?” He had clasped his hands above his head, he closed his eyes, and soon fell asleep. Marie stayed beside him for some time, watching him, and then her thoughts blurred and she drifted into dreams. When she woke up again some time later, she felt a curiously pleasant sensation flowing through her limbs, as if she had been roused from a sound, deep sleep. She got to her feet and raised the window blinds, which had been lowered. It was as if the fragrance of late flowers had wandered into the narrow street from the nearby park today. The air flooding into the room had never seemed to her so wonderful before. She looked round at Felix, who lay there still sleeping, breathing peacefully. At such moments, she normally felt an emotional impulse that kept her spellbound in the room, permeated by a sense of dull melancholy. Today she was calm, was pleased that Felix was sleeping, and without any inner struggle, as naturally as if it happened every day. She came to the decision to spend an hour out-of-doors. Going into the kitchen on tiptoe, she asked the maid to sit in the sickroom for a while, quickly picked up her hat and parasol, and flew rather than walked downstairs. Now she was out in the street. After walking quickly down a couple of quiet alleys she reached the park and was glad to see the shrubs and trees beside her, and above her the dusky blue sky she had longed for so much. She sat down on a bench. Nursemaids and maidservants sat on the benches near her, and small children were playing in the avenues. But as dusk was falling there would soon be an end to all this activity. The nursemaids called to their charges, took their hands and left the park. Soon Marie was almost alone, except for a few people still passing by, and now and then a gentleman turned to look at her.