He accepts, by now, the fact that he is not writing. His joy is all the greater when Dora brings him the envelope with the first proofs, and he can see with his own eyes that there have been different times. He has never been particularly industrious, but he has done something – there are these stories, his name on the title page, nothing that you can really catch and feel but a stack of printed paper in an attractive typeface, slightly smaller than that used for the Country Doctor. At first he reads rather than correcting, reads the Hunger Artist with tears in his eyes. Could he still write that today? He sits half upright in bed and hopes that no one will disturb him, because now and then the assistant doctor looks in, and can hardly be sent away. He is left alone for over an hour. He has time to remember, sometimes putting the proofs down and enjoying the knowledge that he has done a little work, and will have more to do in the next few days, which really hardly seems credible.
10
Franz has briefly shown her the letter from her father withholding his consent, but even days later she is still indignant and remembers at once why she left home twice in two years, why she can’t forgive her father, why she doesn’t write to him. Seeing how hard Franz is taking it, she has wondered whether she can perhaps get her father to change his mind. If he knew how Franz is, that he does not have long to live, then why would it matter whether he is a real Jew? He is dying anyway, so what does it matter? Does it matter at all? Not a bit. Her father has no mercy, he has his God but not the least bit of mercy, and consequently she is not going to write to him. Franz has said: We must accept it, we must live with it, we must live with all sorts of other things, miracles included. On the day when the letter came she met Frau Hoffmann in the corridor; she was crying, and then told her everything. That, it turns out, was a mistake, for since then the Hoffmanns have never stopped urging them to get married as soon as possible: she must think of her future, they say, and unfortunately there’s not much time left. The first time they invite them very formally into the surgery, where the Hoffmanns are both sitting with grave faces, so that Dora wonders what on earth is going on. Frau Hoffmann does most of the talking, they only mean well, she says, they would do everything necessary, find a rabbi, the registrar, an offer that Dora immediately turns down, horrified, saying that was not Franz’s idea at all. As you wish, say the Hoffmanns, so she supposes that is the end of it, but she was wrong, because from then on not a day passes by without the Hoffmanns trying again in one way or the other. They take her aside, husband and wife in turn, and later the assistant doctor too, and she keeps saying No, wishing she could creep away and hide.
She has not said a word about those conversations to Franz. But he seems to notice something, because he asks if there is any news, something I ought to know, and she has tried answering that with half-truths. She has been talking to Dr Hoffmann, she says, a short chat, they are both so glad you are eating well and drinking beer and wine with your meals. She trusts young Dr Glas most, she says; he comes from Vienna three times a week and has recommended her to put somatose in the beer without Franz’s knowledge; he notices that it does not taste right but drinks it without demur. She also tries various methods of supplementing his diet, regularly adding eggs, without much hope of any improvement, but so that he will stay reasonably strong. Since the proofs arrived he seems to enjoy their little life in the sanatorium, he sits in bed correcting them, not doing much, changing a word here and there, until there is no more to be done. Once he writes: How did we manage for so long without R? For while Dora hardly leaves the sanatorium, Robert goes to Vienna every few days, always bringing new flowers so that they sometimes have too many: pink hawthorn, an aglaia, white lilac.
She likes it best when they are both in Franz’s room, each of them doing something on their own, because that reminds her of Berlin and the evenings when he wrote while she was there with him. Everything was quiet and enclosed, somehow devout and at the same time at ease as he sat there writing, his back bent as he leaned over the desk in those first weeks, when she felt almost afraid of his work. A copy of his mouse story has arrived from Prague. Franz has shown it to her in the newspaper, but now she has begun reading it, because Robert has read it too and wants to know what she thinks about it. Franz had told her about the mice. Was that in Berlin, or was he already in Prague? If she is to be honest, she doesn’t want to read the story, less because of the mice than because she is afraid of a truth about herself and him for which she is not prepared, as before with the mole story about the burrow, although she was only in the margins of that story. As meat. As something that one takes now and then to satisfy hunger. That was what had struck her when she read it, with a certain shock to find the truth was so simple. But is it? Luckily the new story is entirely different, much gentler, or that is her impression, with some slight mockery of Josefine, in whom, without too much trouble, she recognises Franz. This time there is no trace of Dora herself, but that is not bad, although finally, sad to say, it makes matters worse because at the end he is terribly alone: he is writing about his death and what will remain of him, apart from a few memories. It is the worst thing she has ever read. Fortunately there is no one close to her, it is long after eleven, so she sits there looking into a distant, colourless future when he will not be there any longer, my God, or she herself, if one can think about that, with the undisputed sense of how futile everything is.
Franz sleeps a great deal now, in the sun in the middle of the day on the balcony, as if he had long ago arrived in places that she, as an outsider, can never reach. At breakfast today he asked her to write to his parents. Robert does his very best, but to Franz’s parents he is a stranger who does not always strike the right note. There is not, however, very much to tell them. She can only reassure them while she thinks how different it would have been if they had ever come to see the two of them here, when they would know how well and kindly Franz is being looked after. Should she write that he is becoming more and more of a child again? The funny thing is that he himself begins talking about it. He has a guilty conscience because it is so long since he wrote, but that is because, as usual, he has been steering clear of any kind of activity entailing effort; at the most, eating is now a little more strenuous than an infant’s quiet sucking may have been in the past. For the first time, moreover, he turns to his father. He lists what he drinks most often, beer and wine, double-malt Schwechat beer and Adriaperle; he has now gone on from the latter to Tokay, although in such small quantities that his father will not be pleased, and nor will he. Hadn’t his father done army service in this district? Does he know the local wine from his own experience? He feels a great wish to drink great draughts of it with his father some day, for while his ability to drink is not very great he is as thirsty as anyone can be.
He has had unpleasant enteritis for days now, and can hardly drink at all, let alone eat, so Robert and Dr Glad are already beginning to think of artificial feeding. He has two alcohol injections a day, but the results are meagre; there seems to be no end to his fever and his thirst. He is beginning to say goodbye: he writes a long card to Max, and she takes it to catch the afternoon post. Goodbye, he has written, thank you for everything. Again and again she cannot help thinking that the end is near, yet every time the idea is new and beyond her grasp. And Frau Hoffmann keeps urging them to hurry, because there is not much time left. She talks on the telephone to Ottla, but not much comes of it. Ottla can hardly speak for grief, but all the same she talks to her in faint and helpless tones. Robert himself has said something of the same kind, but then she goes to sit with Franz, sees him feeling hope again, and cannot bring herself to ask him.
On almost every note he now writes about drinking. She remembers moments when she herself has been very thirsty, yet she cannot imagine the torment that it must be for him. He asks for good mineral water, only out of interest, manages to take a sip now and then, but even a glass of water is too much. When Dora puts it down beside him he shakes his head, and envies the fading lilac in the big vas
e, drinking even as it dies. He smiles when he writes such things down, as if he only has to go on writing to continue living. For some days it has struck her that Robert is collecting these notes; he pockets them on the sly when Franz is not looking. He has not asked her permission, but perhaps she would as soon he did it as not. It is often clear to her that these are the last few days, and then again she is in terrible confusion and cannot leave him. She tries to force herself when she sees how tormented he is, thinking that they have had it all, all their happiness in these difficult times. But a little later she feels she could do nothing but scream, because it has been less than a year. She is going to lose everything, everything when he has gone: his hands, his mouth, the protection he has meant, as if their love were a house, and someone wants to drive her out of it for ever.
The Hoffmanns have asked for another conversation. She knows by heart what they will say and the entreaties they will make, so she thinks she is armed against them, but this time the Hoffmanns are really serious about it. They have approached an official of the Jewish Community, and they want her to tell Franz, in front of this official, that she will marry him. At first all she notices is a man, just a man. It is afternoon, the mood is edgy, and Dr Hoffmann and his wife talk to her as if she were a difficult child, about her future, the fact that she is not provided for, she must think of what will become of her. They go on and on, hammering the most incomprehensible of notions into her. She refuses to listen. What kind of a life is hers to be? If Franz is no longer alive, what will be left of her own life? She can’t grasp it, and tells them so too, saying that all she sees is Franz. Why are you taking his last shred of hope from him? she asks. Frau Hoffmann says: But wouldn’t it be good? He’s asked you, hasn’t he? She admits that yes, he has asked her, although her father has not agreed to the marriage, but what does that really mean? Anyway, it was weeks ago. With that she stands up and leaves the room. She makes up her mind never to exchange a word with them again. Nor will she talk to Robert, because she is hurt to think that he is in league with the Hoffmanns. She feels soiled, but finally pulls herself together and goes back to Franz.
11
He spends those last few days in a changeable mood, half in the exhilaration caused by the alcohol injections, and anxious all round the clock about his difficulty in drinking. He is making no progress there; on the contrary, his thirst is getting worse all the time. He dreams about drinking more than he actually drinks, water now and then and a bottle of Tokay a week. He does not sense that these are his last days. There is a certain fluctuation that is a kind of incredulity, for sometimes he thinks he feels, with every fibre of his body, that he consists only of weakness, and then, the next moment, he pulls himself together again. He does not, unfortunately, have much to do; the corrected proofs went back to Berlin long ago, and the second set, the page proofs, have yet to arrive. He battles bravely with his meals, and lets Robert or Dora wash him. He sits on the balcony, leafing through a book now and then, preferring that to the newspaper, although there are newspapers as well, and the letters from Prague that the others answer for him, or that lie unanswered on his bedside table. If he had to tell everyone how he is, he would have to admit that he has never felt worse. But he can think clearly, he goes on writing his little notes, marvels at the patience that Robert and Dora show him, and that he thinks he probably would not show if their cases were reversed.
When he is alone he often thinks of his father. In all his letters until a few weeks ago he always turned to his mother. He addressed himself to them both, but was thinking of his mother, and now, all of a sudden, he sees himself with his father in all kinds of open-air cafés. He does not want to touch on the old subjects. It is enough that his father appears, that he has him not just as a threat but as someone who, like all of them, is trying to face up to his life, which may be a kind of forgiveness even with all the miles that separate them. If his father were here, he would probably fall silent on the spot, but so far Dora has succeeded in preventing him from making the long journey. After all, he is not alone, he has people to look after him, and he would certainly be no better off in Prague. Would his father be pleased with him as a dying man? He would praise him, he thinks, although he would be dissatisfied with the tempo, for his father is an irritable man and has always been quick to lose patience with the doctor, quite often rightly so. His father would clap him on the shoulder and say: You were none too quick off the mark even as a child, but this time I’m pleased with you – only to change his mind, as usual, from one moment to the next. Why make such a long business of it? You take your time, as we know, but it’s not right, there are people waiting, how much longer are you going to keep them waiting?
There is no telling what Dora thinks of it. She hardly takes her eyes off him, even when he is asleep, and he sleeps a great deal, in his chair on the balcony, in bed, without feeling much remorse. If he is awake, he is seized from time to time by a great desire for her body, and he thinks of Berlin, when she lay beside him, of his boarding house in Müritz, when she asked him what he wanted to do. He sees her mouth, throat and shoulders, the flesh under her dress, the places that he touched a hundred years ago and could still touch. It is particularly bad this evening, and look, she seems to have noticed, it is still as if they see something in each other. Would all that be different if they were married? They feel for each other’s flesh, or whatever it is that you feel for another person, they arouse it a little in each other, don’t they? In so far as that is possible in the circumstances. Dearest, she says, although he is not perfectly sure that she says that, but she is here, she is lying, like Ottla, half over his bed, and it moves him almost to tears to see how tender and young she is. They keep very still, everything is full of her solace, he thinks, her truth, if there is such a thing, for he has never before felt so close to that truth of hers.
His parents have written a card and sent it express. Obviously Dora has complained that they hear so little of them, which is not surprising given their regular outings. The weather in Prague is wonderful, they say, they go out walking and to all sorts of different drinks parties, an idea that fills him with a certain envy. Half the city seems to be out and about. They sit by the river, or further up in the hills; he knows all these places and can run them before his mind’s eye – they spend the afternoons on the water somewhere enjoying a boating expedition. Now that he has left the city for ever he regards it with new pleasure, as he regarded Milan, or Paris even, years ago, with the first glance that is a kind of blindness, a trusting immersion before the first experience. Isn’t it the same with human beings? At first it is always like magic, all you see is the enticing distance, splendour everywhere, so you are willing to put up with small misconceptions. But what do misconceptions mean? Isn’t it all about the way you are going? Doesn’t every way lead to your destination? I’d like to go along this pretty street. It leads slightly uphill, you don’t know exactly where you are, but then half-way up, let’s say below Prague Castle, the view is overwhelming.
He spends most of the time waiting for the second set of proofs from Berlin, and at first their arrival almost alarms him. But then it gives him pleasure again to read sentence after sentence of what he has written, less surprised this time because the impression is fresh, he concentrates on all the tiny points. It is remarkable how much you forget every time. Practically every sentence was forced out of him, but all the same he remembers, at most, the main outlines, a detail here and there that is still as it was, and for some reason or other shines brightly.
He has talked to Robert about the end, and whether there will be help in the last hours to keep them from becoming agony. Dora has gone shopping, so they can discuss it in peace, with the known alternatives set out on a piece of paper. He fears starving to death least, because he has had a certain amount of practice; he fears stifling, and dying of thirst can’t be pleasant. So how will it end? What, in fact, does the body die of? Does the heart suddenly stop, or the lungs, or the brain, because it is
not really all over until you stop thinking. Robert does not seem particularly surprised; he has thought all this over already. There is medication, he says, and mentions opium and morphine, says he will not let him down. Isn’t it strange that they talk about it just like that? Not for the first time, the doctor wonders why Robert is doing this, why he has been here for weeks instead of living his own life. He writes that down on a note. Why aren’t you getting on with your life? To which Robert replies that his life is here, in this room, I am with you and I relish every minute of that. Is it imaginable? For a certain time, yes, he thinks, probably. He observes the same in himself, life is still life, indeed he likes it better, perhaps, than ever; he rejoices over the silliest things.
He is not working very fast. He will never hold the finished book in his hands, that much is clear to him while he corrects proofs under Dora’s gaze, hoping that something of his work will remain, evidence that he has worked hard, that he had a task and has faced it, whatever the final verdict may be. He has realised many things very late, divining rather than understanding much of them. But anyway he went to Berlin with Dora, he made up his mind at once, and she is still here, which is far more than he ever dared to hope. She has brought fresh flowers and asks, as usual, if he needs anything, but there is nothing that he needs. The scent of flowers still comes in through the open window, not so penetrating as that of the first flowers weeks ago, it is the end of May, nearly summer, and they met in summer a year ago. When Robert is there she recalls it only too willingly, knows details that he has long ago forgotten, like the moment on the landing-stage when he suddenly embraced her. Do you remember? It was not a real embrace, more of a sketchy movement, the first attempt to draw close to her, and since then he has made great progress in that art. He misses the nights with her. Isn’t it incredible that you can choose someone to spend the night in a bed with you, asleep, as if it were nothing much? He has become braver with her at his side. Or was it that he was brave first, and then she was at his side? He would have liked to have children with her. And isn’t it strange, incidentally, that wishes and questions never stop until the end?
The Glory of Life Page 18
