The World Is Made of Glass

by Morris West

  “What did he propose?” Jung is chuckling like a mischievous schoolboy. “Companionship? Love? Friendship?”

  “And marriage! As soon as the banns could decently be posted, dispensations obtained – oh yes! there was no escaping Mother Church this time! – and settlements arranged.”

  “And you, of course, accepted?”

  “Wrong, my dear colleague! I put him off. I told him I loved him very much, had loved him from the moment of our first meeting. I was deeply moved, deeply honoured by his proposal; but the memory of Ilse was still too fresh for me and for him, too. I could not bear to share his heart with a ghost. I was an all or nothing woman. There were other things he had to understand, too. I was no child bride. I was a liberated spirit, with my own career and my own properties. I would not relinquish either in any marriage settlement. I was not a virgin either. I had loved and been loved; but if I married him, I would be faithful to death. As for the Church, well, in Austria and the Empire we were stuck with that. I would not convert. I would consent to the children being brought up as Roman Catholics. It wasn’t all said as bluntly as I’m putting it to you, but that was the gist of it. I asked him to think about it very carefully and write to me when he got back to Gamsfeld.”

  Jung throws back his head and bellows with laughter.

  “You really were playing a rough game. ‘You want me; put it in writing!’ My God, that’s cheek for you! And how did he react?”

  “He was much more of a gentleman than you, my dear doctor. He didn’t laugh. He told me that he knew what his answer would be. He loved me. He wanted me for his wife. He wanted me to be the mother of his sons. Nothing could change that. But he would respect my wishes and write to me from Gamsfeld. The next day he went home. Ten days later his letter arrived. It was as tender and passionate as I had ever dared to hope. There was other good news too. The archbishop had consented to our marriage; and in consideration of my total willingness to have the children baptised and educated as Catholics, he had granted a dispensation for a public wedding in the church at Gamsfeld. Under the marriage settlement, I would hold Silbersee in my own right, and in default of a male heir, Gamsfeld would pass to me in the event of Johann’s death.”

  “So, finally you had it all. How did Lily put it?”

  “I was home and happy.”

  “And were you truly happy?”

  “At that time? Absolutely.”

  “In spite of Lily’s suspicions?”

  “As I said, who would listen? What could she prove? Beside, she was going home. She depended on me for a pension – and in spite of it all she still loved me.

  “You’re very sure of that, aren’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “How did your father take the news?”

  “Well. That’s worth a footnote at least! We were sitting at dinner on his first night back from Vienna. Old fashioned fellow that he was, he had taught me to talk business only between the pear and the cheese. So that’s when I told him. He didn’t seem surprised; but he seemed at a loss for words. Finally he said, with a kind of reluctant admiration: ‘Well, I have to salute you, my girl! Even your mother wasn’t as tough as you are!’ Then he filled his wine glass and raised it in a toast. To your marriage! I wish you well. I hope you don’t talk in your sleep!’”

  There is silence in the room, now. Jung is scribbling rapidly in his notebook. He is no longer smiling. Something has changed quite abruptly between us. I realise – perhaps too late – that he is a very skilful interrogator, at one moment terse, at another tender, at another a bawdy buffoon. He has manoeuvred me into disclosures which a few hours ago would have seemed impossible. He looks up at me and points the tip of his pencil at me like a divining rod. He tells me gravely:

  “We are finished with history now. You have already told me the basic facts of your marriage, your husband’s illness, your alienation from your child, your husband’s death. But something’s missing. I have a sketch, not a picture. I want to know more about your marriage – not chronology, not events – the taste of it, the feel of it, and when it changed and how it changed. I know this part is hard; but for your own sake, please try.”

  “The taste of it, the feel of it? There wasn’t one taste or feeling. There were hundreds. They changed every day. You’ll probably smile when I tell you that when I stood at the altar with Johann I really did wish I was a virgin bride. In bed that night, I was glad I wasn’t. It was an ecstasy that seemed to blot out the past for both of us, a rebirth into a pristine world. We made a pact that all our yesterdays would be blotted out at sunrise. For both of us there would be only today and tomorrow. Johann told me how much he had felt the alienation from his father and how much he wanted a son. I told him how much I, who had never had a mother, wanted to be one. It was a summer idyll and we were happy.

  “We worked well together, too. Johann had a natural flair for command and organisation. The village men and the estate folk had much respect for him. He liked physical labour and it pleased him that he could hew wood and pitch hay and school a horse with the best of the country folk. As for me, I was my husband’s consort, not some homebody scolding the maids and knitting and serving tea. It took the Gams felders a little time to get used to the Lady of the Manor sitting on the fence of the schooling yard or, when we got our annual epidemic of gastro-enteritis among the babies, making the rounds with the village doctor. My proudest day was when Johann came in, late from paying the fruit pickers, and told me: ‘You must have arrived, my love. The baker’s wife has named her first daughter after you.’

  “At the beginning, I left Lily and Hans Hemeling to run Silbersee. Lily, after her vacation, seemed more relaxed, less fretful about herself and her future. She had bought her cottage; it was being made ready for her. As soon as I was properly settled into matrimony, she would take her leave. When I fell pregnant, four months after the wedding, I asked whether she would change her mind and stay on as Nanny for the baby. She refused, quite firmly. I told her it was sad that with so much happiness to share, I couldn’t share it with her. She gave me a strange look, half hostile, half pitying and said, ‘I wonder, lassie, what it will take to teach you the truth. We’re both whores. We’re both lucky. I’m ending respectable. You’ve married rich, and by God’s sweet grace you’re having a baby. But don’t push your luck any further; you can’t afford the gamble.’ I couldn’t afford to be angry either. I shrugged and dropped the matter.

  “I told her to feel free about leaving. Hans Hemeling could run Silbersee when I wasn’t there. I would write to Coutts bank immediately about her pension arrangements. She had, as always, the last word: ‘You’re mistress of Silbersee, luv; but I’ve been your Papa’s mistress for a long time now. He’s the one that must tell me when the time is right.’

  “How and when he told her, I never knew. I know he gave her his mother’s jewels, because he told me, in his offhand style, after it was all done. I know he travelled with her to London. He told me that, too. I was at Gamsfeld when it all happened. Lily didn’t say goodbye to me. She left a note for me with Papa. I read it and burned it.”

  “What did the note say?”

  “It was just a quotation from the Bible. Something about the Lord setting a mark on Cain.”

  Jung nods in recognition and gives me the quotation word for word:

  “‘And the Lord set a mark upon Cain that whosoever found him should not kill him. And Cain went out from the face of the Lord and dwelt as a fugitive on the earth, at the East side of Eden.’”

  He is obviously more impressed by it than I was. He forgets that I am not bred in the same context of thought as he is. I explain that while I was wounded by the dissolution of my relationship with Lily, I was quite happy that she was gone. It was only later, much too late, that I felt the sadness and understood how much we still meant to each other.

  “Aunt Sibilla stayed on at Gamsfeld. I was happy about that. She could run the castle. I was left free to work with Johann. Besides, Aunt Sibilla’s
presence was constant testimony to my innocence. Every week we would go together to lay fresh flowers on Ilse’s grave. She would accompany Johann to church so that I did not have to apostatise from my respectable unbelief! For my part I encouraged her in the project of snaring Papa, who, with Lily gone, was becoming rather desperate and footloose. In short, it was family life; but now it was my family and Johann’s and I felt I had earned all the happiness we had.”

  “Earned it?” Jung was shocked out of his silence. “By murder?”

  “Why are you angry with me? You asked me to tell you how I felt then, not how I feel now.”

  “I’m sorry.” He apologises instantly. “I was distracted for a moment. Please do go on.”

  I am irritated by his lapse. After all, if he is having an affair now, if he has had them in the past, he must know that the enjoyment depends on an illusion of innocence, a justification by some code or other. One fornicates for lovers’ fun. Adultery has to be blamed on the partner: the wife who doesn’t understand, the husband who can’t give satisfaction. Cat burglars are acrobats manqués. Even murderers don’t need a very complicated charter to justify their trade; arms peddlers like Basil Zaharoff don’t need a charter at all! Jung wants to know what’s bothering me. I tell him in so many words. He is annoyed.

  “Let’s leave the polemic, shall we? I’ve apologised. I meant it. Go on, please.”

  “Well, the baby comes next, I suppose. We were both disappointed it wasn’t a boy; but there was still lots of time and lots of loving and this was a beautiful, healthy child. Johann wanted her to have my name, Magda. I told him I’d settle for Anna Sibilla. This gave her part of my name and all of Aunt Sibilla’s. Then, for good measure, we tacked on Gunhild, which was the name of Johann’s married sister. Again, what do I say? With a baby in the house and a proud father and a healthy mother with plenty of milk, it had to be a happy time. There was much stitching and sewing and embroidery so that Anna Sibilla’s christening day was like Saint Nicholas’ Day, with gifts piled high in the hallway.

  “It was also the first time I had ever seen Papa unable to cope with an occasion. When I put the baby in his arms, so that he could be photographed with his first grandchild, he became acutely embarrassed and fled, immediately afterwards, to the privacy of Johann’s study. I found him there an hour later contemplating a very large glass of brandy. He was not drunk enough to be angry; but only a few paces away from being maudlin. When he saw me he raised his glass and said: To life – eh? It goes on regardless!’ Then he took me by the hand and drew me towards him. I stiffened immediately; afraid he might be just far gone enough to try to maul me. He dropped my hand as if it were a live coal.

  “Then without warning he told me: ‘Your mother’s dead. It happened while I was in London with Lily. I didn’t want to upset you while you were still carrying the child. Anyway, that closes the account for both of us!’ All I could say was, ‘Thank you, Papa. Thank you for being so considerate.’ Then I walked out and left him, picked up the baby and took her upstairs to give her the breast. I remember thinking, ‘You’re coming on quite nicely, my darling. At least you’ve got your own mother to feed you!’ Then for no reason at all I began to cry, and I couldn’t stop and Johann had to come and comfort me, while Aunt Sibilla explained with lofty tolerance: ‘Post-partum depression. Lots of women get it. It’ll pass in a few days. Then you’ll be merry as a cricket again!’”

  “And were you?” asks Jung drily.

  “Yes. When I got tired of feeding the baby, Johann got a wet nurse from the village; so very soon I was able to be out and about with him again. Silbersee needed a visit. Hans Hemeling was doing well; he just wanted me to stiffen his authority from time to time. Then we began to travel, visiting the great stud farms, Einseideln, Lipizza, Bois-Roussel, Landshut, Janow Podlaski. It was too early for us to join that distinguished company, but we began to be known as judicious buyers whose breeding records would bear watching. Yes, it was a merry time; and homecomings were always wonderful. Anna Sibilla was a happy child, and why not? Her parents adored her. Her aunt doted on her. A whole army of admiring servants existed only to serve her. I was still trying to start another baby – a son this time for sure! – but somehow it wasn’t happening.

  “There was no discernible reason. We were both healthy and potent. Then Johann began to complain of feeling listless and tired. He lost appetite and weight. One night while we were making love, he cried out and complained that I had hurt him. I put on the lights and made him lie quiet while I examined him. There was a hard swelling in the scrotal sac. The lymph nodes in the groin were enlarged. Early in the morning I sent a telegram to Papa at the hospital in Salzburg. He came immediately, examined Johann and confirmed my diagnosis; testicular carcinoma, which already had disseminated itself through the lymph nodes. You know what that meant twenty years ago, doctor – even today in 1913! It meant an orchidectomy and a long and painful decline to death.

  “Together Papa and I delivered the death sentence to Johann. Don’t ever believe breeding doesn’t count. In horses or men, it shows! I was never so proud of my man as I was at that moment. He held me tightly in his arms for a long time. Then he told me to get the hell out of the room. He needed to be alone for a while. He would join us downstairs when he was ready.

  “While we were waiting for him, Papa and I walked out into the sunshine and held a council of war. The operation would be done in Salzburg. Then we would bring Johann home to Gamsfeld with a pair of nurses. I asked Papa how long he might last. At a guess, Papa said, six months, certainly less than a year. Then he asked me, ‘How is your nerve?’ I asked him why. He said flatly: ‘Because you’re going to have to decide how much you and he can take. If I were in his place now I’d be loading my pistol and finding a nice quiet place to blow my brains out. That’s why I suggest you treat him – I’ll work with you as the specialist surgeon – and keep the local man out of it as far as you can. He’s very religious. Any whiff of scandal and he’ll back away instantly. Remember the Catholics still bury suicides in unconsecrated ground. You and I will sign the death certificate.’”

  “Was your father suggesting a death pact with Johann?” asks Jung.

  “On the contrary. He was asking me if my nerves were strong enough to terminate Johann’s life alone, when the time came. I told him yes. He nodded approval and said, ‘Good! Hold to that. You don’t know how bad it will be.’

  “Just after that Johann came out to join us. He was pale but composed. He said he was going to walk down to the village and talk to Father Lukas, the parish priest. I offered to go with him. He kissed me and told me he would rather go alone. I felt hurt and shut out. Papa said calmly: ‘Let him be. Each of us has to make his own terms with the Reaper. Religion helps, if you’re a real believer.’ I burst into tears. Papa held me close and kissed my hair and then walked me slowly round to the rose garden, where we came on little Anna picking blooms with Aunt Sibilla. Papa said, ‘You take the child. I’ll break the news to Sibilla.’ I picked up the little one and carried her off to see the new foals in the far meadow.

  “Dinner that night was a sombre meal. Papa and I were leaving the next morning to take Johann to the hospital in Salzburg. I would stay at a hotel until he was ready to come home. Aunt Sibilla would stay at Gamsfeld and look after little Anna. Over the coffee, Johann said: ‘I’m sorry to put you through all this; but there’s something I’d like you all to know. I’ve never been especially religious; but I had a long talk with Father Lukas today. He heard my confession, helped me make a kind of peace with what’s going to happen. I’m telling you this because I don’t want you to grieve for me. Just hold my hand and help me to get through it like a man!’

  “I know this is going to sound quite irrational – but it was as if he had slammed a door in my face. I had killed to get him. I was ready to die for him. I was ready to lie down beside him and go out with him if he wanted. Instead, at one stride, he had removed himself, stepped into a secret room that was barred
to me. For that single, crazy moment, I hated him. I hated his God. I hated Father Lukas, everything, everything. Then Aunt Sibilla’s calm voice cut across my black musing: ‘When Johann comes home and the nurses move in, we’ll need more space. There are two spare rooms along from mine. I suggest we make those over as an infirmary. If you agree, I’ll have it done while you’re in Salzburg.’ In an instant I was sane again; but – I hope this makes sense – I’d seen the black devils and I knew they were always lying in wait for me.

  “It makes sense.” Jung is gentle now and solicitous. “When something like that happens in a family, it’s a rough ride for everyone.”

  “I can’t tell you how rough it was. For Johann there was the trauma of mutilation, the constant pain, the long days and nights of coming to terms with dissolution. For me there was the daily horror of seeing what had been done to that beautiful body that I had killed to possess, of knowing what was going on inside it, and of seeing the spirit that inhabited it withdraw further and further from me into its own twilight world.

  “I would come in to soothe him and find him with a rosary in his hands, telling the beads, staring at the crucifix as if he drew strength from that other mutilated figure. Father Lukas came every day to give him the communion and pray with him. One day he came out of Johann’s room and said, ‘Your husband is a man very close to God. He has accepted his suffering and offered it as a sacrifice for your well being and that of your little girl.’ He meant it kindly, I know; but I found the notion grotesque. What kind of a god made a trade in human suffering?”

  “Tell me about your days,” says Jung mildly. “How did you accommodate? What did you do?”