by John Berger
Taking Nuša’s arm, G. led her towards von Hartmann and his wife. A silence fell upon that part of the room and several guests ostentatiously turned their backs as the couple passed. He presented Herr von Hartmann and Frau von Hartmann to Nuša, which was the contrary of all that etiquette demanded. Then, in a stentorian voice, he thanked the Austrian banker for inviting them to the ball and, as the music started up again, swept his partner away. Von Hartmann stared at them dancing, his face fixed in an absolutely expressionless mask. His voice when he spoke was calm and flat. The only thing which indicated his rage was his choice of epithet; he wanted to find an expression which came from the same depths as the woman whom G. had had the effrontery to bring to their ball. To come with a plate-licker! he said. His wife smiled. She knew who G. was, and his insolence filled her with enthusiasm.
Nuša’s dress was like an iris, tight before it fully opens, when its colour is still folded in upon itself, but an iris upside down, with the tips of its petals on the floor. It was not, however, her dress which differentiated her from the other women there. Her dress merely compelled those who were staring to compare her with themselves. If she had come in her everyday clothes, they would have considered any such comparison ludicrous. Within minutes of their arrival everybody was recounting or discussing the scandal.
An Italian has brought a Slovene to the ball. A Slav girl from the villages, dressed outrageously in pearls and muslin and Indian silk. When she dances the waltz, she dances like a drunken bear, clutching her partner close to her and thumping with her feet.
A young officer in a blue uniform gravely informed a white-haired gentleman that he was willing to challenge the interloper who had had the temerity to insult His Imperial Majesty’s Red Cross. The white-haired Viennese was a general who had fought at Solferino. If he spoke German, my boy, you would be justified. But they tell me he has nothing but Italian. And in that case I must forbid you.
A waltz is a circle in which ribbons of sentiment rise and fall. The music unties the bows—and ties them again.
In most circumstances the high society of Trieste would have been far too adept at inflicting snubs for anybody in Nuša’s present position to remain self-possessed. Her heart was beating faster than usual and her fingers felt constricted in their gloves. But this was caused by excitement and her anticipation of the success of her plan rather than by confusion or embarrassment. At the ball she enjoyed several unusual advantages. She and G. could pass among the guests without ever becoming engaged in their conversation. They swooped from group to group like birds among heads of cattle. There was the music. It was stronger than the people; they danced to it. And the music was not strange to her. True, she could not dance the mazurka, but she could dance the waltz and the polka, and when she danced with G., she felt secure. She would not trust him until he had paid her. But in the improbable and exposed position she was in, she found familiar things to reassure her. Like the music, he was one of them. The question of why he had brought her there did not occupy her greatly because she knew why she herself was there. She was there to get a passport. She had watched G. warily for ten days and she was confident that, whatever his motives, he would not leave her unprotected. There were also the robes, the jewelry, the flowers, the ribbons. The people were dressed to look their best and this, she felt, limited what they could do. What she was wearing was also a protection. The hostile glances flung at her changed their expression slightly when they took in her turban or her train; for a moment their hostility was checked in its stride. Before it had recovered itself, she could turn her back.
Once they were the first to take the floor. As G. had expected, no other couple was willing to join them. They danced alone. But to a certain young lady the idea of forgoing a dance on which she had placed precise hopes was too much. Why should she stand there whilst her partner goggled at that idiot of a Slav? She raised her hand and placed it decisively on the shoulder of the man she hoped to marry. Obediently, he took her by the waist. Other couples followed.
A waltz is a circle in which ribbons of sentiment rise and fall. The music unties the bows and ties them again.
Very little that happened in the ballroom escaped G.’s notice. The revulsion he had first felt in face of von Hartmann had by now extended to every guest, man and woman, at the ball. He wanted to express this revulsion by insulting and defying them. But he knew them well enough to know that to insult or threaten them openly, to shout or shoot at them, would only have amused and confirmed them. They were all addicts of the theatre. His defiance had to be persistent, devious, and cumulative. Having determined to take this course ten days ago, and having now set out, he was entirely preoccupied, like an aviator in mid-flight, with his immediate situation. He could no longer recall his own motives or think beyond the outcome of the night. Each moment was a moment of tension and triumph. When he spoke to Nuša, he spoke gently and formally—as to his own defiance.
Von Hartmann left the ballroom. It was too late, he reflected, to order his wife to refuse G., for she would disobey him as soon as he left; worse still, she was too primitive, too unintelligent to discern the calculated insult in G.’s behaviour. The insult, which was a public one, amounted to declaring: after a plate-licker, your wife.
A mazurka is simultaneously a race and the music which celebrates the winning couple. For so long as the music continues each couple is the winning one.
Marika, dancing with a young officer, imagines how she will dance with G. as soon as her husband has left; when they wag their heads at the banker’s wife dancing with the Italian who came with the Slav, she will show the petty administrators and Jews and insurance clerks of this godforsaken city what disdain is!
Wolfgang has taken the Chief of Police to a window on the grand staircase and is retelling the story about Marco. He should be taken in for questioning immediately, he adds, referring to G.
The Chief of Police, a man of Wolfgang’s age and a friend of many years, shakes his head. No, he says, no, that is very unlikely. A man working clandestinely does not draw attention to himself like this.
His cunning is that he relies upon you thinking like that.
He is a little mad, you know. The Chief of Police likes to think of himself, despite his dress uniform which is as ornate as a general’s, as being essentially a civilian scientist. Some form of monomania, he continues, he has one idea in his head which is devouring him. Have you noticed the way his face is set? That is typical. And his leer when he smiles? It isn’t a smile at somebody or something, he smiles because for the millionth time he has hit upon his idea again.
If he is capable of dancing a polka he is not mad. You should talk to him. He should be questioned forthwith.
You expect me to have him arrested in the middle of the ball?
When he leaves.
No, no, I haven’t spent my life studying criminal psychology for nothing. If he became violent he could be a murderer, but a man like him is not a conspirator.
What if the one idea that devours him is the overthrow of the Empire?
I am not so easily frightened. You have only to look at him. That is not his form of madness.
Madness! We play with words. Sometimes I have the impression that we shall leave nothing behind us except word-games. How can you call a man like him mad? The mad are uncontrollable and have to be locked in cells. In fact the mad are relatively harmless. He is not mad. He may be cunning and full of malice, but mad he is not. What you call madness is what you consider to be undesirable but still allow to continue. Madness is what you do not bother to control. I deny your madness and I denounce what you call madness! It is not madness to bring a woman like her here, it is a premeditated insult. He has nothing but contempt for us and this contempt arises from his conviction that he and his friends can destroy us.
Contempt is not a crime. And anyway, I repeat it, to bring a woman like her to a ball is not an insult, for, as you say, insults are calculated, they are rational, it is a form of madness.
You should have him questioned before it is too late.
My dear friend, I have known you for too many years. You do not believe what you are saying yourself. Have your financial negotiations with him been so difficult? You have all my sympathy, to deal in business with a madman like him must be very hard. The Chief of Police laughs. But do not let us make operettas!
I have to leave now. I’m going to Vienna tonight.
You may be right, I will bear in mind what you say, but you haven’t convinced me. I have become much harder to convince lately, it may be to do with my becoming a little deaf. In any case do not worry, everything will still be the same when you return.
A waltz is a circle in which ribbons of sentiment rise and fall. The music unties the bows and ties them again.
As the ball continued, the Italians tended to favour the ballroom on the second floor where the theatre’s own orchestra, who were civilians, were playing. In both rooms the scandal of the Slav in pearls was still a topic of conversation. The Italians were indignant because it was a compatriot of theirs who had so demeaned himself. Some said only a man from Livorno could behave like that. Others said they had heard his money came from candied fruit which meant he was little better than a shopkeeper. To the Austrians, after the first shock had worn off, the affair was a reminder of how long it would take them to civilize these parts; it might be a task without end; their weariness, which was an indication of how long they had already been engaged in the task, was part of their cultural destiny; meanwhile, until dawn, they could dance to their own music. In the first ballroom everything was now said in German.
After Wolfgang’s departure, Marika declined to dance, certain that G. would now find her. He did not. She passed from one group to another, conversing as she went. So far as she could see, he was no longer in the ballroom. She walked with her swaying walk, her invisible antlers held very still, up the grand staircase. He was not to be seen there. She entered what was now the Italian ballroom. An acquaintance whom she had passed on the stairs whispered to her husband: Frau von Hartmann can never have enough, can she? He was not there either. She concluded he must be sending the Slav woman home in a carriage. She came down the staircase as though already dancing.
A mazurka is simultaneously a race and the music which celebrates the winning couple. For so long as the music continues each couple is the winning one.
The music stopped for supper, it was past midnight. In one of the large foyers long tables were laid with flowers, cut glass and bottles of champagne. The guests arrived, Austrians and Italians now forced to mix again, animated, laughing, making gestures which were a little exaggerated as if with the passing of midnight, everything had become larger and simpler. Young men, specially invited to the ball for this purpose, helped to serve from the buffet. They were not servants but future partners. As they presented a lady with a plate, they would ask after her daughter. Champagne bottles steamed. There were many toasts. Around the centre of one table there was a clearing in the crowd. In that clearing, opposite each other, sat G. and Nuša. Marika watched G. raise his glass to the woman opposite him. They drank. The talk became louder and soon there were trills of laughter.
A few were still drinking when the orchestra struck up. Once again the Italian and his partner with her high breasts beneath muslin and pearls were the first to take the floor. Once again the Italian and his partner with her neck which was neither fat nor thin but like another leg were the first to take the floor. Once again the Italian and his partner whose narrow eyes were indecipherable were the first to take the floor. Once again no other couple joined them. But this time those who stared did so with insolence rather than anger. There were a few guffaws of laughter. Somebody shouted: Go back to the circus!
Immediately G. drew Nuša towards him to whisper a reassurance in her ear. The way they then danced, cheek to cheek, appeared more outlandish than ever; nobody except peasants danced like that.
The waltz is a circle in which ribbons of sentiment rise and fall. The music unties the bows—and ties them again.
It did not astound Marika that she saw him naked as he danced. What astounded her was that she saw his penis. She had never before seen a man on his feet with his penis erect. It changed the whole body of a man. His body no longer stood solidly with its two feet on the ground. It rode on a stick which, despite his body’s weight, stayed steadily and consistently in the air, changing orientation only as the woman before him moved. On this stick he rode towards her, his legs and feet dangling either side. His arms were raised the better to keep his balance as he rode. In bed, seen from above or from the side, a penis looks like an object or a vegetable or a fish. His, during the waltz, was indefinable. It was red. It was thrust forward in the direction of its own progress. Its head shifted a little from side to side, as a horse’s head when galloping. Often it was so acutely foreshortened that its body became invisible. All she saw was a darkness with a glowing ember at the entrance to it. She could smell the sulphur, she told herself, and it was making her feel giddy.
The General, who as a young man had fought at Solferino, considered the behaviour of the guffawing onlookers most unseemly—they must be drunk. He put an end to the situation by seizing his niece and leading her on to the floor himself.
Marika sat bolt upright in the carriage which drove her home. She had the impression black blinds were drawn over its windows. The story can have only one end, she thought. The music was still audible by the front door of the house.
On the way back to the Stadttheater she sat bolt upright in the carriage, but this time she could see out of the windows. The harbour was very still. A few carriages were leaving the theatre.
During the next thirty years the story was recounted many times. After the occupation of Trieste by the Yugoslav partisans in 1945, when briefly, for the first time, the city was in the hands of Slav patriots, the story lost its allure and began to sound somewhat discreditable. But the versions varied on one point. All agreed that the Hungarian wife of an Austrian banker, a woman with red hair, drew out a whip from under her wrap and began to flog a Slovene woman, whose appearance at the ball had already caused much consternation, down the stairs and out of the building; where the versions differed was on whether she also tried to flog the man who accompanied the Slovene.
Fine horsewoman though she was, Marika was not able to control with absolute precision the lash of her whip and since G. was beside Nuša she may also have struck him. But he bore no marks upon him whereas Nuša had three red weals, one across her neck and two across her back and shoulders.
When Nuša ran down the stairs towards the entrance with Marika in pursuit, G. closed with her to seize hold of the whip. The two figures struggled and Marika fell. Several men advanced upon G. Brandishing the whip in their faces, he broke free and ran down the stairs to join Nuša who by this time was in the street.
With her skirt and train held high up above her knees she was running fast. She had lost or flung off her turban. G. caught up with her. Behind them they could hear shouts and screams. A few of the younger men in evening dress gave chase.
G. took hold of Nuša’s hand in case she fell, and they ran together out of the small piazza, away from the sea towards the Exchange. Nuša knew where she wanted to make for—the narrow dark streets by the end of the canal. As they ran hand in hand, panting, without saying a word because they needed all their breath, G. remembered the Roman girl in Milan who had pulled him from under the rearing horse and run with him to the Giardini Pubblici. And you will buy me, she said in Italian, some white stockings and a hat with chiffon tied round it. Yet it was scarcely like a memory. The two moments were continuous; he was still running the same run and in the course of it the Roman girl had grown into the woman, all of whose clothes he had bought, now running fast but heavily beside him.
They took the first street out of the large piazza on the far side of the Exchange. Nuša was beginning to flag. Her hand was wet in his. Her face was red and conto
rted with effort and pain. They saw a patrol of Austrian police coming down the narrow street towards them. Their pursuers, running more slowly, had turned the corner by the Exchange. He pushed Nuša into a doorway and tried to hide her but they had already been noticed.
At police headquarters they were separated. Left alone, G. remembered Nuša’s face as it was just before she was led away. And again he found it impossible to make a distinct separation between her face and the face of the Roman girl in the courtyard in Milan when she splashed water on him and told him to drink. Their features were entirely different. It was in their expression that the mysterious continuity resided. To break this continuity so as to make room for all his adult life between the first and the second face, he had to forget their smeared foreheads, their mouths and intense, silent eyes and remember only the meaning of their expression for him. What mattered the first time was what her expression confirmed and what until that moment had been wordless: what mattered then was not being dead. Now, the second time, what mattered was what her expression confirmed and what until now had been wordless: why not be dead?
10
Nuša was released by the police the following afternoon. Most of the questions put to her were about G. When she said she knew nothing about him, they asked her why he took her to the ball. She shrugged her shoulders. Are you his mistress? She stopped herself answering No. Please ask him, she said. Did he speak to you about his other Italian friends here? He is not like an Italian, she replied.
