She had pushed away the chair from under her with her feet, and at last, as if freeing herself from an iron clamp, she wrenched her head out of the clutch of his two hands. He kept those hands in the air as if her head were still between them and stared at her as if unable to grasp what was happening.
“No, no!” she cried. “I don’t want to!” And she ran to the door. He raised himself to jump out of the bed, but now his strength left him, and he sank back on it with a dull impact, like a lifeless mass. But she wasn’t looking at him any more; she had flung the door open and was running through the next room and into the passage. She wasn’t in control of herself. He had been going to strangle her! She still felt his fingers sliding down her temples, her cheeks, her throat. She ran out of the house. There was no one outside the door, and she remembered that the housekeeper had gone out to get something for supper. What should she do? She ran back again, along the corridor, into the garden. As if she were being pursued she hastily went across the grass and to the other end of the path. Now she turned, and could see the open window of the room which she had just left. She saw the candlelight flickering there, but that was all. She didn’t know what to do. Aimlessly, she walked up and down the path by the garden fence. Now an idea shot through her head. Alfred! He’ll be coming now, she thought! He must come now! She looked through the bars of the fence to the moon-lit path leading from the station, hurried to the garden gate, and opened it. There lay the path before her, white and deserted. But perhaps he’ll be coming the other way, along the street, she told herself. No, no—there, she sees a shadow approaching, closer and closer, faster, ever fast, the figure of a man. Is it his? She hurried a few steps towards him. “Alfred!”
“Is that you, Marie?”
It was Alfred. She could have wept for joy. When he was beside her she felt like kissing his hand.
“What’s the matter?” he asked.
She drew him along with her, without replying.
Felix had lain motionless only for a moment. Then he raised himself and looked around. She had gone, he was alone! Fear came over him, constricting his throat. Only one thing was clear to him: he must have her there, there with him. With one bound he was out of the bed. But he couldn’t stand upright, and fell back on it again. He felt a humming and echoing in his head. Supporting himself on the chair, pushing it ahead of him, he moved forward. “Marie, Marie!” he murmured. “I don’t want to die alone, I can’t!” Where was she? Where could she be? Still pushing the chair, he had reached the window. There lay the garden, and over it the blue radiance of the hot night. How it swirled and shimmered! How the grass and trees danced! Ah, this was spring, and it would make him well again! This air, this air! If such air always blew around him he was sure to get better. There—what was that? And he saw a female figure coming down the shining white path leading from the bars of the fence, which seemed to lie deep in an abyss. The blue moonlight played around her. How she floated, how she flew, yet she came no closer! Marie! Marie! And a man right behind her. A man with Marie—immensely tall. Now the bars of the fence began to dance, danced after the two of them, and so did the dark sky, and everything, everything was dancing after them. And music and sound and singing came from far away, so beautiful, so beautiful. Then all turned dark.
Marie and Alfred arrived, both of them running. When she reached the window Marie stopped and looked anxiously into the bedroom. “He isn’t there!” she cried. “The bed’s empty!” Suddenly she screamed, and fell back into Alfred’s arms. He gently put her aside and leaned over the sill, and then, right beside the window, he saw his friend lying on the floor in his white shirt, full length, his legs spread apart, and beside him an overturned chair. He was holding its back with one hand. A trickle of blood was running down his chin. His lips seemed to move, and so did his eyelids, but when Alfred looked more closely he saw that it was only the moonlight, playing deceptively over that pale face.
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Copyright
English translation © Anthea Bell 2006
First published in German as Sterben 1895
First published by Pushkin Press in 2006
This ebook edition published in 2012 by Pushkin Press, 71-75 Shelton Street, London WC2H 9JQ
ISBN 9781908968715
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission in writing from Pushkin Press
Cover: Frau Elsa Kaufmann auf der Gartenbank 1911 © Lovis Corinth Kunsthalle Kiel
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