I no longer have any self-respect, I’ve become a slave to the mirage of my despicable marriage, I can no longer manage without my yoke and now I’m trying to impose it on her. What am I trying to do to her, how dare I treat her like this, humiliate her like this.
I try to placate her, but she’s crying more and more, she’s shaken by sobs, she can’t be comforted. This is the end, the absolute end, she’ll never go anywhere with me again, she never wants to see me again!
I am conscious of relief and, simultaneously, of regret.
Once more she looks up at me, her beautiful eyes, which always lured me into the depths, have turned bloodshot, as though the sun had just set in them. I kiss her swollen, now ugly, eyes, also her hands which have so often embraced me, which have so tenderly touched me: I don’t understand why she is crying, I do want her to come along with me, I’m begging her to.
She’ll think it over, I should phone her from there.
And here I am, alone, in the Lower Tatra. I walk through meadows fragrant with warmth. Above me, on the mountainsides, snow is still lying. At dinner I talk to an elderly doctor about yoga, he tells me about the remarkable properties of medicinal herbs. I walk along forest paths and enjoy the silence all round me, I recover in that solitude, even though I know it is short-lived, as is the relief I am feeling; the rack to which I have tied myself is waiting, it is within me.
I gaze at the distant peaks. Mist rises above the lowlands. I look back to where the waves roll, where the surf roars, washing away my likeness moulded in sand, she bathes in abandoned rock-pools, the soil is black, the path is barred by an ever thicker tangle of roots, carrion crows fly darkly over the tree-tops. I walk with her among the rocks until we find ourselves in the middle of a snow-covered expanse of flat ground, I embrace her: is it possible we love each other so much?
Nights descend, prison nights, nights as long as life, her face is above me, my wife is beside me, I am alone with my love, with my betrayal. She bends down to me at night, she calls me to herself, she calls me to herself forever: We’ll go away together, darling, we’ll be happy. And I actually set out towards her, I run through cold streets, streets deserted and devoid of people, empty in a way not even the deepest night could make them, I drag myuself through the streets of the dead ice-bound city and an uneasiness rises up in me, suddenly I hear a voice within me, from the very bottom of my being, asking: What have you done? Halfway I stop in my flight and return to where I’ve come from, to the side of my wife. I act this way night after night, until suddenly I realise that I don’t want to leave, that I no longer want to walk through this dead city, at least not for the moment. I say: For the moment, and eventually I am overcome by the relief of sleep.
She too is reconciled, for the moment, to having waited in vain, but after a while she starts asking again why I haven’t come, what has been happening to me? Didn’t I love her, weren’t we blissfully happy when we’re together, so why couldn’t I make up my mind? She seeks an explanation, she puts forward factual and plausible reasons for my behaviour and instantly rejects them, she’s angry with me, she cries, she’s in despair at my immobility, my obstinacy, my insensitivity and my philistinism. She assures me that there was no decision to make: I wouldn’t be leaving my wife now, I’d left her long ago, and I was only a burden to her. And the children were grown-up now, they’d remain my children wherever I was. I listen to her in silence, I do not argue with her. The voice which holds me back time and again isn’t, after all, a reason; it can’t even be broken down into reasons, it is above reasoning. Is it possible, I wonder, that she does not hear a similar voice within her, a voice of doubt if not of warning?
Not even now, here amidst the mountains with no one urging me to do anything, can I break that voice down into separate reasons: into love for my wife or my children, or regret, or a sense of duty. But I know that if I hadn’t obeyed it I’d feel even worse than I do anyway.
Perhaps there is within us still, above everything else, some ancient law, a law beyond logic, that forbids us to abandon those near and dear to us. We are dimly aware of it but we pretend not to know about it, that it has long ceased to be valid and that we may therefore disregard it. And we dismiss the voice within us as foolish and reactionary, preventing us from tasting something of the bliss of paradise while we are still in this life.
We break the ancient laws which echo within us and we believe that we may do so with impunity. Surely man, on his road to greater freedom, on his road to his dreamed-of heaven, should be permitted everything. We are all, each for himself and all together, pursuing the notion of earthly bliss and, in doing so, are piling guilt upon ourselves, even though we refuse to admit it. But what bliss can a man attain with a soul weighed down by guilt? His only way out is to kill the soul within him, and join the crowd of those who roam the world in search of something to fill the void which yawns within them after their soul is dead. Man is no longer conscious of the connection between the way he lives his own life and the fate of the world, which he laments, of which he is afraid, because he suspects that together with the world he is entering the age of the Apocalypse.
The mist from the valley below me is rising and has almost reached me. I know that I must change my way of life, which piles guilt upon me, but I’m not leading it on my own. I feel fettered from all sides, I’ve let myself be chained to the rockface without having brought fire to anyone.
What was there left in my favour? What could I claim in my defence? What order, what honesty, what loyalty?
Suddenly from the mists a familiar figure emerges. I stiffen. From the mists her heavenly eyes look on me: You could give me up?
There is no reason that could stand up in her eyes. I might at best make some excuses, beg her to understand, beg for forgiveness or for punishment, but there’s no point in any of this, none of it will bring her relief.
I phoned her as I’d promised. She said she’d join me for ten days, she was looking forward to it. She added: We’ll have a lovely farewell holiday. But I didn’t believe that she meant it.
We found our companions in place – that is, in the tavern. The first to catch sight of us was the captain. He touched two fingers to his cap.
I joined him and noticed that the beermat before him already bore four marks.
‘I’m celebrating!’ he explained.
He didn’t look to me like a man celebrating, more like a man drowning his sorrows. Nevertheless I asked: ‘Has one of your inventions been accepted?’
‘Haven’t I told you? They’ve found the
‘The
‘With everything she had on board. Only the people have gone.’
‘That a fact? So what happened to them?’ The youngster was no longer in pain and was therefore able to show interest in the pain or death of others.
‘Probably jumped overboard,’ the captain explained casually. ‘No one stays on a ship that’s going down. Everybody thinks he’ll save himself somehow.’
The foreman, evidently still preoccupied with the morning visit, decided to find out how things really stood; he’d ring the office. For a while he searched in his pockets, then he borrowed two one-crown pieces from Mr Rada and with a demonstratively self-assured gait made for the telephone.
‘That really must have been terrible, finding yourself in the water like that,’ the youngster reflected, ‘and nothing solid anywhere.’
‘That’s life,’ said the captain. ‘One moment you’re sailing, everyone saying Sir to you, and in your head maybe a whole academy of science, and suddenly you’re in the water. You go down – finish!’
The waiter brought more beer, and before the captain he also placed a tot of rum.
The captain took a sip: ‘And all your ideas, windmills, encyclopedias, end of the ice age – everything goes down with you.’ He got up and unsteadily walked over to the battered billiard table. From the sleeve of his black leather jacket projected his even blacker metal hook. With this he adroitly picked up a cue and played a shot.
I watched the ball moving precisely in the desired direction.
‘Do you know that I’ve written to her?’ he said to me when he got back to the table.
‘To whom?’
‘To Mary. Asking if she wanted to come back.’
‘And did you get a reply?’
‘Came back yesterday. Addressee unknown. So she’s unknown now!’
‘Probably moved away.’
‘Person’s here one moment, gone the next. All going to the bottom!’ The captain turned away from his glass;
