In desperation I had the idea of buying up other houses on Kosmajska Street, which were available above the market price, and then settling in them the dirtiest gypsy element I could find, whose proximity would have driven the Devil himself out of hell. But I gave up the notion: I couldn’t subject houses to such an onslaught, not even for the love of Niké.
Finally I was so overcome by fury, never mind the cost, that I bought a plot of land adjacent to Niké. I brought in quantities of building material, as if I were going to build nothing less than a skyscraper; I set cranes and bulldozers to work, although no plans were drawn up for any building; I sent trucks up and down the street, and generally started building operations of a kind that would convince even a deaf man that the days ahead would not be easy. Then one night, thinking over the amount that my passion, my craving, was costing me, I decided that it would be better to satisfy it in a cheaper way — with patience, cunning, words — instead of throwing away the money saved up for my grandiose plans, my architect’s vision of a future Belgrade. So I stopped the construction work, sold the plot of land at a profit, and once again fell into a state of depression.
The war crisis was already upon us when I decided to clear the matter up one way or another. I asked my cousin to surrender the house to me for an amount which he himself should determine. For the first time in my commercial career I compromised myself in a business transaction: I placed in his hands my admission that the object of the transaction pleased me so much that I renounced the right to help determine its price. Bearing in mind the condition, the patently unreasoning condition (for if my interest hadn’t been at the very limits of good commercial practice, I would certainly not have approached him so directly, from a commercial point of view so indecently, so childishly) — bearing in mind the condition that I had to buy the house at any price, I said that, given my obsessive feeling toward her, I had no choice but to go to the owner with an appeal to our family ties, however much they had degenerated. He could name any figure he chose, he could himself write it on the check, here was my check book, I wouldn’t even look at it, I didn’t even intend to make use of that final limit on which purchases customarily depended: the hope that the sum in question would remain within the bounds of logic or of my financial possibilities. If it were nevertheless outside such possibilities or logic, even this wouldn’t matter as I would sell some other houses; in any case it was Niké that at all costs I had to have.
Stefan’s first reaction was one of such complete surprise that he gave no answer to my offer, but only mulishly asked what had got into me all of a sudden, after two whole seasons had passed since the house had been built, especially since it was a well-known fact that I’d never had a high opinion of it, and that at one time I had actually called the house a monstrosity, an abomination which ought to be destroyed. Given all this, he said, he decidedly couldn’t grasp what I really wanted after having exhausted all those villainous, cannibalistic, and yes, even criminal means of driving him from his own house!
“Anyway, I don’t know where you find the nerve to suggest something so vile, as if I didn’t exist, as if I were going to sit back and watch you hurl yourself at my property. And all this because of the obsessed principles of your somnambulist taste, in a town which, I hope, despite all the houses that you already possess, isn’t yet yours and never will be. I’ve been patient only for the sake of peace in the family. Until this meeting I kept receiving you into my house with esteem, even though I never had any particular liking for you — nor you for me, no doubt, that’s something we both agree on.”
He insisted on seeing in my hysterical offer some ulterior motive, perhaps a roundabout way of pulling the house down, or of rebuilding it so radically that its architect wouldn’t recognize it. “What the hell was all that nonsense about the portal?” (In the heat of the discussion, I had mentioned the possibility of altering the entrance door, although I’d limited myself to that wretched piece of glass above the doorway.) “Why the devil do you have to bother with a door which I go in through? You don’t have to go through it except as a guest. You’re allowed through it as a stranger. No one makes you visit me. Never mind remodeling the door-way.” And with all this in mind, his answer to my whole jeremiad was a single, simple, definite, Serbian NO.
“And as for your habit of talking about houses as if they were human beings, and usually women at that,” he added with mocking concern, “with that in mind, I advise you sincerely, as a cousin, to have your head examined!”
Quite frankly, that he called me a madman didn’t in the slightest affect me; Stefan was the crazy one not to see the exceptional nature of his house, and that was why he didn’t deserve to possess her. What worried me more was his peasantlike stubbornness, for this excruciating conversation was repeated several times, but always with the same negative outcome. What’s more, since the day of my despondent confession, his indifference toward Niké was transformed into hatred which in time would reach drastic proportions, but which already could be recognized in his coarse behavior toward her, as toward an adulteress, and a house beneath the dignity of a Negovan. To make me suffer too, he had the magnificent dome painted a bright red, so that under the sharp, stinging rays of the sun it looked as if it were bleeding. Deep under its copper skin, it was in fact dishonored. And he threatened — through mutual acquaintances, for I myself had stopped visiting him — to treat the columns with equal brutality, and, in a word, if need be, to smear the whole house with shit, to make it repellent to “that crazy Arsénie!”
However, his insolence didn’t deter me. As I was about to give up all hope for Niké, I heard that Stefan, in order to cover his dealings with the German aniline dye industry, had issued a large number of bills of exchange for vast sums which were just about to expire, and that he could neither extend nor cancel, since he had already extended them several times before, and all his funds were committed to the hilt in his gangsterish plans. I knew that I had him, and that he could no longer keep me from Niké. Through Golovan’s office I bought up his bills of exchange from all assignees willing to endorse them over to me. Even as he was devising plans to have them extended further, they were presented to him face downward so he could see both to whom they now belonged, and the answer to his misplaced hopes. At last Stefan surrendered, but not like a man, honestly and openly, as fitting between relatives and businessmen. Instead of simply selling me Niké at a moderate price, he decided upon an auction, and to that end sent me a letter which for its unparalleled effrontery I have kept to this day. Above an illegible, impatient, completely flattened signature, was written:
“Your insanity has at last infected me. I’ve come to the conclusion, on the basis of facts which I can let you have — but you alone, of course, as I have no wish to be shut up in an asylum — that this house, which you call Niké, detests me. She has tried to kill me by dropping one of her supporting lintels on me. You have probably read about it in the newspapers.” (If this was not a shaft in my direction, then it must have been Stefan’s maniacal fancy. Niké was far too dignified to make use of so crude a means as a blow on the head with a blunt instrument; if it had occurred to her to commit murder, she would most probably have poisoned Stefan by emitting toxic vapor from her otherwise benign wall coatings.) “Consequently, our life together has become impossible. I am therefore making arrangements for a closed auction to be held at 7 P.M. on March 27, 1941. Although I’m in no way obliged to you — especially since it’s you who have come between us and brought us to this — be informed that I’ll sell the house with no regard for the market price, even if it’s below the construction cost. Stefan.”