I say that, and yet I knew all the time that the situation was radically changed from what it had been before. From a certain point on, I could no longer show Ganna the sort of openness that during the worst times of our marriage had kept alive the illusion of an indestructible union, and had preserved Ganna in the faith that she was the presiding female presence in my life. I kept out of her way. I lowered my eyes. I was hurtful and cold. And above alclass="underline" I neglected my marital obligations entirely. That had never happened before. There had always been some leftover scraps for Ganna: an hour of comfort, a little bribe of affection. Now it was no longer possible. Bettina made it impossible. Not that she had demanded or expected such a thing; not a bit. But her whole being was against it, a way of being in honesty and truth. A way of being that flowed into me as what was right for me and shaped me.
One November evening is caught in my memory like a scene of dread.
It’s late when I get home. I have experienced something wonderful. Bettina has played for me on her violin, the first time in the seven months I’ve known her. An entire Bach suite, ending with the chaconne. It wasn’t masterful; the ultimate per cents of the maestro were lacking; but how much song, how much sweetness, how much force and fire; and how secretly altered my pulse beat and my heart, as though I myself had been playing and had invented the rhythms. An unforgettable hour, which had shown me another Bettina hidden behind the cheerful child of the world.
And now the whitewashed walls of our hall, which is at the same time our dining room, stare at me soberly and the grotesque lamps threaten me with their outraged arms. Quickly in to see little Doris, to cast an eye on the little sleeper, quickly choke down a few bites of something, then on to work. But at the other side of the table sits Ganna, her eyes shining with reproach, her lips quivering, her arms folded, the whole woman a single mute accusation and indignity.
I ought to go. I ought to say goodnight to her and disappear up into my eyrie. My loitering just makes the q. and a. unavoidable.
‘Why are you so late? Where have you been?’
Of course she knows where I’ve been.
‘What’s the matter with you, Alexander? Have you forgotten me? Do I not mean anything to you any more?’
Then more urgent, pleading: ‘You spend all your time with that woman now. You’re practically inseparable, you and her. Complete strangers are talking about it.’
Still I don’t say anything. I stalk around and stare into the corners. Ganna continues:
‘You know I’ve nothing against you satisfying your urges? Have I ever shown myself ungenerous? But just because I am, I’m now being tortured to death.’
My silence provokes her. She wrings her hands.
‘Alexander, how can you! A man like you! That woman can do what she likes with you. Have you no pity?’
Another evening’s going to go to waste, I think; if I go out now and say a friendly goodnight, then she’ll be content, she has such an oddly selective memory. But I can’t. I can’t walk out and abort the brewing scene before it can get properly started. What stops me is fear. Naked fear. Let me explain, as best I can. Ganna has the frightful gift of unsettling my imagination. No one else has such an effect on me. That explains her hold on me, which, far from weakening, is getting ever stronger. She knows it too. She knows I’m incapable of leaving her alone to brood in solitude. If I am within hailing distance then it’s still possible that, in spite of the ‘selective memory’, she will manage to produce a catastrophe. That’s what the voice inside me tells me, even if I can’t say what manner of catastrophe it will be. After all, it would be enough if she smashes a mirror and wakes the maids in the attic with her shouting; it’s not out of the question that she will do herself a mischief. Everything is possible. From one instant to the next she will quite deliberately turn off her consciousness — it’s really quite extraordinary — and then be responsible for nothing she does. Once, in Ebenweiler, she ran out into a storm following an argument, up the mountain, and I had to get up a search party of hunters and farmers. Once something like that happens, it means the end of any chance of working for several weeks; the ability to do work is always somehow the first to go. That’s what I dread. What I’m thinking is this: hold things together at all costs, until the work in progress is done; after that my hands will be free and we can sort it out. Of course I’m deluding myself here. Because seeing as I plunge from book to book, like someone swimming for his life in the ocean, from wave to wave, it’s impossible to see when I could be able to ‘sort it out’. Still, this is how the notion came to be established in my brain that my presence is the only thing that will prevent Ganna from mounting a successful coup against my existence. (In a certain sense, this notion turned out to be perfectly correct.) At the same time, I know that my mere presence is sufficient to give Ganna the courage to go wild. What’s the way out of this dilemma? What reasonable man would leave a woman alone at a painful juncture, when he knows that her life feels dire and she will collapse into a bundle of misery? And so I turn myself into the object, the victim, of her emotional excesses. To avoid the theoretical worst, I accept what is truly unbearable. It’s like a sulphur cloud. Ganna pours out wild tirades against Bettina. I lose my calm. I shout at her. Which is exactly what she wants, to wrest me out of my equanimity — that’s her satisfaction and vengeance. The words fly back and forth like so many poison darts. The door opens silently. Elisabeth, startled awake, is standing in the doorway in her nightdress. In deep, half-asleep confusion she looks at her father and mother. The look of those child’s eyes! It condemns me for ever. I pick her up and carry her back to bed, with silent caressings. When I return to Ganna she is sitting there in tears. She at least is able to cry. I cannot.
GANNA DEFENDS THE FORTRESS BY MOUNTING AN ATTACK
There’s no mistaking it: a beaten dog doesn’t suffer worse than Ganna. Her world is askew. Her world is me. She can’t understand what’s happened. It’s as though the heart has slowly been cut out of her breast. At night she lies there sleepless, thinking about everything, her tear-dimmed eyes are incapable of seeing anything. She is pondering what she may have done wrong. Because, try as she may, she can see no fault in herself. She has always done her duty, she thinks, her intentions were always of the best. She thinks, if life is too much for two weak arms like hers, then one should have pity on her. My supposed ‘pitilessness’ skews her take on everything. An evil charm has taken me over, otherwise I could not have been able to forget her love and the fact that there is no other woman in the world who is so endlessly obedient to me. It remains her unshakeable conviction that I will never leave her — after all, haven’t I said so often enough, in so many words — she tells me with an alarming flaring of her eyes, but then why do I not take her by the hand and lead her out of the labyrinth of her great sorrow? And she builds herself a little hope. I am just setting a test for her, she thinks; I am testing her craft for buoyancy. Surely it doesn’t need such an extreme test, not such a heartbreaking one, she says with the charmingly innocent smile that her face still, on rare occasions, breaks into; I need only indicate to her now and again that she would be my Ganna again, once she has passed the test, take her for a walk again as she yearns to be taken, say something sweet and affectionate to her, as in former times. She is continually perplexed at the wrong-headedness of men. They could have it so easy with women, but they go about it so badly. But this philosophical musing about ‘men’s’ foolishness does nothing to alter the fact that her breast is burning with woe, and I am standing there like St Sebastian, shot full of arrows …