She went to the pharmacist’s during the day now, she showed how discreet she could be there, and in the evening she undressed for the Baron who regarded her as both an enchantress and a child, but in whose presence she felt like a woman for the first time. She didn’t let him know that. After all, she felt that way because of the sense of shame and the excitement, not because of the assessing look with which he walked around her, asked her to sit down, to lie down, to hold her arm at a certain angle, to move her left leg a little further, yes, to spread her legs like that; and then, quite soon, he contracted tendonitis. Helene couldn’t help being reminded of those dragons who lived among rocks and ate virgins. Not that she felt guilty in any way; she was sorry for him. He couldn’t hold his charcoal any more, Helene wasn’t asked to undress again. So she no longer earned her share of what little money he did have, but worked longer hours at the pharmacy instead.
In the evening, when she came home from the pharmacy, Helene brought back a small box of white powder and placed it on Fanny’s bedside table without a word, as evidence that she was trustworthy. Leontine provided for Martha’s needs, if reluctantly, and it was only on rare occasions, when a good opportunity offered, that Helene brought some morphine back from the pharmacy for her sister. The Baron sat on the chaise longue in his room in the Berlin apartment, waiting for Helene with his sad, lost eyes. Helene was glad he just looked at her and didn’t touch. All the women around her were involved in relationships. Helene didn’t feel too young for that any more, it was just that she couldn’t make up her mind. She bandaged the Baron’s arm and put cold and warm compresses on his tendon. He gave her a bunch of bright yellow daisies, which she happily accepted. As she put the flowers in a vase she imagined that they were late roses and wondered how she would have felt if Clemens the pharmacist had given them to her. Helene wanted to be in love, to know all the boundless ardour and the fears that she supposed went with that condition. Was this all there was to it, a tingling sensation in the pit of her stomach, a trembling below her breasts? She had to smile. She couldn’t agree with Fanny’s belief that Clemens was one of her suitors. The gaunt pharmacist — Helene thought of him all the time when she had a day off — wouldn’t look Fanny or any other woman in the eye a moment longer than necessary. He didn’t watch any of them walking away either, he never said a word more than he had to. Only when his wife came into the pharmacy with two or three of their five children clinging to her skirts, to fetch something or ask him a question, her round face red with cold and her big blue eyes shining, did the pharmacist’s face open up and then he came to life. He would kiss his wife and hug his children as if he hardly ever saw them.
The apothecary did not come from a prosperous family; he worked hard for his money and still had debts against the pharmacy. If Fanny thought of him as a friend it might be because she didn’t realize how important money was to him. Helene typed his orders, letters and accounts for him. He showed her the consistencies to which fats and acids could be mixed, taught her what she needed to know about the reactions of bases with acids, and finally lent her a big book to read at home. Helene knew that this information might come in useful for any future medical studies of hers, and she mastered all the knowledge that came her way. She made it her habit to pack up five of the woodruff-flavoured sweets called May leaves for the pharmacist every evening, and if the big jar holding them was empty to take raspberry and violet-flavoured sweets out of the little jar instead. His children liked them. Helene did his accounts, she mixed ointments, and she stayed in the pharmacy after closing time when he hurried home to his wife and children. Abstracting drugs was easy. After a while Helene recognized the signatures and stamps of the various doctors; she knew who prescribed what for whom and where she could add a nought to the orders. Two grams of cocaine became twenty, but only very occasionally did she make one gram of morphine into ten or a hundred. She took the orders herself and she knew when the supplier came. She arranged the jars and boxes herself too, signed receipts for the substances, weighed them out. The pharmacist knew he could trust Helene. She relieved him of responsibility and of part of his work as well. When she ground crystals to powder and put them into capsules, or poured liquids into small bottles, all she needed was brief instructions and a fleeting smile. In the course of time Helene also learned to mix alcohol with expensive active agents and to calculate the mixture of bases and acids for tinctures, so that she didn’t have to pester the pharmacist with questions any more.
But the pharmacist’s smile was too fleeting. A gentle tingling in the pit of her stomach, a quivering sensation beneath her breasts, did not yet kindle any fire, did not provide Helene with the relationship that she thought was her due by now.
The Baron flattered her and his attentive eyes watched her, but he missed every opportunity, however good it was, to reach out to Helene.
Early one evening they were all sitting together. Martha had laid her head on Leontine’s lap and gone to sleep, Fanny was arguing with Erich over how to spend the rest of the evening and Helene was reading the new translation of Le Rouge et le Noir. The Baron was sitting in an armchair beside Helene, sipping a glass of absinthe and listening.
Leontine excused Martha and herself, and made an elaborate business of getting to her feet, while Martha complained that her bones, her nerves, even the roots of her hair all hurt. Leontine had to half carry Martha, half support her to the bed they shared. As soon as the two of them had left the room Erich jumped up, suddenly in vigorous mood. The night was young yet, he said, but not for long, and he wanted to start out at once. Fanny held him back by his shirt. Erich shook her off. Oh, take me with you, she begged. Doors slammed.
Suddenly Helene was alone with the Baron; she went on reading about Julien Sorel and how he offered to leave Madame Rénal’s house, apparently to save the honour of the lady of his heart but to save their love too, and how the lady then rose, prepared for anything. Was this not like the moment when the distance between the Baron and Helene would disappear entirely, would melt away? He had only to put out his hand, aroused by the strange passion that seemed even greater here than on the pages of the book. But when he did raise his hand, it was only to place it on the arm of his chair between himself and Helene. He was holding his glass in his other hand, took the last sip and topped it up. Helene felt her impatience turning to annoyance. She stopped reading.
Would you like a drink too, Helene?
She nodded, although she didn’t want one. Julien would never have asked anything so mundane. Helene’s eyes fell on the first page: The truth! The bitter truth! Helene guessed why Stendhal quoted that cry of Danton’s. Undeterred, the Baron poured a small glass for Helene, drank to her and asked if she didn’t want to go on with her book. Perhaps he had noticed her hesitation, for he started telling her his own story, talking with a certain pleasure. He had lived in France, he said, he spoke French fluently, but he had never found time to read this particular novel. How grateful he was that Helene had opened his eyes to that world too. Helene felt rising weariness and only half-heartedly suppressed a yawn. A virgin should be a virgin should be a virgin. She did go on reading, but with no enjoyment and she soon felt it was a strain. Her cheeks, only recently flushed with expectation, turned pale. A headache was rising from the nape of her neck. When the grandfather clock in the corridor struck ten, Helene closed the book.
Didn’t she want to read any more? The Baron seemed surprised.