But I was tired of all these problems. I almost ran up the paved path to the inn, groped in the dark passage for the door-handle, entered quickly, and with a pretence of cheerfulness I cried: “Here I am, my pretty one!” and sat down in a wicker chair beside her.
All that I had just done resembled so little my usual behaviour, was so different from my former sedateness, that I watched myself with unconcealed astonishment, almost with anxious embarrassment as if watching an actor who has taken on too daring a rôle, and who is unsure whether he will be able to play it convincingly to the end.
The girl looked up from her sewing, for a moment the pale eyes were turned on me, the tip of her tongue appeared briefly at the corner of her mouth. “Oh, it’s you,” was all she said, and these three words conveyed once more her judgment of myself.
“Yes, it’s me, my beauty,” I said quickly, with the glibness and arrogance that came so strangely to me, “and I would like one or two or maybe half a dozen glasses of that excellent schnaps of yours, and if you like, you can drink with me.”
“I never drink schnaps,” countered the girl coolly, but she got up, went to the bar, got a little glass and a bottle, and poured out a drink by the table. She sat down and put the bottle on the floor beside her.
“Anyway,” she added, taking up her sewing again, “we’re closing in a quarter of an hour.”
“Then I’ll have to drink all the quicker,” I said, put the glass to my lips and emptied it. “But if you won’t drink schnaps,” I continued, “I’d gladly buy you a bottle of wine or champagne even, if there is such a thing here. Regardless of cost.”
In the meantime she had re-filled my glass, and I emptied it again in one go. I had already forgotten all that had happened and all that lay ahead, I lived only for the moment, for this reserved yet knowing girl who treated me with such obvious contempt.
“We’ve got champagne all right,” she said, “and I like to drink it, too. But I’ll have you know that I don’t intend to get drunk, nor go to bed with you just for a bottle of champagne.”
Now she looked at me again, accompanying her immodest words with a bold insolent look. I had to go on playing my part. “Whoever would think of such a thing, my sweet,” I said lightly. “Go and get your champagne. You’ll be allowed to drink it quite unmolested. To me,” I added, more firmly after I had had another drink, “you’re like an angel from another planet, a bad angel whom fate has set in my path. It’s enough for me just to look at you.”
“It costs nothing to look,” she said with a short evil-sounding laugh. “You’re a pretty queer saint, but before the night’s out I think I’m going to find out what you’re so excited about.”
With that, she poured me another drink, and got up to fetch the champagne. This time she was away longer. She drew the curtains, then went outside, and I heard her close the shutters, and lock the door. As she went through the barroom again, she said “I’ve locked up, nobody else will be coming. The landlady’s in bed already.” She said this in passing, then stopped, and added in an ironic tone, “But don’t build your hopes on that.” Before I could answer, she had gone again. I used her absence to pour myself out two or three drinks straight off. Then she came back with a gold-topped bottle in her hand.
She put a champagne glass on the table before her, skilfully unbent the wire and twisted the cork out of the bottle without letting it pop. The white foam rushed up. She poured, waited a moment, poured again, and lifted the glass to her mouth.
“I’m not going to drink your health,” she said, “because you would want to drink with me, and for the time being, you’ve had enough.”
I didn’t contradict her. My whole body was so full of drunkenness, it seemed to hum like a swarm of bees. She put down her glass, looked at me with narrowed eyes and asked mockingly, “Now then, how many schnapses did you have while I was away? Five? Six?”
“Only three,” I answered, laughing. It never occurred to me to feel ashamed. With this girl, all such feelings disappeared completely.
“Incidentally, what’s your name?”
“Do you intend to come here often?” she countered.
“Perhaps,” I answered, rather confused. “Why?”
“Why do you want to know my name? For the half hour we sit here, ‘my sweet’ or whatever else you like to call me, will do.”
“All right, don’t tell me your name,” I said, suddenly irritable. “I don’t care.”
I took the bottle and poured another drink. Already it was quite clear to me that I was completely drunk and that I should not take any more. Even so, the urge to go on drinking was stronger. The coloured web in my brain enticed me, the dark untrodden jungles of my inner self tempted me; from afar, a soft seductive voice was calling.
“I don’t know whether I shall often come here,” I said rapidly. “I can’t stand you, I hate you, and yet I’ve come back to you this evening. This morning I drank the first schnaps in my life. You poured it out for me, you stole into my blood with it, you’ve poisoned me. You’re like the spirit of schnaps: hovering, intoxicating, cheap and.…”
I looked at her, breathless, myself the more astonished at these words which hurtled out of me, goodness knows where from. She sat opposite me. She had not taken up her sewing again. She had crossed her stockingless legs and had pushed her skirt back a little from her knees. Her legs were rather sturdy, but long, and fine-ankled. On her right calf I saw a birthmark nearly the size of a farthing—it seemed beautiful to me. She held a cigarette in her hand; she blew the smoke in a broad stream through her nearly closed lips; she stared at me without blinking.
“Go on, pop,” she said, “you’re getting on fine, go on.…”
I tried to think. What had I been talking about just now? The impulse to touch her, to take her in my arms, became almost overwhelming. But I leaned back firmly in my wicker chair, I clung to its arms. Suddenly I heard myself speak again. I spoke quite slowly and very distinctly, and yet I was breathless with excitement. “I’m a wholesale merchant,” I said, “I had quite a good business, but now I’m faced with bankruptcy. They’ll all laugh at me, all of them, especially my wife.… I’ve made a lot of mistakes, and Magda will throw them all in my face. Magda’s my wife, you know.…”