“What was it I wanted to say? Oh yeah, that I was thinking of you. Because a moment ago you were staring at me as if you could already see it, and here it just occurred to me that while I was strolling about, it also occurred to me that one could already see it on me, even though nothing’s happened yet. Here I recalled — forgive me — that one could see it on you as well, there — the robbery, the robbery that wasn’t even your fault at all. If only I could say this better — I’m sorry. .
“It’s clear enough, you were innocent. There’s proof, and so on. . If only I could say this better: You’re innocent, you were innocent — we get it — but you looked like someone who had to be the thief. By rights, the thief should have been you, and it was just your bad luck if it wasn’t. — On my stroll it also occurred to me — on my stroll, I say — that one could already see it on me as well, even though nothing has actually happened yet. I swear to you. But what if it’s just luck? Maybe you can see what a person is on anybody, were it not for the luck that he hasn’t become it. — — Hold on! Now I’m thinking that in anybody you can see what, only by luck, he isn’t. . For I — on my soul — nothing’s happened. I went to the Steels for work — that’s all — Mr. Steel took me in as a servant.”
“When. .”
“When what? That much is clear: when. . But isn’t that why I don’t have to run away from the cops yet?”
“You were saying something about being registered.”
“That just really got away from me. I had it set up. . so he’d have pity on me. . I thought it was some tramp — how could I have suspected it was you? I needed him, this guy — like you. It just got so out of hand.”
“But this idea of yours — on your stroll. .” he said with wicked pity.
She turned her head away; only now did she turn her head away.
“I felt such shame, only shame, shame for myself; not that I would have felt sorry for myself. I was saying that I was remembering you. It was like I said to myself: maybe it was like that for you, too, back then, that kind of shame, but no guilt and no self-pity. Only shame. . I’m telling you, it’s a bad omen when we’re incapable of foisting our misfortune upon others; when we tell ourselves that we have just ourselves to blame, just ourselves, just ourselves. A bad omen: because then it brings such harsh anger at ourselves. A person gets so sick of himself, and of nothing but himself, of himself and himself alone. It’s a bit like suicide. But suicide is forbidden.”
He raised his eyes, for the haphazard visor of his cap was bothering him; he fixed it with a flick.
“It’s a skill — are you going to do it?”
She seemed to seize up, like she had shrunken in the shoulders.
“If you were perhaps going to do it. . I have to tell you that when I was staring at you a moment ago, it’s not that I would have been guessing at something or looking for it. No! It’s that all of a sudden I saw how you’ll be, when you become loathsome to me. When you become loathsome to me — you see? Watch! So far you’re only taking a stroll — a stroll! — so far you’re still as shapely, pretty, white-and-red as at Benedictine Mill — in short, a girl! — but I don’t know: now, somewhere under your eyes, along your nose, in your double chin, one can already see it at work.”
“Can see what at work?”
“I’ll tell you what you can see at work: the loathsomeness, the aging, the whorish collapse into ruin.”
And again he discerned that gesture of a person who’s gotten unused to self-defense: her hand seized the hand on the backrest and set out along a path that he already knew from somewhere. .
“Don’t tempt me,” he said, but he didn’t shy away.
“Don’t tempt me,” he said, and he tolerated her embracing him around the neck.
“We have it lousy,” he said when she drew herself quite close, “and you think so too, see?”
She didn’t say “no,” but a snigger had settled on her pleading, puckered lips.
“Oh, my darling,” and he pushed her gently away, “I’m the first you’ve come across — on your stroll — if that’s not enough to discourage you, you’re an optimist. Just take a look at me.
“Just take a look at yourself!” he repeated, hardly mocking.
“I know what you’re driving at. I remember,” she answered swiftly, “it’s weird: I had made up my mind, and so far everything’s like nothing happened. Me too: I hear, I see, I speak as though nothing had happened — me, the one who’d made up her mind.”
“About what?” he asked suspiciously. “Made up your mind to do what?” And he shoved her suddenly with his elbow.
“Oh, that’s it! Now we’re talking!”
“Let’s stroll for a while; and then each can go his way.”
“No.”
“You’ll come with me a while.” She stood up, arranged the cloak that had slipped, and looked upon his crown. “Finally!” she said when he rose.
She walked along the retaining wall, so close that you could hear her scraping against it; on the retaining wall, inchworm-like, her fingers.
“If I’ve understood you right. . But nothing will get solved that way.”
She walked with her head lowered.
“Keep your learned words to yourself. Won’t solve anything! What do you want me to solve? If it’s a bust, it’s a bust. I’ve had enough—basta. Won’t solve anything! Solve! That’s fine for you, the learned, or perhaps for people who have no courage. Who knows, maybe they’re the same: the learned, and people without courage. Solve! What, I ask you? That which isn’t there? You’re not even telling me to have faith yet, like you. At least that’s something.”
She stopped, leaned against the retaining wall, and with the pride of the queen of the rag men:
“But if someone had to—like me. . Like I had to serve a life sentence and amuse myself by reckoning the days served.”
She started on her path again.
“I’m talking about that driver. He got married. A boy like that, such a beautiful boy.
“Are you still waiting for something?” she asked, but the tone in which she continued answered for itself: that what she was asking about wasn’t worth an answer. “I’m just surprised that it can seem so normaclass="underline" the most ordinary of ordinary days, as though nothing had happened.
“See here”—she’d set off along the ramp down to the river, but she had looked back, as though sensing that he had stopped, that he wouldn’t follow her, and she repeated “see here” without changing her voice. And she went on, no longer looking back, since she was well aware that now he could follow her no further.
“See here, nothing like this even occurred to me this morning. See here, if Mrs. Steel hadn’t found out that Mr. Steel hadn’t left the house last evening — he went up to the fifth floor, to my chamber — everything would have been like it is, and all the same it would be different. Like about the driver, I mean. But she did find out, she took me to task — I don’t know how to lie — so I left. First to his office, after the gentleman. Where I got the nerve — God only knows! Me! — and still I was proud of my daring, fool that I am. He gave me five thousand. That’s nothing to shake a stick at. That’s already enough to get something going with.” (She turned around.) “You don’t perhaps need a little money?”
They were walking along the water.
“A fool, I say, though it’s really all the same. A fool, because who knows whether things would have taken this turn if I hadn’t taken the money; I wouldn’t have gotten. . Because before that I was merely at a loss, I was merely desperate— desperate, let’s say. What really happened to me only happened afterwards: a person would say it came my way from that five thousand. . that is, my being ashamed of myself, my anger at myself. And who knows if it’s anger, a sort of ugliness, rather. . like this boy, like it was everything, and once he was gone there was nothing left, that’s actually the thing that’s really not worth it anymore.”