Beware of Pity (4 page)

“No”—and in my desperation I clutch Ilona’s arm—“just a moment, one moment … you must give her my apologies for everything. I couldn’t guess … I’d only seen her sitting at the dinner table, just for a second … please explain that …”

But Ilona, with anger in her eyes, has already freed her arm and is on her way to the other room. I stand in the doorway of the salon, my throat tight, the taste of sickness in my mouth. All around me there is dancing, couples circling on the floor, chattering voices as the guests talk and laugh in a carefree way that is suddenly more than I can bear. Another five minutes, I think, and everyone will know about my folly. Five more minutes, and then scornful, disapproving, ironic glances will be cast at me from all sides, and tomorrow the story of my rough, clumsy behaviour, passed on by a hundred mouths, will be the talk of the whole town, delivered at back doors with the milk, retold in the servants’ quarters, reaching the cafés and offices. Tomorrow my regiment will know about it.

At that moment, as if through a mist, I see the girl’s father. He is crossing the salon with a rather anxious expression—does he know already? Is he on his way towards me? No—oh, if I can only avoid him now! I am suddenly in panic terror of him,
of everyone. And without really knowing what I am doing, I stumble to the door leading into the front hall, and so out of this infernal house.

“Are you leaving us already, sir?” asks the surprised servant, with a look of respectful incredulity.

“Yes,” I reply, and take fright to hear the word come out of my mouth. Do I really want to leave? Next moment, as he takes my coat off the hook where it is hanging, I realise that by running away now I am committing another stupid and perhaps even more unforgivable offence. However, it is too late to change my mind. I can’t suddenly hand my coat back to the servant as he opens the front door for me with a little bow, I can’t go back into the salon. And so there I am all of a sudden, standing outside that strange, that accursed house, with the cold wind in my face, hot shame in my heart, and breathing as convulsively as if I were being choked.

That was the unfortunate act of folly with which the whole story began. Today, with my blood less agitated and after an interval of many years, when I conjure up the memory of the stupid incident that set everything else in motion I cannot help seeing that I stumbled into this misunderstanding entirely innocently. Even the cleverest and most experienced of men could have committed the faux pas of asking a lame girl to dance. But at the time, under the immediate impression of those first horrified reactions, I seemed to myself not just a hopeless fool but a villain, a criminal. I felt as if I had whipped an innocent child. With a little presence of mind, after all, the entire misunderstanding could have been cleared up. But I realised, as soon as the first
gust of cold air blew in my face outside the house, that by simply running away like a thief in the night, without even trying to apologise, I had made it impossible to retrieve the situation.

My state of mind as I stood there outside the house is beyond description. I heard no music on the other side of the lighted windows; perhaps the musicians had stopped for a rest. In my overwrought sense of guilt, however, I immediately and feverishly imagined that the dancing had stopped because of me, and everyone was now crowding into the little boudoir next to the salon to comfort the sobbing girl—all the guests, men, women and girls, were unanimously waxing indignant over the conduct of the dastardly man who had asked a crippled girl to dance, only to run away like a coward after committing his offence. And tomorrow—I broke out in a cold sweat; I could feel it under my cap—tomorrow the entire town would know about my disgrace, would be talking about it, passing on the gossip. I saw them all in my mind’s eye, my comrades, Ferencz, Mislyvetz, above all Jozsi the regimental joker, I imagined them coming up to me, smacking their lips with relish. “Well, Toni, what a way to behave! Let you off the leash, and you’ll put the whole regiment to shame!” The mockery and talk would go on for months in the officers’ mess; when old comrades sit at table together they go back over every idiotic act ever committed by one of us again and again, for ten, twenty years, every folly is immortalised, every joke set in stone. Even today, sixteen years after the event, they still tell the sad story of Captain Volinski, who came back from Vienna to boast of meeting Countess T in the Ringstrasse and visiting her in her apartment that very first night. Two days later the newspaper printed the scandalous story of her maid’s dismissal for her confidence tricks, making herself out to be the Countess for the purpose of her own amorous adventures—and what was
more, the would-be Casanova had to spend three weeks being treated by the regimental doctor. A man who has once looked ridiculous in the eyes of his comrades remains ridiculous for ever; they never forget and never forgive. The more I pictured it, the more I thought about it, the more absurd ideas came into my fevered mind. At that moment it seemed to me a hundred times easier to exert a little quick pressure on the trigger of my revolver than to suffer the infernal torments of the next few days, that helpless waiting to find out whether my comrades had yet heard of my folly, whether the whispering and grinning had already begun behind my back. I knew myself only too well; I knew I would never have the strength to withstand the mockery and scorn and tittle-tattle once it began.

I don’t remember how I got home that evening. All I
recollect
is that the first thing I did was to fling open the door of the cupboard where I kept a bottle of slivovitz for visitors and tip two or three half-full tumblers of it down my throat, to dispel the horrible sensation of my rising nausea. Then I threw myself on the bed, fully dressed as I was, and tried to think. But
delusions
in the dark are like hothouse flowers; they grow faster and with more tropical luxuriance. Confused and fantastic, they shoot up in the warm ground into bright creepers that choke your breath, forming with the speed of dreams and chasing the most absurd fears through the overheated brain. Shamed for life, was all I could think, a social outcast, mocked by my comrades, the talk of the whole town! I would never leave my room again, I could never again venture out into the street for fear of meeting one of those who knew about my crime (for that night, under extreme nervous strain, I felt that my sheer stupidity was a crime, and I myself would be the butt of mockery, a subject of universal derision). When I finally fell asleep, it can
have been only a shallow, restless sleep in which my anxiety went on working feverishly.

For as soon as I open my eyes I see the girl’s angry, childish face there before them again. I see her quivering lips, her hands convulsively clutching the table, I hear the sound of falling wood and now, in retrospect, realise it must have been her crutches, and I am overwhelmed by a stupid fear that the door might suddenly open, and her father—black coat trimmed with white braid, gold-rimmed glasses, neat little goatee beard—will march into my room. In my alarm I jump up. And as I stare at my own face, damp with the sweat of night fears and anxiety, I feel like punching the nose of the fool reflected in the pale mirror.

But luckily day has dawned, footsteps clatter up and down the corridor, carts pass along the cobblestones outside. And once the windowpanes let in light you think more clearly than slumped in the ominous darkness that conjures up phantoms. Perhaps, I say to myself, it’s not all so terrible after all. Perhaps no one noticed.
She
did, of course—she will never forget, never forgive, that poor pale, sick, lame girl! And then a good idea abruptly flashes through my mind. I hastily comb my untidy hair, fling on my uniform and run past my surprised batman Kusma, who calls frantically after me, in his poor Ruthenian German, “Lieutenant, sir—Lieutenant, coffee ready is.”

I run down the barracks stairs and race past the lancers lounging half-dressed around the yard. I’ve gone by them so fast that they don’t even have time to stand to attention. Next moment I’m out of the barracks gate, running (in so far as it is proper for a lieutenant to run) straight to the florists’ shop on the town-hall square. In my haste I had entirely forgotten that the shops aren’t open at five-thirty in the morning, but fortunately Frau Gurtner sells not just flowers, real and artificial, but also
vegetables. A cart delivering carrots is standing half-unloaded at the shop door, and as I knock vigorously on the window I can already hear her making her way downstairs. Once in the house, I make up a story—yesterday, I say, I entirely forgot that today some dear friends are celebrating an anniversary. We leave barracks in half-an-hour’s time, and I would like to have flowers sent at once. So flowers, please, the finest that she has! At once the stout florist, still in her bed jacket and slippers with holes in them, shuffles along to open her shop and show me her crown jewels, a large bunch of long-stemmed roses. How many would I like? All of them, I say, all of them! Just as they are, simply tied together, or would I rather have them in a pretty basket? Yes, yes, a basket. All that’s left of my month’s pay will go on this lavish order, and at the end of the month I shall have to deny myself supper and the café for a few days, or else borrow some money, but at the moment I don’t mind that, I am even glad that I shall have to pay a high price for my folly. All this time I still feel a perverse desire to punish myself severely for being a fool twice over, I want to pay dearly for my own double blunders.

But now surely all would be well again? The finest of roses, well arranged in a basket, sure to be sent off at once! However, Frau Gurtner runs down the street after me in desperate pursuit. Where are they to go, then? The gentleman hasn’t told her who the flowers are for. Oh no, idiot that I am three times over now, in my agitation I forgot! To the Villa Kekesfalva, I say, and just in time, thanks to Ilona’s dreadful outburst, I remember my poor victim’s first name; they are for Fräulein Edith von Kekesfalva.

“Of course, of course, the Kekesfalvas,” says Frau Gurtner proudly. “Our best customers!”

And another question, just as I am turning to hurry off again—didn’t I want to write a word to go with them? Write a word? Ah, yes! The name of the sender! The giver of the gift! How else is she to know where the flowers come from?

So I go back into the shop again, take out a visiting card and write on it, “A plea for forgiveness.” No—impossible! That would be a fourth mistake—why remind anyone of my folly? But what else can I put? “With genuine regret”—no, that won’t do either. She might think I was sorry for her. Better not to write anything at all.

“Just put the card in with them, Frau Gurtner, only my card.”

Now I feel better. I hurry back to barracks, swallow some coffee, and get through my hour’s drill as best I can, probably more nervous and distracted than usual. But in the army it’s not particularly unusual for a lieutenant to come on duty with a hangover in the morning. Think how many come back from a night on the tiles in Vienna so exhausted that they can hardly prop their eyes open, and fall asleep on a trotting horse. In fact it suits me very well to be occupied in giving commands, inspecting the men, and then riding out. To a certain extent action takes my mind off my troubles, although my uncomfortable memories are still churning away inside my head, and there’s a lump in my throat like a sponge soaked in bitter gall.

But at midday, just as I am going over to the officers’ mess, my batman runs after me with an urgent cry of, “
Panje
Lieutenant!” He is holding a letter, an oblong envelope, English notepaper, blue and delicately perfumed with a finely traced coat of arms on the back. The address is in thin, steeply
angular
handwriting, a lady’s hand. I swiftly tear the envelope open and read:

Delicate handwriting. I involuntarily remember the slender, childish fingers braced against the table, the pale face suddenly glowing crimson, as if claret had been poured into a glass. I read the few lines again once, twice, three times, and breathe a sigh of relief. How discreetly she glosses over my folly! How skilfully and at the same time tactfully she refers to her affliction: “I am—unfortunately!—always at home.” I could not have been more elegantly forgiven. There is no tone of offence at all in her note. A weight falls from my heart. I feel like a defendant in court who expects to be given a life sentence, but the judge rises to his feet, puts on his cap, and announces, “Not guilty.” Of course I must soon go out there to thank her. This is Thursday—so I will pay a call on Sunday. Or no, Saturday would be better!

But I do not stick to my decision. I am too impatient. Under pressure from my own uneasiness, I want to know that I have atoned for my offence, I want to be rid of the discomfort of uncertainty as soon as possible. I am still under the nervous strain of fearing that someone in the officers’ mess, the café or some other place will start talking about my faux pas. “Now, do tell us about that evening in the Kekesfalvas’ house!” To which I can then reply coolly and with supercilious ease, “Delightful people! I was there again yesterday, taking tea.”
Then, I think, everyone will see that I’ve had no trouble in making amends. Oh, to draw a line under the whole wretched affair, to get it over and done with! And in my nervous state I suddenly decide the very next day, Friday, while I am strolling on the promenade with my best friends Ferencz and Joszi, to pay my call at once. I abruptly take my leave of my slightly startled comrades.

It really is not a particularly long way out there, a walk of half-an-hour at the most if you go at a good pace. Five tedious minutes through the town first, then along the rather dusty country road that also leads to our parade ground; when our horses go that way they know every stone and every bend, so that you can loosen the reins. About halfway along this road, where you come to a little chapel on a bridge, a narrow avenue shaded by old chestnut trees branches off to the left. This avenue is more or less private, with few people going along it either on foot or in a carriage, and a small stream winding its way at a comfortable pace runs beside it.