intentions of that sort towards herself, the physical familiarity somehow shook her slumbering senses awake.
So that chance impetus set off movement in the underground realm within her, shifting stratum after stratum, until at last, first clumsily and then ever more clearly, a new feeling developed in her, like that sudden moment when one day a dog unexpectedly recognises one of the many two-legged figures around him as his master. From that hour on the dog follows him, greets the man whom Fate has set in authority over him by wagging his tail or barking, becomes voluntarily subservient and follows his trail obediently step by step. In just the same way, something new had entered the small circle of Crescenz’s life, hitherto bounded by the five familiar ideas of money, the market, the kitchen range, church and her bed. That new element needed space, and brusquely pushed everythingelse forcefully aside. And with that peasant greed that will never let something it has seized out of its hands again, she drew it deep into herself and the confused, instinctive world of her dull senses. Of course it was some time before any change became visible, and those first signs were very insignificant: for instance, the particularly fanatical care she devoted to cleaning the Baron’s clothes and shoes, while she still left the Baroness’s to the lady’s maid. Or she was often to be seen in the corridor of the apartment, eagerly making haste to take his hat and stick as soon as she heard the sound of the key in the front door. She redoubled her attention to the cooking, and even laboriously made her way to the big market hall so that she could get a joint of venison to roast specially for him. She was taking more care with her outward appearance too.
It was one or two weeks before these first shoots of new emotion emerged from her inner world, and many weeks more before a second idea was added to the first and grew, uncertainly in the beginning, but then acquiring distinct form and colour. This new feeling was complementary to the first: initially indistinct, but gradually appearing clear and plain, it was a sense of emergent hatred for the Baron’s wife, the woman who could live with him, sleep with him, talk to him, yet did not feel the same devoted veneration for him as she herself did. Whether because she had perhaps —these days instinctively noticing more—witnessed one of those shameful scenes in which the master she idolized was humiliated in the most objectionable way by his irate wife, or whether it was that the inhibited North German woman’s arrogant reserve was doubly obviousin contrast to his jovial familiarity—for one reason or another, at any rate, she suddenly brought a certain mulishness to bear on the unsuspecting wife, a prickly hostility expressed in a thousand little barbed remarks and spiteful actions. For instance, the Baroness always had to ring at least twice before Crescenz responded to the summons, deliberately slowly and with obvious reluctance, and her hunched shoulders always expressed resistance in principle . She accepted orders and errands wordlessly and with a glum expression, so that the Baroness never knew if she had actually understood her, but if she asked again to be on the safe side she got only a gloomy nod or a derisive “Sure I hears yer!” by way of answer. Or just before a visit to the theatre, while the Baroness was nervously scurrying around, an important key would prove to be lost, only to be unexpectedly discovered in a corner half-an-hour later. She regularly chose to forget about messages and phone calls to the Baroness: when charged with the omission she would offer, without the slightest sign of regret, only a brusque, “I fergot ’un”. She never looked the Baroness in the face, perhaps for fear that she would not be able to hide her hatred.
Meanwhile the domestic differences between husband and wife led to increasingly unedifying scenes; perhaps Crescenz’s
So that chance impetus set off movement in the underground realm within her, shifting stratum after stratum, until at last, first clumsily and then ever more clearly, a new feeling developed in her, like that sudden moment when one day a dog unexpectedly recognises one of the many two-legged figures around him as his master. From that hour on the dog follows him, greets the man whom Fate has set in authority over him by wagging his tail or barking, becomes voluntarily subservient and follows his trail obediently step by step. In just the same way, something new had entered the small circle of Crescenz’s life, hitherto bounded by the five familiar ideas of money, the market, the kitchen range, church and her bed. That new element needed space, and brusquely pushed everythingelse forcefully aside. And with that peasant greed that will never let something it has seized out of its hands again, she drew it deep into herself and the confused, instinctive world of her dull senses. Of course it was some time before any change became visible, and those first signs were very insignificant: for instance, the particularly fanatical care she devoted to cleaning the Baron’s clothes and shoes, while she still left the Baroness’s to the lady’s maid. Or she was often to be seen in the corridor of the apartment, eagerly making haste to take his hat and stick as soon as she heard the sound of the key in the front door. She redoubled her attention to the cooking, and even laboriously made her way to the big market hall so that she could get a joint of venison to roast specially for him. She was taking more care with her outward appearance too.
It was one or two weeks before these first shoots of new emotion emerged from her inner world, and many weeks more before a second idea was added to the first and grew, uncertainly in the beginning, but then acquiring distinct form and colour. This new feeling was complementary to the first: initially indistinct, but gradually appearing clear and plain, it was a sense of emergent hatred for the Baron’s wife, the woman who could live with him, sleep with him, talk to him, yet did not feel the same devoted veneration for him as she herself did. Whether because she had perhaps —these days instinctively noticing more—witnessed one of those shameful scenes in which the master she idolized was humiliated in the most objectionable way by his irate wife, or whether it was that the inhibited North German woman’s arrogant reserve was doubly obviousin contrast to his jovial familiarity—for one reason or another, at any rate, she suddenly brought a certain mulishness to bear on the unsuspecting wife, a prickly hostility expressed in a thousand little barbed remarks and spiteful actions. For instance, the Baroness always had to ring at least twice before Crescenz responded to the summons, deliberately slowly and with obvious reluctance, and her hunched shoulders always expressed resistance in principle . She accepted orders and errands wordlessly and with a glum expression, so that the Baroness never knew if she had actually understood her, but if she asked again to be on the safe side she got only a gloomy nod or a derisive “Sure I hears yer!” by way of answer. Or just before a visit to the theatre, while the Baroness was nervously scurrying around, an important key would prove to be lost, only to be unexpectedly discovered in a corner half-an-hour later. She regularly chose to forget about messages and phone calls to the Baroness: when charged with the omission she would offer, without the slightest sign of regret, only a brusque, “I fergot ’un”. She never looked the Baroness in the face, perhaps for fear that she would not be able to hide her hatred.
Meanwhile the domestic differences between husband and wife led to increasingly unedifying scenes; perhaps Crescenz’s
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