Five Women by Robert Musil

have been bored. But you will have to get used to me." He took her arm, because it was becoming difficult to see the road distinctly, and he tried to excuse himself for his silence and then, almost against his will, for his thoughts too. She did not really know what he was talking about, but in her own way she sensed the meaning of his words, which came so gravely through the rising mist. And when now he went further, even apologising for talking in such a solemn way, she did not know what to do. Even her silent prayer to the Blessed Virgin was of no avail, and so she linked her arm more closely with his, although she felt dreadfully shy of doing so.
    He stroked her hand. "I think we get on well together, Tonka. But do you really understand me?"
    After a while Tonka answered: "It doesn't matter if I know what you mean, or not. I couldn't say anything anyway. But I like you to be so serious."
    These were all very slight experiences, of course, but the remarkable thing was that they happened all over again, exactly the same. Actually they were always there. And, even more remarkably, later they meant the very opposite of what they had meant in the beginning. Tonka always remained so simply and transparently the same that it was almost like having an hallucination, seeing the most incredible things.
     
    III
     
    Then came an event: his grandmother died before the expected time. Events are, after all, only things that happen untimely and out of place; one is, as it were, mislaid or forgotten, and one is as helpless as an object that nobody bothers to pick up. And even the events that took place much later were only the things that happen thousands of times, all over the world, and the only incomprehensible thing about it was that it should have happened with Tonka.
    Well, and so the doctor came, the undertaker's men came, the death certificate was signed, and Grandmamma was buried. One thing followed on the other quite smoothly, as is proper in a respectable family. The will was read. He was glad not to be in any way involved. There was only one item among the bequests that demanded attention: the provision made for Fräulein Tonka with that dreamlike surname, one of those Czech surnames that mean things like ‘He sang', or ‘He came across the meadow'. There was a contract. Under the terms of the will the Fräulein was to receive—apart from her wages, which were low—a certain fixed sum for every completed year of service, and since it had been assumed that Grandmamma would linger on for quite a while, and since the sum had been fixed in gradually increasing amounts in accordance with the expected increase in the strain of nursing her, it turned out to be a sum that was bound to seem outrageously small to a young man who weighed out in minutes the months of her youth that Tonka had sacrificed.
    He was present when Hyacinth reckoned up with her. He was pretending to read—the book was Novalis' Fragments— but in reality he was attentively following what was going on. He was ashamed when his ‘uncle' named the sum. Even his ‘uncle' seemed to feel something similar, for he began to explain to the Fräulein, in detail, the terms of the contract that had been made when she entered their service. Tonka listened intently, her lips tightly closed. The solemnity with which she followed the calculations gave her young face a very appealing look.
    "So then that's correct, isn't it?" his uncle said, laying the money on the table.
    It was obvious that she had absolutely no idea what it was all about. She pulled out her little purse, folded the notes, and squashed them in; but though they were few, folding them so much made a thick wad of them, and when the little purse had been replaced under her skirt, it made a bulge on her thigh, like a swelling.
    She had only one question to ask. "When do I have to leave?"
    "Well," his uncle said, "I suppose it will be a few days before the house is shut up. You can certainly stay till then.