I'm Not Stiller by Max Frisch Page B

spotlight. Like a marine creature whose glorious colours are only visible under water, Julika's elfin beauty showed only when she was dancing; afterwards she was tired. Understandably: when she danced she gave her last ounce of energy. She had a right to be tired, and Julika told every waiting admirer she was tired. But Stiller always believed that Julika was only tired for him. What did he get out of it when he persuaded Julika to take a glass of wine or, since Julika did not drink wine, a cup of tea? Stiller talked a great deal on these occasions, it seems, like someone who feels it is entirely up to him to keep the conversation going; Julika was tired and said nothing. At that time Stiller talked a great deal about Spain; he had just come back from the Spanish Civil War and had already been condemned by the Swiss military court. Julika did not feel sorry for him because of his impending imprisonment, which he referred to with rather ostentatious pride, but for some other reason which she did not understand herself. She had only to smile and Stiller was afraid she was laughing at him and put his hands over his forehead or his mouth; and when she refused to walk arm in arm with him on the way home he was abashed and spent a long time outside the door of her house apologizing for his forwardness, which he too found objectionable. This made Julika like him better than anyone else.
    Stiller was the first, or at any rate one of the few, who ever received a letter from Julika, a few lines in which she confirmed that she had been very tired and intimated that they might see one another again. She knew how much this young man desired her and also that Stiller would on no account take her by force; he was lacking in some quality without which such an action was impossible, and this made her like him all the more. And she liked the fact that this man, who had just been in Spain on some front or other, a man of slim yet powerful build and a head taller than Julika, did not expect the least apology on her part when she had kept him waiting outside the theatre for nearly an hour, but, on the contrary, apologized for his own importunity and was already afraid of being a nuisance again.
    Julika liked all this very much, as I have said; at any rate, she always spoke very kindly of Stiller when she recalled these early times. It was March, and they were going for their first country walk, which was much too long for the delicate Julika, too exhausting and also too dirty; the ground was still very wet, although the warm sun was shining, and once her left shoe stuck in the mire when Stiller led her across the middle of a field, and he had to take hold of her to save her from treading in the mud with her stockinged foot; it was then that Stiller kissed her for the first time. Julika is firmly convinced that she kissed him too. Stiller soon stopped, not wanting to be a nuisance to Julika, but nevertheless he was extremely gay during the rest of the walk, breaking off willow rods like a boy and striking his open overcoat with them as he went along. Julika felt as though he were a brother. And she liked that too. He didn't mind the fact that even in the country Julika talked about nothing but the ballet, and in particular about the people connected with ballets, conductors, theatrical designers, hairdressers, ballet-masters—that was her world. Other admirers had reproached her with having nothing in her head but gossip. But not Stiller. He made a great effort to listen, occasionally pointing out a particularly beautiful view, which did not distract Julika's attention from her subject; then Stiller felt ashamed of knowing so little about the art of the ballet.
    They ate bread and bacon in a simple peasant inn of the sort that obviously appealed to Stiller, and Julika enjoyed the sense that for the first time she had met a man of whom she did not feel afraid. Once again he talked about his Spanish war. A few days after this walk he had to