I
It was the autumn of Severin’s twenty-fourth year. In the afternoons he came home exhausted by tormenting office work, threw himself on the black leather sofa in his room, and slept until nightfall. As soon as the lanterns were lit, he went out onto the street. The sun only shone on his paths through the city during the long and burning days of summer, or on Sundays, when the entire day belonged to him and, during his wanderings, he thought of the short time he had spent as a student.
After two or three semesters Severin had given up his studies and found a job. In the mornings he sat in the miserable office and held his sickly, beardless young face bent over the rows of figures. A nervous and unhealthy discontent crept through his body with the room’s chill, and unrest awoke within him. The relentless monotony made his hands tremble. A disturbing weariness bored into his temples and, with his fingers, he pushed his eyeballs into his head until they started to hurt.
For an entire rainy October week he had not seen Zdenka. Every day her letters begged him to come to her, but he pushed them aside with irritation and did not answer them. Zdenka could not fulfill the wishes that had begun to stir in the half-articulated rhythm of his blood. A tense expectation, a singular and unruly curiosity, always came over him when, numbed by sleep, he stepped onto the street in the evening. With his eyes wide open he looked into the city, where people were moving like phantoms. The noise of the carriages and the rattling of the trams blended with the voices of the people to make a harmonious clamor in which a distinct cry or shout occasionally sounded. He listened with careful attention, as though something important were eluding him. His favorite streets were the ones that lay apart from the great commotion. When he squinted and looked through his half-closed eyelids the houses took on a fantastic appearance. He walked past the walls of the large gardens that enclosed the hospitals and institutes. He was struck by the smell of decaying leaves and damp earth. He knew of a church somewhere nearby. In the early evening it was usually deserted here, although someone would pass by from time to time. Severin stood in the shadows of the balconies and wondered why his heart was pounding.
Was it because of this city, with its dark facades, the silence over its large squares, its decayed passion? He always felt as though invisible hands were brushing against him. He remembered days when he had gone into neighborhoods he had long known and been comfortable in and found them completely unfamiliar. On Sunday mornings he had sometimes passed the hospital for incurables and the Karlshof Kirche as he descended the Sluper Gründe. He was astonished to think that he had lived here since childhood. When the sun shone and glittered on the crumbling steps, it made him think of the winter evenings when the snow floated into the streets and the lamps shimmered in the puddles of slush. It seemed to him that he was marked by a curse. Within him grew an angry longing to free himself of the curse and transform it.
He often believed he had to despair in the face of his own wretchedness. There was a bitterness in him that clung to feeble imprecations, and a lethargy that longed for accursed hours. Zdenka knew nothing about any of this. Unhappily, with his lips pressed together and the collar of his coat upturned, he walked through the city along streets that led indirectly to the Moldau, where she was waiting for him.
For years he had made his way to school along the long bustling street where he was now walking. Here, on his way home, he had smoked his first cigarette and discussed the great battles that were fought against the Czech boys in the old fortifications of Weinberge. He had never distinguished himself as a great hero or leader in these conflicts, but neither had he betrayed his cowardice. For him, offering his brow to the stones hurled by the
It was the autumn of Severin’s twenty-fourth year. In the afternoons he came home exhausted by tormenting office work, threw himself on the black leather sofa in his room, and slept until nightfall. As soon as the lanterns were lit, he went out onto the street. The sun only shone on his paths through the city during the long and burning days of summer, or on Sundays, when the entire day belonged to him and, during his wanderings, he thought of the short time he had spent as a student.
After two or three semesters Severin had given up his studies and found a job. In the mornings he sat in the miserable office and held his sickly, beardless young face bent over the rows of figures. A nervous and unhealthy discontent crept through his body with the room’s chill, and unrest awoke within him. The relentless monotony made his hands tremble. A disturbing weariness bored into his temples and, with his fingers, he pushed his eyeballs into his head until they started to hurt.
For an entire rainy October week he had not seen Zdenka. Every day her letters begged him to come to her, but he pushed them aside with irritation and did not answer them. Zdenka could not fulfill the wishes that had begun to stir in the half-articulated rhythm of his blood. A tense expectation, a singular and unruly curiosity, always came over him when, numbed by sleep, he stepped onto the street in the evening. With his eyes wide open he looked into the city, where people were moving like phantoms. The noise of the carriages and the rattling of the trams blended with the voices of the people to make a harmonious clamor in which a distinct cry or shout occasionally sounded. He listened with careful attention, as though something important were eluding him. His favorite streets were the ones that lay apart from the great commotion. When he squinted and looked through his half-closed eyelids the houses took on a fantastic appearance. He walked past the walls of the large gardens that enclosed the hospitals and institutes. He was struck by the smell of decaying leaves and damp earth. He knew of a church somewhere nearby. In the early evening it was usually deserted here, although someone would pass by from time to time. Severin stood in the shadows of the balconies and wondered why his heart was pounding.
Was it because of this city, with its dark facades, the silence over its large squares, its decayed passion? He always felt as though invisible hands were brushing against him. He remembered days when he had gone into neighborhoods he had long known and been comfortable in and found them completely unfamiliar. On Sunday mornings he had sometimes passed the hospital for incurables and the Karlshof Kirche as he descended the Sluper Gründe. He was astonished to think that he had lived here since childhood. When the sun shone and glittered on the crumbling steps, it made him think of the winter evenings when the snow floated into the streets and the lamps shimmered in the puddles of slush. It seemed to him that he was marked by a curse. Within him grew an angry longing to free himself of the curse and transform it.
He often believed he had to despair in the face of his own wretchedness. There was a bitterness in him that clung to feeble imprecations, and a lethargy that longed for accursed hours. Zdenka knew nothing about any of this. Unhappily, with his lips pressed together and the collar of his coat upturned, he walked through the city along streets that led indirectly to the Moldau, where she was waiting for him.
For years he had made his way to school along the long bustling street where he was now walking. Here, on his way home, he had smoked his first cigarette and discussed the great battles that were fought against the Czech boys in the old fortifications of Weinberge. He had never distinguished himself as a great hero or leader in these conflicts, but neither had he betrayed his cowardice. For him, offering his brow to the stones hurled by the
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