sees the woman, fascinated as he is by the figure of an unknown man—tall, strong, strangely misshapen—directly across from him, some fifteen meters away, who is preparing to intervene in a drama that has nothing to do with him, a drama that the man in pajamas reserves jealously to himself and the woman he loves. For there’s no doubt about it, he does love her, his hatred was only transitory; he is incapable of detesting her truly and lastingly even if she does make him suffer. He knows she is act-From the other end of the pool, over where the water is deep, the Czech scientist doing push-ups watches in total astonishment: at first he thought the newly arrived couple had come to join the copulating couple and that he was finally going to see one of those legendary orgies he used to hear so much about when he was working on the scaffoldings of the puritan Communist empire. Out of delicacy, he even thought that in such circumstances of collective coition he ought to quit the pool area and go to his room. Then that cry stabbed his ears, and, his arms braced, he stayed that way as if petrified, unable to go on with his exercises even though he had done only eighteen push-ups. Before his eyes, the woman in the white dress fell into the water, and a scarf began floating behind her, along with a few tiny artificial flowers, blue and pink.
Immobile, his torso raised, the Czech scientist eventually understands that this woman is bent on drowning: she is trying to hold her head underwater but her will is not strong enough,
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ing under the diktat of her irrational, ungovernable sensitivity, that miraculous sensitivity of hers which he cannot comprehend and which he reveres. Even though he has just heaped abuse on her, in his heart he is convinced that she is innocent and that someone else is really to blame for their unexpected discord. He doesn’t know who it is, doesn’t know where to find him, but he is set to tear him apart. In that state of mind, he looks at the man leaning athletically out over the water; as if hypnotized, he looks at the man’s body, strong, thick-muscled, and oddly ill-proportioned, with broad womanish thighs and heavy unintelligent calves, a body as absurd as injustice incarnate. He knows nothing about this man, has no reason to mistrust him, but, blinded by his suffering, he sees in this monument of ugliness the image of his own inexplicable misery and is gripped by an invincible hatred for the man.
The Czech scientist dives and, in a few powerful strokes, draws close to the woman.
“Leave her alone!” shouts the man in pajamas, and he too jumps into the water.
The scientist is only two meters away from the woman; his feet are already touching bottom.
The man in pajamas is swimming toward him and yelling again: “Leave her alone! Don’t touch her!”
The Czech scientist stretches an arm beneath the body of the woman as she crumples with a long sigh.
The man in pajamas has got to them now: “Drop her or I kill you!”
Through his tears, he sees nothing before him, nothing but a misshapen silhouette. He grabs it by one shoulder and shakes it violently. The scientist capsizes, the woman falls from his arms. Neither man gives her another thought; she swims to the ladder and climbs up it. The scientist looks at the hate-filled eyes of the man in pajamas, and his own eyes flare with the same hatred.
The man in pajamas holds back no more, and he strikes.
The scientist feels a pain in the mouth. With his tongue he explores a front tooth and discovers that it is loose. This is a false tooth very laboriously screwed into the root by a Prague dentist who had fitted other false teeth around it; the dentist had explained emphatically that this tooth would be serving as a support to the others
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and that if he should someday lose it, he would be doomed to a denture, a thing the Czech scientist regards with unspeakable horror. His tongue probes the loose tooth and he turns pale, first
Immobile, his torso raised, the Czech scientist eventually understands that this woman is bent on drowning: she is trying to hold her head underwater but her will is not strong enough,
128
129
ing under the diktat of her irrational, ungovernable sensitivity, that miraculous sensitivity of hers which he cannot comprehend and which he reveres. Even though he has just heaped abuse on her, in his heart he is convinced that she is innocent and that someone else is really to blame for their unexpected discord. He doesn’t know who it is, doesn’t know where to find him, but he is set to tear him apart. In that state of mind, he looks at the man leaning athletically out over the water; as if hypnotized, he looks at the man’s body, strong, thick-muscled, and oddly ill-proportioned, with broad womanish thighs and heavy unintelligent calves, a body as absurd as injustice incarnate. He knows nothing about this man, has no reason to mistrust him, but, blinded by his suffering, he sees in this monument of ugliness the image of his own inexplicable misery and is gripped by an invincible hatred for the man.
The Czech scientist dives and, in a few powerful strokes, draws close to the woman.
“Leave her alone!” shouts the man in pajamas, and he too jumps into the water.
The scientist is only two meters away from the woman; his feet are already touching bottom.
The man in pajamas is swimming toward him and yelling again: “Leave her alone! Don’t touch her!”
The Czech scientist stretches an arm beneath the body of the woman as she crumples with a long sigh.
The man in pajamas has got to them now: “Drop her or I kill you!”
Through his tears, he sees nothing before him, nothing but a misshapen silhouette. He grabs it by one shoulder and shakes it violently. The scientist capsizes, the woman falls from his arms. Neither man gives her another thought; she swims to the ladder and climbs up it. The scientist looks at the hate-filled eyes of the man in pajamas, and his own eyes flare with the same hatred.
The man in pajamas holds back no more, and he strikes.
The scientist feels a pain in the mouth. With his tongue he explores a front tooth and discovers that it is loose. This is a false tooth very laboriously screwed into the root by a Prague dentist who had fitted other false teeth around it; the dentist had explained emphatically that this tooth would be serving as a support to the others
130
131
and that if he should someday lose it, he would be doomed to a denture, a thing the Czech scientist regards with unspeakable horror. His tongue probes the loose tooth and he turns pale, first
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