important number on his yellow fingers that would
never total. Though one body was heavy and the other frail, though one voice bullied and the
other barely mumbled, though the man wavered in agitation and the woman lay in state, they
both were very much the same, because on both the hair had receded and become pale, leaving
the foreheads, eyes and mouths expressionless with old age. A palmist looking at their hands
would have seen no life for all the mazes of fine-drawn yellow lines, overlapping soft pads
anduntaken crowding roads. “If only he would slip off into the light of
Heaven,” she thought. “Sit down,” she said, but he paid no attention, and she could hear
only the long-legged rustling of his uniform, the unbearable sun pressing above them on the
roof.
Jutta awoke and the room was filled with black shapes.
The heat seemed to grow more determined, even the clerks panted, whispering
closely in each other’s ears, and Stella believed the sun would never fall flaming through
the torpid clear sky. She wondered how the strange wild cannibals on tropical islands or on
the dark continent, running with white bones in their hair, dark feet hardened in the
shimmering sand, could bear, in only their feathers, this terrible sun. For the headache
made her drowsy. She saw those men, carrying victims high over their heads, as tall,
vengeful creatures who sang madly on their secret rock, who even at night slept on
glistening pink stone in fire, who stretched their tall bodies whether in repose or in
chase, and who kept wives bare from the waist up. Their ears were pierced, insects buzzed
low over the children, the islands kept rising up out of the sea. Even when she was tired
and desperately warm and even in such a trembling state, she loved him. Her temple throbbed,
the clerks were watching. Her fired heart and sweltering faith were beginning to fall away,
swept by impatience. She was tired of this park filled with noise, so close to the passing
horses that wore skull caps with holes for the ears. She was afraid of being left alone.
Then, before she had a chance to meet the image come too sudden before her, before she had a
chance to guard against this reflection which she had searched for in all the shop windows,
and guard against the terror of herself,she saw him running across the
street and up the path, turned half sideways, thin, excited, smiling wildly through the
fresh bandages round his head.
“Stella!”
“Ernst!”
They walked for twenty minutes under the yellow and green leaves and passed
the cool pond as clear as the sky, smelled the berries cultivated by the park authorities, a
few beautiful dripping flowers, and passed babies who screeched, dwarfed in the carriage.
Then he took her home, left her, feeling at last the approach of twilight, feeling his heart
full and as vague as water.
By the end of the next week the first thousands were far into enemy land,
ammunition trains roared all through the night, the city burned late in tumultuous but
magnificent organization, and the house was full of callers trying to pay respects to her
parents in the bedroom. All seeking on their padded feet to scale these, her walls, to climb
over them in a house that was no more hers than theirs, to seek out the mother, flies over
the white sheet, for knowledge of the venerable man, they crawled exactly as she crawled.
She caught, unwittingly, scraps of words, part of love during the seven days and forgot
about the cannibals. “We met in a beautiful copse on a summer’s eve, smelling the dew.” But
through the hours, while Gerta stamped about serving tea to them in the anteroom, where they
still wore their monstrous hats, she felt for some reason as if these short-winged
creatures, all but strangers, had come to mourn, and that mourning, visiting with the dead,
was the last desperate attempt, the last chance for gossip. She felt that they
never total. Though one body was heavy and the other frail, though one voice bullied and the
other barely mumbled, though the man wavered in agitation and the woman lay in state, they
both were very much the same, because on both the hair had receded and become pale, leaving
the foreheads, eyes and mouths expressionless with old age. A palmist looking at their hands
would have seen no life for all the mazes of fine-drawn yellow lines, overlapping soft pads
anduntaken crowding roads. “If only he would slip off into the light of
Heaven,” she thought. “Sit down,” she said, but he paid no attention, and she could hear
only the long-legged rustling of his uniform, the unbearable sun pressing above them on the
roof.
Jutta awoke and the room was filled with black shapes.
The heat seemed to grow more determined, even the clerks panted, whispering
closely in each other’s ears, and Stella believed the sun would never fall flaming through
the torpid clear sky. She wondered how the strange wild cannibals on tropical islands or on
the dark continent, running with white bones in their hair, dark feet hardened in the
shimmering sand, could bear, in only their feathers, this terrible sun. For the headache
made her drowsy. She saw those men, carrying victims high over their heads, as tall,
vengeful creatures who sang madly on their secret rock, who even at night slept on
glistening pink stone in fire, who stretched their tall bodies whether in repose or in
chase, and who kept wives bare from the waist up. Their ears were pierced, insects buzzed
low over the children, the islands kept rising up out of the sea. Even when she was tired
and desperately warm and even in such a trembling state, she loved him. Her temple throbbed,
the clerks were watching. Her fired heart and sweltering faith were beginning to fall away,
swept by impatience. She was tired of this park filled with noise, so close to the passing
horses that wore skull caps with holes for the ears. She was afraid of being left alone.
Then, before she had a chance to meet the image come too sudden before her, before she had a
chance to guard against this reflection which she had searched for in all the shop windows,
and guard against the terror of herself,she saw him running across the
street and up the path, turned half sideways, thin, excited, smiling wildly through the
fresh bandages round his head.
“Stella!”
“Ernst!”
They walked for twenty minutes under the yellow and green leaves and passed
the cool pond as clear as the sky, smelled the berries cultivated by the park authorities, a
few beautiful dripping flowers, and passed babies who screeched, dwarfed in the carriage.
Then he took her home, left her, feeling at last the approach of twilight, feeling his heart
full and as vague as water.
By the end of the next week the first thousands were far into enemy land,
ammunition trains roared all through the night, the city burned late in tumultuous but
magnificent organization, and the house was full of callers trying to pay respects to her
parents in the bedroom. All seeking on their padded feet to scale these, her walls, to climb
over them in a house that was no more hers than theirs, to seek out the mother, flies over
the white sheet, for knowledge of the venerable man, they crawled exactly as she crawled.
She caught, unwittingly, scraps of words, part of love during the seven days and forgot
about the cannibals. “We met in a beautiful copse on a summer’s eve, smelling the dew.” But
through the hours, while Gerta stamped about serving tea to them in the anteroom, where they
still wore their monstrous hats, she felt for some reason as if these short-winged
creatures, all but strangers, had come to mourn, and that mourning, visiting with the dead,
was the last desperate attempt, the last chance for gossip. She felt that they
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