then head for the Forest Hotel. In the car, Tatiana asks:
"How was Lol after we went home?"
"Rational."
W HEN I WENT to the window of the room in the Forest Hotel, where I was waiting for Tatiana Karl, on Tuesday at the appointed hour, dusk was just descending, and when I thought I could discern, between the hotel and the foot of the hill, a gray form, a woman about whose grayish blondness there could be no doubt whatsoever, I had a violent reaction, although I had been prepared for any eventuality, a very violent reaction I could not immediately define, something between terror and disbelief, horror and pleasure, and I was tempted by turn to cry out some warning, offer help, thrust her away forever, or involve myself forever with Lol Stein in all her complexities, fall in love with her. I stifled a cry, prayed to God for help, I ran out of the room, retraced my steps, paced the floor like a caged animal, too much alone to love or not to love, sick, sick of my frightful inability to admit what was happening.
Then my emotion abated to some slight degree, it contracted, and I was able to contain it. This moment coincided with the one when I discovered that she too must have been able to see me.
I'm lying. I did not move from the window, my worst fears confirmed, fighting back the tears.
S UDDENLY THE BLONDNESS was different than before, it moved then came to rest. I had the feeling she must have become aware that I had discovered her presence.
So we both looked at each other, or so I believed. For how long?
At my wit's end, I turned my head away, toward the right side of the rye field where she was not. From that direction, Tatiana, in a black suit, was arriving. She paid the taxi and started walking slowly past the alder trees.
Without knocking, she gently opened the door to the room. I asked her to come over and join me for a minute at the window. Tatiana came. I showed her the field of rye and the hill beyond. I was standing behind her. Thus it was that I showed her to Tatiana.
"We never look at the view. From this side of the hotel it's really quite beautiful."
Tatiana saw nothing, she returned to the other side of the room.
"No, it's a depressing view."
She called me.
"Come, there's nothing to see."
Without so much as the slightest preliminary caress, Jack Hold came over to Tatiana Karl.
Jack Hold possessed Tatiana Karl, ruthlessly. She offered no resistance, said nothing, refused no demand, marveled at the intensity of his passion.
Their pleasure was great, and mutual.
That moment when Lol was completely forgotten, that extended flash, in the unvarying time of her watchful wait, Lol wanted that moment to be, without harboring the slightest hope of perceiving it. It was.
Holding her in a tight embrace, Jack Hold could not bring himself to move away from Tatiana Karl. He talked to her. Tatiana Karl was not quite certain for whom the words which Jack Hold said to her were intended. She was under no illusion whatsoever that they were addressed to her, nor did she believe they were meant for some other woman who, that day, was absent, but thought rather that, through them, he was unburdening his heart. But why this rather than some other time? Tatiana sought the answer by thinking back on their affair.
"Tatiana, you're my life, my life, Tatiana."
That day, Tatiana listened to her lover's wild words, at first simply pleased and happy, as always, to be a vaguely defined woman in the arms of a man.
"Tatiana, I love you, I love you, Tatiana."
Tatiana acquiesced, in a comforting, maternally tender voice:
"Yes. I'm here. Here beside you."
At first simply pleased and happy, as always, to see how free someone could be with her, then, suddenly, taken aback by the pernicious intention of the words.
"Tatiana, my sister, Tatiana."
To hear that, to imagine what he might say if she were not Tatiana, ah! sweet words!
"How can I do even more to you, Tatiana?"
We must have been there for at least an hour now, all
"How was Lol after we went home?"
"Rational."
W HEN I WENT to the window of the room in the Forest Hotel, where I was waiting for Tatiana Karl, on Tuesday at the appointed hour, dusk was just descending, and when I thought I could discern, between the hotel and the foot of the hill, a gray form, a woman about whose grayish blondness there could be no doubt whatsoever, I had a violent reaction, although I had been prepared for any eventuality, a very violent reaction I could not immediately define, something between terror and disbelief, horror and pleasure, and I was tempted by turn to cry out some warning, offer help, thrust her away forever, or involve myself forever with Lol Stein in all her complexities, fall in love with her. I stifled a cry, prayed to God for help, I ran out of the room, retraced my steps, paced the floor like a caged animal, too much alone to love or not to love, sick, sick of my frightful inability to admit what was happening.
Then my emotion abated to some slight degree, it contracted, and I was able to contain it. This moment coincided with the one when I discovered that she too must have been able to see me.
I'm lying. I did not move from the window, my worst fears confirmed, fighting back the tears.
S UDDENLY THE BLONDNESS was different than before, it moved then came to rest. I had the feeling she must have become aware that I had discovered her presence.
So we both looked at each other, or so I believed. For how long?
At my wit's end, I turned my head away, toward the right side of the rye field where she was not. From that direction, Tatiana, in a black suit, was arriving. She paid the taxi and started walking slowly past the alder trees.
Without knocking, she gently opened the door to the room. I asked her to come over and join me for a minute at the window. Tatiana came. I showed her the field of rye and the hill beyond. I was standing behind her. Thus it was that I showed her to Tatiana.
"We never look at the view. From this side of the hotel it's really quite beautiful."
Tatiana saw nothing, she returned to the other side of the room.
"No, it's a depressing view."
She called me.
"Come, there's nothing to see."
Without so much as the slightest preliminary caress, Jack Hold came over to Tatiana Karl.
Jack Hold possessed Tatiana Karl, ruthlessly. She offered no resistance, said nothing, refused no demand, marveled at the intensity of his passion.
Their pleasure was great, and mutual.
That moment when Lol was completely forgotten, that extended flash, in the unvarying time of her watchful wait, Lol wanted that moment to be, without harboring the slightest hope of perceiving it. It was.
Holding her in a tight embrace, Jack Hold could not bring himself to move away from Tatiana Karl. He talked to her. Tatiana Karl was not quite certain for whom the words which Jack Hold said to her were intended. She was under no illusion whatsoever that they were addressed to her, nor did she believe they were meant for some other woman who, that day, was absent, but thought rather that, through them, he was unburdening his heart. But why this rather than some other time? Tatiana sought the answer by thinking back on their affair.
"Tatiana, you're my life, my life, Tatiana."
That day, Tatiana listened to her lover's wild words, at first simply pleased and happy, as always, to be a vaguely defined woman in the arms of a man.
"Tatiana, I love you, I love you, Tatiana."
Tatiana acquiesced, in a comforting, maternally tender voice:
"Yes. I'm here. Here beside you."
At first simply pleased and happy, as always, to see how free someone could be with her, then, suddenly, taken aback by the pernicious intention of the words.
"Tatiana, my sister, Tatiana."
To hear that, to imagine what he might say if she were not Tatiana, ah! sweet words!
"How can I do even more to you, Tatiana?"
We must have been there for at least an hour now, all
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