it sticks. That is the horrid thing about this wretched acting business, it starts to infect your soul.
Look, perhaps a marvellous miracle will happen and I’ll be a resounding failure in the capital, then everything will turn out fine.”
She laughed, loud and long, and kissed away my tears, but it was only a pretence she put on to comfort me, and I sensed it too clearly to join in her laughter. Mingled with my deep sadness for her is a feeling that almost crushes me. Sorrowfully I realise that it is not just in years that she is older than me, no, compared with her I am a child. All the time since we have known each other, she has concealed all her grief and torment from me. And I? I have taken every opportunity to pour out my trifling boyish worries to her.
It is as if this cruel recognition, that her soul is older and more mature than mine, were secretly sawing off the roots of all my hopes. She must be feeling something similar, for, however passionate and tender her embrace and her repeated kisses, her caresses suddenly seem to me to be those of a mother.
My lips pour out all the ardent words I can think of, but the wildest, most reckless thoughts are racing round my mind. ‘There must be something I can do! Deeds alone can make me her equal. How can I help her? How can I save her?’
I feel an awful, black shadow rising up within me, a shapeless something reaching for my heart; I hear the whisper of a hundred hissing voices in my ear, ‘Her father, that moronic carpenter, is the barrier! Tear it down! Get rid of him. Who will see it? What are you afraid of, you coward?’
Ophelia lets go of my hand. She shivers. I can see that it is a shudder of fear.
Has she guessed my thoughts? I wait for her to say something, anything that will give me a hint as to what I should do. Everything inside me is waiting: my mind, my heart and my blood; the whispers in my ear have stopped and are waiting, waiting and listening in expectation of victory.
Then she says – I can hear her teeth chattering with inner cold, and she murmurs as much as she speaks, “Perhaps the Angel of Death will have mercy on him.”
The black shadow within me suddenly flares up into a terrible white blaze, filling me from head to foot. I jump up and grasp the oars. As if it is the sign it had been waiting for, the boat accelerates of its own accord, and we shoot out into midstream, towards the bank where Baker’s Row runs.
The glowing eyes of the houses are shining out into the darkness once more.
The swift current is sweeping us towards the weir where it leaves the town. I row for all I am worth across it towards our house, white foam creaming along the sides of the boat.
Every stroke strengthens my wild determination. The leather straps in the rowlocks creak a rhythmical, ‘Murder, murder, murder’.
Then I am making fast at a post on the embankment and lifting Ophelia out of the boat. She seems light as a feather in my arms. The feeling that, at a stroke, I have become a man in body and soul fills me with an unbounded, animal joy; quickly I carry Ophelia past the light of the lamp into the darkness of the alleyway.
We stay there for a long time, embracing each other in an all-consuming rage of passion. She is no longer a tender mother, once more she is my lover.
A noise behind us! I ignore it; what is it to me?!
Then she has vanished into the doorway of the house.
The light is still on in the carpenter’s workshop. There is a gleam from the dusty window-panes; the lathe is humming.
I put my hand on the latch and cautiously push it down. A thin pencil of light shines and then disappears as I softly close the door again. I creep up to the window to see where the old man is. He is bent over the lathe, holding a glittering steel chisel in his hand; white, paper-thin wood shavings curl up between his fingers and drop into the murk of the room, piling up round the coffin like so many dead snakes.
I suddenly feel weak at the knees. I can
Look, perhaps a marvellous miracle will happen and I’ll be a resounding failure in the capital, then everything will turn out fine.”
She laughed, loud and long, and kissed away my tears, but it was only a pretence she put on to comfort me, and I sensed it too clearly to join in her laughter. Mingled with my deep sadness for her is a feeling that almost crushes me. Sorrowfully I realise that it is not just in years that she is older than me, no, compared with her I am a child. All the time since we have known each other, she has concealed all her grief and torment from me. And I? I have taken every opportunity to pour out my trifling boyish worries to her.
It is as if this cruel recognition, that her soul is older and more mature than mine, were secretly sawing off the roots of all my hopes. She must be feeling something similar, for, however passionate and tender her embrace and her repeated kisses, her caresses suddenly seem to me to be those of a mother.
My lips pour out all the ardent words I can think of, but the wildest, most reckless thoughts are racing round my mind. ‘There must be something I can do! Deeds alone can make me her equal. How can I help her? How can I save her?’
I feel an awful, black shadow rising up within me, a shapeless something reaching for my heart; I hear the whisper of a hundred hissing voices in my ear, ‘Her father, that moronic carpenter, is the barrier! Tear it down! Get rid of him. Who will see it? What are you afraid of, you coward?’
Ophelia lets go of my hand. She shivers. I can see that it is a shudder of fear.
Has she guessed my thoughts? I wait for her to say something, anything that will give me a hint as to what I should do. Everything inside me is waiting: my mind, my heart and my blood; the whispers in my ear have stopped and are waiting, waiting and listening in expectation of victory.
Then she says – I can hear her teeth chattering with inner cold, and she murmurs as much as she speaks, “Perhaps the Angel of Death will have mercy on him.”
The black shadow within me suddenly flares up into a terrible white blaze, filling me from head to foot. I jump up and grasp the oars. As if it is the sign it had been waiting for, the boat accelerates of its own accord, and we shoot out into midstream, towards the bank where Baker’s Row runs.
The glowing eyes of the houses are shining out into the darkness once more.
The swift current is sweeping us towards the weir where it leaves the town. I row for all I am worth across it towards our house, white foam creaming along the sides of the boat.
Every stroke strengthens my wild determination. The leather straps in the rowlocks creak a rhythmical, ‘Murder, murder, murder’.
Then I am making fast at a post on the embankment and lifting Ophelia out of the boat. She seems light as a feather in my arms. The feeling that, at a stroke, I have become a man in body and soul fills me with an unbounded, animal joy; quickly I carry Ophelia past the light of the lamp into the darkness of the alleyway.
We stay there for a long time, embracing each other in an all-consuming rage of passion. She is no longer a tender mother, once more she is my lover.
A noise behind us! I ignore it; what is it to me?!
Then she has vanished into the doorway of the house.
The light is still on in the carpenter’s workshop. There is a gleam from the dusty window-panes; the lathe is humming.
I put my hand on the latch and cautiously push it down. A thin pencil of light shines and then disappears as I softly close the door again. I creep up to the window to see where the old man is. He is bent over the lathe, holding a glittering steel chisel in his hand; white, paper-thin wood shavings curl up between his fingers and drop into the murk of the room, piling up round the coffin like so many dead snakes.
I suddenly feel weak at the knees. I can
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