Five Women Read online

  At any other time he would have tried to drive the poison out of his body by calling for his horse and his men, or would have tried to burn it out in wine. But the chaplain and the scrivener gobbled and drank till the wine and food dribbled out of the corners of their mouths, and the young knight would clink the canikin with them, laughing like one setting two dogs at each other. Ketten felt a disgust for the wine that was swilled by these two clerks, mere oafs under their veneer of scholasticism. They would argue about the Millennium, and about learned doctoral questions, and would talk bawdy, now in German, now in Church Latin. A journeying humanist would translate whatever was needed to complement this gibberish and that of the Portuguese; he had sprained his ankle and had every intention of staying on until it was thoroughly strong again.

  "He fell off his horse when a rabbit ran by," the scrivener said banteringly.

  "He took it for a dragon," Herr von Ketten said with sullen mockery, standing nearby, unsure of himself.

  "But then so did the horse!" the castle chaplain bellowed. "Else it would not have shied. And thus the magister understands better than the lord what comes from the horse's mouth!"

  The drunken company guffawed at the lord's expense. Herr von Ketten looked at them hard, took a step towards them, and struck the chaplain in the face. He was a plump young peasant, and he turned very red, then deadly pale, but he remained seated. The young knight rose, smiling, and went in search of his friend, the lady of the castle.

  "Why did you not stab him to the heart?" the rabbit-humanist hissed when they were alone.

  "He is strong as two bulls," the chaplain answered, "and, moreover, Christian teachings are truly of such a nature as to afford consolation in such circumstances."

  But the truth was that Herr von Ketten was still very weak, and his life was returning to him all too slowly. He could not reach the second stage of recovery.

  The visitor did not resume his travels, and the mistress of the castle failed to understand her lord's hints. For eleven years she had been waiting for her husband, for eleven years years he had been her far-off beloved in an aura of fame and glory, and now he went about castle and courtyard, wasted and worn by illness, looking commonplace enough beside the other's youth and courtly grace. She did not give it much thought, but she was a little weary of this country that had promised things beyond the power of words to tell, and she could not bring herself, just because of a cross face, to send away her childhood friend, who had brought back to her the very fragrance of her homeland and thoughts that one could think with laughter. She had nothing to reproach herself with. She had been a shade more superficial during these last weeks, but that was pleasant, and she could now sometimes feel her face lighting up as it had done years before.

  A soothsaying woman, whom he consulted, prophesied to Herr von Ketten : "You will be cured only when you accomplish a task." But when he pressed her to tell him what task, she fell silent, tried to slip away, and finally declared that that was hidden from her.

  He could easily have put a quick, painless end to this visit, for the sanctity of life and the sacred laws of hospitality are of little account to one who has spent years as an unbidden guest among his enemies. But in his enfeebled convalescent state he was almost proud of being clumsy, and any cunning solution seemed to him as unworthy as the young man's frivolous readiness of tongue. Strange things happened to him. Through the mists of weakness that enveloped him his wife's ways seemed to him tenderer than they need be; it reminded him of earlier days, when sometimes, returning home to her love, he had wondered at finding it more intense than at other times. For his absence alone could not, he thought, be the cause. He could not even have said whether he was glad or sorry. It was just as in the days when he had lain so close to death. He could not make any move. When he gazed into his wife's eyes, they were like new-cut glass, and although what the surface showed him was his own reflection, he could not penetrate further. It seemed to him that only a miracle could change this situation. And one cannot make destiny speak when it chooses to be silent. One must simply harken for whatever is on its way.

  One day when a company of them came up the mountainside together, they found the little cat at the gate. It was standing outside the gate as though it did not want to jump, cat-fashion, over the wall, but to enter as human beings did. It arched its back in welcome and rubbed itself against the skirts and boots of the towering beings who were strangely surprised by its presence. They let it in, and it was like receiving a guest. The very next day it was apparent that what they had opened the gate to was no mere kitten that had come to stay; it was almost as though they had adopted a small child. The dainty little creature's tastes were not for the delights of cellar and attic. It would not leave the human beings' company for a single moment. And it had a way of making them give up their time to it, which was all the less comprehensible in that there were so many other and grander animals at the castle, and the human beings also had their own affairs to occupy them. The fascination seemed positively to originate in their having to keep their eyes lowered, watching the little creature, for it was very unobtrusive in its ways and just a shade quieter, one might almost have said sadder and more meditative, than seemed appropriate to a kitten. It romped in the way it knew human beings expect a kitten to romp; it climbed on to their laps and was, it seemed, studiously charming to them, and yet one could feel that it was also somehow absent. And precisely this—this absence of whatever would have made it into an ordinary kitten—was like a second presence, a hovering double, perhaps, or a faint halo surrounding it. Not that any of them had the hardihood to put this into words. The lady from Portugal bent tenderly over the little creature lying on its back in her lap, in its childlike way beating its tiny paws at her playful fingers. Her young friend, laughing, bent low over too—over the kitten, over her lap. And this casual frolicking reminded Herr von Ketten of his illness, now nearly gone, as though the illness and its deathly gentleness had been transformed into that little animal's body and so were no longer merely within him, but there in the midst of them all. A serving-man said: "That cat is getting the mange."

  Herr von Ketten was astonished that he had not noticed this himself. The serving-man spoke again: "It will have to be done away with before long."

  Meanwhile, the kitten had been given a name taken from one of the fairy-tale books. It had become gentler and more sweet-natured than ever. Soon everyone began to see that it was ill and growing almost luminously weak. It spent more and more time resting in someone's lap, resting from the affairs of the world, its little claws clutching tight in mingled affection and anxiety. And now too it began to look at them, one after the other: at pale Ketten and at the young Portuguese sitting bent forward, his eyes intent on it or perhaps on the breathing movement of the lap where it lay. It looked at them all as though asking forgiveness for the ugliness of what it was about to suffer—in some myterious way for all of them. And then its martyrdom began.

  One night the vomiting began, and the little animal continued to vomit until the next morning. When daylight returned, it lay languid and dizzy as though it had been beaten over the head. Perhaps it was merely that in their excess of love for it they had given the starving kitten too much to eat. However this might be, after that it could not be kept in the bedroom, but was given to the serving-man to look after. After two days the serving-men complained that it was no better; and indeed it was probable that they had put it outside in the night. And now it not only vomited but could not hold its stool, and nothing was safe from it. And this now was an ordeal, a grim trial of strength between that almost imperceptible halo and the dreadful filth, and it was decided—since it had meanwhile been discovered whence the little creature came—to have it taken back there: to a peasant's cottage down by the river, near the foot of the hill. This was a kind of deportation, done in the hope of evading both responsibility for the animal and ridicule for all the attention they paid to it. But it weighed on their conscience, and so they also sent
milk and a little meat and even money in order to make sure that the peasants, to whom dirt did not matter so much, would look after the cat properly.

  Nevertheless, the servants shook their heads over their master and mistress.

  The serving-man who had carried the kitten down recounted that it had run after him when he left and that he had had to carry it back again. Two days later it was once more up in the castle. The hounds avoided it, the servants did not dare to drive it away for fear of the master and mistress, and when the latter set eyes on it, it was tacitly agreed that nobody would now refuse to let it die up here.

  It was now very thin and lustreless, but the disgusting malady seemed to have passed off; now it was merely growing thinner all the time, losing flesh almost before their very eyes. For two days everything was, to a heightened degree, just as it had been before: there was the slow, affectionate prowling about in the refuge where it was cared for; an absent-minded smiling with the paws while striking at a scrap of paper dangled before it; sometimes a faint swaying out of weakness, in spite of having four legs to support it—and on the second day it sometimes collapsed on to its side. In a human being this process of disembodiment would not have seemed so strange, but in the animal it was like a metamorphosis into a human being. They watched it almost with awe. None of these three people, each in his or her peculiar situation, could escape the thought that it was his or her own destiny that was being vicariously accomplished in this little cat already half released from earthly bonds.

  But on the third day the vomiting and filthiness began again. The serving-man stood by, and even though he did not dare to say it again aloud, his silence said it clearly enough: it will have to be put away. The Portuguese bowed his head as though struggling with some temptation, and then he said to his friend: "It is the only way." It seemed to him he had accepted his own death-sentence. And suddenly everyone looked at Herr von Ketten. He had grown white as the wall, and rose, and left the room. Then the lady from Portugal said to the serving-man: "Take it away." The man took the sick animal away to his own place, and the next day it was gone. Nobody asked any questions. They all knew that he had killed it. All of them felt the oppression of unspeakable guilt; something had gone from among them. Only the children felt nothing, finding it quite natural that the serving-man should kill a dirty cat that nobody could play with any more. But now and then the hounds would snuffle at a patch of grass on which the sunlight fell in the courtyard, and their legs stiffened, their hair bristled, and they glanced sidelong. At one such moment Herr von Ketten and the lady from Portugal encountered each other. They stopped side by side, looking across at the dogs and finding nothing to say. The sign had been given—but how was it to be interpreted and what was to be done? A great dome of silence surrounded them both.

  If she has not sent him away before nightfall, I must kill him—Herr von Ketten thought to himself. But night fell and still nothing had happened. Supper was over. Ketten sat looking grave, heated by a slight fever. After a while he went out into the courtyard, for the cool evening air, and he remained absent for a long time. He could not make the final decision that he had all his life found it so easy to make. Saddling horses, buckling on armour, drawing a sword—all of that, which had once been the very music of his life, now had a harsh, discordant ring; and fighting seemed a senseless, alien mode of action. Even the short way, the way of the knife, was now like an infinitely long road on which a man might die of thirst. But neither was it his way to suffer; he could feel that he would never be wholly well again if he did not wrench himself free of all this. And gradually another thought associated itself with these... .

  As a boy he had always wanted to climb the unscaleable cliff on top of which the castle stood. The thought was a mad one, a suicidal one, but now it was gradually gaining in obscure conviction, as though it were a matter of trial by ordeal, or something like an approaching miracle. It was not he but the little cat from the world beyond, it seemed to him, that would return this way. Laughing softly to himself, he shook his head in order to make sure it was still on his shoulders, and at the same time he realised that he had already gone a long distance down the stony path to the bottom of the hill.

  At the bottom, down by the torrent, he left the path and clambered over great boulders with the water dashing between them, then through the bushes and up to the cliff. In the moonlight little points of shadow revealed crevices where fingers and toes could find a hold. Suddenly a piece of stone broke loose under one foot: the shock ran through his whole body, right into his heart. He strained his ears. It seemed an eternity before the stone splashed into the water far below. He must already have climbed a third of the height. Then it distinctly seemed to him that he awoke and realised what he was doing. Only a dead man could reach the bottom now, and only the Devil himself could reach the top. He groped above him. With each grip his life hung by the ten thin straps of sinew in his fingers. Sweat poured from his face, waves of heat flashed through his body, his nerves were like stony threads. But it was strange to feel how in this struggle with death strength and health came flowing back into his limbs, as though returning into his body from some place outside him. And then the impossible was indeed accomplished. There was one overhanging ledge that had to be circumvented, and then his arm was thrust in through an open window. Doubtless there was no other place where he could have arrived but at this very window, yet it was only now that he knew where he was. He swung himself in, sat on the sill and let his legs dangle inside the room. With his strength his ferocity had also returned. He waited until he had regained his breath. No, he had not lost the dagger from his side. It seemed to him that the bed was empty. But he went on waiting until his heart and lungs were quite calm again. And more and more distinctly it seemed to him that he was alone in the room. He crept towards the bed: nobody had slept in it this night.

  Herr von Ketten tiptoed through rooms, corridors, and doorways that no one else would have found at once without guidance—until he came to his wife's bed-chamber. Listening, he waited. There was no sound of whispering. He glided in. The lady from Portugal was breathing quietly in her sleep. He searched dark corners and fumbled along walls and, when he stealthily left the room again, he could almost have sung for joy, joy that shook the very fabric of his unbelief.

  He roved through the castle, but now floorboards and flagstones echoed with his tread, as though he were in search of some joyful surprise. In the yard a serving-man called out to him, demanding to know who he was. He asked for the visitor and learned that he had ridden away at the rising of the moon. Herr von Ketten sat down on a pile of rough-hewn timber, and the watchman marvelled at how long he sat there.

  All at once he was seized by the certainty that if he were to return to the Portuguese lady's chamber, she would no longer be there. He thundered on the door and went in. His young wife started up as though in her dreams she had been waiting for this, and she saw him standing before her fully dressed, just as he had gone out that evening. Nothing had been proved, nothing had been disposed of, but she asked no question, and there was nothing that he could ask. He pulled aside the heavy curtain hanging before the window, and beyond it there rose the curtain of torrential thunder behind which all the seigniors delle Catene were born and died.

  "If God could become man, then He can also become a kitten," the lady from Portugal said.

  And perhaps he should have laid his hand upon her mouth to hush this blasphemy, but they both knew that no sound of it could penetrate beyond these walls.

  Tonka

  I

  At a hedge. A bird was singing. And then the sun was somewhere down behind the bushes. The bird stopped singing. It was evening, and the peasant girls were coming across the fields, singing. What little things! Is it petty if such little things cling to a person? Like burrs? That was Tonka. Infinity sometimes flows in drips and drops.

  And the horse was part of it too, the roan that he had tied to a willow. It was during his year of military service. It
was no mere chance that it was in that year, for there is no other time of life when a man is so deprived of himself and his own works, and an alien force strips everything from his bones. One is more vulnerable at this time than at any other.

  But had it really been like that at all? No, that was only what he had worked it up into later. That was the fairy-tale, and he could no longer tell the difference. In fact, of course, she had been living with her aunt at the time when he got to know her. And Cousin Julie sometimes came visiting. That was how it had been. He remembered being disconcerted by their sitting down at the same table with Cousin Julie over a cup of coffee, for she was, after all, a disgrace to the family. It was notorious that one could strike up a conversation with Cousin Julie and take her back to one's lodgings that same evening; she would also go to the bawdy-houses whenever she was wanted. She had no other source of income. Still, she was a relative, after all, even if one didn't approve of the life she led; and even if she was a light woman, one couldn't very well refuse to let her sit down at the table with one. Anyway, she didn't come very often. A man might have made a row about it, for a man reads the newspaper or belongs to some association with definite aims and is always throwing his weight about, but Auntie merely made a few cutting remarks after Julie had gone, and let it go at that. So long as she was there, they couldn't help laughing at her jokes, for she had a quick tongue and always knew more about what was going on in town than anyone else. So, even if they disapproved of her, there was no unbridgeable gap between them; they had something in common.

  The women from the jail were another example of the same thing. Most of them were prostitutes too, and not long afterwards the jail itself had to be moved to another district because so many of them became pregnant while serving their sentence, carrying mortar on the building sites where male convicts worked as bricklayers. Now, these women were also hired out to do housework. For instance, they were very good at laundering, and they were very much sought after by people in modest circumstances, because they were cheap. Tonka's grandmother also had one in on washing-day; she would be given a cup of coffee and a bun, and since one was sharing the work with her it was all right to share breakfast with her too—there was no harm in that. At midday someone had to see her back to the jail, that was the regulation, and when Tonka was a little girl, she was generally the one who had to do it. She would walk along with the woman, chatting away happily, not in the least ashamed of being seen in that company, although these women wore grey prison uniform and white kerchiefs that made them easily recognisable. Innocence one might call it: a young life in all its innocence pathetically exposed to influences that were bound to coarsen it. But later on, when the sixteen-year-old Tonka was still unembarrassed, gossiping with Cousin Julie, could one say that this was still all innocence, or was it that her sensibilities were blunted? Even if no blame attached to her, how revealing it was!