Ahead of All Parting (19 page)

This was not the death of just any old man with dropsy; this was the sinister, princely death which the Chamberlain had, all his life, carried inside him and nourished with his own experiences. Every excess of pride, will, and authority that he himself had not been able to use up during his peaceful days, had passed into his death, into the death that now sat squandering these things at Ulsgaard.

How Chamberlain Brigge would have looked at anyone who asked him to die any other death than this. He was dying his own hard death.

… Ah, poems amount to so little when you write them too early in your life. You ought to wait and gather sense and sweetness for a whole lifetime, and a long one if possible, and then, at the very end, you might perhaps be able to write ten good lines. For poems are not, as people think, simply emotions (one has emotions early enough)—they are experiences. For the sake of a single poem, you must see many cities, many people and Things, you must understand animals, must feel how birds fly, and know the gesture which small flowers make when they open in the morning. You must be able to think back to streets in unknown neighborhoods, to unexpected encounters, and to partings you had long seen coming; to days of childhood whose mystery is still unexplained, to parents whom you had to hurt when they brought in a joy and you didn’t pick it up (it was a joy meant for somebody else—); to childhood illnesses that began so strangely with so many profound and difficult transformations, to days in quiet, restrained rooms and to mornings by the sea, to the sea itself, to seas, to nights of travel that rushed along high overhead and went flying with all the stars,—and it is still not enough to be able to think of all that. You must have memories of many nights of love, each one different from all the others, memories of women screaming in labor, and of light, pale, sleeping girls who have just given birth and are closing again. But you must also have been beside the dying, must have sat beside the dead in the room with the open window and the scattered noises. And it is not yet enough to have memories. You must be able to forget them when they are many, and you must have the immense patience to wait until they return. For the memories themselves are not important. Only when they have changed into our very blood, into glance and gesture, and are nameless, no longer to be distinguished from ourselves—only then can it happen that in some very rare hour the first word of a poem arises in their midst and goes forth from them.

I am lying in my bed five flights up, and my day, which nothing interrupts, is like a clock-face without hands. As something that has been lost for a long time reappears one morning in its old place, safe and sound, almost newer than when it vanished, just as if someone had been taking care of it—: so, here and there on my blanket, lost feelings out of my childhood lie and are like new. All the lost fears are here again.

The fear that a small woolen thread sticking out of the hem of my blanket may be hard, hard and sharp as a steel needle; the fear that this little button on my night-shirt may be bigger than my head, bigger and heavier; the fear that the breadcrumb which just dropped off my bed may turn into glass, and shatter when it hits the floor, and the sickening worry that when it does, everything will be broken, for ever; the fear that the ragged edge of a letter which was torn open may be something forbidden, which no one ought to see, something indescribably precious, for which no place in the room is safe enough; the fear that if I fell asleep I might swallow the piece of coal lying in front of the stove; the fear that some number may begin to grow in my brain until there is no more room for it inside me; the fear that I may be lying on granite, on gray granite; the fear that I may start screaming, and people will come running to my door and finally force it open, the fear that I might betray myself and tell everything I dread, and the fear that I might not be able to say anything, because everything is unsay able,—and the other fears … the fears.

I prayed to rediscover my childhood, and it has come back, and I feel that it is just as difficult as it used to be, and that growing older has served no purpose at all.

Yesterday my fever was better, and this morning the day began like spring, like spring in paintings. I want to go out to the Bibliotheque Nationale and spend some time with my poet, whom I haven’t read for many weeks, and afterward perhaps I can take a leisurely walk through the gardens. Perhaps there will be a wind over the large pond which has such real water, and children will come to sail their little red boats.

Today I really didn’t expect it; I went out so bravely, as if that were the simplest and most natural thing in the world. And yet something happened again that took me up and crumpled me like a piece of paper and threw me away: something incredible.

The Boulevard Saint-Michel lay in front of me, empty and vast, and it was easy to walk along its gentle slope. Window-casements overhead opened with a clear, glassy sound, and their brilliance flew over the street like a white bird. A carriage with bright red wheels rolled past, and farther down someone was carrying something green. Horses in their glittering harnesses trotted along the dark, freshly sprinkled boulevard. The wind was brisk and mild, and everything was rising: odors, cries, bells.

I came to one of those cafes where false red gypsies perform in the evening. From the open windows, the air of the previous night crept out with a bad conscience. Sleek-haired waiters were busy sweeping in front of the door. One of them was bent over, tossing handful after handful of yellowish sand under the tables. A passerby stopped, nudged him, and pointed down the street. The waiter, who was all red in the face, looked sharply in that direction for a moment or two; then a laugh spread over his beardless cheeks, as if it had been spilled across them. He gestured to the other waiters, turned his laughing face quickly from right to left several times, to call everyone over without missing anything himself. Now they all stood there, seeing or trying to see what was happening down the street, smiling or annoyed that they hadn’t yet found out what was so funny.

I felt a slight fear beginning inside me. Something was urging me to cross the street; but all I did was start to walk faster; and when I looked at the few people in front of me, I didn’t notice anything unusual. I did see that one of them, an errand-boy with a blue apron
and an empty basket slung over one shoulder, was staring at someone. When he had seen enough, he turned around toward the houses and gestured to a laughing clerk across the street, moving his finger in front of his forehead with that circular motion whose meaning everyone knows. Then his dark eyes flashed and he came toward me, swaggering and content.

I expected that as soon as I had a better view I would see some extraordinary and striking figure; but it turned out that there was no one in front of me except a tall, emaciated man in a dark coat, with a soft black hat on his short, faded-blond hair. I was sure there was nothing laughable about this man’s clothing or behavior, and was already trying to look past him down the boulevard, when he tripped over something. Since I was walking close behind him I was on my guard, but when I came to the place, there was nothing there, absolutely nothing. We both kept walking, he and I, with the same distance between us. Now there was an intersection; the man in front of me hopped down from the sidewalk on one leg, the way children, when they are happy, will now and then hop or skip as they walk. On the other side of the street, he simply took one long step up onto the sidewalk. But almost immediately he raised one leg slightly and hopped on the other, once, quite high, and then again and again. This time too you might easily have thought the man had tripped over some small object on the corner, a peach pit, a banana peel, anything; and the strange thing was that he himself seemed to believe in the presence of an obstacle: he turned around every time and looked at the offending spot with that half-annoyed, half-reproachful expression people have at such moments. Once again some intuition warned me to cross the street, but I didn’t listen to it; I continued to follow this man, concentrating all my attention on his legs. I must admit I felt very relieved when for about twenty steps the hopping didn’t recur; but as I looked up, I noticed that something else had begun to annoy the man. His coat collar had somehow popped up; and as hard as he tried to fold it back in place, first with one hand, then with both at once, it refused to budge. This kind of thing can happen. It didn’t upset me. But then I saw, with boundless astonishment, that in his busy hands there were two distinct movements: one a quick, secret movement that flipped up the collar, while the other one, elaborate, prolonged, exaggeratedly spelled out, was meant to fold it back down. This observation disconcerted
me so greatly that two minutes passed before I recognized in the man’s neck, behind his hunched-up coat and his nervously scrambling hands, the same horrible, bisyllabic hopping that had just left his legs. From this moment I was bound to him. I saw that the hopping was wandering through his body, trying to break out here or there. I understood why he was afraid of people, and I myself began to examine the passersby, cautiously, to see if they noticed anything. A cold twinge shot down my spine when his legs suddenly made a small, convulsive leap; but no one had seen it, and I decided that I would also trip slightly if anyone began to look. That would certainly be a way of making them think there had been some small, imperceptible object on the sidewalk, which both of us had happened to step on. But while I was thinking about how I could help, he himself had found a new and excellent device. I forgot to mention that he had a cane; it was an ordinary cane, made of dark wood, with a plain, curved handle. In his anxious searching, he had hit upon the idea of holding this cane against his back, at first with one hand (who knows what he might still need the other hand for), right along his spine, pressing it firmly into the small of his back and sliding the curved end under his collar, in such a way that you felt it standing behind the cervical and first dorsal vertebrae like a neck-brace. This posture didn’t look strange; at most it was a bit cocky, but the unexpected spring day might excuse that. No one thought of turning around to look, and now everything was all right. Perfectly all right. True, at the next intersection two hops escaped, two small, half-suppressed hops, but they didn’t amount to anything; and the one really visible leap was so skillfully timed (just at the spot where a hose was lying across the sidewalk) that there was nothing to be afraid of. Yes, everything was still all right; from time to time his other hand too seized the cane and pressed it in more firmly, and right away the danger was again overcome. But I couldn’t keep my anxiety from growing. I knew that as he walked and with infinite effort tried to appear calm and detached, the terrible spasms were accumulating inside his body; I could feel the anxiety
he
felt as the spasms grew and grew, and I saw how he clutched his cane when the shaking began inside him. The expression of his hands became so severe and relentless then that I placed all my hope in his willpower, which was bound to be strong. But what could mere willpower do? The moment had to come when his strength would be exhausted; it couldn’t be long now. And I,
who followed him with my heart pounding, I gathered my little strength together like money and, gazing at his hands, I begged him to take it if it could be of any use.

I think he took it; is it my fault that it wasn’t enough?

At the Place Saint-Michel there were many vehicles, and pedestrians hurrying here and there; several times we were caught between two carriages, and then he would take a breath and relax a bit, and there would be a bit of hopping and nodding. Perhaps that was the trick by which the imprisoned illness hoped to subdue him. His willpower had cracked in two places, and the damage had left in his possessed muscles a gentle, alluring stimulation and this compelling two-beat rhythm. But the cane was still in its place, and the hands looked annoyed and angry. As we stepped onto the bridge, it was all right. It was still all right. But now his walk became noticeably uncertain; first he ran two steps, then he stopped. Stopped. His left hand gently let go of the cane, and rose so slowly that I could see it tremble in the air. He pushed his hat back slightly and drew his hand across his brow. He turned his head slightly, and his gaze wobbled over sky, houses, and water, without grasping a thing. And then he gave in. The cane was gone, he stretched out his arms as if he were trying to fly, and some kind of elemental force exploded from him and bent him forward and dragged him back and made him keep nodding and bowing and flung a horrible dance out of him into the midst of the crowd. For he was already surrounded by people, and I could no longer see him.

What sense would there have been in going anywhere now; I was empty. Like a blank piece of paper, I drifted along past the houses, up the boulevard again.

I don’t underestimate it. I know it takes courage. But let us suppose for a moment that someone had it, this
courage de luxe
to follow them, in order to know for ever (for who could forget it again or confuse it with anything else?) where they creep off to afterward and what they do with the rest of the long day and whether they sleep at night. That especially should be ascertained: whether they sleep. But it will take more than courage. For they don’t come and go like other people, whom it would be child’s play to follow. They are here and then gone, put down and snatched away like toy soldiers. The places where they can be found are somewhat out-of-the-way, but by no means hidden. The bushes recede, the path curves slightly around the lawn: there they are, with a large transparent space around them, as if they were standing under a glass dome. You might think they were pausing, absorbed in their thoughts, these inconspicuous men, with such small, in every way unassuming bodies. But you are wrong. Do you see the left hand, how it is grasping for something in the slanted pocket of the old coat? how it finds it and takes it out and holds the small object in the air, awkwardly, attracting attention? In less than a minute, two or three birds appear, sparrows, which come hopping up inquisitively. And if the man succeeds in conforming to their very exact idea of immobility, there is no reason why they shouldn’t come even closer. Finally one of them flies up, and flutters nervously for a while at the level of that hand, which is holding out God knows what crumbs of used-up bread in its unpretentious, explicitly renunciatory fingers. And the more people gather around him—at a suitable distance, of course—the less he has in common with them. He stands there like a candle that is almost consumed and burns with the small remnant of its wick and is all warm with it and has never moved. And all those small, foolish birds can’t understand how he attracts, how he tempts them. If there were no onlookers and he were allowed to stand there long enough, I’m certain that an angel would suddenly appear and, overcoming his disgust, would eat the stale, sweetish breadcrumbs from that stunted hand. But now, as always, people keep that from happening. They make sure that only birds come; they find this quite sufficient and assert that he expects nothing else. What else could it expect, this old,
weather-beaten doll, stuck into the ground at a slight angle, like a painted figurehead in an old sea-captain’s garden? Does it stand like that because it too had once been placed somewhere on the forward tip of its life, at the point where motion is greatest? Is it now so washed out because it was once so bright? Will you go ask it?