B000FBJF64 EBOK by Sándor Marai Read Free Book Online Page B

him he could not accept so much as a filler. And both knew that this was how things must be: the son of the Officer of the Guards could not give Konrad money, and he also had to accept that he would go out in society and live a life appropriate to his rank while Konrad remained at home in Hietzing, ate scrambled eggs five nights a week, and personally tallied his underwear when it was returned from the laundry. But that was not what was important: what was much more alarming was that this friendship, despite the discrepancy in their wealth, must be protected for a lifetime.
    Konrad aged quickly. At twenty-five he needed reading glasses. When his friend returned at night from Vienna and the world, smelling of tobacco and perfume, a little tipsy and in a boyish fashion a sophisticate, they talked long and quietly, like conspirators, as if Konrad were a magician sitting by the hearth ruminating on the meaning of existence, while his amanuensis busied himself out there among men, lying in wait to steal life’s secrets. Konrad preferred reading English books, studies in social history and social progress. The son of the Officer of the Guards only read books about horses and great journeys. And because of their friendship, each forgave the other’s original sin: wealth on the one hand and poverty on the other.
    The “difference” that Henrik’s father had mentioned when the Countess and Konrad were playing the Polonaise-Fantaisie gave the latter a power over the soul of his friend.
    Of what did this consist? Every exercise of power incorporates a faint, almost imperceptible, element of contempt for those over whom the power is exercised. One can only dominate another human soul if one knows, understands, and with the utmost tact despises the person one is subjugating. As time went on, the nightly conversations in Hietzing took on the tone of conversations between master and pupil. Like all those compelled by inclination and external circumstances to premature solitude, Konrad’s tone as he spoke of the world was gently ironic, gently disdainful, and yet in some involuntary fashion full of curiosity, as if the events that presumably took place over there on the other side were of interest only to children and those even less experienced than they. But his voice betrayed a certain homesickness: youth always yearns for that terrifying, suspect, indifferent homeland known as the world. And when Konrad amicably, jokingly, casually, condescendingly teased the son of the Officer of the Guards about his adventures in that world, one could hear in his voice the need of a thirsty man yearning to drain life dry.
    They lived in this fashion in the flickering dazzle of youth, fulfilling a role that was also a profession, and that gave their lives both a sense of real tension and of inner stability. Sometimes it was a woman’s hand that knocked gently, with sweet excitement, on the door of the apartment in Hietzing. One day the hand belonged to Veronika, the dancer—the memory of this name makes the General rub his eyes as if he had just been jolted awake out of a deep sleep with shreds of dreams still lingering in his head. Yes, Veronika. And then Angela, the young widow of the medical officer, who was obsessed with horse-racing. No, rather, Veronika, the dancer. She lived in the attic apartment of an ancient house in Three-Horseshoe Lane; it was a single large studio, and impossible to heat properly. But it was the only place she could live, given the space she required for her exercises and steps.
    The echoing room was decorated with dusty bouquets of dried flowers and animal portraits done by a painter from Steiermark who had left them for the landlord in lieu of rent. Sheep had been his favorite subject, and it was gloomy sheep with damp,vacant, questioning eyes that stared at the visitorfrom all corners of the room. Veronika lived in all this while surrounded by dust-laden curtains and worn-out furniture.
    As one came up the stairs,