Portraits of a Marriage by Sándor Márai Read Free Book Online Page A

our fate, we become almost calm. Calm and extraordinarily, terrifyingly lonely.
    During those weeks I didn’t go to confession as I used to. Whatwould I have had to confess? What was my sin and how had I committed it? I felt I was the most innocent creature that ever lived. I don’t feel that way now … Sin is not just what the catechism says it is. Sin is not simply that which we commit. Sin is also what we desire but are too weak to do. When my husband—for the first and last time in his life—barked at me in that peculiar hoarse voice in the nursery, I understood my sin. I had sinned, in his eyes, because I was unable to save the child.
    You’re staring into space. I can see you’re confused. You feel that only deeply wounded feelings or acute despair can lead a man to such an unjust accusation. Not for one moment did I feel his accusation to be unjust. “Yes, but think of all you did do,” you say. Well, yes, it wasn’t something I could be arrested for, whatever anyone thought. I sat at that child’s bedside for eight days. I slept there and nursed him. I was the one who went against usual practice and called other doctors when the first, and then the second, failed to help. Yes, I did all I could. But I did it all so my husband should find strength to live, so that he should remain mine, so he should love me—because there was no other way but through the child. You understand? … It was for my husband I prayed when I was praying for the child. My husband’s life was the life that mattered. That was the only reason the child’s life was of importance. That’s a sin, you say! … What is sin? I didn’t know then. I do know now. People who are part of us need to be loved and supported: those closest to our hearts, the love of whom lies deepest in us, they need all our power. It all collapsed when the child died. I knew I had lost my husband because, even though he said nothing, he blamed me. Ridiculous and unfair to blame me, you say. I don’t know. I find it impossible to talk about.
    After the child died, I felt utterly exhausted, and of course I immediately fell ill with pleurisy. For months I lay in bed, got better, then relapsed again. I was in hospital. My husband brought me flowers and visited me every day, at lunchtime and in the evening when he came home from the factory. I had a nurse. I was so weak I had to be fed. And all the time I knew that none of this would help, that my husband would not forgive me; that being ill would not relieve me of my guilt. He continued as tender and courteous as ever … I wept each time he left me.
    My mother-in-law visited me a lot at this time. Once, just before spring, when I had recovered some of my strength, she was sitting at mybedside, quietly knitting as usual. She gave me a friendly smile and murmured confidentially:
    “What do you want revenge for, Ilonka?”
    “What?” I asked, startled, and felt myself flushing. “What’s this talk about revenge?”
    “It’s something you kept repeating when you were in a fever. ‘Revenge, revenge!’ you cried. There’s no revenge to be had, my dear, only patience.”
    I listened. I was excited. It was the first time since the child’s death that I’d really listened to anything. Then I started speaking.
    “I can’t bear it, Mama. What did I do wrong? I know I am not innocent, but I simply can’t understand where I went wrong, what sin I committed. Am I not part of his life? Should we divorce? If you think it would be better for us to separate, Mama, I’ll divorce him. You must know I think of nothing else, that all my feelings are directed at him. But if I can’t help him, I’d sooner be divorced. Please advise me, Mama.”
    She looked at me with a serious, wise, sad expression.
    “Don’t upset yourself, child. You know very well there’s no advice I can give. It’s just life: we have to live and put up with it.”
    “Live?! Live?!” I shouted. “I’m not a tree! I can’t live life