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

like some tree. We need something to live
for
. I met him and I grew to love him: suddenly life had meaning. Then everything changed in a strange way … It’s not that
he
has changed. It’s not that he loves me any less now than he did in the first year of our marriage. He loves me, even now. But he is angry with me.”
    My mother-in-law said nothing. She didn’t seem to approve of what I’d just said, but she didn’t seek to contradict me.
    “Am I right?” I anxiously asked.
    “Not in the way you put it,” she said, picking her words carefully. “I don’t think he is exactly angry with you. Or, to put it more precisely, I don’t think it is with
you
that he is angry.”
    “With who, then?” I asked in a temper. “Who has hurt him?”
    “That’s a difficult question.” The old woman frowned. “It’s hard to answer.”
    She sighed and put her knitting down.
    “Has he never spoken to you about his childhood?”
    “Oh, yes,” I said. “Occasionally. In his own way. With the sameodd, nervous laugh he gives whenever he talks of something personal. People, friends … But he has never said that anyone had harmed him.”
    “No, of course not,” she said dismissively. “You couldn’t possibly put it like that. Harmed him? Life can damage people in so many ways.”
    “Lázár,” I said. “The writer … you know him, Mama? He may be the only one who knows anything about him.”
    “Yes,” said my mother-in-law. “He used to adore Lázár. That man certainly does know something about him. But there’s no point in talking about him. He’s not a good man.”
    “That’s interesting,” I said. “I feel the same way.”
    She picked up her knitting again. She smiled gently and added, almost as an afterthought:
    “Don’t excite yourself, child. The pain is all too fresh at the moment. But life comes along and miraculously arranges human affairs, including all those things that now seem intolerable. You’ll leave the hospital, go home, and another baby will arrive to take the place of the first one …”
    “I don’t believe that,” I said, and felt my heart shrink with despair. “I have such a bad feeling. I think we are at the end of something. Tell me the truth: do you think our marriage is a genuinely bad marriage?”
    She gave me a sharp look from under half-closed lids, through her glasses.
    “No, I don’t think your marriage is a bad marriage,” she pronounced.
    “Interesting you should say that,” I bitterly replied. “Sometimes I think it is as bad as it could possibly be. Does Mama know of better ones?”
    “Better?” she asked quizzically, and turned away her head as if she were looking into the distance. “Maybe. I don’t know. Happiness, real happiness, tells no tales. But I certainly know of worse. For example …”
    She fell silent. It was as if she were suddenly frightened, regretting opening her mouth. But I wouldn’t let her drop the subject now. I sat up in bed, threw off the covers, and demanded she continue.
    “For example?”
    “Well, yes,” she said, and sighed. She picked up her knitting again. “I’m sorry we should have to talk about these things. But if it is anycomfort to you, I confess my own marriage was worse, because, frankly, I did not love my husband.”
    She said this calmly, almost indifferently, the way old people sometimes speak when they are near death, people who know the true meaning of words, are afraid of nothing, and care more for truth than for keeping the peace. I went pale.
    “That’s impossible,” I muttered like an idiot. “You had such a good life together.”
    “It wasn’t a bad life,” she replied in a dry voice, knitting away furiously. “I got him the factory, you know. He, in his turn, brought me love: one party always gives more love than the other. But it’s easier for those who do the loving. You love your husband, so it’s easier for you, even though you suffer for it. I had to pretend to a feeling that