The Black Obelisk by Erich Maria Remarque Read Free Book Online

that in the silence, behind these fragile structures, was a quivering chaos. It did not quite penetrate, but it was close at hand, and this, combined with the fact that Isabelle was just twenty and, because of her illness, sometimes of an almost tragic beauty, gave her a strange fascination.
    "Come, Rolf," she says, taking my arm.
    I try again to escape the hated name. "I am not Rolf," I explain. "I'm Rudolf."
    "You are not Rudolf."
    "Oh yes, I'm Rudolf. Rudolf, the unicorn."
    She called me that once. But I have no success. She smiles, as one does at a stubborn child. "You're not Rudolf and you are not Rolf. But neither are you what you think you are. Now come, Rolf!"
    I look at her. For a moment I again have the feeling that she is not sick at all and is only pretending. "Don't be boring," she says. "Why do you always want to be the same person?"
    "Yes, why?" I reply in surprise. "You're right! Why does one want to be? What is there so precious about a person? And why does one take oneself so seriously?"
    She nods. "You and the doctor! But in the end the wind blows over^ everything. Why won't you two yield to it?"
    "The doctor too?" I ask.
    "Yes, the man who calls himself that. The things he wants to find out from me! But he knows nothing at all. Not even how the grass looks at night when no one is watching."
    "How can it look? Gray, probably, or black. And silvery when the moon is shining."
    Isabelle shakes her head. "Just as I thought! Just like the doctor!"
    "How does it look then?"
    She stops. A gust of wind blows over us laden with bees and the smell of flowers. The yellow dress billows like a sail. "It isn't there at all," she says.
    We walk on. An old woman in asylum clothes comes past us along the allée . Her face is red and glistening with tears. Two helpless relatives walk beside her. "What is there, then, if the grass isn't?" I ask.
    "Nothing. It's only there while you're watching. Sometimes if you turn around very fast you can still catch it."
    "What? The grass not being there?"
    "No—but the way it scurries back to its place. That's how they all are—the grass and everything that's behind you. Like servants who have gone to a dance. You just have to be very quick in turning around. Then you can catch them —otherwise they're already there, acting as innocent as if they'd never been away."
    "Who, Isabelle?" I ask very cautiously.
    "Things. Everything behind you. They're just waiting for you to turn around so they can disappear!"
    I consider that for a moment. It would be like having an abyss behind you all the time. "Am I not there either when you turn around?" I ask.
    "You aren't there either. Nothing is."
    "Really?" I say somewhat bitterly. "But for me I am always there. No matter how fast I turn around."
    "You turn around in the wrong direction."
    "Are there different directions too?"
    "For you there are, Rolf."
    I recoil once more at the hated name. "And for you? What about you?"
    She looks at me, smiling absently, as though she did not know me. "I? But I'm not here at all!"
    "Really? You certainly are for me." Her expression changes. She knows me again. "Is that true? Why then don't you say it to me more often?"
    "But I say it to you all the time."
    "Not enough." She leans against me. I feel her breath and her breasts under the thin silk. "Never enough," she says with a sigh. "Why doesn't anyone know that? Oh, you statues!"
    Statues, I think. What other role is left for me? I look at her. She is beautiful and exciting, I am aware of her, and every time I am with her it is as if a thousand voices were telephoning through my veins; then suddenly all are cut off as though they had a wrong number, and I find myself helpless and confused. One cannot desire a madwoman. Perhaps some can, not I. It is as though you were to desire a clockwork doll. Or someone hypnotized. But that does not alter the fact that you are aware of her.
    The green shadows of the allée part, and in front of us beds of tulips and