The Sleepwalkers by Hermann Broch Read Free Book Online Page A

conversation of strangers, he perceived that they were employing a foreign language which was not Italian, and he felt constrained to listen more carefully, until with a slight sensation of alarm he thought he could tell that they were speaking Czech, or more correctly, Bohemian. His alarm was quite unfounded, and still more unfounded seemed to him the feeling ofinfidelity to Elisabeth which supervened on it. Of course it was possible, if also unlikely, that Ruzena might be in the audience and that these two young men might presently visit her in her box, as he himself had often visited Elisabeth in hers; and perhaps there was really a resemblance between Ruzena and the young man with the little black moustache and the far too curly black head, and not merely in the colour of their hair; probably it was the slightly too small mouth and the lips which stood out too vividly from the olive face, the nose, too short and delicately chiselled, and the smile which was in some way challenging—yes, challenging was the right word—and nevertheless seemed to be asking for forgiveness.
    Yet all this seemed preposterous, and it might well be that the resemblance was only a fancy of his; for when he thought of Ruzena now he had to admit to himself that her image had completely faded, indeed that he would not recognize her if he met her again in the street, and that he could see her only through the medium and in the mask of this young man. That reassured him and made the incident in some way safe, but without giving him any feeling of satisfaction, for at the same time and in some other layer of his mind he felt that it was somehow dreadful and unspeakable for the girl to be concealed behind the mask of a man, and even after the interval he could not rid himself of this feeling. They were presenting Gounod’s
Faust
, and even the sugary harmonies seemed to him not so fatuous as the operatic convention on the stage, where no one, not even Faust himself, noticed that in the beloved lineaments of Margaret those of Valentine lay concealed, and that it was for this, and this alone, that Margaret had to suffer. Perhaps Mephistopheles knew it, and Joachim was glad that Elisabeth had no brothers. When after the performance he again ran into Ruzena’s brother, he was thankful that now the sister too was set beyond his reach, and he felt so sure of himself that, in spite of his uniform, he turned in the direction of Jägerstrasse. And the feeling of infidelity, too, was gone.
    It was only when he turned into Friedrichstrasse that he became conscious that he could not visit the casino in his uniform. He was disappointed and continued to walk along Jägerstrasse. What should he do? He turned round the next corner, came back to Jägerstrasse again, and caught himself peeping under the hats of passing girls, often half expecting to hear a few words of Italian. But when he was again approachingthe Jäger Casino the voice he heard was not Italian, but hard and staccato. “But you not know me any more?” “Ruzena,” Pasenow said reluctantly and thought at the same time: How painful! There he was standing in the open street in his uniform with this girl, he who only a few days ago had been ashamed of being seen with Bertrand in his civilian clothes, and instead of going away he was, forgetting all convention, almost happy, yes, completely happy, simply because the girl was going on talking: “Where is papa to-night? He comes not to-night?” She shouldn’t have reminded him of his father: “No, nothing doing to-night, little Ruzena: the”—what had she called him?—“the old gentleman isn’t coming to-night either.” … Yes, and now he must hurry away. Ruzena gazed at him in dismay: “So long keep me waiting and now not …” But, and her face cleared, he must pay her a visit. He gazed into her apprehensively questioning face as if he wished to print it finally on his mind, but seeking at the same time to discover if her southern