Sandor Marai - Esther's Inheritance

“I am so glad,” I said stiffly when he stopped, “so delighted that you have chosen to come back to me and regale me with your acquaintances.”

But I immediately regretted the words. They were unbecoming to me, and unbecoming to what Lajos had just said too. He looked at me calmly and nodded, bemused.

“What was I to do when it was always you I was waiting for?” he asked almost tenderly. It was simple. It was elegantly and modestly said.

“What was I to do?” he said more loudly. “And what can you do with this belated confession that, at our time of life, has neither meaning nor virtue. One shouldn’t say things like this. But the manners of should or should not are worthless when discussing the truth. See, Esther, a leave-taking can be just as mysterious and exciting as a first meeting…I have long known this. Revisiting someone we loved is not the same as ‘returning to the scene of the crime,’ ‘driven by an irresistible compulsion,’ as the detective stories have it. All my life I have loved only you, not out of some strict necessity, nor quite according to the laws of logic…Then something happened, not only the accident of the letters, the letters Vilma stole. You didn’t really welcome love. Don’t deny it! It is not enough to love somebody, you must love courageously. You must love so that no thief or plan or law, whether that be the law of heaven or of the world, can come between. The problem was that we did not love each other courageously enough. And that is your fault, because a man’s courage in love is ridiculous. Love is of your making. It is the only respect in which you achieve greatness. That is where, somehow, you fell short, and as you failed so did everything else, everything that might have been, all that was obligation, mission, the meaning of life. It is not true that men can be held responsible for this or that love. Go on, love heroically. But you committed the worst sin a woman can commit, you took offense, you ran away. Do you believe me yet?”

“What does all this add up to?” I asked. “What does it matter whether I believe or confess or resign myself?” My voice sounded so odd I might have overheard it in another room.

“That is why I have come,” he said, more quietly now because the room had darkened and we instinctively dropped our voices as if everything — all the objects in the room, all we had to say — was fading with the light. “I wanted you to know,” he went on, “that people can’t end anything by simply wanting it to end, one can’t abandon something before it has run its course. It is impossible!” he declared, and gave a satisfied laugh. I was half expecting him to rub his hands together like a card player who has, to his greatest astonishment, discovered that he has won a round he firmly expected to lose. “You are part of me, even now, when time and distance have annihilated all we once had together…Do you understand yet? You are responsible for everything that has happened in my life, just as I — in my fashion, in a man’s fashion — am responsible for you, for your life. There was bound to come a day when you would know that. You must come away with me, with us. We’ll take Nunu too. Listen, Esther, just this once you have to believe me. What possible advantage would I have in telling you anything but the truth, the last mortal truth?…Time burns away everything, everything that is false in us. What remains is the truth. And what remains is that you are a part of me even though you ran away, even though I was what I was and am. Yes, I too believe that people don’t change. You are a part of me even though you know I have not changed, that I am the same as I was, as dangerous and unreliable. You cannot deny it. Raise your head, look into my eyes…Why won’t you raise your head? Wait, I’ll turn on the light…You still have no electricity?…Look, it is completely dark now.”

He went over to the window, looked out, then closed it. But he did not light the table lamp. Instead he spoke to me in the darkness.

“Why won’t you look at me?” he asked.

And when I did not answer, he went on in the murk, his voice farther away now.

“If you really are so absolutely convinced, why won’t you look at me? I have no kind of power over you. I have no rights. And yet there is nothing you can do against me. You can accuse me of anything you like, but you must know that you are the only person in the world before whom I am innocent. And there came a day, and it was I who returned. Do you still believe in words like ‘pride’? Between people who are bound to each other by fate there is no pride. You will come with us. We will arrange everything. What will happen? We will live. Maybe life still has something in store for us. We will live quietly. The world has forgotten all about me. You will live there with me, with us. There’s no other way,” he said aloud, exasperated, as though he had finally understood and grasped something, something so simple, so blindingly obvious, that he resented arguing about it. “There’s nothing else I want from you except that just this once, for the last time in your life, you should obey the law that is the meaning and the content of your life.”

I could hardly see in the dark by now.

“Do you understand?” he asked, his voice quiet, coming at me from a long distance. It was as if he were talking to me out of the past.

“Yes,” I said involuntarily, almost in a trance.

That was the moment the curious numbness started, the kind sleepwalkers must feel when setting out on their dangerous course; I understood everything that was happening around me, I was fully aware of what I was doing and saying, I saw people clearly, as well as those parts of their souls that manner and custom tend to draw a veil over, but knew at the same time that whatever I was doing so sensibly and so firm of purpose was to some degree unconscious, that it was partly a dream. I was calm, almost good-humored. I felt light, without a care. There was indeed something I understood that moment in Lajos’s words, something stronger, more rational, more compelling than anything else, something over and above his charge against me. Naturally, I did not believe a word he said, but my skepticism amused me. While Lajos was speaking I understood something, the simple, assuring truth of which I could not have articulated in words. He was lying again, of course…I didn’t quite know in what way or in what respect, but he was lying. Maybe it wasn’t even his words or feelings that had lied, it might have been just his very being, the fact that he, Lajos, could not do anything else, not before and not now. Suddenly I was aware of myself laughing; I had burst into laughter, not a mocking laughter but a sincere, good-humored laughter. Lajos did not understand why I was laughing.

“Why are you laughing?” he asked suspiciously.

“It’s nothing,” I said. “Do please carry on.”

“Do you agree?”

“Yes,” I said. “To what? No, of course I agree,” I quickly added.

“Good,” he said. “In that case…Now look, Esther, you mustn’t believe that anyone is against you or wishes you harm. We have to arrange our affairs as simply and as honorably as we can. You are coming with me. Nunu too…maybe not straightaway…a little later. Éva gets married. We have to redeem her,” he said more quietly, as though we were plotting. “And me too…You can’t understand it all yet…But do you trust me?” he asked uncertainly, his voice quiet.

“Carry on,” I answered, just as quietly, joining the air of conspiracy. “Of course I trust you.”

“That’s most important,” he muttered with satisfaction. “Don’t think,” he added more loudly, “that I will betray your trust. I don’t want you to make a decision right away. There are just the two of us here. I’ll go and call Endre. He is a family friend, a notary, with an official role. You should sign it in his presence,” he declared with a large gesture.