Макс Нордау - How Women Love

He became a conscript in 1865, and, a year after, the double war between Prussia and Italy broke out. The young fellow’s regiment was stationed in the Venetian provinces. One night he was assigned to outpost duty in the field; the enemy was not near, it was mid-summer, a sultry night, and the poor wretch fell asleep. Unfortunately, the commander of the guard, a young lieutenant full of over-zeal for the service, was inspecting the outposts and discovered the sleeper, to whom he angrily gave a kick to recall him to consciousness of his duty. The lad started up, and without hesitation or reflection, dealt his assailant a furious blow in the face. There was a great uproar, soldiers rushed forward, and had the utmost difficulty in mastering the enraged young fellow; he was taken to headquarters in irons, and, after a short trial by court-martial, shot on the same day. The family did not learn the terrible news until weeks later, from a dry official letter of the regimental commander. How terrible was the grief of the father and sister! The man aged ten years in a week, and the girl, at that time a child twelve years old, became so pale and thin from sorrow that the neighbors thought she would not survive it. Not survive it? What do we not outlive! She conquered the anguish and developed into the most beautiful maiden in the village.

There was an austere charm, an unintentional, unconscious attraction in her, which won every one. Her notorious origin was not visited upon her, and even the rich girls in the village gladly made her their friend. While at work in the fields she sang in a ringing voice; in the spinning-room, in winter, she was full of jests and merry tales, as gay and gracious as beseemed her age. Probably on account of her vivacious temperament and the feeling of vigour which robust health bestows, she was extremely fond of dancing, and never failed on Sundays to appear in the large courtyard of the tavern when, in the afternoon, the whirling and stamping began. Her beauty would doubtless have made her the most popular partner among the girls, had not the lads felt a certain fear of her. A purring kitten among her girl companions, ready to give and take practical jokes, she was all claws and teeth against men, and many a bold youth who, after the dance, attempted to take the usual liberties, met with so severe a rebuff that he bore for a week a memento in the shape of a scratch across his whole face. Therefore she did not have a superabundance of partners, and thus escaped the jealousy which, otherwise, her charms would certainly have roused in the other girls.

A dispensation of Providence rendered her irritability the means of deciding the whole course of her life.

One Sunday, late in the summer, soon after the reaping and threshing were over—she was then twenty—she again stood in the bright warm afternoon sunshine in the spacious courtyard of the village tavern, among a gay group of giggling lasses, waiting with joyful impatience for the dancing to begin. The two village gipsies who made bricks during the week and played on Sundays, were already there, leaning against one of the wooden pillars of the porch in front of the house, and tuning their fiddles. The lads crowded together, shouting jesting remarks to the group of girls, who answered them promptly and to the point. One after another the young men left their companions and took from the laughing bevy of maidens a partner, who, as village custom required, at first resisted, but finally yielded to the gentle force—not without some pleasantly exciting struggling and pulling—and was soon whirling around with her cavalier amid shouting and stamping, till the dust rose in clouds.

The beautiful Panna, for reasons already known to us, was not the first person invited to dance. But at last her turn came also, and she could jump with a neighbour’s son, till she was out of breath, to her heart’s content. After spending more than fifteen minutes in vigourous, rapid motion, she finally sank, in happy exhaustion, upon a pile of bricks near a coach-house which was being built, and with flaming cheeks and panting bosom struggled for breath. Pista, the cartwright, profited by the moment to approach, and with gay cries and gestures invite her to dance again. Pista was a handsome fellow, but had the unfortunate propensity of drinking on Sundays, and this time was evidently intoxicated. The vinous suitor was not to Panna’s taste, besides, she was already tired, and she did not answer his first speech. But as he did not desist, but seized her arm to drag her up and away by force, she tartly answered that she would not dance now. This only made him still more persistent.

"Why, why, you fierce little darling, do you suppose you can’t be mastered?" he cried, trying with both hands to seize her beautiful black head to press a smack upon her lips. She thrust him back once, twice, with a more and more violent shove, but he returned to the attack, becoming ruder and more vehement. Then she lost her self-control, and the choleric family blood suddenly seethed in her veins. Bending down to the heap of bricks on which she had just sat, she grasped a fragment and, with the speed of lightning, dealt her persecutor a furious blow. Misfortune guided her hand, and she struck him full in the face. Pista shrieked and staggered to the neighbouring wall, against which he leaned half-fainting, while between the fingers of the hands which he had raised to the wounded spot, the red blood gushed in a horribly abundant stream.

All this had been the work of a moment, and the young people who filled the courtyard did not notice the outrageous act until the mischief was done. Shrieks, running hither and thither, and confusion followed. The fiddlers stopped and stretched their necks, but prudently kept aloof, as they had learned to do during frequent brawls; the girls screamed and wrung their hands, the youths shouted hasty questions, crowding around their bleeding companion. Water was quickly procured, cold bandages were applied to the swollen, shapeless face, and other efforts were made to relieve him, while at the same time he was besieged with questions about the event.

After dealing the fatal blow Panna had stood for a moment deadly pale, as if paralyzed, and then darted off as though pursued by fiends. Perhaps this was fortunate, for she would have fared badly if the enraged lads had had her in their power, when all, amid the confused medley of outcries, had learned the truth. There was no time to pursue her, for Pista seemed to be constantly growing worse; the cold water and fomentations did not stop the bleeding; he soon lost consciousness and lay on the ground amid the terrified, helpless group, an inert mass, until some one made the sensible proposal to carry him home to his mother, a poor widow, which, with their united strength, was instantly done.

Meanwhile, Panna had rushed to her own home, locked herself in, and sat on the bench by the stove, an image of grief and despair. She was incapable of coherent thought, nothing but the spectacle of the bleeding Pista staggering against the wall, stood distinctly before her mind. But she could not give herself up to her desolate brooding long: at the end of fifteen minutes the bolted door shook violently. She started up and listened; it was her father, and she reluctantly went to the door and opened it. The old man entered, shot the bolt behind him, and asked in a trembling voice:

"For God’s sake, child, what have you done?'"

Panna burst into a flood of tears; they were the first she had shed since the incident described.

"He pressed upon me too boldly. And I didn’t mean to do it. I only wanted to keep him off."

"You were possessed. The devil is in us. To kill a man by a blow!"

The girl shrieked aloud. "Kill, do you say?"

"Sol was just told. They say he is dead."

"That is impossible, it’s a lie," Panna murmured in a hollow tone, while her face looked corpse-like. She seemed to cower into herself and to grow smaller, as if the earth was swallowing her by inches. But this condition lasted only a few minutes, then she roused herself and hurried out, ere her father could detain her. She entered a narrow path which ran behind the houses and was usually deserted, and raced as fast as her feet would carry her to the hut occupied by Frau Molnar, which was close at hand. Springing across the narrow ditch which bordered the back of the yard, she hurried through the kitchen-garden behind the house and in an instant was in the only room it contained except the kitchen. On the bed lay a human form from which came a groan, and beside it sat old Frau Molnar, who wrung her hands without turning her eyes from her suffering son. Thank God, he was not dead, the first glance at the piteous scene showed that. Panna involuntarily clasped her hands and uttered a deep sigh of relief. Frau Molnar now first noticed Panna’s entrance; at first she seemed unable to believe her eyes, and gazed fixedly at the girl, with her mouth wide open, then starting up she rushed at her and began to belabour her with both fists, while heaping, in a voice choked by fury, the most horrible invectives upon her head. Panna feebly warded off the blows with outstretched arms, hung her head, and stammered softly:

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