Sandor Marai - Embers

“You had to come back; you know it. And now I have to say something that only very slowly became clear to me and that I kept denying; I have to acknowledge a discovery that both surprises and disturbs me: we are still, even now, friends.

“Evidently there is no external power that can alter human relationships. You killed something inside me, you ruined my life, but we are still friends. And tonight, I am going to kill something inside you, and then I shall let you go back to London or to the tropics or to hell, and yet still you will be my friend. This too is something we both need to know before we talk about the hunt and everything that happened afterwards. Friendship is no ideal state of mind; it is a law, and a strict one, on which the entire legal systems of great were built. It reaches beyond personal desires self-regard in men’s hearts, its grip is greater than that of sexual desire, and it is proof against disappointment-because it asks for nothing. One can kill a friend, death itself cannot undo a friendship that reaches back to childhood; its memory lives on like some act of silent heroism, and indeed there is in friendship an element of ancient heroic feats, not the clash of swords and the rattle of sabers, but the selfless human act. And as you raised the gun to kill me, our friendship was more alive than ever before in the twenty-four years we had known each other. One remembers such moments because they become part of the content and meaning of the rest of one’s life. And I remember. We were standing in the undergrowth between the pines. The clearing opens away from the path there and continues into the dense woodland where the forest is still virgin and dark. I was walking ahead of you and stopped because far ahead, about three hundred paces away, a deer had stepped out from between the trees.

“It was gradually getting light, slowly, as if the sun were stalking the world, feeling it very gently with the tips of its rays. The animal stood still at the edge of the clearing and looked into the undergrowth, sensing danger. Instinct, the sixth sense that is more acute than smell or sight, moved in the nerves of its body. It could not see us and it was upwind from us, so the morning breeze could not warn it; we stood motionless for a long time, already feeling the strain of keeping absolutely still-I in front, between the trees at the edge of the clearing; you behind me. The gamekeeper and the dog were some distance back. We were alone in the forest in the solitude that is part night, part dawn, part trees, and part animals, that gives one the momentary sensation that one has lost one’s way in the world and must someday retrace one’s steps to this wild and dangerous place that is truly home.

It’s a feeling I always had when out hunting. I saw the animal and stopped. You saw it, too, and stopped ten paces behind me. That is the moment when both quarry and hunter are utterly alert, sensing the entirety of the situation and the danger, even if it’s dark, even without turning the head. What forces or rays or waves transmit knowledge at such a time? I have no idea … The air was clear. The pines were unruffled by the faint breeze. The animal listened. It did not move a muscle, stood as if spellbound, for every danger contains within it a spell, an enchantment. When fate turns to face us and calls our name, along with the oppression and the fear we feel is a kind of attraction, because we do not only want to live, no matter what the cost, we want to know our fate and accept it, even at the cost of danger and death. That is what the deer must have been experiencing just then.

“Just as I was, as I clearly remember. And you, too, a few paces behind me-you were as mesmerized as the beast and I, both of us in front and in range of you as you lifted the safety catch with that quiet, cold click that is the sound of perfectly tempered steel going about its fatal task, whether it is a dagger crossing another or a fine English rifle being cocked for the kill. Do you remember?” “Yes,” says the guest. “A classic moment,” says the General with almost a connoisseur’s pleasure.

“I was the only one to hear the click, it was too quiet to carry three hundred paces to the deer, even through the silence of dawn.

“And then something happened that I could never prove in a court of law, but that I can tell you because you know it already-it was a little thing, I felt you move, more clearly than if I’d been watching you. You were close behind me, and a fraction to the side. I felt you raise your gun, set it to your shoulder, take aim, and close one eye. I felt the gun slowly swivel. My head and the deer’s head were in the exact same line of fire, and at the exact same height; at most there may have been four inches between the two targets. I felt your hand tremble, and I knew as surely as only the hunter can assess a particular situation in the woods, that from where you were standing you could not be taking aim at the deer. Please understand me: it was the hunting aspect, not the human, that held my attention right then. I was, after all, a devotee of hunting, with some expertise in its technical problems, such as the angle at which one must position oneself in relation to a deer standing unsuspecting at a distance of three hundred paces. Given the geometrical arrangement of the marksman and the two targets, the whole thing was quite clear, and I could calculate what was going on in the mind of the person behind my back. You took aim for half a minute, and I knew that down to the second, without a watch. I knew you were not a fine shot and that all I had to do was move my head a fraction and the bullet would whistle past my ear and maybe hit the deer. I knew that one movement would suffice and the bullet would remain in the barrel of your gun. But I also knew I couldn’t move because my fate was no longer mine to control: some moment had come, something was going to happen of its own volition. And I stood there, waiting for the shot, waiting for you to pull the trigger and put a bullet through the head of your friend. It was a perfect situation: no witnesses, the gamekeeper and the dogs were a long way back, it was one of those well-known ‘ accidents’ that are detailed every year in the newspapers. The half minute passed and still there was no shot. Suddenly the deer smelled danger and exploded into motion with a single bound that took him out of our sight to safety in the undergrowth. We still didn’t move. And then, very slowly, you let the gun sink.

“I could not see or hear that movement, either, but I knew it as well as if I were facing you. You lowered the gun so carefully in case even the air moving over the barrel might make a whisper and betray you, now that the moment to take the shot was gone and the deer had vanished.

“You see, the interesting thing is that you still could have killed me, there were no witnesses, and no judge would have convicted you, everyone would have rushed to surround you with sympathy, because we were the legendary friends, Castor and Pollux, together for twenty-four years through thick and thin, we were their reincarnation. If you had killed me, everyone would have reached out to you, everyone would have mourned with you, because the world believes there could be no more tragic figure than someone who accidentally kills his friend. What man, what prosecutor, what lunatic would make the unbelievable accusation that you had done it deliberately? There is absolutely no proof that you were harboring any deadly animosity toward me. The previous evening, we had all dined together-my wife, my relations, our hunting comrades-as a friendly circle in the castle where you had been welcome, no matter what the day, for decades, everyone had seen us together just as we always were, in the regiment and in society, as warm and affectionate as ever.