Mihail Sebastian - The Accident

If I had the flashlight, I’d go back to the chalet .

She was powerless to find it. She was in a broad, open clearing shaped like a horseshoe. I came from up above , she thought, trying to remember the path. She would have had to pull herself, tree by tree, to the upper end of the clearing, and shout from there. Maybe it wasn’t too far, maybe they would hear her… More than anything else, she realized that she couldn’t stay here. A kind of sweet languor was tugging her towards the snow, and she knew that this sleepiness was deceptive.

Both of her skis remained attached to her hobnailed boots, but she had lost her poles in the fall. She pulled herself to her feet by grabbing a tree with her hands. Only then did she realize that she was right on the edge of the woods. A second later would have been too late. And yet, and yet, maybe it would have been a good death, with her temple crushed by a tree. Better than this night without end that stretched before her and which she no longer had the strength to get through.

Let’s keep our eyes open, Nora, and let’s get going. As far as we can. To wherever we can get to.

She felt nothing but the bleeding of the wound in her temple. It was the only sensation that persisted amid the heavy sleepiness against which she struggled: and yet I’m moving, I know very well that I’m moving, I realize that I’m moving . Her knees, her hands, occasionally collided with the trees, but they were blows that didn’t hurt, that left no marks. She no longer felt the skis on her legs. Maybe I’ve lost them ; but she couldn’t imagine when.

She seemed to hear, from somewhere, the barking of a dog. She had enough strength to smile. Don’t delude yourself, Nora. Don’t believe it, Nora .

Yet there was light between the trees. Could I have reached the chalet? She didn’t recognize it. It was a small house, with only two lighted windows. A sheepdog, as big as a bear, was on the threshold.

Why isn’t he running towards me? None of this can be real. He should be running towards me.

Someone had come out of the house, hit the dog on the nape of the neck and, taking him by the ears, soothed now, came towards Nora. He had a lantern in his hands, which he held up in front of her face. He looked at her for a while. The light blinded her. Then he lowered the lamp and returned to the house without a word, without asking a question.

“All this can’t be real,” Nora said. It was the same absurd dream, which still hadn’t ended.

Voices were audible inside and then a great silence.

The door opened again and, from the doorway, the man with the lamp signalled for her to enter.

NORA STOOD IN THE DOORWAY for a few minutes, hesitating to go inside. It was lighted, it was warm. She lifted her hand to her throat to touch her woollen scarf and didn’t find it. I probably lost it on the trail .

Next to the window was a table and a lamp with a round white glass cover. Someone was sitting in an armchair and watching her, while the man with the lantern stood in the shadows. He should have extinguished it , Nora thought, looking towards that still-burning light. On the table was a knife, a book with a yellowing cover and a clock showing an impossible time: ten minutes after nine. She looked at each object attentively.

“That clock has stopped,” she said and pointed at it with her finger, without knowing to whom she was speaking.

Then she went to pieces, realizing that she was going to pieces and still having time to think: I shouldn’t fall, I shouldn’t cry . She cried in a loud sob, with her head in her hands, her tears boiling, burning her frozen cheeks, her stiffened fingers.

She heard steps approaching, voices that dwelt above her. Someone stroked her snow-laden hair. A youthful voice whispered half-chanted words as though they were a poem.

“Wanderer tritt still herein;

Schmerz, versteinerte die Schwelle”

She stifled her crying for a moment in order to hear better and to understand, but the tears, held back for an instant, burst forth as though she were falling again.

Two powerful arms lifted her to her feet. Someone pulled an armchair towards the fireplace.

As though through a mist, she discerned big logs reduced to embers burning silently in the mouth of the fireplace. Confident, attentive hands pulled off her snow-dampened coat and slid a heavy, velvety jacket — a hunting jacket — which smelled vaguely of tobacco, over her shoulders.

Nora opened her eyes. At her feet a young man watched her in silence as though he had been looking at her for a long time.

“ Sie haben wahrscheinlich den Weg verloren. Wohin waren Sie denn unterwegs? Von wo kommen sie ?” 15

Nora didn’t reply. The young man had wide blue eyes, a high, sad forehead, illuminated by the light of the fire and a slightly ironic smile. He’s a child , she thought, and turned her head to look for someone else in this strange house, someone of whom she could ask forgiveness for all that had happened. But there was no one, not even the man with the lamp.

“Don’t be afraid. You’ve found shelter here. You need to rest. If you want, you can sleep.”

This time he spoke in Romanian, with a Saxon accent, but without haste, with a kind of ponderousness that separated the syllables one from another.

He stood up. Now that he was beyond the range of the flickering of the fire, his forehead was pale, but his eyes became cheerful in their childlike blueness. Nora remembered that from the doorway she had seen a clock, but she couldn’t recall where to look for it.

“What time is it?”

“Nine-thirty.”

She repeated the words without understanding them. Nine-thirty … What sort of nine-thirty…? Her troubled gaze was awaiting a reply, asking for help.

He leaned towards her again and looked her in the eyes, speak-ing slowly and shaking her shoulders gently, as though he wished to awake her from a dream.

“It’s nine-thirty in the evening. You understand? Today is Thursday, December 20, 1934, it’s night, and it’s nine-thirty.”

Nora lifted her hands to her temples as if to gather her thoughts. “It’s unbelievable. I had the impression that I’d lost whole hours. I thought it must be very late, that the night must be almost over…”

She halted with a dizzy, puzzled motion… The youth was still listening to her. Nora continued with some difficulty, in a voice she herself didn’t recognize. “I came from the Touring Club chalet. There are a lot of people there. I went out for some exercise, some fresh air, to be alone… When I tried to return, I couldn’t find the trail. My skis slipped, I fell. I had a flashlight with me, but it broke or maybe I lost it… After that, I don’t know what happened. I kept going and going…”

She was silent for a moment, then asked, with a certain uneasiness: “Is it far away?”

“What?”

“The Touring Club chalet.”

“A few hundred metres.”

“Could someone accompany me back there, or show me the trail?”

“Naturally, but don’t you think it would be better to stay here? At least until tomorrow morning?”

Nora read a certain anxiety in his stare, although his relaxed, ironic smile persisted. My God, the state I must be in!

“I don’t wish to upset you, but I think you need rest. There’s a free room upstairs. I’ve told them to light the fire.”

Nora ran her right hand slowly across her face, her cheeks. “Do you have a mirror?”

“I said I didn’t wish to upset you and now I’ve upset you. It’s nothing serious. A scratch on your right temple and another one here, on your forehead. There’s a little blood. Let’s find some cotton wool and rubbing alcohol.”