S. Agnon - A Book that Was Lost

Steiner raised his head above Fernheim’s. “In your opinion, Werner, who should have come?”

“Heaven forbid that I meant you,” he replied. “I realize that Mr. Steiner is an important personage, a man weighed down with serious business, so serious it even exempted him from army duty; but there is someone here who, had she come to greet her husband, would not have been acting altogether outrageously. What do you think, brother-in-law, suppose Inge had come? Does that sound so very unreasonable?”

Steiner tried to smile, but, as he was not used to smiling, his face assumed a look of surprise. He made a fist of his left hand, looked at his fingernails, and said, “If my ears aren’t liars, Inge should have rushed to the railroad station to meet you. Is that it, Werner?”

“Why are you so surprised?” asked Fernheim. “Isn’t it usual for a wife to greet her husband returning from a distant country? And what a distant country I’m returning from! Anyone else in my place would have died a hundred deaths by now and wouldn’t have lived to see the face of his loved ones.” Suddenly he raised his voice and asked fiercely, “Where’s Inge?”

Steiner looked straight at his brother-in-law and then turned his eyes away. Then he looked at him again and calmly flicked off the cigar ash. “Inge is on her own; we don’t pry into her affairs. And let me advise you, Werner: don’t be prying into her affairs.”

Gertrude sat thinking, This is a man, this is a man. This is a man who can handle anyone. Tonight I’ll tell him my secret — that I’ve got a new child ready for him. But now I’ll leave them alone.

The whites of Fernheim’s eyes reddened as though they had been pricked and blood were trickling out. “What do you mean,” he shouted, “‘Don’t be prying into her affairs’? It seems to me I still have some authority over her.”

Gertrude rose to leave.

“Sit down, Gertrude,” said Hans. “If you don’t want to hear what this fellow has to say, maybe you’d like to hear what I have to say. Now, you, Werner, look here. If you haven’t told it to yourself, I’ll tell you. The world you left behind when you went to war has changed, and what concerns us most has changed, too. I don’t know just how clear these things are to you, or just how pleasant you find them. If you like, I’m ready to explain them to you.”

Fernheim raised his eyes and tried to look straight at his brother-in-law, whose face at that moment was not pleasant to look at. He lowered his head and his eyes and sat despondent. Steiner shouted suddenly, “Is there no ashtray here? Excuse me, Gertrude, if I say that here, on this spot, there should always be an ashtray.”

Gertrude rose and got an ashtray.

“Thanks very much, Gertrude. The ash has already dropped onto the rug. What were we talking about? You want an explanation, Werner. In that case, let me begin at the beginning. Once there was a daughter of a well-to-do family who was engaged to a certain man; only the ceremony had not yet taken place. It chanced to happen that a certain fellow started to frequent this man’s company. The man who was engaged to the girl disappeared, and this other fellow who had been trailing along after him came and started courting the girl, until finally he won her and she married him, Why did he win her and why did she marry him? This I leave to riddle solvers. I can’t say why. From the very start the match was no match, but what happened happened. At any rate, there’s no need that it be so forever. Do you understand, my dear fellow, what I’m driving at? You don’t understand? Amazing. I’m speaking quite frankly.”

“Is that the only reason?” said Werner.

“What I’ve said seems trivial?” Hans replied.

“At any rate,” said Werner, “I’d like to know if that’s the only reason.”

“There’s that and there’s another reason…”

“And what’s the other reason?”

Steiner fell silent.

Werner went on, “I beg of you, tell me what that other reason is. You say, ‘There’s that and there’s another reason.’ What is that other reason?”

“What you speak of as another reason,” said Steiner, “is something else again.”

“And if I want to know?”

“If you want to know,” said Steiner, “I’ll tell you.”

“Well?”

“Well, the same man to whom the young woman was engaged was found alive, and we trust that you won’t go about setting up obstacles. You notice, Werner, that I’m not bringing up your absconding with the funds and staining the firm’s reputation.”

Fernheim whispered, “Karl Neiss alive?”

“Alive,” repeated Steiner.

“Have the dead revived already, then? I myself, everybody with me — we all saw him disappear beneath a landslide and I never heard of his having been pulled out of the debris. Hans, my dear fellow, you are joking with me. And even if they did get to him, he couldn’t possibly have come out alive. Tell me, Hans, what led you to say such a thing? Didn’t—”

“Story-telling is not my business,” clipped Steiner, “but I’ll tell you this: Karl is alive and well, alive and well. And, let me add, Inge is counting on you, on your not setting yourself as a barrier between them. And as to your coming back empty-handed, we’ve taken that into consideration; we won’t send you away empty-handed. I haven’t as yet set aside a definite sum for you, but at any rate you can be sure it will be enough to set you on your feet, unless you mean to go idle.”

“Won’t you let me see Inge?” pleaded Fernheim.

“If Inge wants to see you,” said Steiner, “we won’t stand in her way.”

“Where is she?”

“If she hasn’t gone out for a walk, she’s sitting in her room.”

“By herself?” asked Fernheim derisively.

Steiner did not catch Fernheim’s derision and answered calmly, “She may or may not be by herself. Inge is on her own and may do as she pleases. At any rate, she can be asked if she is free to receive visitors. What do you think, Gertrude? Shall we send Zig to her? What was wrong with Zig that he was acting so stubbornly? Doing nothing is good for no one, especially children.”

4

Inge greeted Fernheim politely. If we did not know what we do know, we would think that she was glad to see him. A new light, a deep contentment shone from her eyes. Happiness is a wonderful thing: even when it is not intended for you, you bask in its light. At that moment, all that he had to say fled him. He sat looking at Inge in silence.

“Where were you all these years?” she asked. “That I know perfectly well,” said Werner, “but were you to ask me where I am now, I doubt that I could answer.” Inge smiled as though she had heard a joke.

Werner moved uncomfortably in his chair. He leaned his right hand on the arm of the chair, lifted his left hand to his nose, smelled his fingernails, yellowed from smoking, amazed all the while that after all the years that he had been away from Inge he was once more sitting beside her, even looking at her while she looked at him — but not one of the thoughts that filled his heart reached his lips, even though his heart urged him to say something.

“Tell me,” said Inge, “I’m listening.”

Werner stuck his hand into his pocket and started groping about. But the present he had bought for Inge had been pawned for travel expenses to Lückenbach. He smiled painfully and said, “You want to know what I did all that while?”

She nodded her head. “Why not?”

As soon as he started speaking he saw that she was not listening.

“And how did the Bulgarians treat you?” asked Inge.

“The Bulgarians? The Bulgarians were our allies.”

“But weren’t you a prisoner of war? I thought I heard that you had been captured.”