John Berger - G.

Von Hartmann was a man who had eliminated all his possible selves. All that remained from his past were obsolete versions of the same self. He was like a man engraved on a postage stamp.

He would of course have responded to crude physical threats at a reflex level. If his life were threatened he might break down and whimper like a child: more probably he would remain curiously impassive. The silence which emanates from death only continues the silence of such a man’s subjective life. Von Hartmann was a man who could be removed, but not challenged. On account of this it might be claimed that he was the ideal administrator.

As Marika listened, the young man who had been arrested at the frontier became inextricably mixed with Garibaldi and with G. in the internment prison from which she would help him to escape. She decided immediately that the young man must be released. More than that, she decided that she would ask the governor herself. Marika’s decisions were immediate because she had no interest in justifications. If the needle of her will indicated the magnetic north, all she had to do was to set out; it was incomprehensible to her why anybody should want to adjust the compass to the needle and take other readings. Yet she was a woman who reflected. The difference between her and most others was that her reflexions were exclusively concerned with the past and were in the form of stories and legends. In some she herself played a part, in others, which interested her no less, she did not appear at all. A legend, a story, for Marika was what remained when the necessities which determined it had ebbed away; afterwards the story lay there like a boat cast high up on the beach by an exceptional tide, or like a ring no longer worn but kept in a jewel box. Sometimes what remained was an absence, as in the case of a woman friend who lost an arm in a riding accident. She was galloping away from her lover whom she discovered by chance in a wood making love to somebody else. Before the arm was amputated, when the ring was still worn, when the boat was sailing, life was too fateful to allow for reflexion.

Marika, how I love you! Your smile is more complete than any last judgement. When you take off your clothes you are pure will. We make each other bodiless. All the rest are talkers or sensualists. Marika! When will G. say this?

As soon as he came to the end of his speech, Marika exclaimed: There is only one thing to do, have him released.

Her husband nodded his head. Contrary to convention, he often nodded when about to refuse something. Your eloquence, you see, has won her heart, but I am afraid that under the present conditions it would be quite impossible to intervene in any way on your young friend’s behalf. Impossible and dangerous. Let us assume that he is as innocent as you say. In himself he may not be dangerous. But what would be the effect on the city of showing leniency at a moment like this? Many more would be encouraged to try to cross the frontier. The numbers would double. And what would this lead to? Our soldiers on the frontier have orders to shoot at anybody who does not stop or answer their challenge. By relaxing the law in the special case of your friend one might well be responsible for the death of several other young men. And the affair would not stop there. The political and diplomatic repercussions of such frontier incidents might well prove disastrous. It would probably mean war. My wife does not understand politics. In politics nothing is ever merely itself. There is your young Italian whose father is dying, he is arrested crossing the frontier illegally and he stands to be given what may seem a harsh prison sentence, yet to show undue clemency in this one exceptional case could well cause a war in which tens of thousands of sons and fathers would die.

A telephone rang in a distant room. The banker rose to his feet, walked over to his wife and covered her hand, which was resting on the arm of the chair, with his own.

That is why he cannot be set free as you would like, he explained.

She did not look troubled. She no more made arguments than she listened to them. She was like an animal or a person who, having run along a path, turns a corner and finds that it leads to the bank of a wide, fast-flowing river; anger or impatience would be futile. Her expression was calm, stationary. She was looking up and down the river to decide which way to turn before running on. She knew that she lived under licence and she knew that it was too late for her to live otherwise. It was not something she reasoned about, but she sensed it as one can sense the size of a plain or the proximity of the sea without being able to see them. Without a Wolfgang she would become like a gipsy, and she despised gipsies. Furthermore she sensed that the chronicles of the world, the stories that would remain, were passing into the keeping of men like her husband.

A servant came to the door and announced that the telephone call was from Vienna. Von Hartmann excused himself and left the room.

I would like to dance, said Marika, standing up and swaying in slow gliding circles across the inlaid parquet floor towards where G. was sitting. Who are you really? she asked him. You are not he who you say you are. (She spoke an awkward and incorrect Italian.) Who are you really?

Don Juan.

I have met men who thought they were Don Juans, none of them was.

The name is much usurped.

Why do you claim it then?

Did I?

You are right. It was I who asked you, and I believe you.

She moved away and continued in a flatter voice: When shall we make the trip to Verona which you proposed to us?

I love you.

The uncannily still flames of the candles emphasized how tightly the skin of her face was drawn over the pronounced bones of her skull.

If we were at home we would ride into the forest, now, while he is out of the room we would go.

Turn your face towards me.

He places his hand on her nose and mouth so that they are covered. Inside the warmth of his hand he feels her nose like a gentle tonsil. Her eyes are laughing. Then, with his hand a little damp from her breath, he smooths the skin across her hard cheekbones towards her rather red, deeply convoluted ear.

I am not the same, she whispered.

Von Hartmann paused at the door, contemplated the two figures by the fireplace and walked pensively into the room. It occurred to neither G. nor Marika to wonder how long he had stood there.

It seems, he announced, that Rome has decided upon war. It is only a matter of time. He put his hand on G.’s shoulder. So after all you will have to choose between us and the Internat .

I have time, said G. You don’t have to be a political man to hear war coming, like an avalanche. I haven’t heard it here yet.

If there is going to be war, said Marika, we must make our journey to Verona before it is too late. Let us go tomorrow.

Sometimes you astonish me like a child, said von Hartmann to his wife. Verona is nothing but a name for you. Why do you want to go there?

I want to travel.

There are no horses there. There is a theatre.

I hate this city. She began walking towards the far end of the room where the white tiled temple was installed and the walls were lined with books up to the ceiling. Nobody is interested in anything here except insurance. If we are going to be at war before the week is out, we should go immediately.

It is inconceivable that we should leave at a moment like this. Her husband sat down, smiled at G. and continued: It seems as if war is certain, but it will not be for two weeks at least.

Is that what you heard on the telephone? shouted Marika, for she was now at the other end of the room, twenty metres away.

No, that is what I deduce from what I heard.

She climbed a library ladder which stood by the bookshelves and, mounting the topmost step, her hair almost touching the ceiling, her face in darkness and the light falling on the folds of the skirt of her dress which, seen from that angle, appeared to have no waist but to be skirt to the shoulders, she declared: Let us bet on it! I am prepared to bet one thousand crowns that we shall be at war in one week.