The Story of My Wife (47 page)

We were different, weren't we? one feels like saying. Like hell we were; we were the same. Man remains the same in all ages, his clothes are about the only things that change—today they're somewhat shorter. And his manner is a little more forward. Maybe.

The students came in droves; they surged into the lecture halls, not with any enthusiasm even, but in great, indifferent masses, like a river, like a Mississippi. They slammed their notebooks on their desks and whistled between their teeth. What they meant to express by this was that they were tough and unyielding. Unyielding in what? I wondered. Just then I was reading Leopardi's prose works every night. Now Leopardi, I thought, was a very smart man, a great mind, and sometimes it occurred to me: what would he say about all this? He would say nothing, in all probability. In that case I don't have to say anything, either.

I even thought: Maybe this is the Communist generation.

But no, that wasn't it. Because I happened to overhear exchanges such as this:

"Do you think I am interested in a collective society?"

"Do you think
I
am?"

"Hahaha," somebody else put in; in other words there was one more person not interested in a collective society. In what, then, were they so fierce and unyielding?

In being young, you miserable old man, I scolded myself. And continued working.

There was one young woman who angered me even more, for a while anyway. She happened to be the person who was picked by my tutor to supervise my lab work.

She was a nice enough woman, I had no objections; she was decently dressed, her ears, her nose, her feet were all right—but why was she so incredibly boring? These people are actually qualified to be boring, I thought. She wore clumsy, thick-soled shoes, her hair was brushed back, though such things were perhaps the consequence of being in the sciences. But that she should not have a kind word for an older gentleman who was so lonely and such a hard worker . . .

"That's pretty good," she'd say to me in her offhand manner. I expected more. It's childish, I know, but I did.

"That's good; that's not so good." That is as far as she was willing to go in expressing appreciation for my greatest endeavors.

Yet, I even tried my luck with her at first. Would tell her, for example: "It's overcast today." To which she answered: "Yes." When I said: "It's not, any more," she said: "No."

Just you wait, I said to myself. You'll change your tune yet. I know my own eyes. They can stare such a splendid young lady down until she gets so flustered,
she'll
be talking about the weather. And that's precisely what happened . . . But more about that later.

I continued working, with ever-growing interest, and that was the important thing. Anyway, nothing is quite as interesting as chemistry.

Anyone who hasn't tried it cannot appreciate the aesthetic pleasure that comes from making a discovery in this branch of science. Or what a thrill it is to simply observe certain transformations. Let's say I have a gas, a blue gas; I fidget with it for a while and before long it's so hard I can hit it with a hammer, in other words a gaseous substance has turned solid—isn't that a pleasure to behold? Actually, I envisaged a dandy little laboratory where the experiments would be centered around a few exceptionally malleable substances. Carbamides especially tickled my fancy; they are not only acid- and water-proof, they are never brittle—exactly the kind of substances modern industry needs. I've been hearing about them for some time.

But enough of chemistry. Every evening I read: "high-class" books, this time; not systematically, of course, but whatever the bookseller happened to recommend. That "serious" literature is not really for me is amply illustrated by my brief appraisals of these books. Needless to say, I didn't enjoy them very much. Let's see:

"Edgar Lee Masters: His tombstones are fine, the rest: forget it.

Ulysses:
A real hodge-podge.

Romain Rolland: Nauseating mishmash.

Werfel (his Belgian book): Nausea again, and mishmash, too . . . " And more of the same . . .

But let's forget about this, literature is not my forte. It may be ridiculously naive of me to say it, but what did give me pleasure was Dickens, especially one of his books. The Christmas I spent with him I shall remember as long as I live. Outside it was raining steadily, and all day long I did nothing but munch on bread and read. And I couldn't stop, either, but read way into the night, until thoroughly intoxicated. In other words, I responded to the book the way I did to things in the most ardent period of my youth. I got up only to stare at the rain outside ... I also smoked my pipe endlessly.

This,
for a change, was literature. Let me just add that the book was
David Copperfield.

I bring all this up because my above-mentioned, unschooled comments I did convey to that scholarly young miss at the university. To my patroness. Let's call her Madmoiselle Brebant-Jouy. We've gone far, you see, our relationship improved markedly, beyond expectations. It happened in the following manner:

Very simply, actually. I treated her exactly as she treated me. If she made a comment about my work, I began to scratch my head and stuck out my tongue, not much, just a little, as though I didn't have a good night's sleep. And I never said things like: "I am much obliged, Mademoiselle, I quite understand." In short, I didn't eagerly agree with her, or laugh politely, or look smilingly into her eyes, according to the custom of bygone, backward ages. Was it sour faces, wry looks she was after? I obliged, gladly, and behaved the way a thoroughly blasé, modern gentleman is expected—nay, requested—to behave.

And this achieved the desired effect, I must say—this and my steady gaze, which reflected neither curiosity nor indifference. It reflected—nothing; simply a glance resting on its object. Now imagine if you will: an experienced pair of eyes like mine persistently fixed on her flushed face or cool breasts . . . Something
is
expressed by such a look, the question is what? My little mademoiselle would have to be quite a hero not to be just a little bit intrigued by it. Every two weeks we had these
assemblies,
at which lecturers explained the latest experimental techniques, as well as other relevant material. Well, I gave her my special look even then. Not very conspicuously, but still . . . Then I stopped and abruptly looked away, as though I had already forgotten she was there.

On one of these occasions I discovered that now
she
was doing it. And getting to be very good at it. She wasn't looking at me, it's true, but at my pencil, but so intently even her eyes quivered. As if searching for an answer to a most nagging question: Won't she
ever
get married? She was also panting a little.

What's more, her face turned red as soon as she discovered that I was looking at her.

That's all right, I thought, that's just the way I want it. And it was.

Shortly after this she did open her mouth. Wonder of wonders: she deigned to address me.

"It's hot in here," she said to me. But still in her superior, offhand manner.

She just happened to be analyzing some color compounds, and pressed her full bosoms against a stand that was used to hold some of the heavier instruments, though it happened to be empty now. From the pressure these breasts were pushed up and thrust out. That they were quite nice I will not deny. The sun happened to shine on her hair just then, and seemed it set it ablaze. That her hair was lovely, too, I will not deny, either.

She was blonde, like the Swedes. (Except that she came from a Croatian family on her mother's side, as I later found out.) What is more, she was slender, especially around her waist.

In spite of that I didn't feel like responding with some helpful inanity; I didn't jump up to open the window, either. Instead of this old piece of idiocy I chose the new kind, which is to disagree, disagree at all cost, damn it, to show you have a mind of your own. So I said to her:

"It's not that hot." Even though it was.

"Pardon?" she said at first. Then she thought of something better.

"Why of course . . . You were a sea captain, you got used to the heat."

I was again quite pleased. It's true, even sea captains can be hot if the weather is such, but she did say the magic word. . . . What exactly did she mean by it, though?

Well, what did you? I looked into her eyes. For one thing she knew who I was. That's something. And what else? That we can now start a charming little conversation. But I showed no inclination to do that right now. Instead, I fixed my expressionless eyes on her, and with the mysterious tenacity of animals I said to her, smilingly:

"Quite true, quite true ..."

And so the thing continued. A few days later I had some reading matter with me, and she did me the honor of looking at the title. I had just picked it up in the shop—it was a book by John Bunyan who is a classic only in England. But as the bookseller impressed it on me that no educated person can pass over this work, I bought it. I thought that perhaps I could become religious—that might lead to something. My lady friend, as I said, picked it up, leafed through it, then put it down.

"Is this a religious book?" she asked breezily.

"Yes," I answered; "The only reason I am reading it is because the author is a friend of mine." How do you like that? Of a man who's been dead for three hundred years I said he was my friend. But who cared? She didn't know who Bunyan was anyway. And if she did, let her be perplexed by what a man of mystery I was. Yet all that is not enough, I realized. We need a little more—but what? A little heroism, confound it, which has the same effect on the female soul today as it did in the time of Lancelot and those other jousting knights. It will peel the papier-mâché facade off these grim little scientists' faces, and we'll all discover that they are pussycats at heart, sappy schoolgirls, even my little Mademoiselle. This is roughly what happened. The lab assistant wasn't around and she needed oxygen badly, or else her whole experiment would have gone to waste.

So I picked up a metal oxygen tank (it must have weighed around a hundred pounds, I dare say), cradled it in my arms as you would an infant, and gently set it down in front of her. Let her feast her eyes on it. She started blinking a little, was already touched by this display, I think. But we still had problems. That tall metal stand (the one that was empty before) was in the way again, the oxygen pipe didn't quite reach, so the whole thing had to be moved. Now the stand weighed about 200 pounds, I would say.

I waited a while—let her first struggle with it. Only when she was cursing away under her breath (this, too, is part of the tough girl image, I suppose) did I take hold of that heavy piece of metal and with one swift move swung it aside. This she could no longer pass over in silence.

"You are that strong?"

"Eh, it's nothing," I replied, but so contemptuously, so haughtily, the Princess of Guise would have been impressed.

A few days later—what do you know—the two of us went to a concert together. She told me she had an extra ticket for sale. We know all about such extra tickets. I thought to myself: I am such a boor, I know next to nothing about music, though at one time I did decide: I'll be a connoisseur of this, too. But why shouldn't she be explaining certain things to me? I found out, you see, that she just loved explaining, it was a passion with her. Though I also realized that I was right—she
was
simply a wide-eyed, eager kid.

She was telling me all about music—why this piece is so beautiful, why that is even prettier, etc. . . . Because from that point on, you see, we went to all kinds of concerts together; at least two of my evenings every week were spoken for—I couldn't really complain about my social life. Even less so because she usually brought her sister along, an even younger, slighter creature, but with a shock of hair ever so resplendent. What is more, she had eyes that were so gullible, and at the same time so brazen and provocative, she would have been ready, as a revolutionary, to prove
all
her points. I dare say that even a graying gentleman like myself could not help but respond with quiet gladness to those burning eyes. Oh, and when they started arguing on the way home . . . Because they did, every time. I deliberately slowed down, to make the pleasure last. Needless to say, this meant more to me than all the musical surprises in the world.

"When I get married," said the little one to me on one occasion, "I want to be one with my husband in
every respect!'

You sweet little thing; I love you, I said to myself. But showed nothing.

Because you've got to handle these creatures very gently, cleverly, like you would a stray puppy, avoiding abrupt moves, so as not to frighten them away. So I said nothing, or maybe this much, and even that very solemnly:

"Oh yes, miss, you are absolutely right."

"You see, monsieur agrees with me," she said right away to her sister. (She couldn't remember my name, or didn't want to. We even talked about this. "I can't for the life of me remember your name," she said to me on one occasion when we were alone. "But you won't be cross with me for that, will you?" And she was quick to console herself: "What's in a name, anyway? All it does is prejudice you. What difference does it make what you are called? Main thing is whether a person is kind and generous . . . isn't that so, monsieur?"

I assured her that it was most definitely so, and that I do happen to be kind and generous. Whereupon she commented that I need not mention that, she discovered it already.

But how did you, my dear girl? How did you discover that so quickly?

I should leave that to her, she said; she was a pretty good judge of character . . . But let me go back to describing their discussion of marriage.)

"Why should an independent girl like me get married, if not for psychic fulfillment?" she asked her sister. "Mere sensuality does not interest me."

I was even happier to hear that. And what else could I have said to her but this again:

"Oh yes, miss, you are absolutely right."