Part 21

Myra drank to her. The wine made her nerves tingle warmly.

“Comrade,” she thought, “a beautiful, a dear word. Comrade! I would like to be that, and I can be. Comradeship. That is my strength. But nobody has ever required it of me yet. I can be a comrade to this little girl and a comrade to this man. Whether they have other relations with one another or not, makes no difference to me, doesn’t affect me. Strange, nobody has ever yet wanted me for a comrade, not even Olga. And yet I feel as if a key to my inner nature has been given me in those words. I feel as if I could see into and recognize what is within me. I will always be grateful to Fred for giving me that clue.”

They all remained in a good mood. Sometimes Gwen laughed so wantonly that Fred or Myra had to quiet her. Sometimes there was a humorous allusion which Myra did not understand. But she was no longer hurt by it. A good comrade must be trusting and patient in all matters. Must be able to overhear what he does not understand. And must be forever alert, must listen with ears peeled for a cry of need addressed to him.

At the entrance to their room Fred said good night. He lingered over both their hands as he kissed them, though not a fraction of a second longer over one than over the other. But he carried Gwen’s fingers to his lips and gazed piercingly into her eyes. He bowed his head low over Myra’s hand.

“Tomorrow we’ll go to the sea!” Gwen danced exuberantly across the room. “Myra, sweet Myra, isn’t life beautiful? And isn’t it marvellous to go on a spree with Fred? Aren’t you fascinated by him? Well, something like that, you don’t have to be afraid of telling me, I’m not jealous! Only I won’t let myself be put out of business.... But otherwise.... You are a little in love with him, you don’t have to be afraid to tell me.”

“I think you’re rather tipsy, little mouse,” said Myra, smiling. “It’s high time that you crept into your bed.”

“Yes, high time—high time,” Gwen hummed softly. She undressed while she danced around the room, strewing her things on tables and chairs. “But I’m not tired. Are you tired, Myra? I hope not.”

“Why not? What have you got up your sleeve?”

“Oh, I’m going to the ball with you tonight, to the ‘feather ball.’ Didn’t you use to say that when you were a child? It’s silly, isn’t it? All children have the same stupid expressions and always think they’re wonderfully witty, and can repeat them a thousand times over. But when you grow older you don’t want to hear the best joke or eat the most beautiful dish twice. Really sad, isn’t it? Or as Fred would say, ‘The eternal hunger for what is new drives us on.’ Otherwise we’d swing around in a circle like horses on a merry-go-round. Therefore, long live the urge to change! What’s taking you so everlastingly long, Myra? I’m getting into bed already.”

But she did not get into bed at once. She ran about the room in her undershirt, putting this and that in order and looking for something here, and wasted time chattering and loitering.

Myra was already in bed. “You’ll catch cold,” she said, shaking her head. “How can you dawdle around that way? You were ready a half hour ago. Turn out the unnecessary lights and creep into bed.”

Gwen stretched her bare arms over her head.

“I am so restless,” she complained, “can’t you understand. Ah, Myra, you always act as if you were made of ice and snow. Really don’t you feel the wine going through your veins and thudding up against your heart, again and again.” She struck her breast regularly with her clenched fist. “And can’t you feel that it’s spring outside? Have you no longer any roots in the earth so that you can’t feel how the sap is fermenting in you—in you, as in every tree and bush.”

She stopped beside the bureau and laid her arms and her forehead against the smooth wood.

“Sometimes I think that a poor mistreated, sawed up, polished piece of a tree like this still has a spark of life in it. And in spring, when the great orgy is preparing, it begins to feel a pulse and twitching in its poor polished wood. Feel it, there’s a throb like the soft beating of a heart in it. Then I think that the furniture is pleased with me. It feels my life frothing over, and that fulfills its desire and gives it rest, Myra!” With a bound she was on the edge of the bed, and was shaking Myra by the shoulders. “Are you more lifeless than that dead wood? It isn’t true and I don’t believe you are like that!”

She threw her arms around Myra, burrowing with her head among the pillows.

“Why don’t you like me, Myra?” she whispered in her ear. “Tell me, is it because you are in love with Fred? It isn’t true that you’ve never been in love with a woman. And it isn’t true that you could not love me....”

“Love?” said Myra in a toneless voice. “What do you call love?”

“I call love making someone happy—and making myself happy by doing so. I call everything else friendship or idolizing or infatuation, infatuation at most. I want to know what you have against me!”

She knelt on the edge of the bed, tearing the night-gown from her shoulders like a mad woman.

“You must look at me! You must look at me! Where have I any defect that could repel you?”

“You are very beautiful,” said Myra with a painful smile.

“Oh, but you are more!” Gwen threw herself upon Myra, and kissed her mouth and eyelids, her neck and cheeks.

“I don’t want her,” thought Myra. “She has opened her heart to me and I have not urged her on. I am his comrade, I am his comrade....”

Rosy red waves surged up. They swept from her heart, over her throat up to her eyes. The room seemed to reel, as if the walls were struggling for breath, as if their heart were palpitating by fits and starts.

Suddenly everything went still and bright. Like a dazzling light, like the blare of a trumpet.

Perhaps a board had creaked in the floor very softly.

Myra started up, alert, sober.

Something was in the room that had not been there before.

A violet blotch. And topping it, Fred’s face.

Fred’s eyes. Burning. Greedy. Completely unveiled like the eyes of rutting animals. Perfectly naked eyes.

Myra did not cry out.

She threw off the soft body that lay choking her.

A catch-phrase flashed through her mind which she could not forget again. It was the only thing she could think of, and her mind kept repeating it over and over.

“A put up job. All a put up job!”

She sat up and reached for her clothes.

At that moment Fred sprang at her.

“Myra,” he stammered, “my sweetest one!”

She slapped his face with the palm of her hand.

He had been prepared for resistance, for kicking, scratching and biting—he would have vanquished her laughingly. But the blow made him stagger back.

Myra slipped into her clothes.

“A put up job,” she thought, “a put up job!”

Her hands did not shake in spite of her frantic haste. Not until she was dressed did she cast a quick glance at Fred.

The mark of her hand on his pale face burned like a fiery brand. The wide lids were quivering over his eyes.

A strange feeling took possession of Myra. A furious joy, “I caught him a good one.” And then a dawning realization, “This is the first time that I have ever touched that handsome face—that handsome face.”

She had never formulated it before in thought, it was as if her hands had always longed to stroke that face.

An unutterable sorrow filled her heart. As if she had possessed something beautiful and precious and was first aware of it when it lay ruthlessly shattered and broken at her feet.

She walked quietly to and fro in the room, collecting her things. When she had to pass Fred she walked around him. He did not look at her, but he felt it and shuddered.

Gwen had crept out of her bed. She sat pink and naked on the big feather comforter. She had hunched up her shoulders and was playing rather embarrassedly with her toes.

The door to the adjoining room stood open. It was the door through which Fred had entered.

“A put up job,” thought Myra, “a put up job!”

She went with her hat and coat on to that door. With her hand on the latch, she stopped.

“I am going into the next room,” she said quietly. “I have no desire to leave the hotel in the middle of the night. I will go at seven and leave the door into the hall open.”

Fred turned.

“Miss Rudloff,” he said hoarsely, “Miss Rudloff!”

His two dark eyes in his pale face were like two open wounds.

Myra closed the door behind her and threw the bolt with a creak.

She did not turn on the light.

She knew, she sensed—there were things everywhere, strange things, his things.

After quite a long while she heard voices from the adjoining room, high and low, muffled and suppressed, but audible.

“Dear God, what won’t I have to hear,” she thought. “Dear God, give me strength, give me strength. Let me die, if you can, but don’t let me go insane, so that I will do something—something perfectly terrible....”

But the worst thing was the odor in the room. The smell of cigarettes, the delicate scent of Russian leather, of soap, of vinegar.

Myra threw the window wide open and moved a chair up to it. The night was cold. Myra trembled no matter how snugly she wrapped herself in her coat.

She thought of the city which she would leave. Where would she go now—whither?

Should she let herself be driven on, homeless, restless, the quarry of passionate desire?

Or die?

Yes, if she could but have believed in sleep.

But stronger at this moment than ever before she felt undeniably, inviolably, that there was in her something indestructible.

She was quite humble before that which she felt within her, with the humility of a mother who feels a strange life stir in her womb.

“My poor soul,” she said softly, “what have I done to you? Why have I never thought of taking care of and helping you? Why did I always want to set you wandering in the cold space between the stars? Poor soul, why do I have you, if you merely suffer on my account and I on yours? Sometime I shall know, sometime I shall learn all. I would not like to die, no, I would not like to die before I know why I have lived.”

The memory of Eccarius crossed her mind—“No one ought to die before he has learned to love death.”

“No, I do not love death. I do not fear him, but I do not love him. I will learn to love him. I will live in order to learn to love death. Perhaps that is why we have to live. And perhaps that is why we have to suffer.”

The voices in the next room hushed. The strange familiar odor had disappeared from the room.

In the sky the stars were paling before the first feeble light of a dawning March morning.

THE END

Transcriber’s Notes

This text was transcribed from the unchanged reprint edition in the collection _HOMOSEXUALITY. Lesbians and Gay Men in Society, History and Literature_, Arno Press: New York, 1975. Materials from a later date than the original publication year 1948, such as series title, editorial information, or publisher advertisements, have been omitted.

The original spelling was mostly preserved. A few obvious typographical and punctuation errors were silently amended. All other changes are shown here (before/after):

[p. 62]: ... held the little flame for her asked in a casual tone, “You are a ... ... held the little flame for her he asked in a casual tone, “You are a ...

[p. 84]: ... up on the cushion of a chair and lit the gas-jet. I was evidently ... ... up on the cushion of a chair and lit the gas-jet. It was evidently ...

[p. 231]: ... is, if Gisela with allow me.” ... ... is, if Gisela will allow me.” ...