The Birth of Love Read Online Free Page B

even to those who may agree, such proposals might well seem superfluous to the sad case of Herr S. I am only recording them, indeed, that you may perceive how I have tried to understand him, how many theories I have fashioned. This was how my thoughts ran at this time, and I allowed myself a few moments to note them down.
    *
    When I lifted my head, and stopped my pen, Herr S had fallen once more into silence. Hoping to rouse him again, I said, ‘Do you have other recurring thoughts?’
    ‘Oh yes,’ he said. ‘Many thoughts.’
    Then he shuddered, horribly, so violently that I thought he must be falling into a fit. He rattled the chains and hiswhole body convulsed, and he said, ‘Oh I cannot speak about them, they are too … They are …’
    ‘Can you disclose any of them at all?’
    ‘There is a name. A name which hammers in my thoughts. It is the name of a woman – I dread to tell it.’
    ‘If you can, then perhaps we can shed some more light on your condition.’
    ‘My “condition”? That is a fine word for it!’
    ‘Why are you afraid of telling me the name of this woman?’
    ‘She is a woman with bright blue eyes. Flaxen hair, I think. She is very angry with me. I fear I shall anger her further. She is furious and I believe she is tormenting me. I am being punished for the death of this woman.’
    ‘You know she is dead?’
    ‘I know it because I killed her.’
    ‘Why do you believe this to be the case?’
    ‘She appears to me – she was here just the other day, and she accused me with her eyes. They were piercing my flesh. My body burned when she looked upon me. And there was a pain at my core – here’ – and he pounded on his chest – ‘as her eyes burned into me.’
    ‘You think you knew this woman?’
    ‘I did not know her. I met her somewhere, I cannot remember where. I met her and then shortly afterwards – a few days perhaps – she was dead.’
    ‘Herr S, I would be most interested to know what you call this woman.’
    ‘I cannot tell you,’ he said. He was shuddering; the man was shaking in the depths of his dread.
    *
    So I said, ‘Are there any other names you remember?’
    arks on them, around the hollows of the eyes and on the gaunt cheeks. They are women’s faces and they are stricken with pain. They appear to me on the wall. I wake and I see them arrayed on the wall before me. Thousands and thousands, perhaps, I am not sure, and I think they are all this woman …’
    ‘All of them are the same woman?’
    ‘No they do not look the same. They are not physically the same. But somehow they are all her, I believe them to be her. When these women appear before me they are not like her though they are somehow her but these women have their eyes screwed up in agony and I am fearful, so very fearful, lest they open their eyes. I am writhing in torment, waiting for them to open their eyes and burn me. If they all open their eyes, I am quite sure I must die. So I watch them, and always so far their eyes have been closed. But soon, soon they must open. Then I will burn. Do you understand me?’
    ‘I am not sure that I do. But I am determined to help you, if I can.’
    ‘You?’ he said, staring at me suddenly. ‘Why?’
    As I began to speak he remembered once more, and said, ‘Yes, yes, of course. It is this cloud. The cloud disperses my recollections. So then I must speak to you alone?’
    ‘You are under no obligation to talk to me.’
    ‘You are preparing a document against me?’
    ‘No, I am not.’
    ‘My words have always been twisted and used to testify against me. I have a sense that it is very dangerous to speak, to explain, because my words will be misconstrued.’
    ‘You feel you have been traduced?’
    ‘I feel I am guilty indeed, mired in blood. But somehow I have been unfairly judged nonetheless.’
    ‘Do you want to become well again?’ I said.
    ‘But what is well?’
    ‘That is a very pertinent question, Herr S. You are right to query my idle expression. I