25 你从未认出我

And that hour really did come, but you do not know it. You have no inkling of it,
beloved! Even then you did not recognize me—you never, never, never recognized
me! I had met you a number of times, at the theatre, at concerts, in the Prater, in the
street—every time my heart leapt up, but you looked past me; outwardly I was so
different now, the shy child had become a woman, said to be beautiful, wearing
expensive clothes, surrounded by admirers: how could you detect in me that shy girl in
the dim light of your bedroom? Sometimes the man who was with me greeted you,
you greeted him in return and looked at me, but your glance was that of a courteous
stranger, appreciative but never recognizing me: strange, terribly strange. Once, I still
remember, that failure to recognize me, although I was almost used to it, became a
burning torment. I was sitting in a box at the Opera House with a lover and you were
in the box next to ours. The lights dimmed during the overture, and I could no longer
see your face, I only felt your breath as near to me as it had been that first night, and
your hand, your fine and delicate hand lay on the velvet-upholstered partition between
our boxes. And at last I was overcome by longing to bend down to that strange but
beloved hand, the hand whose touch I had once felt holding me, and kiss it humbly.
The music was rising tempestuously around me, my longing was more and more
passionate, I had to exert all my self-control and force myself to sit there, so
powerfully were my lips drawn to your beloved hand. After the first act I asked my
lover to leave with me. I could not bear it any more, knowing that you were sitting
beside me in the dark, so strange to me and yet so close.
But the hour did come, it came once more, one last time in my buried, secret life. It
was almost exactly a year ago, on the day after your birthday. Strange: I had been
thinking of you all those hours, because I always celebrated your birthday like a
festival. I had gone out very early in the morning to buy the white roses that I asked
the shop to send you, as I did every year, in memory of an hour that you had forgotten.
In the afternoon I went out with my son, I took him to Demel’s café and in the evening
to the theatre; I wanted him, too, to feel from his early youth that this day, although he
did not know its significance, was in some mystical fashion an occasion to be
celebrated. Then next day I was out with my lover of the time, a rich young
manufacturer from Brünn who adored and indulged me, and wanted to marry me like
the rest of them—and whose proposals I had turned down apparently for no good
reason, as with the rest of them, although he showered presents on me and the child,
and was even endearing in his rather awkward, submissive way. We went together to a
concert, where we met cheerful companions, had supper in a restaurant in the
Ringstrasse, and there, amidst laughter and talking, I suggested going on to the
Tabarin, a café with a dance floor. I normally disliked cafés of that kind, with their
organized, alcoholic merriment, like all similar kinds of “fun”, and usually objected to
such suggestions, but this time—as if some unfathomable magical power in me
suddenly and unconsciously caused me to suggest it in the midst of the others’
cheerful excitement—I had a sudden, inexplicable wish to go, as if something special
were waiting for me there. Since I was accustomed to getting my way, they all quickly
stood up, we went to the Tabarin, drank champagne, and I fell suddenly into a fit of
hectic, almost painful merriment, something unusual in me. I drank and drank, sang
sentimental songs with the others, and almost felt an urge to dance or rejoice. But
suddenly—I felt as if something either cold or blazing hot had been laid on my heart—
I stopped short: you were sitting with some friends at the next table, looking
admiringly at me, with an expression of desire, the expression that could always send
my entire body into a state of turmoil. For the first time in ten years you were looking
at me again with all the unconsciously passionate force of your being. I trembled, and
the glass that I had raised almost fell from my hands. Fortunately my companions did
not notice my confusion: it was lost in the noise of the laughter and music