28 你的家仆一眼就认出了我

There must have been something odd, something passionate in the way I said that to
you. For you rose to your feet as well and looked at me, affectionately and very
surprised. You took me by the shoulders. “What’s good is not forgotten; I will not
forget you,” you said, and as you did so you gazed intently at me as if to memorize my
image. And as I felt your eyes on me, seeking, sensing, clinging to you with all my
being, I thought that at last, at last the spell of blindness would be broken. He will
recognize me now, I thought, he will recognize me now! My whole soul trembled in
that thought.
But you did not recognize me. No, you did not know me again, and I had never been
more of a stranger to you than at that moment, for otherwise—otherwise you could
never have done what you did a few minutes later. You kissed me, kissed me
passionately again. I had to tidy my hair, which was disarranged, and as I stood
looking in the mirror, looking at what it reflected—I thought I would sink to the
ground in shame and horror—I saw you discreetly tucking a couple of banknotes of a
high denomination in my muff. How I managed not to cry out I do not know, how I
managed not to strike you in the face at that moment—you were paying me, who had
loved you from childhood, paying me, the mother of your child, for that night! I was a
prostitute from the Tabarin to you, nothing more—you had paid me, you had actually
paid me! It was not enough for you to forget me, I had to be humiliated as well.
I reached hastily for my things. I wanted to get away, quickly. It hurt too much. I
picked up my hat, which was lying on the desk beside the vase of white roses, my
roses. Then an irresistible idea came powerfully to my mind: I would make one more
attempt to remind you. “Won’t you give me one of your white roses?”
“Happily,” you said, taking it out of the vase at once.
“But perhaps they were given to you by a woman—a woman who loves you?” I said.
“Perhaps,” you said. “I don’t know. They were sent to me, and I don’t know who sent
them; that’s why I like them so much.”
I looked at you. “Or perhaps they are from a woman you have forgotten.”
You seemed surprised. I looked at you hard. Recognize me, my look screamed,
recognize me at last! But your eyes returned a friendly, innocent smile. You kissed me
once more. But you did not recognize me.
I went quickly to the door, for I could feel tears rising to my eyes, and I did not want
you to see them. In the hall—I had run out in such a hurry—I almost collided with
your manservant Johann. Diffident and quick to oblige, he moved aside, opened the
front door to let me out, and then in that one second—do you hear?—in that one
second as I looked at the old man, my eyes streaming with tears, a light suddenly came
into his gaze. In that one second—do you hear?—in that one second the old man, who
had not seen me since my childhood, knew who I was. I could have knelt to him and
kissed his hands in gratitude for his recognition. As it was, I just quickly snatched the
banknotes with which you had scourged me out of my muff and gave them to him. He
trembled and looked at me in shock—I think he may have guessed more about me at
that moment than you did in all your life. All, all the other men had indulged me, had
been kind to me—only you, only you forgot me, only you, only you failed to
recognize me!