go. Forgive me, Lieutenant Hofmiller. I hope you will come to see us again soon.”
I bow, and am about to take my leave, but she has already had second thoughts.
“Or no, do stay and keep Papa company while I go off, quick march!” She snaps those last two words in sharp, staccato tones, like a threat. Then she picks up the little bronze bell standing on the table and rings it—only later do I notice similar bells all over the house, placed on tables within easy reach for her, so that she can always summon someone without having to wait. The bell rings, shrill and sharp. The manservant, who has discreetly made himself scarce during her outburst, reappears at once.
“Help me,” she orders him, throwing off the fur rug. Ilona bends down to whisper something to her, but Edith, visibly annoyed, snaps an angry “No!” at her friend. “I only want Josef to support me,” she adds. “I can manage on my own.”
What follows is a painful sight. The servant bends over her and, with an obviously practised grip, lifts her slight body with his two hands under her armpits. As she stands upright, both her own hands holding the back of her chair, she sizes us all up,one by one, with a challenging look. Then she reaches for the crutches that were hidden under the rug, presses her lips firmly together, braces herself on the crutches and—click-clack, click-clack—trudges, sways, forces herself forward, stooping like a witch, while the servant is on the alert behind her with his arms outspread, ready to catch her at once if she slips or if her feet give way under her. Click-clack click-clack, a step and then another, and as she moves there is the faint clinking, grinding sound of metal and tautly stretched leather. I dare not look at her poor legs, but she must be wearing devices of some kind on her ankle joints to support her. My heart contracts as if an icy hand had closed around it at the sight of her setting out on this forced march, for I immediately understand her obvious purpose—she won’t let anyone help her to walk or take her out of the room in a wheelchair; she wants to demonstrate her crippled condition to all of us, and me in particular. Out of some mysterious, desperate desire for revenge, she wants to torment us with her own torment, complaining of her fate not to God but to us, the hale and hearty. In itself, this dreadful challenge makes me feel—and feel a thousand times more strongly than her earlier outburst when I asked her to dance—how much she must suffer from her helplessness. At last, after what seems an eternity, she has gone the few steps to the door, swaying back and forth, forcibly shifting the full weight of her slender, shaking body from one crutch to the other as she flings herself forward between them. I cannot bring myself to look straight at her even once. The mere hard, sharp click of her crutches as she pushes herself along, the grinding, dragging sound of the braces supporting her joints, accompanied by the low gasping she makes in her physical effort upsets and agitates me so much that I feel my heart thudding against the fabric of my uniform. She has already left the room,but I still listen, holding my breath, as the dreadful sound grows softer, finally dying away on the other side of the closed door.
Not until a welcome silence has descended do I dare to look up again. The old man, as I notice only now, has risen quietly to his feet and is staring intently out of the window—rather too intently. As the light is in front of him, I can make out only his shadowy outline, but the shoulders of his bowed figure are shaking. He himself, her father, who sees his child torment herself like that daily, he too is shattered by the sight.
All is perfectly still in the room between the two of us. After a few minutes his dark figure finally turns and comes unsteadily over to me, as if he were walking over a slippery surface.
“Please don’t blame the child for being a little brusque,
I bow, and am about to take my leave, but she has already had second thoughts.
“Or no, do stay and keep Papa company while I go off, quick march!” She snaps those last two words in sharp, staccato tones, like a threat. Then she picks up the little bronze bell standing on the table and rings it—only later do I notice similar bells all over the house, placed on tables within easy reach for her, so that she can always summon someone without having to wait. The bell rings, shrill and sharp. The manservant, who has discreetly made himself scarce during her outburst, reappears at once.
“Help me,” she orders him, throwing off the fur rug. Ilona bends down to whisper something to her, but Edith, visibly annoyed, snaps an angry “No!” at her friend. “I only want Josef to support me,” she adds. “I can manage on my own.”
What follows is a painful sight. The servant bends over her and, with an obviously practised grip, lifts her slight body with his two hands under her armpits. As she stands upright, both her own hands holding the back of her chair, she sizes us all up,one by one, with a challenging look. Then she reaches for the crutches that were hidden under the rug, presses her lips firmly together, braces herself on the crutches and—click-clack, click-clack—trudges, sways, forces herself forward, stooping like a witch, while the servant is on the alert behind her with his arms outspread, ready to catch her at once if she slips or if her feet give way under her. Click-clack click-clack, a step and then another, and as she moves there is the faint clinking, grinding sound of metal and tautly stretched leather. I dare not look at her poor legs, but she must be wearing devices of some kind on her ankle joints to support her. My heart contracts as if an icy hand had closed around it at the sight of her setting out on this forced march, for I immediately understand her obvious purpose—she won’t let anyone help her to walk or take her out of the room in a wheelchair; she wants to demonstrate her crippled condition to all of us, and me in particular. Out of some mysterious, desperate desire for revenge, she wants to torment us with her own torment, complaining of her fate not to God but to us, the hale and hearty. In itself, this dreadful challenge makes me feel—and feel a thousand times more strongly than her earlier outburst when I asked her to dance—how much she must suffer from her helplessness. At last, after what seems an eternity, she has gone the few steps to the door, swaying back and forth, forcibly shifting the full weight of her slender, shaking body from one crutch to the other as she flings herself forward between them. I cannot bring myself to look straight at her even once. The mere hard, sharp click of her crutches as she pushes herself along, the grinding, dragging sound of the braces supporting her joints, accompanied by the low gasping she makes in her physical effort upsets and agitates me so much that I feel my heart thudding against the fabric of my uniform. She has already left the room,but I still listen, holding my breath, as the dreadful sound grows softer, finally dying away on the other side of the closed door.
Not until a welcome silence has descended do I dare to look up again. The old man, as I notice only now, has risen quietly to his feet and is staring intently out of the window—rather too intently. As the light is in front of him, I can make out only his shadowy outline, but the shoulders of his bowed figure are shaking. He himself, her father, who sees his child torment herself like that daily, he too is shattered by the sight.
All is perfectly still in the room between the two of us. After a few minutes his dark figure finally turns and comes unsteadily over to me, as if he were walking over a slippery surface.
“Please don’t blame the child for being a little brusque,
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