slept in his bed.
But at last the sun was free of clouds, she wanted to go out on deck, nothing else mattered, such a smooth pale body, she allowed him to watch, although he was thinking about something else; she stepped aside for him to work the lever to open the hatch, the decks were on either side of the great funnel, barely enough room on these decks (brick-red painted floors) to swing a cat. “The watery part of the world,” Delage had written down. The sun glittered on the last of the Mediterranean and lit up other ships, the breadth of the sea even here rendering them toylike, as if in a metal tub, or a series of shuttles in slow motion passing across a silvery loom. As Elisabeth talked she turned her back to the scene, Delage reduced his answers to nodding, striving to know her, until he hardly talked at all. “My mother never puts water on her face,” she said, apropos of nothing in particular, “only rose water.”
The main body of seated guests broke into separate bodies, Delage to one side. No one could recall a speaker at one of Berthe’s soirées bolting from the room in mid-sentence, without a word of explanation, let alone apology, even if he was acritic and therefore ridiculously over-confident, it goes with the job or the mentality, he could be excused perhaps, an illness in the family, a death or a very serious car accident, it had to be something in that area, not even an opinionated critic could be so thoughtless. No one in her circle knew the tragedy that had befallen the speaker, Berthe had no information, she enjoyed being asked, her lack of information added to the mystery, which in turn could only bolster the already high reputation of her every-third-Friday gatherings, the most well-attended in Vienna, not that she had any rivals as active, where the lucky visitor was bound to encounter fresh knowledge, the poetic unexpected. Instead, she went from group to group demanding their opinions on what the music critic said, before he had dropped his bundle and left, in the nicest way possible she expressed disappointment in the men who clearly hadn’t been listening, which made her turn abruptly to their wives, it was the presence and the words of men she preferred. Berthe Clothilde tended to latch on to men with an unhealthy, undivided attention. Everybody knew her mother had been one of Freud’s last patients in Vienna; they were neighbors on Berggasse. According to Berthe, who presented an unnatural calm, the treatment had made her mother worse—without going into details. In some cases, talking about hysteria, and possibly even revealing the sources of it, apparently can make a person even more hysterical. The weekly sessions with Freud were something her mother looked forward to, Berthe Clothilde told Elisabeth, her mother felt it like a death when he left Vienna. The treatment made her worse, but she waseven worse after he left. The massive chandelier, the Steinway grand, the porcelain plates and vases, the blue-and-gold swirling wallpaper, the men and women conversing in twos and threes, some already smoking cigarettes, kept Delage to one side, waiting for Elisabeth to return, while trying to catch a glimpse of her mother who had abandoned him. Amalia von Schalla and her daughter were the only people he knew in Vienna, the mother he knew more than the daughter, yet it could hardly be said he knew her at all. It had always been women who had shown him kindness and sympathy, something he found hard to reciprocate. “It’s beyond my capacity,” a wood-carver at the factory had once said about a new way to curve timber. Here under the ostentatiously large chandelier it was a matter of adopting a patient, unconscious stance, which came easily to Delage, and could possibly attract a person or two, unlikely, but you never know, out of pity or curiosity, or because they too felt isolated, someone on the fringe might break away and introduce themselves, a common occurrence at cocktail parties,
But at last the sun was free of clouds, she wanted to go out on deck, nothing else mattered, such a smooth pale body, she allowed him to watch, although he was thinking about something else; she stepped aside for him to work the lever to open the hatch, the decks were on either side of the great funnel, barely enough room on these decks (brick-red painted floors) to swing a cat. “The watery part of the world,” Delage had written down. The sun glittered on the last of the Mediterranean and lit up other ships, the breadth of the sea even here rendering them toylike, as if in a metal tub, or a series of shuttles in slow motion passing across a silvery loom. As Elisabeth talked she turned her back to the scene, Delage reduced his answers to nodding, striving to know her, until he hardly talked at all. “My mother never puts water on her face,” she said, apropos of nothing in particular, “only rose water.”
The main body of seated guests broke into separate bodies, Delage to one side. No one could recall a speaker at one of Berthe’s soirées bolting from the room in mid-sentence, without a word of explanation, let alone apology, even if he was acritic and therefore ridiculously over-confident, it goes with the job or the mentality, he could be excused perhaps, an illness in the family, a death or a very serious car accident, it had to be something in that area, not even an opinionated critic could be so thoughtless. No one in her circle knew the tragedy that had befallen the speaker, Berthe had no information, she enjoyed being asked, her lack of information added to the mystery, which in turn could only bolster the already high reputation of her every-third-Friday gatherings, the most well-attended in Vienna, not that she had any rivals as active, where the lucky visitor was bound to encounter fresh knowledge, the poetic unexpected. Instead, she went from group to group demanding their opinions on what the music critic said, before he had dropped his bundle and left, in the nicest way possible she expressed disappointment in the men who clearly hadn’t been listening, which made her turn abruptly to their wives, it was the presence and the words of men she preferred. Berthe Clothilde tended to latch on to men with an unhealthy, undivided attention. Everybody knew her mother had been one of Freud’s last patients in Vienna; they were neighbors on Berggasse. According to Berthe, who presented an unnatural calm, the treatment had made her mother worse—without going into details. In some cases, talking about hysteria, and possibly even revealing the sources of it, apparently can make a person even more hysterical. The weekly sessions with Freud were something her mother looked forward to, Berthe Clothilde told Elisabeth, her mother felt it like a death when he left Vienna. The treatment made her worse, but she waseven worse after he left. The massive chandelier, the Steinway grand, the porcelain plates and vases, the blue-and-gold swirling wallpaper, the men and women conversing in twos and threes, some already smoking cigarettes, kept Delage to one side, waiting for Elisabeth to return, while trying to catch a glimpse of her mother who had abandoned him. Amalia von Schalla and her daughter were the only people he knew in Vienna, the mother he knew more than the daughter, yet it could hardly be said he knew her at all. It had always been women who had shown him kindness and sympathy, something he found hard to reciprocate. “It’s beyond my capacity,” a wood-carver at the factory had once said about a new way to curve timber. Here under the ostentatiously large chandelier it was a matter of adopting a patient, unconscious stance, which came easily to Delage, and could possibly attract a person or two, unlikely, but you never know, out of pity or curiosity, or because they too felt isolated, someone on the fringe might break away and introduce themselves, a common occurrence at cocktail parties,
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