CHAPTER XIV

PETRIFACTION

Two days passed in silence, and half-consciousness. As soon as he had come to himself again, he dared in secret to think over the immensity of his misfortune. Many blows were necessary to force his mind into submission. But he had received even more. Ten minutes less beating and he would have been ready for any vengeance. Possibly Thérèse had suspected this danger and had for that reason gone on striking to the bitter end. In his weakness he wanted nothing and feared one thing only: more beating. When she came near to his bed, he cowered, a whipped dog.

She put down a plate of food on the chair by the bed and immediately turned away. He needn't think there'd be more food for him. As long as he was ill she would be fool enough to feed him. He dragged himself towards it and with difficulty began to lap up a part of the alms she had bestowed on him. She heard the smacking of his greedy lips and was tempted to ask: 'How do you like it?* But she renounced this pleasure and comforted herself by thinking of a beggar to whom she had once given something fourteen years ago. He had no arms and no legs, excuse me, it's not human. All the same, he had a look of Mr. John. She wouldn't have given him anything; those people are all crooks; first they're cripples; when they get home they're as well as you and me. But then the creature said: 'How's your husband to-day?' That was a clever thing to say! He got a beautiful penny. She threw it into his hat herself. He was such a poor thing. Not that she liked giving money away; she'd never done such a thing before. But she could make an exception. So her husband got his plate of food.

Kien, the beggar, was in great pain, but he took care not to groan. Instead of turning towards the wall, he kept Thérèse in view and followed her actions with dread and suspicion. She was quiet and, in spite of her bulk, flexible. Or was it something to do with the room, that she so suddenly appeared and vanished? Her eyes had an evil glitter; they were cat's eyes. When she wanted to say something, but interrupted herself before she could get it out, it sounded like a cat spitting.

A bloodthirsty tiger lusting for men once disguised itself in the skin and dress of a young maiden. Weeping, it stood at a street corner and was so beautiful that a learned man came along. She lied to him cunningly, and out of pity he took her to his house, as one of his many wives. He was a very brave man and loved to sleep with her. One night she threw ofFher maiden's skin and tore open his breast. She ate his heart and vanished through the window. She left her shining white skin on the floor behind her. Both were found by one of the other wives who screamed her throat sore asking for an elixir of life. She went down to the most powerful man of the country, a madman who lived in the filth of the market-place, and for long hours rolled about at his feet. He spat into her hand for all the world to see, and she had to drink it. She wept and sorrowed day after day, for she loved the dead man though he had no heart. From the shame she had drunk for him, there grew a new heart out of the warm soil of her bosom. She gave it to the man and he came back to her.

In China there are women who know how to love. In Kien's library there was only a tiger. It was not even young and beautiful, and, instead of a shining skin, it wore a starched skirt. It was less concerned with the heart of a Chinese scholar than with his bones. The foulest Chinese spirit had better manners than the corporeal Thérèse. Ah, if only she were a spirit she could not hit him! He would gladly have left his own skin behind for her to beat to her heart's content. His bones needed rest, his bones needed to recover themselves, without bones even learning comes to an end. Had she dealt with her own bed over there as she had dealt with him? The floor had not caved in under her fists. This house had experienced much. It was old, and like all old things, strong and well made. She herself was. another example. He must look at her dispassionately. Being a tiger, her physical force was naturally greater than that of any ordinary woman. She could probably take on the caretaker.

Sometimes in his dreams he beat against her skirt until she fell down. He pulled it off over her feet. Suddenly he had a pair of scissors in his hand and cut it up into tiny pieces. It took him a long time to do it. When he had cut up the skirt, the pieces seemed too big to him; she might sew them all together again. Without lifting his eyes he started all over again: he cut each piece into four. Then he emptied out a whole sack of little blue rags over Thérèse. How had all these rags got into the sack? The wind blew them away from her and on to him; they settled on him, he felt them, blue bruises, all over his body, and moaned out loud.

Thérèse sneaked up to him and asked: 'I won't have this moaning; what's the matter?' She was blue again. Some of the bruises must have settled on her. Strange, it seemed to him that he was carrying them all. But he did not moan again. She was satisfied with this answer. Suddenly she remembered the dog in her last place. He shushed before ever you said a word to him. That's how it ought to be.

In the course of a few days Kien was as tired of her care, which consisted in a plate of food to last him from morning to night, as he was of the pains of his bruised body. He scented the distrust of the woman when she came near to him. Already on the fourth day she had no desire to feed him any more. Anyone can lie in bed. She examined his body, for simplicity's sake, through the bed-coverings, and decided that he would soon be well. He did not cringe. People who don't cringe don't feel anything. He could get up, she needn't cook for him any longer. She might simply have ordered 'Get up!' But a certain fear warned her that he might leap up suddenly, tear the coverings and sheets off his body and leave nothing on it but a mass of blue marks, as though it were her fault. To prevent this she was silent, and on the following day brought him his plate only half full. Moreover, she had cooked badly on purpose. Kien noticed, not the difference in the food, but in her. He misinterpreted her searching glances and feared more blows. In bed he was defenceless. Stretched out to his full length, there he lay at her mercy; wherever she struck, higher or lower, there would be something to hit. She mignt make a mistake breadthways, that was all; this gave him no sense of security.

Two full days and nights went by before his fear had strengthened his will to get up; at last he made an attempt to do so. His sense of time had never failed him; he still always knew how late it was, and to re-establish order once and for all at a single stroke, he rose from his bed one morning punctually at six o'clock. His head crackled like dried twigs. His frame seemed to be out of joint, and would not balance properly. By skilfully leaning first in one direction, then in the other, he succeeded in avoiding a fall. Little by little he juggled himself into his clothes, which he dragged out from under the bed. Every new encasement he greeted with joy, an additional armour, an important defence. His movements to preserve his balance were like a mysterious dance. Tormented by pains, small devils, he had yet escaped their chief, death, and he danced his way to the writing table. There, dazed a little by excitement, he took his place, his legs and arms wobbling until, returning to their old obedience, they came to rest.

Since she had no more work to do, Thérèse had taken to sleeping until nine. She was the lady of the house, such people lie even later. Servants have to be up by six. But sleep would not stay with her so long, and as soon as she woke, her yearning for her possessions left her no more peace. She had to get up and dress herself so as to feel the pressure of the hard keys against her flesh. But a happy solution occurred to her since her husband had been beaten and was in bed. She went to bed at nine with the keys between her breasts. Until two in the morning she took good care to remain wide awake. At two o'clock she got up and hid the keys again in her skirt. No one could find them there. Then she went to sleep. She was so tired with her long vigil that she didn't wake up again until nine o'clock, just like a lady. That's the way it should be, and servants can do the rest.

So it was that Kien carried out his plan unnoticed by her. From the writing desk he could see her bed. He watched over her sleep as if it had been his dearest possession, and in the course of three hours was frightened to death a hundred times. She had the fortunate gift of letting herself go when she slept. When she had eaten something good in her dreams, she belched and broke wind. At the same time she said: 'The very idea!' and meant something of which she alone was aware. Kien applied it to himself. Her adventures tossed her from side to side; the bed groaned aloud, Kien groaned with it. Often she grinned with her eyes closed; Kien was near to tears. When she grinned yet more widely, she looked as though she were crying; then Kien nearly laughed. Had he not learnt caution, he would have laughed out loud. With amazement, he heard her calling on Buddha. He doubted his ears, but she repeated it: 'Puda! Puda! just as she burst into tears, and he understood what Puda meant in her language.

When she drew her hand from under the coverlet, he winced. But she did not hit out, only clenched her fist. Why, what have I done, he asked himself, and gave his own answer: she must know. He had respect for her fine judgment. His crime, for which she had so cruelly punished him, was atoned for, but not forgotten. Thérèse clutched at the place where the keys were usually hidden. She took the thick coverlet for her skirt ana found the keys although they were not there. She let her hand fall heavily on them, tickled them, played with them, took them one by one in her fingers, and in the excess of her pleasure covered them with great, shining drops of sweat. Kicn blushed, he did not know why. Her thick arm was stuck into a narrow, tightly-stretched sleeve. The lace with which it was trimmed in front was directed at her husband, who slept in the same room. It looked crushed to Kien. Very softly he said this word which lay heavy on his heart. He heard — 'Crushed'. Who had spoken? Quick as lightning he lifted his head and turned his eyes on Thérèse. Who else could know how crushed he was? She was asleep. He mistrusted her closed eyes and waited, holding his breath, for a second remark. 'How can I be so foolhardy?' he thought, 'she is awake and I am looking her boldly in the face.' He forbade himself the only means of discovering the proximity of his danger and, lowered his eyes, a shame-faced child. With ears wide open — so it seemed to him — he waited a fearful scolding. Instead, he heard only regular breathing. So she was asleep again. After a quarter of an hour he spied out the ground again all round her with his eyes, ready to take flight at any moment. He thought himself wily enough, and allowed himself one proud idea. He was David watching the sleeping Goliath; on the whole Goliath was a fool. In the first round David did not win: but he had escaped Goliath's deadly designs and who could tell what lay in the future?

Kien knelt down in his thoughts and prayed in his distress to the God of the future — the Past. He had long forgotten how to pray, but before this God he found the way again. At the end he asked for forgiveness for not having really knelt down. But God must know — à la guerre comme à la guerre — he did not need to tell him twice. This was the ineffable and truly divine in Him, that he understood everything at once. The God of the Bible was fundamentally a miserable illiterate. Many of the minor Chinese gods were far better read. He could say things about the Ten Commandments which would make the Past's hair stand on end. But then the Past knew better, anyway. He would however permit himself to relieve the Past of the absurd feminine gender with which the Germans have credited it. That the Germans should provide their finest achievements, those abstract ideas, with feminine articles is one of those incomprehensible barbarisms by which they nullify their own merits. He would in future sanctify everything connected with God with a masculine affix. The neuter gender is too childish for God. As a philologist he was fully aware of the odium he might bring upon himself by the act. But when all was said, speech was made for man, not man for speech. He therefore asked the (masculine) Past, to approve of the alteration.

All the time he was negotiating with God he was gradually coming back to his observation post. Thérèse was unforgettable, not even while he was praying was he altogether free of her. She snored in spasms which regulated the rhythm of his prayer. Little by little her movements grew more violent; there was not a doubt of it, she would soon wake up. He compared her to God, and found her wanting. It was just precisely in the Past where she was wanting. She was descended from no one, nor did she know whence she came. Pitiful godless carcass ! And Kien considered whether it might not be wisest to go to sleep again. She might then wait until he woke up, and her initialfury at his arbitrary reappearance at his writing desk would have evaporated in the meantime.

At that moment Thérèse with a powerful movement threw her whole body off the bed and on to the floor. There was a loud crash. Kien trembled in every bone. Whither now? She has seen him! She is coming for him! She will kill him! He searches all time for a hiding place. He tears through history, up and down the centuries. The strongest castles fall before gunpowder. Knights in armour? Absurd — Swiss morning-stars — English muskets — burst armour and skulls asunder. The Swiss are wiped out at Marignane Not Landsknechts at any price — not mercenaries — the first army of fanatics — Gustavus Adolphus — Cromwell — will mow us all down. Back from the Renaissance, back from the Middle Ages — back to the Greek Phalanx — the Romans break it open — Indian elephants — fiery javelins — the chivalry panics — whither — on ship-board — Greek fire — to America — Mexico — human sacrifice — they will slaughter us — China, China — Mongols — pyramids of skulls: in half a second he has exhausted his entire treasury of history. Nothing is safe, everything collapses, wherever you creep to, the enemy will drag you out, houses of cards, beloved civilizations fall, prey to barbaric robbers, empty-headed, wooden-headed.

Petrifaction.

Kien pressed his sapless legs hard against each other. His right hand, rolled into a fist, he laid on his knee. His lower arm and his thigh thus steadied each other. With his left arm he reinforced his chest. His head was slightly raised. His eyes were fixed on the distance. He sought to close them. From their refusal to close he recognized that he was the granite image of an Egyptian priest. He had turned into a statue. History had not forsaken him. In ancient Egypt he had found a safe retreat. So long as history was faithful to him, he could come to no harm.

Thérèse treated him as if he was made of air — of stone, he corrected himself. Gradually his fear gave way to a deep feeling of peace. She would take care what she did to a statue. Who would be fool enough to hurt a hand on a stone? He thought of the sharp edges of his body. Stone is good, stone edges are even better. His eyes, apparently fixed on nothingness, were examining the details of his body. He regretted that he knew himself so little. The picture which he had of his body was scanty. He wished that he had a looking-glass on the writing desk. He would have liked to pry under the skin of his clothing. Had he acted according to his present thirst for knowledge, he would have undressed stark naked and reviewed his body in detail, inspecting and encouraging it bone by bone. Ah, he suspected a great number of secret corners, hard pointed angles and edges! His bruises were as good as a mirror. This woman felt no awe in the presence of a man of learning. She had dared to touch him as if he were common clay. Her chastisement was — his metamorphosis into stone. On this tremendous rock her plans were shipwrecked.

Daily the same pantomime was repeated. Kien's life, shattered under the fists of his wife, estranged by her greed and by his own, from all books, old and new, became a serious problem. In the morning he got up three hours before her. He might have used this, his quietest time, for work, and so be did, but what he had once considered work, seemed far away from him now, postponed until some happier future. He gathered the strength he needed for the practice of his new art. Without leisure no art can exist. Immediately after waking one rarely achieves perfection. It is necessary to flex the limbs: free and uninhibited the artist should approach his creation. Thus Kien spent nearly three hours at leisure before his writing desk. He allowed many things to pass through his head, but he kept vigilant watch on them all so that he should not be drawn too far away from the matter in hand. Then, when the timepiece in his head, last vestige of the learned net with which he had ensnared time, rang its alarm bell — for nine o'clock was approaching — he began very slowly to stiffen. He felt the coldness gradually extending through his body, and judged it according to the evenness with which it distributed itself. There were days when his left side grew cold and stiff faster than his right; this caused him the most serious anxiety. 'Over with you!' he commanded, and streams of warmth despatched from his right side made good the error of the left. His efficiency in stiffening grew greater from day to day. As soon as he had reached the consistency of stone, he tested the hardness of the material by lighdy pressing his thighs against the seat of the chair. This test for hardness lasted only a few seconds, a longer pressure would have crushed the chair to powder. Later on when he began to fear for the fate of the chair, he turned it to stone as well. A fall during the day, in the woman's presence, would have turned his rigidity to ridicule, and hurt him a great deal, for granite is heavy. Gradually, by developing a reliable sense for his degree of hardness, the test became superfluous.

From nine in the morning until seven in the evening Kien retained his incomparable pose. On the writing desk lay an open book, always the same one. He vouchsafed it not a glance. His eyes were occupied entirely in the distance. The woman was at least clever enough not to disturb him during these sessions. She busied herself zealously in the room. He understood how deeply housekeeping had become ingrained into her body and suppressed an unseemly smile. She described a wide curve round the monumental figure from ancient Egypt. She made it no offerings, neither of food nor of reproaches. Kien forbade himself hunger and all other bodily vexations. At seven o'clock he infused warmth and breath into the stone which speedily came back to life. He waited until Thérèse was in the furthest corner of the room. He had a sense of her whereabouts which never betrayed him. Then he leapt up and hurriedly left the house. While he was eating his only meal in the restaurant, he would all but fall asleep out of exhaustion. He enlarged on the difficulties of the past day and when a good idea for the morrow came into his head he nodded his agreement. Anyone else who tried to turn himself into a statue, he would immediately challenge. No one took up the challenge. At nine o'clock he went to bed and slept.

Thérèse too gradually settled down in these restricted surroundings. She moved freely about in her new room without anyone to disturb her. In the morning, before putting on her shoes and stockings, she would creep delicately here and there over the carpet. It was the most beautiful in the whole flat. The bloodstains could no longer be seen. It did her ancient horny skin good to be caressed by the carpet. As long as she was in contact with it, nothing but beautiful images flitted through her head. But always she would be disturbed by him; grudging her every penny.

In the stony silence of his new occupation, Kien had brought things to such a pitch of virtuosity that even the chair on which he sat, an old, obstinate piece of furniture, rarely creaked. The three or four times in the day when his chair made itself all the more noticeable were extremely painful to him. He regarded them as the first signs of weariness and deliberately overlooked them.

At the slightest creaking Thérèse scented danger, her happiness was shattered, she glided hastily to her stockings and shoes, pulled them on and continued yesterday's train of thought. She recalled the terrible worries which unceasingly tormented her. Out of pity she let her husband stay in the house. His bed didn't take up much room. She needed the key of the writing desk. His little bankbook was certainly inside it. Since she hadn't got hold of the bankbook with the rest in it, she'd let him have a roof for a few days. One day perhaps he'd remember it and be ashamed because he'd always treated her so meanly. If anything stirred in his neighbourhood, she despaired of ever getting the bankbook; at other times she was certain or it. She wasn't afraid of resistance from a piece of wood, which was all he was most of the time. But alive the man might do anything, even steal her bankbook. 

Towards evening tension on both sides rose by several degrees. He gathered the scanty remains of his strength; he didn't want to warm up too soon. She was furious at the idea of his going off to the restaurant yet again to gorge and swill away her hard-earned money; as it was, there was hardly any of it left. How long had that creature been wasting her capital without bringing a penny into the house? She too had a heart. She wasn't a stone. She must rescue that poor fortune. Everyone was after it. Criminals are wild beasts. They all want to get something out of you. Not a scrap of decency. A poor, lone woman. Instead of helping her, the man drank like a fish and never stood up for her. He was no good for anything any more. He used to scribble whole pages full; they were worth money to her. Now he was too lazy even for that. She wasn't running a charity, was she? He ought to be in the workhouse. She couldn't have useless mouths round here. He'd have her begging in the gutter yet. He'd better try that himself. Thank you for nothing. He'd never get a penny out of anybody. He might ook poor, but did he know how to ask nicely? He wouldn't dream of it. Excuse me, he'll have to starve. Just let him wait and see what'd happen to him when her pity came to an end. As if her old mother, God rest her, hadn't starved to death and now her husband was going to starve to death too!

Day by day her anger rose a degree higher. She weighed it up to see if it would suffice for the decisive act, and found it too light. The caution with which she went to work was only equalled by her persistence. She said to herself: to-day he's too wretched (to-day I'm no match for him) and immediately snapped off her anger so that she would have a piece left to start with to-morrow.

One evening Thérèse had just put her iron in the fire and heated it to a medium temperature, when Kien's chair creaked three times in succession. The cheek of it was just what she had been wanting. She hurled him, the great stick of wood, together with the chair to which he was fixed into the fire; it crackled furiously; a savage heat glowed on the iron. One after another, and with her bare hands — she had no fear of the red-hot glow, it was the red-hot glow she had been waiting for — she snatched out all the names he was: beggar, drunkard, criminal, and bore down with them on to the writing desk. Yet even now she would have done a deal. If he handed over the bankbook of his own free will, she would not throw him into the street until afterwards. If he said nothing she would say nothing. She would allow him to stay until she had found it. He must let her look for it; she had had enough of it.

With the sensitivity of a statue, Kien knew, as soon as his chair had creaked three times, how much was at stake for his art. He heard Thérèse coming. He suppressed a joyful impulse, it would have spoilt his icy temperature. He had practised for three weeks. The day of revelation had come. Now she would have to recognize the perfection of his achievement. He was more certain of it than any artist had ever been. Quickly, before the storm, he dispatched some superfluous cold through his body. He pressed the soles of his feet on to the ground: they were as hard as stone; degree of hardness: ten at least, diamond, the sharpest edges, penetrating. On his tongue — remote from the clash — he savoured a little of the stony pain which he had ready to inflict on the woman.

Thérèse grabbed him by the legs of his chair and shoved him heavily to one side. She let go of the chair, went over to the writing desk and pulled out a drawer. She searched through the drawer, found nothing, and made for the next one. In the third, fourth and fifth she still could not find what she wanted. He understood: a ruse of war. She was not looking for anything; what could she be looking for? The manuscripts would be all alike to her, she had found papers in the very first drawer. She was working on his curiosity. He was to ask, what was she doing there. If he spoke he would be stone no longer, and she would strike him dead. She was tempting him out of his stone. She tore and wrenched at the desk. But he kept his blood cold and uttered not a breath.

She hurled the papers wildly about. Most of them instead of putting back in their places she left lying about on top of the desk. Many sheets fell to the ground. He knew what was in each of them. Others she flung together in the wrong order. She treated his manuscripts like waste paper. Her fingers were coarse and good enough for the thumbscrew. In that writing desk were hidden the industry and patience of decades.

Her insolent activity exasperated him. She was not to treat his papers like that. What did her ruse of war matter to him? He might need those notes later. There was work waiting for him. If only he could begin on it now! He was not born to be an acrobat. Acquiring the technique had cost him too much time. He was a man of learning. When would the good times come again? His new art was a mere interim. He had been losing weeks and weeks of work. How long had he been at it now? Twenty, no ten, no five weeks, he couldn't tell for sure. Time had become confused. She was defiling his last thesis. He would exact a terrible vengeance. He was afraid of forgetting himself. Now she was waggling her head. She was darting glances full of hatred at him. She hated his rigid stillness. But there was no stillness; he could bear this no longer; he had to have peace; he would make her an offer; an armistice; she must take her fingers away; her fingers were shredding his papers, his eyes, his brain; she must close the drawers; away from the writing desk, away from the writing desk, that was his place; he would not tolerate her there; he would crush her to pulp; if only he could speak; stone is dumb.

With her skirt she shoved the empty drawers back into the desk. She stamped on the manuscripts on the floor. She spat on those which were on top of the desk. In blazing rage she tore up everything in the last drawer. The helpless cries of the paper burnt to the marrow of his bones. He forced down the rising heat, he would get up, a cold stone, he would crush her to fragments against himself. He would gather up the pieces and pound them into dust. He would break over her, break into her, a gigantic Egyptian plague. He grasped himself, the Tables of the Law, and stoned his people with them. His people had forgotten the commandment of their God. Their God is a great God and Moses has lifted up his arms to strike. Who is as hard as God? Who is as cold as God?

Suddenly Kien rose and hurled himself in fury on Thérèse. He was mute, he clipped his lips together with his teeth for pincers; if he spoke, he was no longer stone; his teeth bit deeply into his tongue. 'Where is the bankbook?' yelled Thérèse shrilly, before she broke in pieces. 'Where is the bankbook, drunkard, jail-bird, thief!' She was looking for the bankbook then. He smiled at her last words.

They were not her last words. She grabbed at his head and battered it on the writing desk. She hit him between the ribs with her elbows. She screeched: 'Out of my house!' She spat, she spat in his face. He felt it all. It hurt him. He was not a stone. Since she did not break in pieces, his art did. All was false, there was no faith in anything. There was no God. He evaded her. He defended himself. He struck back. He hit her, he had sharp bones. 'I'll have the law on you. Thieves get locked up! Thepolice'llfinditout! Thieves get locked up! Out of my house!' She clutched at his legs to pull him down. On the floor she could let herself go like that other time. She did not succeed, he was strong. So she seized him by the collar and dragged him out of the flat. She slammed the door thunderously behind him. In the corridor he slumped down on to the ground. How tired he was. The door came open again. Thcrese flung his coat, hat and brief-case after him. 'Don't you dare come asking for anything here!' she screamed and vanished. She had thrown out the brief-case because there was nothing in it; all the books she kept in the flat.