The Complete Stories (forword by John Updike)

I straightened myself, took a long stride forward, and grabbed him. "Good evening," said I, and with my hand on his coat collar I pushed him down the steps onto the lighted square.

When we had reached ground level he turned toward me while I was still holding on to him from behind, so that we stood breast to breast.

"If only you'd let go of me!" he said. "I don't know what you suspect me of, but I'm innocent." Then he repeated once more: "Of course I don't know what you suspect me of."

"There is no question here of suspicion or innocence. I ask you not to mention it again. We are strangers; our acquaintance is no older than the church steps are high. What would happen if we were immediately to start discussing our innocence?"

"Precisely what I think," he said. "As a matter of fact, you said 'our innocence.' Do you mean to suggest that if I had proved my innocence you would have to prove yours, too? Is that what you mean?"

"That or something else," I said. "I accosted you only because I wanted to ask you something, remember that!"

"I'd like to go home," he said, and made an effort to turn.

"I quite believe it. Would I have accosted you otherwise? Don't get the idea that I accosted you on account of your beautiful eyes."

"Aren't you being a little too sincere?"

"Must I repeat that there's no question of such things? What has it to do with sincerity or insincerity? I ask, you answer, and then goodbye. So far as I'm concerned you can even go home, and as fast as you like."

"Would it not be better to meet some other time? At a more suitable hour? Say in a coffeehouse? Besides, your fiancée left only a few minutes ago, you can easily catch her up, she has waited so long for you."

"No!" I shouted into the noise of the passing tram. "You won't escape me. I like you more and more. You're a lucky catch. I congratulate myself."

To which he said: "Oh God, you have a sound heart, as they say, but a head of wood. You call me a lucky catch, how lucky you must be! For my bad luck is precariously balanced and when touched it falls onto the questioner. And so: Good night."

"Fine," said I, surprised him and seized his right hand. "If you don't answer of your own accord, I'll force you. I'll follow you wherever you go, right or left, even up the stairs to your room, and in your room I'll sit down, wherever there's space. Go on then, keep staring at me, I can stand it. But how" — I stepped up close and because he was a head taller I spoke into his throat — "how are you going to summon up the courage to stop me?"

Whereupon, stepping back, he kissed my hands in turn, and wetted them with his tears. "One cannot deny you anything. Just as you knew I want to go home, I knew even earlier that I cannot deny you anything. All I ask is that we go over there into the side street." I nodded and we went over. When a carriage separated us and I was left behind, he beckoned to me with both hands, to make me hurry.

But once there, not satisfied with the darkness of the street where the lamps were widely separated from one another and almost as high as the first floor, he led me into the low hallway of an old house and under a small lamp which hung dripping in front of the wooden stairs.

Spreading his handkerchief over the hollow in a worn step, he invited me to be seated: "It's easier for you to ask questions sitting down. I'll remain standing, it's easier for me to answer. But don't torment me!"

I sat down because he took it all so seriously, but nevertheless felt I had to say: "You've led me to this hole as though we are conspirators, whereas I am bound to you simply by curiosity, you to me by fear. Actually, all I want to ask is why you pray like that in church. The way you carry on there! Like an utter fool! How ridiculous it all is, how unpleasant for the onlookers, how intolerable for the devout!"

He had pressed his body against the wall, only his head moved slowly in space. "You're wrong! The devout consider my behavior natural, the others consider it devout."

"My annoyance proves you're mistaken."

"Your annoyance — assuming it's real — only proves that you belong neither to the devout nor to the others."

"You're right. I was exaggerating when I said your behavior annoyed me; no, it aroused my curiosity as I stated correctly at first. But you, to which group do you belong?"

"Oh, I just get fun out of people watching me, out of occasionally casting a shadow on the altar, so to speak."

"Fun?" I asked, making a face.

"No, if you want to know. Don't be angry with me for expressing it wrongly. It's not fun, for me it's a need; a need to let myself be nailed down for a brief hour by those eyes, while the whole town around me —"