Sanatorium under the sign of the hourglass - Bruno Schulz [37]
I heard a rustle. Preceded by a valet, a man was coming down the stairs, short but well-built, economic of gesture, blinded by the light reflected on his large horn-rimmed spectacles. For the first time I faced him closely. He was inscrutable, but I noticed, not without satisfaction, that after my first words two furrows of worry and bitterness appeared on his face. While behind his spectacles he was composing his face into a mask of magnificent haughtiness, I could see panic slowly getting hold of him. As he gradually became more interested, it was obvious from his concentrated attention that at last he was beginning to take me seriously. He invited me into his study next door. When we entered it, a woman in a white dress leapt away from the door, as if she had been listening, and disappeared inside the house. Was it Bianca's governess? When I entered the room, I felt as if I were entering a jungle. The opaque greenish twilight was striped by the watery shadows of Venetian blinds drawn over the windows. The walls were hung with botanical prints; small colorful birds fluttered in large cages. Probably wishing to gain time, the man showed me specimens of primitive arms—jereeds, boomerangs, and tomahawks—which were displayed on the walls. My acute sense of smell detected the smell of curare. While he was handling a sort of primitive halberd, I suggested that he should be careful, and supported by warning by producing my pistol. He smiled wryly, a little put out, and put the weapon back in its place.
We sat down at a very large ebony desk. I thanked him for the cigar he offered, saying that I did not smoke. My abstemiousness obviously impressed him. With a cigar in the corner of his hanging lips, he looked at me with a friendliness that did not inspire confidence. Then, turning the pages of his checkbook, he suddenly proposed a compromise, naming a four-figure sum, while his pupils rolled into the corners of his eyes. My ironical smile made him abruptly change the subject. With a sigh he opened a large ledger. He began to explain the state of his affairs. Bianca's name was not mentioned even once, although every word we uttered concerned her. I looked at him without moving, and the ironical smile never left my lips. At last, quite exhausted, he leaned back in his chair.
"You are intractable," he said as if to himself, "what exactly do you want?"
I began to speak again. I spoke softly, with restrained passion. A flush came to my cheeks. Trembling, I mentioned several times the name Maximilian, stressing it, and observed how my adversary's face became successively paler. At last I finished, breathing heavily. He sat there shaken. He could not master the expression on his face, which suddenly became old and tired.
"Your decision will show me," I ended, "whether you have really understood the new state of affairs and whether you are ready to follow it by your actions. I demand facts, and nothing but facts . . ."
With a shaking hand he reached for the bell. I stopped him by raising my hand, and with my finger on the trigger of the pistol, I withdrew backward from the room. At the door, the servant handed me my hat. I found myself on a terrace flooded by sunshine, my eyes still full of the eddying twilight. I walked downstairs, not turning my head, triumphant and now certain that no assassin's gun would be aimed at me from behind the drawn Venetian blinds of the mansion.
XXXIX
Important matters, highest affairs of state, force me now to have frequent confidential talks with Bianca. I prepare for them scrupulously, sitting at my desk late into the night, poring over genealogical details of a most delicate nature. Time goes by, the night stops softly outside the open window, matures, grows more solemn—suggesting deeper stages of initiation—and finally disarms itself with a helpless sigh. In long, slow gulps the dark room inhales the air of the park, its fluffy seeds