Улбойтпчбойе: солп умбчб (вйвмйпфелб fort / Da)

11

Because Franz was so afraid of being found out, he had never asked for any of Sabina's paintings or drawings or even a snapshot of her. As a result, she disappeared from his life with­out a trace. There was not a scrap of tangible evidence to show that he had spent the most wonderful year of his life with her.

Which only increased his desire to remain faithful to her.

Sometimes when they were alone in his flat together, the girl would lift her eyes from a book, throw him an inquiring glance, and say, "What are you thinking about?"

Sitting in his armchair, staring up at the ceiling, Franz always found some plausible response, but in fact he was thinking of Sabina.

Whenever he published an article in a scholarly journal, the girl was the first to read it and discuss it with him. But all he

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could think of was what Sabina would have said about it. Every­thing he did, he did for Sabina, the way Sabina would have liked to see it done.

Indeed, according to the theology of that religion it was Sabina who had sent him the girl. Between his earthly love and his unearthly love, therefore, there was perfect peace. And if unearthly love must (for theological reasons) contain a strong dose of the inexplicable and incomprehensible (we have only to recall the dictionary of misunderstood words and the long lexi­con of misunderstandings!), his earthly love rested on true un­derstanding.

The student-mistress was much younger than Sabina, and the musical composition of her life had scarcely been outlined; she was grateful to Franz for the motifs he gave her to insert. Franz's Grand March was now her creed as well. Music was now her Dionysian intoxication. They often went dancing to­gether. They lived in truth, and nothing they did was secret. They sought out the company of friends, colleagues, students, and strangers, and enjoyed sitting, drinking, and chatting with them. They took frequent excursions to the Alps. Franz would bend over, the girl hopped onto his back, and off he ran through the meadows, declaiming at the top of his voice a long German poem his mother had taught him as a child. The girl laughed with glee, admiring his legs, shoulders, and lungs as she clasped his neck.

The only thing she could not quite fathom was the curious sympathy he had for the countries occupied by the Russian empire. On the anniversary of the invasion, they attended a memorial meeting organized by a Czech group in Geneva.

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The room was nearly empty. The speaker had artificially waved gray hair. He read out a long speech that bored even the few enthusiasts who had come to hear it. His French was grammati­cally correct but heavily accented. From time to time, to stress a point, he would raise his index finger, as if threatening the

The girl with the glasses could barely suppress her yawns, while Franz smiled blissfully at her side. The longer he looked at the pleasing gray-haired man with the admirable index fin­ger, the more he saw him as a secret messenger, an angelic intermediary between him and his goddess. He closed his eyes and dreamed. He closed his eyes as he had closed them on Sabina's body in fifteen European hotels and one in America.

PART FOUR

Soul and Body

1

At six the alarm went off. Karenin's great moment had arrived. He always woke up much earlier than they did, but did not dare to disturb them. He would wait impatiently for the alarm, because it gave him the right to jump up on their bed, trample their bodies, and butt them with his muzzle. For a time they had tried to curb him and pushed him off the bed, but he was more headstrong than they were and ended by defending his rights. Lately, Tereza realized, she positively enjoyed being welcomed into the day by Karenin. Waking up was sheer de­light for him: he always showed a naive and simple amazement

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Now he was standing in the entrance hall, gazing up at the hat stand, where his leash and collar hung ready. She slipped his head through the collar, and off they went together to do the shopping. She needed to pick up some milk, butter, and bread and, as usual, his morning roll. Later, he trotted back alongside her, roll in mouth, looking proudly from side to side, gratified by the attention he attracted from the passersby.

Once home, he would stretch out with his roll on the threshold of the bedroom and wait for Tomas to take notice of him, creep up to him, snarl at him, and make believe he was trying to snatch his roll away from him. That was how it went every day. Not until they had chased each other through the flat for at least five minutes would Karenin scramble under a table and gobble up the roll.

This time, however, he waited in vain for his morning ritual. Tomas had a small transistor radio on the table in front of him and was listening to it intently.