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certain, but it was such an extraordinary coincidence that I will
travel there.
 Something more: If I find her, do I credit your proba-
bilities or my extraordinary luck? Mother would say that it was
divine dispensation. I don t know. I am leaving in a few
moments.
Holub spent all the next day in a state of heightened
tension. Toward evening he received a telegram and opened it
almost feverishly. All it said was:  No use both places.
Martinec.
106 C ROSS ROADS
Holub felt an enormous, deep sense of relief. He smiled
and ran about as if he had unexpectedly won an prize. It isn t
so, he shouted to himself, it isn t so! That s not what Lída did!
He was seized with infinite tenderness and compassion for her,
on his trembling lips a thousand semi-conscious words he
would say to her or about her.
That evening Holub needed to see people, countless
numbers of people in the streets and in cafés. He was
overwhelmed by the need to prolong that day as long as he
could, on through the night and into tomorrow, and not to let
go of it for anything in the world. In his elevated, poetic state,
it seemed to him that Lída had run away; he was in an ecstasy
of sorts, his joy knew no limits, nor was he aware that for the
entire night he had been alone and silent. He felt that the
moment was too important to be released; he bore within
himself something vast and was afraid that in his thoughts it
would crumble. I have been delivered, he felt; God, grant Thy
favor upon my redemption! may I not awaken! may I sustain
it!
Perhaps Lída is asleep, was the sweet image that came to
me, lost in a world like a squirrel in a forest, but I know no
more about her dreams than I do about her steps. But it s good
that she sleep, that she live out of our sight and beyond our
understanding; and if she has gone astray, that she at least go
astray in her own fashion and in familiar places. Let it be
wherever! it s simply good that it is not a place marked by fate,
that it is far away and inviting, and stands on the threshold of
countless steps: so now I will find her. God, I was mistaken;
misfortune, crime, or fate  anyone who wants to hit the bull s-
eye aims at the black, at the blackest black, but the blackest
black deceived me, the darkest, blackest black turned out not
to be the darkest of all.
That whole night was one of repose after the removal of
a great weight, but the next day a new pressure descended on
Holub. Didn t I already rid myself of it? Why can t I get Lída s
LÍDA 107
misfortune out of my head? Why am I so concerned about fate?
Where did this obsession come from? Once again the young
woman appeared to him as he had seen her last, seated on a
sofa, all curled up, her movements constrained, quiet, seemingly
half there; and then suddenly, vehemently, she was shaking. It
was as if she were huddled up in the palm of an enormous
hand that was slowly clenching shut. This tenacious, unsparing
image clutched my heart.
Finally a new letter from Martinec arrived:  Dear Sir, how
I need to speak with you; I must at least write. Lída is upstairs
in a room, but not asleep; she is crying like one out of her
senses. I remain in the second place I traveled to from Prague.
I did not find them there, but I couldn t return to Prague at
that exact moment and, in the meantime, while I was waiting
for my train, the ones I was searching for arrived. They had
spent two nights in Karlovy Vary, then traveled on to here,
near the German forests. This is an exceptional circumstance
that you did not anticipate. The man in question disappeared;
I recognized him slightly, but it is with horror that I recall my
conversation with him. Lída simply laments her situation with
tears, she doesn t say a word except to indicate to me her
burning regret. I cannot take her away from here in the state
she is in. It was with great difficulty that I forced her to write
a postcard to friends in Prague, that  brother and sister had
gone off on a trip together. There is within her an outright
thirst for becoming an object of scandal, for demeaning herself,
to the point of self-destruction. I don t understand this, but I
trust that she will awaken from it all tomorrow.
 Of course, Lída herself wanted to leave K.V.; the stay
there was only en route to elsewhere, for him. It was reckless [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]