She was crying with wide-open eyes.
I flicked off the instrument.
"What is it, Pat?" I put my arm around her thin shoulders.
"Nothing, Robby.
It's stupid of me.
But to hear that— Paris, Rome, Budapest—my God, and I would be happy if I could get down even to the village once again."
"But Pat . . ."
I told her everything I could to take her mind from it.
But she shook her head.
"I'm not sad, darling.
You mustn't think that.
I'm not sad when I cry.
It just comes over me sometimes, but not for long.
I think too much for that."
"What do you think about then?" I asked, and kissed her hair.
"About the only thing I can think of now—about living and dying.
Then when I am sad and understand nothing any more, I say to myself that it's better to die while you still want to live, than to die and want to die.
What do you think?"
"I don't know." "Yes, you do." She rested her head on my shoulder. "If you want to live still, then there must be something you love.
It's harder, but it's easier too.
You see, I had to die; and now I'm just thankful I have had you.
I might easily have been alone and unhappy.
Then I would have been glad to die.
Now it is hard; but to make up, I'm quite full of love, as a bee is full of honey when it comes back to the hive in the evening.
If I had to choose, of the two I would still choose the same."
She looked at me.
"Pat," said I, "there is still a third —when the fohn stops, then you'll get better and we'll go away from here."
"She continued to look at me searchingly.
"I'm afraid for you, Robby.
It's much harder for you than for me."
"Let's not talk about it any more," said I.
"I only said it, so you shouldn't think I was sad," she replied.
"I don't think you are sad," said I.
She laid her hand on my arm.
"Won't you let the gipsies play again?"
"Would you like to hear them?"
"Yes, darling."
I turned on the instrument, and softly, then fuller and fuller, the violin with the flutes and muffled throb of the cymbals resounded through the room.
"Lovely," said Pat. "Like a breeze.
A breeze that floats you away."
It was an evening concert from a garden restaurant in Budapest.
Occasionally the conversation of the guests was audible through the whispering music, and now and then one caught a clear jovial shout.
One could imagine the chestnuts of the Margaretheninsel already in their first leaf; shimmering in the moonlight and moving as if stirred by the breeze of the fiddles.
Perhaps it was a warm night already there, and the people sitting in the open, with glasses of yellow Hungarian wine in front of them, the waiters running to and fro in their white jackets, the gipsies playing, and then afterwards they would walk home tired, through the green spring dawn. And there lay Pat and smiled, and never again would come out of this room, never again get up off this bed.
Then suddenly everything went very swiftly.
The flesh of the dear face melted.
The cheekbones protruded and at the temple the bone showed through.
Her arms were thin as a child's arms, the ribs stretched taut under the skin and the fever raged in ever fresh bouts through the frail body.
The nurse brought oxygen balloons and the doctor came every hour.
One afternoon her temperature dropped with inexplicable suddenness.