"Had a good day?" I asked softly.
He looked up.
"So-so—" said he uncommunicatively. He took me for some inquisitive fellow.
For a moment I had the feeling that I must get on the box beside him and drive off—then I turned round. There stood Pat, slim and graceful, a short silver jacket with wide sleeves over the silver frock, beautiful and expectant.
"Quick, Bob, come, it begins in a minute."
People were piled up in the entrance.
It was a big First Night, the theatre was floodlit; car upon car glided up; women in evening clothes got out, glittering with jewellery; men in tails, with pink upholstered faces, laughing, jolly, superior, self-assured—and, grinding and snarling among it all, the cab with the tired driver rattled off.
"Well, come, Robby," called Pat looking at me, radiant and excited. "Have you forgotten something?"
I gave a hostile look at the people around.
"No," said I, "I have forgotten nothing."
Then I went to the office and changed the tickets.
I took two box seats, though they cost a fortune.
I suddenly did not want Pat to sit among these assured people, to whom everything was self-evident.
I did not want her to belong to them.
I wanted to be alone with her.
It was a long time since I had been in a theatre.
And I would not have come now had Pat not wanted it.
Theatres, concerts, books—all these middle-class habits I had almost lost.
It was not the time for them.
Politics provided theatre enough—the shootings every night made another concert— and the gigantic book of poverty was more impressive than any library.
The circle and the stalls were full.
No sooner had we found our seats than it was dark.
Only the reflection of the footlights drifted through the room.
The music started full, and everything seemed to lift and sway.
I pushed my chair back into a corner of the box, whence I need see neither the stage nor the blanched faces of the spectators.
I heard only the music and saw Pat's face.
The music enchanted the air.
It was like the south wind, like a warm night, like swelling sails beneath the stars, completely and utterly unreal, this music to Hoffmann's Tales.
It made everything spacious and colourful, the dark stream of life seemed pulsing in it; there were no burdens any more, no limits; there existed only glory and melody and love, so that one simply could not realize that, at the same time as this music was, outside there ruled poverty and torment and despair.
Pat's face was full of mystery, irradiated by the light from the stage.
She was wholly surrendered; and I loved her that she did not lean toward me or reach for my hand, yes, did not once look at me, but appeared not to think of me at all and to have quite forgotten me.
I hate it when people mix things, I hate the cowlike yearning toward one another while the beauty and the power of a great work breaks over one; I hate the swimming looks of lovers, the foolish blissful cuddling, the indecent sheepish happiness that can never rise above itself; I hate all the talk of becoming one through love; it seems to me we cannot sufficiently be two nor remove ourselves from one another often enough in order to meet again.
Only those who are constantly alone know the joy of being together.
Anything else breaks the spell of the tension.
And what can more powerfully penetrate the magic circle of solitude than the uprush of emotion, the surrender to a shock, the might of the elements, storm, night music?
And love . . .
The lights flamed up.
I shut my eyes an instant.
What had I been thinking of?
Pat turned round.
I saw the people pressing toward the doors.
Itwas the long interval.
"Do you want to go out?" I asked.
Pat shook her head.
"Thank God for that.
I hate the way people gape at each other out there."
I went to fetch her a glass of orange juice.
The buffet was heavily besieged.
Music makes some people extraordinarily hungry.
The warm sausages were disappearing as if an epidemic of hunger typhus had broken out. This would be the place for Mother, thought I, elbowing my way to the counter and taking the last glass of orange juice from under the nose on an indignant chap with a walrus moustache. He grunted with wrath. "You've had two already," said I disarmingly. "But I have a thirst for three," he replied. There was no other reply to that but not to give way. Taking something from somebody else is one of the oldest practices of humanity—and it always affords the same satisfaction. Man is not kindly, and never will be.