Here Levy swallowed the third glass of mineral water and broke out into a vehement flood of share quotations and statistics of exports. And all the time he stared at Hedvig with an expression that was at once appealing, passionate, embittered and sceptical. He wanted to dazzle her, make her enthusiastic, but there was something spasmodic and almost despairing in his efforts. There was not a spark of real and innocent joy in the present moment.
Did he see through her, this woman before him, or did he suffer from the fact that the passionate pulses of his heart were only capable of stirring the ashes of some dry calculations?
Hedvig stared at the table-cloth. She felt his glance on every point of her face and neck. His harsh, quick voice at the same time opened up the whole world for her and spun her into a net of supple meshes. It was already as if she could not move hands or feet. He seemed to her to come closer, closer. She intermittently felt hot and cold in this strange heat with cold currents that streamed out from his being. Quickly, relentlessly the terror rose in her, the irresistible terror of seeing herself cut off from any possibility of escape, overpowered.
She suddenly got up from coffee:
“Shall we not do the round of the pictures today?” she said. “It is the first time it has been light enough after dinner.”
The round of the pictures was an invention of Hedvig’s fear. She felt safer amongst Percy’s pictures.
Levy rose slowly and offered Hedvig his arm. The tension in his face broke down. He was evidently not pleased to have to leave his own special field of attack and to have to resort to a slow roundabout strategy in order to fight with a dead man.
And yet Levy could certainly talk of art, in case of need. He was a connoisseur in his own way and had a great deal to say not only of market values but also of theories and technique. There were various things here that he could tell some malicious stories about, various things he was prepared at once to slaughter with his criticism, but also some things he had to admire. But it was a jealous, inarticulate admiration. Levy bit his lip and kept silent. To come up against the dead husband all the time made him, Jacob Levy, barrister, embarrassed and uncertain of himself. He knew much, but not how to battle with a shadow.
Hedvig found time to breathe. And she at once started the game of “Chinese shades.” It was really a game in her own style, silent, stealthy, and unconsciously false. She had had many and long rehearsals of it out there by the grave. Every accent of her voice was reminiscent of crêpe. Solemnly she advanced through the rooms which the evening light was filling with its first pure tones of gold. She stopped with head inclined before one picture after the other. In every gesture, in every word, she simulated admiration for her dead husband’s fine understanding of art and for the modest, unselfish enthusiasm that never failed in spite of exhaustion and suffering.
A good dose of almost religious piety was administered to Levy. But he evidently did not like the medicine. His pallor was tinged with green. His lips curved into an imperceptible, nervous grimace. But he had to swallow it all the same. It was only when they had come out into the hall among the modern things that he suddenly plucked up his courage again amidst these new, more reckless and more highly coloured surroundings. With a solemnity that was more austere than ever—perhaps because it required more effort—Hedvig halted before an animal painting, signed by a not unknown French artist. The picture represented two tigers, as innocently striped as if they had been painted by a child of five. They were playing in a jungle which seemed to consist of a ragged bouquet of dried grass.