A Railroad Adventure

In Which a Woman Battles Desperately, Perhaps Foolishly, for Her Illusions

FRANZ MOLNAR

Benjamin F. Glazer

THE scene is a compartment on the section of the Fiume Express which meets the boat from Abbazia. It is a fresh, cool, summer morning. The train has just pulled out of a way-station; and a man has entered the compartment and bowed to its solitary occupant, a handsome woman of thirty-five.

SHE: How nice to meet you here! Are you going to Abbazia, too?

HE: Yes.

SHE: Then we have time for a nice long chat. I've rather wanted a chat with you. Though it's only two weeks since my husband introduced us, it seems as if I had known you a thousand years. That's a banal thing to say, isn't it? But I mean it truly.

HE: (bows smilingly)

SHE: YOU see, I've been reading your

novel. I can't tell you how much I've enjoyed the keen psychological subtleties of it. Why, it has virtually transformed my way of thinking—your wise and beautiful romance of yesteryear—

HE: (deprecatingly)Oh.

SHE: Yes—and I determined, if I ever met you again, to repay you by telling you a rather nice little story of my own—

HE: It would be a pleasure.

SHE: It happened a long time ago—perhaps ten years, yet it is vivid, singularly vivid in my memory.

(The train starts off.)

HE: Do tell me.

SHE: AS I said, it was ten years ago. I was waiting at Fiume for my husband, who had promised to come and take me home. Instead a telegram came. He was detained. I was to return alone. Without delay I reserved a first class compartment and started back for Budapest.

(There is a pause.)

HE: And then?

SHE: A few stations outside of Fiume a lieutenant came into my compartment. I'm not sure if it was at Plase or Lokve—some little station like that.

HE: Does it matter?

SHE: NO. It's not important. The lieutenant came in and then there were two of us in the compartment. He, a young officer, with a tiny moustache, and I, a young and pretty woman. It happened so long ago that I am safe in referring to her as a pretty woman.

HE: (expresses the usual compliment in a single significant) Oh.

SHE: At first the lieutenant only looked out over the landscape, but presently he began to notice me. I was really worth noticing. I wore a charming little frock, dark blue with . . . but that isn't important. He did begin to notice me, furtively at first but very closely. I pretended to be reading a newspaper, but I was watching him, too. You see, a long journey was ahead of me. For an entire day I was to be locked up in a tiny compartment with this strange soldier. I found the situation rather piquant. You can hardly blame me for that.

HE: Certainly not.

SHE: Before long things began to happen. The train turned a curve so that the sun shone in the lieutenant's eyes. He moved, to a seat opposite me from which he was able to study me all the better. He had very expressive eyes and when first I looked into them they were raised to me questioningly as if to say: "Dear lady, will you permit me to look at you?" I have never seen eyes that could plead so eloquently. "See with what respectful admiration I regard you. Can't you tell that you have kindled my impressionable soldier's heart into flame? Have pity on me".

HE: And what did you do?

SHE: I laid my newspaper aside. With that gesture I indicated that I was willing to let the flirtation begin. It was as if I had said: "There, the screen which separated us is removed, and now . . . eye to eye". He answered with a look of gratitude. And an unspoken promise in his eyes assured me: "I shall not forget what a gentleman owes a lady in a situation like this. I shall not address you; only my eyes shall speak for me". I thanked him with a glance.

HE: And did he keep his promise?

SHE: Be patient, I'll come to that presently. For a long time he looked at me dreamily, modestly, respectfully. He seemed to be studying my face with touching reverence. Then he stared at my hands and smiled at them as if to say: "What delicate white hands". Then he looked at my feet. In that quiet detached way nice men look at things which don't belong to them. For a long time he studied me like that from head to foot. And my eyes answered "Ah".

HE: What did your eyes answer?

SHE: They answered "Ah!" A languid pleased "Ah" with a tinge of reproach in it. The sort of "Ah" we' utter when a man takes us firmly in his arms. But I didn't say it. I only looked it.

HE: And the soldier?

SHE: The soldier took it admirably. He didn't misunderstand. Only his eyes grew sad and intent as if to say "Isn't it a pity? We two are so ideally suited to each other. We can understand each other's very glances. And yet we must always remain strangers". He sighed and bade me farewell.

HE: How?

SHE: With his eyes. With his eyes he pressed a pure and tender parting kiss on my brow. He shook his head sadly and his eyes said "Nevermore".

HE: Nevermore?

SHE: Yes, "Nevermore . . . nevermore ..." By that time our train had reached Agram, and he got off. As he left the compartment I looked after him with real regret. He was a fine, well-bred young man. He never once looked back. He simply rose from his seat and went out ... I never saw him again. But I shall never forget him. It was the most charmingly poetic tete-a-tete I ever had. Since then, whenever the rudeness of men offended me, I have thought of that soldier with admiration and respect. He was quite the nicest man I ever met. And I like to think that he loved me as no one else has—purely,

unselfishly, hopelessly. Looking back, I could almost fall in love with him myself. But past is past.

HE: I thank you.

(There is a long silence.)

SHE: I beg pardon, did you say anything? HE: I said I thank you.

SHE: For what?

HE: For the lovely things you have said about me.

SHE: Said about you?

HE: Yes, about me. That lieutenant was I.

(They are silent again.)

(The woman studies him, frowning. The man takes a wallet out of his pocket and extracts from it a sheet of blue paper which he holds in his hand during the following conversation.)

SHE: What's that paper you have there ?

HE: Nothing. Perhaps I'll show it to you later.

SHE: So . . . you're the lieutenant?

HE: Yes. I left the service four years ago.

I was the lieutenant. I got on the train at Plase and got off at Agram. My uniform had orange-yellow facings.

SHE: (in amazement) Yes!

HE: There, you see!

(There is a very long pause.)

SHE: So—it was you! Astonishing!

HE: Why astonishing? I don't see anything remarkable in it.

SHE: Your eyes were strangely familiar when my husband introduced us. Now I know why.

HE: Were they? I wish I could say the same. But the fact is I didn't remember you at all. I had forgotten the whole episode. But now you have brought it back to me quite clearly. (She is downcast.) You see, there was no real reason why I should have remembered it. On that eventful day ten years ago when I met you on the train I was on my way to Agram to join my fiancee.

SHE: Merciful heaven!

HE: And so, I'm afraid, my glances didn't * at all mean what you thought they did. For instance, while I looked at your hands I was thinking what a stingy old man my prospective father-in-law was. He had made all sorts of excuses to evade paying the dowry. I smiled bitterly. You thought I was smiling at the delicate whiteness of your hands . . .

SHE: Yes.

HE: Why did I look at your hands and feet at all? When a man is deep in thought he generally stares at something. I might just as well have looked at the lamp. And if, when I looked at your feet, my expression was quietly resigned, it was because I had decided that if my father-in-law persisted in his stinginess we couldn't possibly marry. "How can we possibly marry?" I asked myself; and, puzzling over that problem, I must unconsciously have looked you over from head to foot. Just about then you say your glance said "Ah". But quite oblivious to your "Ah", I was turning over in my mind the feasibility of going to my fiancee's father and bluntly asking him for the dowry. I would put our case to him strongly and eloquently. But it would be a distasteful task. I sighed deeply, threw out my chest and thought, "Come what may, it has to be done." That's the time you thought my eyes said, "How tragic that we must always remain strangers to each other."

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SHE: My God!

HE : The train rolled along and I reflected, "Is there any use in speaking to her father? If he had meant to give us money, he would have done it of his own accord. And since he hasn't he'll probably not do it if I ask him." I stared dismally at you, without seeing you. That was the glance that you interpreted as "Nevermore". In a way you were right, but the "Nevermore" referred to the dowry.

SHE: HOW horrible!

HE : And when we reached Agram, and I sighed and left the compartment without looking back, I was puzzling over the problem of how I could possibly afford to marry the girl without a dowry. And you interpreted that sigh as my despair at parting from you, and my failure to look back, as a symbol of respectful adoration.

SHE: I am totally crushed.

HE: Perhaps I shouldn't have told you. It's wrong to destroy people's illusions. Yet it wouldn't have been decent of me to go on accepting at your hands sentiments and tender memories that I never deserved.

(He sinks back in his seat in selfsatisfied silence.)

SHE: HOW lamentable! And so my soldier was you!

HE: Yes — orange-colored facings

and gold insignia. On at Plase and off at Agram.

SHE: I'm sorry. It was nice to remember my soldier just as I did. And now you've spoiled him.

HE: I am sorry too.

(The train is pulling into the environs of Fiume. From the compartment window the broad harbour can be seen.)

SHE: It's extremely disappointing. But then we women must get used to that. Over and over again we learn that a man is loveable only when we have invested him with admirable qualities of our own imagining. We paint him in beautiful colors and then fall in love with our own handiwork. But the process of disillusionment is always painful to us. What you have told me today was terrible to hear. There is but one consolation. .

HE: And that is?

SHE: (quietly) That not one word of my story was true.

HE: What do you say?

SHE: Not a word. I made it all up. The day after tomorrow my husband will join me in Abbazia. If you are there, you can learn from him that never in my life before have I travelled between Fiume and Budapest.

HE: Well . . . What . . .

SHE: Today I am entering Fiume for the first time. And so the whole story of my lieutenant is a lie. Which should teach you to be careful before you try to spoil people's illusions.

HE: Hm! But I was careful. You think you've caught me in a lie, but, fortunately for us both, you haven't.

(He unfolds the blue paper which up to now he has held in his hand.)

HE: This paper I've been holding all the time I spoke . . .

SHE: What has the paper to do with it?

HE: The paper is proof that I knew from the very first that you were not telling me the truth. Before I left Budapest yesterday I settled all my affairs and, among other things, paid my military tax. This is the receipt.

SHE: Well, what of it?

HE: A receipt issued in my name for 15 kronen military tax. It shows that I was never a soldier in my life, never a lieutenant, never wore a uniform with orange-colored facings or any other sort.

SHE: Then you lied to me?

HE: (cheerfully) Yes, indeed, and before I began lying I took this paper in my hand to prove, if need be, that I wasn't lying merely to make myself interesting, but only to force you to admit that your story of your lieutenant was untrue. And as you see, I have succeeded.

SHE : This paper proves conclusively that you were never a soldier?

HE: (with triumph) Conclusively.

SHE: SO fortunate to have everything at hand. Do you mind giving me my bag? It's over there.

HE: {gives it to her) Is this it?

SHE: Yes.

(Opens the bag and takes out a thick book which she shows to him.)

SHE: What is the title of this book?

HE: {reads) "My Diary."

SHE: I always carry my diary with me to keep it from falling into unfriendly hands. (Turns the pages.) . . . here it is . . . please ... do

you mind reading this page? On it you will find the story of the lieutenant written just as I have told it to you.

HE (looks at her) Then it's true?

SHE: There's the proof.

HE: (reads a moment) So it is. Now you have caught me, haven't you? Why did you deny it a moment ago?

SHE: HOW else could I have made you admit that you were not my lieutenant ?

HE: Of course.

SHE: And now you see my illusions are intact. But will you tell me one thing. How did you guess about the orange-colored facings? As you may read in the diary, my lieutenant actually did wear orange-colored facings.

HE: I happened to know that a regiment with that uniform was stationed at Fiume ten years ago.

SHE: HOW simple. Thank you.

(The train stops.)

HE: (rises to go.) Well, good-day.

SHE: May I give you a parting word of advice? Never tamper with a woman's illusions. She will go to the uttermost limits to defend them. She knows in her heart that her illusions are nothing but pretty lies; yet she can be capable of uttering a thousand ugly lies to defend one pretty one. "Tout est Mensonge", says the poet, and, as he says it, he lies. . . Goodbye, it has been a charming trip. Without you it would have been stupid.

(She nods to him brightly. He raises his hat and goes out.)