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Loneliness

A. came to my home yesterday. As he held me in his arms I felt small and lonesome. He didn’t come to bring me happiness; he only came to take some of it from me. No, that’s not quite right. He calculated carefully how much love he should give so that he wouldn’t owe me anything.

I wanted to tell him that I won’t make any demands, that he can leave me to my loneliness if he doesn’t love me anymore, that I’ll settle for a bit of happiness now even if it means I’ll be unhappy later. But I couldn’t bring myself to say this. I was embarrassed and afraid that he wouldn’t believe in the selfless love I was offering him. In the face of his superficial love, his insipid tenderness, my tongue was paralyzed. He made sure to make it absolutely clear to me that there could never be anything between us, flippantly dismissing me for taking too seriously something he saw as a childish flirtation.

Maybe it isn’t good or practical to forget yourself. But it’s much worse to remember yourself, to only think about yourself, like he does. His cold, matter-of-fact soul can’t understand this, and I can’t explain it to him.

After he left I contemplated myself in the mirror for a while and counted the impressions that his kisses left on me. I didn’t smile at this, instead I felt hurt.

My soul was soaking in a sea of heartfelt feelings and I wanted to release them in tears. I tried to sink my thoughts like stones into that sea.

I resolved that next time he comes I’ll behave badly. I’ll laugh in his face audaciously, mockingly. Here’s what I’ll do: I’ll go along with him as he flirts within limits, indulge his careful, almost calculated behavior. And then, when he already has one hand on the doorknob to leave me alone again until he has time to come back, only then will I tell him there’s no reason to be afraid of taking me once and for all. I’m not at all what he thinks. I know I have no right to expect him to feel obligated to me. Then he’ll realize that it’s his own sincerity that makes him so laughable. I’ll ask: Don’t you understand why I’m laughing? I’m laughing at you! At your fear, even when there’s nothing to be afraid of.

How bewildered and embarrassed he’ll be, standing there! Maybe he’ll suddenly try to grab me, but I’ll stand firm and show him to the door. That will be my payback for his love.

No, I don’t know if I’ll be able to do that.

Alone, I wander the noisy streets of New York. With autumnal feelings I greet the summer. My soul is encircled by a wintery coldness. While everything around me lives, I feel as though something in me is dying. I know what it is—it’s hope. It extinguishes within me.

My room feels small to me. Everything there reminds me of him. I try not to think about A. He’s dead to me. He loves other women. He can parcel out his love among many. But I can’t; I can love only one.

Never mind. Now, I don’t love him anymore. I only hate my loneliness. He can go wherever he wants.

When he’s with me, I only feel the distance that separates us more profoundly. When he’s not here, I think about being with him; but when he is here, all I can think about is how he’s going to leave me again . . .

I couldn’t sit there in my room anymore and wait, knowing it was for nothing. He won’t come. So I decided to go back out amid the hustle and bustle. I hoped he’d come to my room looking for me and find that I wasn’t there. I decided to get on a streetcar headed far, far away. I wanted it to carry me, and my heavy thoughts, away. That would be easier than walking around, burdened with them.

I traveled far away on a streetcar that was packed with people, until it stopped. All of the passengers left, and so did I. The conductor started to change the sign to drive back and turned to look at me. I was standing and holding onto the car with one hand, as though I was trying to keep it from driving away from me. “There’s another one coming after this one,” I told myself, and I decided to walk around a little and plant my thoughts in the green field, and see where I found myself.

Suddenly I found I was in a cemetery. I’d wandered into the cemetery without knowing it. The others who traveled with me knew where they were going. They all walked among the graves, and aside from them there were others who came, holding flowers. Why do the dead need flowers, if they can’t see them or smell them?

I approached a headstone, began to read the name of the deceased engraved in gold letters and thought about the dead woman, when I suddenly noticed a man standing beside me. He looked at me with puzzled curiosity. I quietly stepped away, and he stepped closer to his—what was she to him?

Now I avoided the graves that others were approaching. I quickly passed those where others were standing. It seemed to me that my presence disturbed the conversations between the living and the dead. And the dead, waiting for their living visitors, were offended by my dull, indifferent glances at their graves. Who was I to them, a stranger, that I should come here and disturb their peace? I was embarrassed in front of them. If I had someone there, if he had been there, how different I’d have felt. Not so superfluous, not so alone . . .

Alone among the living and the dead.