Chapter 24

Sunday 12 July 1914

Clara wakes from another dream. It is a dream so vivid that she feels she must get up straight away and write it down before it is lost. She hurries downstairs and takes her diary from her handbag. This is what she writes.

I had a dream about a statue in a park. It was a very beautiful statue. A woman, naked like a Greek goddess. She was leaning her right elbow on the horizontal branch of a tree with the result that she leaned back slightly, pushing her tummy and groin forward. Her hair was tied up and the statue was smooth, giving the impression that her skin was perfect. In her left hand, which hung by her side, she held a large flower and a bunch of grapes. The woman was perfectly proportioned. But it was the expression on her face that was the most enigmatic. Despite the fact that she was naked she had a look on her face as though she was somewhere else.

Sometimes I feel like that woman. I know it is probably disgraceful to say it but I sometimes feel like I would like to strip off all my clothes and stand there like that, displaying myself and not caring.

In my dream, I was that woman. I was somehow the statue. It was like I was trapped inside it. The statue was in an out-of-the-way corner of a park. Very few people visited that corner or stopped to look at it. In the morning the sun would rise and would touch the statue’s face first before gradually working its way down the body, bathing it in red light. Then the day would go on, people would pass, some would look at it, but they were unaware that it was me. They thought it was just a statue.

Night was the worst time. The sun would set, the sky would go deep blue, the moon would rise and the cold would settle on the park. In winter there would be frost or snow. It was so cold; so far away from the warm south where the flower and the bunch of grapes had come from. And I was all alone. In the whole world.

And then, after a few minutes’ thought, she adds, I have so much love to give – and this is love that will never see the light of day now. Love that will go wasted.

Henry spends most of the weekend racking his brains to come up with another reason to stay in town one night this coming week. In the end he settles for the ongoing story of the company’s poor performance in the first half of the year. He’ll tell Clara that there is going to be yet another management meeting to try to work out ways of improving sales. (In reality, of course, there is no such problem. Sales are up on last year and this business with the Archduke seems to be causing some positive ripples in the insurance market.) Henry thinks he can get one, possibly two more weeks out of this story before he has to find another one. But he is sure he’ll be able to find something else. In the meantime, this will more than do. He will tell Clara at breakfast tomorrow, saying that he’s sorry he forgot to mention it earlier.

In Berlin, everyone in the German government wants to see Austria play Serbia, and they bridle at the continuing delay and Austria’s apparent indecisiveness. The Germans feel that there will never be a better time to play Russia, and indeed France, if they have to. They are also convinced that the British don’t want to be in the Group of Death at all.

Finally, the Austrian demands to Serbia are ready, but then the Austrians say that they don’t want to give them to the Serbs until the French President’s visit to Russia is over. Even though Der Kaiser is annoyed that the ultimatum will now be presented so late in July, this is probably pretty sensible on the part of the Austrians. If the French and Russian managers were actually together when mighty Austria dropped its ultimatum on tiny Serbia, they would be far more likely to goad each other into some rash action, such as both declaring war on Austria. Austria just wants to play its walkover against Serbia and then go home. It really has no wish to play in the Group of Death.