Free Five Women by Robert Musil Page B

vicariously accomplished in this little cat already half released from earthly bonds.
    But on the third day the vomiting and filthiness began again. The serving-man stood by, and even though he did not dare to say it again aloud, his silence said it clearly enough: it will have to be put away. The Portuguese bowed his head as though struggling with some temptation, and then he said to his friend: "It is the only way." It seemed to him he had accepted his own death-sentence. And suddenly everyone looked at Herr von Ketten. He had grown white as the wall, and rose, and left the room. Then the lady from Portugal said to the serving-man: "Take it away." The man took the sick animal away to his own place, and the next day it was gone. Nobody asked any questions. They all knew that he had killed it. All of them felt the oppression of unspeakable guilt; something had gone from among them. Only the children felt nothing, finding it quite natural that the serving-man should kill a dirty cat that nobody could play with any more. But now and then the hounds would snuffle at a patch of grass on which the sunlight fell in the courtyard, and their legs stiffened, their hair bristled, and they glanced sidelong. At one such moment Herr von Ketten and the lady from Portugal encountered each other. They stopped side by side, looking across at the dogs and finding nothing to say. The sign had been given—but how was it to be interpreted and what was to be done? A great dome of silence surrounded them both.
    If she has not sent him away before nightfall, I must kill him—Herr von Ketten thought to himself. But night fell and still nothing had happened. Supper was over. Ketten sat looking grave, heated by a slight fever. After a while he went out into the courtyard, for the cool evening air, and he remained absent for a long time. He could not make the final decision that he had all his life found it so easy to make. Saddling horses, buckling on armour, drawing a sword—all of that, which had once been the very music of his life, now had a harsh, discordant ring; and fighting seemed a senseless, alien mode of action. Even the short way, the way of the knife, was now like an infinitely long road on which a man might die of thirst. But neither was it his way to suffer; he could feel that he would never be wholly well again if he did not wrench himself free of all this. And gradually another thought associated itself with these... .
    As a boy he had always wanted to climb the unscaleable cliff on top of which the castle stood. The thought was a mad one, a suicidal one, but now it was gradually gaining in obscure conviction, as though it were a matter of trial by ordeal, or something like an approaching miracle. It was not he but the little cat from the world beyond, it seemed to him, that would return this way. Laughing softly to himself, he shook his head in order to make sure it was still on his shoulders, and at the same time he realised that he had already gone a long distance down the stony path to the bottom of the hill.
    At the bottom, down by the torrent, he left the path and clambered over great boulders with the water dashing between them, then through the bushes and up to the cliff. In the moonlight little points of shadow revealed crevices where fingers and toes could find a hold. Suddenly a piece of stone broke loose under one foot: the shock ran through his whole body, right into his heart. He strained his ears. It seemed an eternity before the stone splashed into the water far below. He must already have climbed a third of the height. Then it distinctly seemed to him that he awoke and realised what he was doing. Only a dead man could reach the bottom now, and only the Devil himself could reach the top. He groped above him. With each grip his life hung by the ten thin straps of sinew in his fingers. Sweat poured from his face, waves of heat flashed through his body, his nerves were like stony threads. But it was strange to feel how