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Back The Woman on the Stairs Save as PDF
Chapters (83)
  1. Cover
  2. Also by Bernhard Schlink
  3. Title Page
  4. Copyright
  5. Part One
  6. 1
  7. 2
  8. 3
  9. 4
  10. 5
  11. 6
  12. 7
  13. 8
  14. 9
  15. 10
  16. 11
  17. 12
  18. 13
  19. 14
  20. 15
  21. 16
  22. 17
  23. 18
  24. 19
  25. 20
  26. 21
  27. 22
  28. 23
  29. 24
  30. 25
  31. 26
  32. Part Two
  33. 1
  34. 2
  35. 3
  36. 4
  37. 5
  38. 6
  39. 7
  40. 8
  41. 9
  42. 10
  43. 11
  44. 12
  45. 13
  46. 14
  47. 15
  48. 16
  49. 17
  50. 18
  51. 19
  52. 20
  53. 21
  54. 22
  55. 23
  56. 24
  57. 25
  58. Part Three
  59. 1
  60. 2
  61. 3
  62. 4
  63. 5
  64. 6
  65. 7
  66. 8
  67. 9
  68. 10
  69. 11
  70. 12
  71. 13
  72. 14
  73. 15
  74. 16
  75. 17
  76. 18
  77. 19
  78. 20
  79. 21
  80. 22
  81. Author’s Note
  82. ABOUT THE AUTHOR
  83. What’s next onyour reading list?

I put on the suit I had worn the day before, wrinkled and stained by dirt and grass. Suddenly my decision not to fly home frightened me. Suddenly the rituals I followed – at work, in leaving and returning home, in my free time – seemed to be the only thing holding my life together. How would I live without them? But I did not reverse the postponement of my flight.

12

I couldn’t spend the day at the Botanic Garden without going to the Art Gallery. Once again I stood before the painting, and once again the woman made me feel awkward. Not because she was naked, and not because she reminded me of what had happened in the past. Rather, because the woman I saw wasn’t the one I’d encountered back then, the woman I had seen until now. Why hadn’t I seen it before?

The woman in the picture was not descending the staircase to play the piano, or to drink tea, or because her lover was happily waiting at the bottom. She was descending the staircase with bowed head and downcast eyes, as if under duress, but duress she had submitted to. As if she had resisted, but had given up because whoever controlled her was too powerful. As if she could only plead for clemency with softness, seduction, and surrender. Risking, simply to be taken. Or was that what she wanted? Without admitting it to her master, or even to herself?

In a museum I had once seen nineteenth-century paintings of white slave girls in Arabic or Turkish harems. Columns, marble, cushions, fans, the women naked, in lascivious poses, with inscrutable eyes. Kitsch, I had thought. Was the woman descending the staircase and coming towards me kitsch as well? I didn’t know. The jumble of power and seduction, resistance and surrender felt awkward. It was not a terrain I had ever encountered women on. It did not fit with how I had experienced Irene Gundlach back then. Or had I gotten it all wrong?

I did not want to think about it. Luckily, I had the book and the red wine. I don’t read novels, but books about history. What really happened – that is something different from what somebody makes up. When we learn from history, we learn from reality, not from sometimes inspired, but often ridiculous fantasies. And people who find novels more colourful than history are not taxing their imagination: they are not picturing Caesar, who loves Brutus like a son, and gets stabbed to death by him; the Aztecs, who get decimated by the white man’s diseases, even before they meet in battle; the women and children with Napoleon’s army who, crossing the Berezina, get trampled in the snow, or pushed into the icy water. Tragedies and comedies, good and bad luck, love and hate, joy and grief – history offers it all. Novels can’t offer more.