She is, in short, a hit. And you know it will end badly. An envious minx pretends to be her friend and rumbles her: she is a poseur, not a ‘von’ at all, just a poor niece from nowhere. Christine is abruptly dropped by everyone, except the German who makes a final, nearly successful pass at her, and the general, who does his best to give her some face but abandons his hopes for her future in England. Her aunt, terrified about her own dodgy past, from which she escaped to America, is afraid that Christine’s bogus pedigree may reveal her own, and sends her home at a few hours’ notice.

After the Swiss dream, the never- changing town and office and the old admirer are more depressing than ever. By chance Christine meets Ferdinand, age 30, a man poorer and more despondent even than herself, a survivor of Siberian prison camps, handicapped in body and spirit. They fall for each other. She travels every Sunday to see him in Vienna. They try sex once.

Disaster! The squalid, hot-sheet hotel echoes all night with moans, screams and knockings. There is a police raid. Christine and Ferdinand flee. They meet every Sunday, but are too poor to go anywhere, and huddle, stupefied, in all weathers. For the first time they reveal themselves to each other. ‘Whether it’s deserved or not, honorable or not, poverty stinks,’ Ferdinand tells her. ‘Yes, it stinks. You smell it yourself, as though you were made of sewage. It can’t be wiped away.’ She tells him — the translation of this novel is invariably eloquent —

What makes you think I’m some kind of lady? If I were I wouldn’t understand a word you’ve said. I’d think you were overexcited, unreasonable, and full of hate. But I do understand you and I’m going to tell you why. Move closer. There’s no reason everyone has to hear this.

This novel is the Conradian ideal; its characters come alive as the frequent use of the present tense drives their story on. Christine and Ferdinand are trapped in their poverty, their stinking, unfair poverty, and one day he suggests they blow their brains out with his pistol. She agrees. But then he has another, pretty dangerous, idea, and she says ‘Yes’ to that, too.

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