Autumn Sonata Page #3

I've never been to these parts.

- What is she saying?

- You must be tired.

You needn't exert yourself

further today.

Mummy's been very good.

- Doesn't Lena have a clock?

- Yes, on the bedside table.

Have my watch.

I was given it by an admirer

who thought I was always late.

- Will Lena eat dinner with us?

- No, lunch is her main meal.

Anyway, Lena is on a diet.

She ate too much at the home.

Why do I feel feverish?

Why do I want to cry?

How stupid! There I stand - shamed.

And that's the idea.

And the guilty conscience,

always the guilty conscience!

I was in such a hurry to come here.

What did I expect?

What was it I longed for,

that I didn't dare admit to myself?

This inconceivably peculiar mother!

You should have seen her

when I told her that Helena lived here.

She even managed a smile,

despite her surprise and dismay.

And then, outside Lena's door,

the actress before her entrance.

Awfully frightened - but composed.

An outstanding performance.

Why did she come?

What did she expect from a reunion

after seven years?

- Who knows?

- What did I expect?

Do we never give up hope?

Never stop being mother and daughter?

No point in crying.

Damn!

There she was, looking at me

with her big eyes.

I held her face in my hands

and I could feel

the illness tugging at

her neck muscles.

Damn!

Why can't I hold her and comfort her,

like I did when she was little?

That ravaged, soft body,

that's my Lena.

Don't cry, damn it!

A writer - I forget the name - said,

"It's like a heavy ghost that falls over

you when you open the nursery door,

"because you've long ago forgotten

it's the nursery door."

Do you think I'm adult?

To be an adult is to be able to deal

with one's dreams and expectations.

- One has stopped yearning.

- Do you think so?

Perhaps one ceases to be surprised.

You look so sensible, sitting there

with your old pipe.

- You're altogether adult.

- Hardly. I'm surprised every day.

- At what?

- At you, for example.

Besides, I nurture some unreasonable

dreams and expectations,

as well as a kind of yearning.

- Yearning?

- I yearn for you.

Those are pretty words, aren't they?

Words that don't mean anything real.

I was brought up on pretty words.

Mother is never mad,

or disappointed or unhappy.

She "feels pain".

You use words like that, too.

I suppose it comes with the job.

When you say you yearn for me

when I'm right here, I get wary.

- You know very well what I mean.

- No.

If I knew that, you wouldn't

think of saying you yearn for me.

I have to check on the roast.

Mother thinks I'm a poor cook.

She's a real glutton.

- I think you're...

- .. a wonderful cook. Thank you.

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