Then she went to the kitchen to prepare dinner. She used too much salt. She liked to cook and was very good at it (life had not spoiled her, she had not lost the habit of housekeeping), and Klima knew that the cause of the evenings unsuccessful meal could only have been her distress. He saw her in his mind's eye making the pained, violent movement of pouring an excessive amount of salt into the food, and it wrung his heart. It seemed to him that with every oversalted mouthful he was tasting Kamila's tears, and it was his own guilt that he was swallowing. He knew Kamila was tormented by jealousy, he knew she would spend still another sleepless night, and he wanted to caress her, embrace her, soothe her, but he instantly realized it would be useless, because in this tenderness his wife's antennae would only pick up proof of his bad conscience.
Finally they went to the movie theater. Klima drew some comfort from the sight of the hero on the screen escaping treacherous dangers with infectious self-assurance. He imagined himself in the hero's shoes and now and then felt that persuading Ruzena to have an abortion would be a trifle that could be accomplished in a flash, thanks to his charm and his lucky star.
Later they lay side by side in the big bed. He looked at her. She was on her back, her head sunk into the pillow, her chin slightly raised, her eyes fixed on the ceiling, and in her body's extreme tension (it had always made him think of a violin, and he would tell her she had "the soul of a taut string") he suddenly experienced, in a single instant, her entire essence. Yes, it sometimes hap-