Title: The World's Illusion, Volume 2 (of 2) - Ruth
Author: Wassermann, Jakob
Language: English
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  THE EUROPEAN LIBRARY

  EDITED BY J. E. SPINGARN

[Illustration]



  THE WORLD’S
  ILLUSION

  BY

  JACOB WASSERMANN

  AUTHORIZED TRANSLATION BY
  LUDWIG LEWISOHN

  THE SECOND VOLUME:

  RUTH

  [Illustration]

  NEW YORK

  HARCOURT, BRACE AND HOWE
  1920



  COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY

  HARCOURT, BRACE AND HOWE, INC.


  THE QUINN & BODEN COMPANY
  RAHWAY, N. J.



CONTENTS OF THE SECOND VOLUME


                               PAGE

  Conversations in the Night      1

  Ruth and Johanna              111

  Inquisition                   240

  Legend                        403



THE WORLD’S ILLUSION



CONVERSATIONS IN THE NIGHT


I

When Wolfgang visited his home during the Christmas vacation he
congratulated his father on the latter’s accession to a new dignity;
Albrecht Wahnschaffe had been made a Privy Councillor.

He found the house changed--silent and dull. From a brief conversation
with his father he learned that Christian was causing anxiety and
excitement. He listened avidly, but did not succeed in gathering any
details. Strangers had told him of Christian’s sale of his properties;
but he had no notion of the meaning of this step.

He had but one long talk with his mother. She seemed to him to be
morbid and to treat him with an indifference that wounded him.

Rumours of all kinds reached him. The major-domo informed him that Herr
von Crammon had spent a couple of days at the castle, almost constantly
closeted with its mistress. They had sent an enormously long telegram
to Berlin, offering some one a bribe of forty or fifty thousand marks.
The telegram had not been addressed directly to the person in question,
but to an intermediary. The reply must have been unfavourable, for
on its receipt Herr von Crammon had announced that he himself would
proceed to Berlin.

Wolfgang decided to write to Crammon, but his letter remained
unanswered.

Since, at bottom, he took very little interest in Christian’s doings,
he refrained from any further investigation, and at the beginning of
January returned to Berlin. From the behaviour of his acquaintances it
was evident that a secret in which he was concerned weighed on their
minds. In many eyes there was an indefinite yet watchful curiosity. But
he was not particularly sensitive. His aim was to appear faultless in
the worldly sense and not to alienate any who might affect his career.
He was so wholly identified with the views of his social group that
he trembled at the very thought of being accused of a mistake or an
unconventionality. For this reason his demeanour had an element of the
nervously watchful and restless. He was extremely careful to venture
the expression of no opinion of his own, but always to be sure that
whatever he said represented the opinion of the majority who set the
standards of his little world.

At a social gathering he observed near him several young men engaged in
eager but whispered conversation. He joined them and they became silent
at once. He could not but remark the fact. He drew one of them aside
and put the question to him brusquely. It was a certain Sassheimer, the
son of an industrial magnate of Mainz. He could have made no better
choice, for Sassheimer envied him, and there was an old jealousy
between his family and the house of Wahnschaffe.

“We were talking about your brother,” he said. “What’s the matter with
him? The wildest stories are floating around both at home and here in
Berlin. Is there anything to them? You ought to know.”

Wolfgang grew red. “What could be wrong?” he replied with reserve and
embarrassment. “I know of nothing. Christian and I scarcely communicate
with each other.”

“They say that he’s taken up with a loose woman,” Sassheimer continued,
“a common creature of the streets. You ought to do something about that
report. It isn’t the sort of thing your family can simply ignore.”

“I haven’t heard a syllable about it,” said Wolfgang, and became
redder than ever. “It’s most improbable too. Christian is the most
exclusive person in the world. Who is responsible for such rot?”

“It is repeated everywhere,” Sassheimer said maliciously; “it’s queer
that you’re the only one who has heard nothing. Besides, he is said to
have broken with all his friends. Why don’t you go to him? He is in the
city. Things like that can ordinarily be adjusted in a friendly way
before the scandal spreads too far.”

“I shall inquire at once,” said Wolfgang, and drew himself very erect.
“I’ll probe the matter thoroughly, and if I find the report to be a
slander I shall hold those who spread it strictly accountable.”

“Yes, that would seem the correct thing to do,” Sassheimer answered
coolly.

Wolfgang went home. All his old hatred of his brother flamed up anew.
First Christian had been the radiant one who threw all others in the
shade; now he threatened to bring disgrace and danger into one’s most
intimate circles.

The hatred almost choked him.


II

The hours of consultations and interviews were drawing to an end.
The features of Privy Councillor Wahnschaffe showed weariness. The
last person who had left him had been a Japanese, a councillor of the
ministry of war at Tokio. One of the directors had been present at the
conference, which had been important and of far-reaching political
implications. He was about to go when Wahnschaffe called him back by a
gesture.

“Have you selected an engineer to go to Glasgow?” he asked. He avoided
looking at the man’s face. What annoyed him in the men around him was a
certain expression of greed after power, possession, and success, which
they wore like a mental uniform. He saw almost no other expression any
more.

The director mentioned a name.

Herr Wahnschaffe nodded. “It is a curious thing about the English,” he
said. “They are gradually becoming wholly dependent on us. Not only do
they no longer manufacture machines of this type, but we have to send
an expert to set them up and explain their workings. Who would have
thought that possible ten years ago?”

“They frankly admit their inferiority in this respect,” the director
answered. “One of the gentlemen from Birmingham, whom we took through
the works recently, expressed his utter amazement at out resistless
progress. He said it was phenomenal. I gave him the most modest
reason I could think of. I explained that we didn’t have the English
institution of the weekend, and this added five to six hours a week to
our productive activity.”

“And did that explanation satisfy him?”

“He asked: ‘Do you really think that accounts for your getting ahead of
us?’ I said that the time amounted to several thousand hours a year in
the activity of a whole nation. He shook his head and said that we were
extremely well-informed and industrious, but that, closely looked upon,
our competition was unfair.”

The Privy Councillor shrugged his shoulders. “It is always their last
word--unfair. I do not know their meaning. In what way are they fairer
than ourselves? But they use the word as a last resort.”

“They haven’t much good-will toward us,” said the director.

“No. I regret it; but it is true that they have not.” He nodded to the
director, who bowed and left the room.

Herr Wahnschaffe leaned back in his chair, glanced wearily at the
documents scattered over his huge desk, and covered his eyes with his
pale hand. It was his way of resting and of collecting his thoughts.
Then he pressed one of the numerous electric buttons on the edge of
the desk. A clerk entered. “Is there any one else?”

The clerk handed him a card, and said: “This gentleman is from Berlin,
and says he has an appointment with you, sir.”

The card read: “Willibald Girke, Private Detective. The Girke and
Graurock Private Detective Agency. Puttbuser Street 2, Berlin, C.”


III

“Have you anything new to report?” the Privy Councillor asked.

A swift glance showed him in this face, too, that well-known and
contemptible greed for power and possession and success that stopped in
its hard determination at no degradation and no horror.

“Your written communications did not satisfy me, so I summoned you in
order to have you define more closely the methods to be used in your
investigations.” The formal phraseology hid Herr Wahnschaffe’s inner
uncertainty and shame.

Girke sat down. His speech was tinged with the dialect of Berlin. “We
have been very active. There is plenty of material. If you’ll permit
me, I can submit it at once.” He took a note-book out of his pocket,
and turned the leaves.

His ears were very large and stood off from his head. This fact
impressed one as a curious adaptation of an organism to its activity
and environment. His speech was hurried; he sputtered his sentences
and swallowed portions of them. From time to time he looked at his
watch with a nervous and uncertain stare. He gave an impression as
of a man whom the life of a great city had made drunken, who neither
slept nor ate in peace through lack of time, whose mind was shredded
from a ceaseless waiting for telephone calls, letters, telegrams, and
newspapers.

He spoke with hurried monotony. “The apartment on Kronprinzenufer has
been kept. But it is not clear whether your son may be regarded as
still occupying it. During the past month he passed only four nights
there. It seems that he turned the apartment over to the student of
medicine, Amadeus Voss. We have been watching this gentleman right
along as you directed. The style in which this young man lives is most
unusual, in view of his origin and notorious poverty. It is obvious, of
course, where he gets the money. He is matriculated at the university;
and so is your son.”

“Suppose we leave Voss out for the moment,” Herr Wahnschaffe
interrupted, still burdened by his uncertainty and shame. “You wrote
me that my son had rented in succession quite a series of dwellings. I
should like an explanation of this, as well as the exact facts of his
present whereabouts.”

Girke turned the leaves of his note-book again. “Here we are, sir. Our
investigations provide an unbroken chain. From Kronprinzenufer he moved
with the woman concerning whom we have gathered full and reliable data
to Bernauer Street, in the neighbourhood of the Stettiner Railroad
Station. Next he moved to 16 Fehrbelliner Street; then to No. 3
Jablonski Street; then to Gaudy Street, quite near the Exerzier Square;
finally to Stolpische Street at the corner of Driesener. The curious
thing is not only this constant change of habitation, but the gradual
decline in the character of the neighbourhoods selected, down to a
hopelessly proletarian level. This fact seems to reveal a secret plan
and a definite intention.”

“And he stopped at Stolpische Street?”

“He’s been there five weeks, since the twentieth of February. But he
rented two flats in this place, one for the woman in question and one
for himself.”

“This place is far in the north of the city, isn’t it?”

“As far as you can get. West and north of it there are empty lots. To
the east the roads lead to the cemeteries of Weissensee. All around
are factories. It’s an unhealthy, unsafe, and hideous locality. The
house itself was built about six years ago, but is already in a
deplorable condition. There are forty-five flats with outside light,
and fifty-nine with nothing but light from the court. The latter are
inhabited by factory hands, hucksters, people of uncertain occupations,
and characters that are clearly suspicious. Karen Engelschall, the
woman in question, has an outside flat on the third floor, consisting
of two rooms and a kitchen. The furnishings belong to a widow named
Spindler. The monthly rent is eighty marks, payable in advance. She has
a servant, a young girl named Isolde Schirmacher, who is the daughter
of a tailor. Your son lodges on the ground-floor of the inside flats
with a certain Gisevius, who is night watchman in the Borsig works.
His accommodation consists of a barely furnished living-room and a
half-dark sleeping chamber in which there is nothing but a cot.”

Herr Wahnschaffe’s eyes grew wide, under the influence of a fright
which he could not quite control. “For heaven’s sake,” he said, “what
can be the meaning of it?”

“It is a mystery indeed, sir. We have never had a similar case. There
is plenty of room for supposition, of course. Then there’s the hope
that future events may throw light on everything.”

Herr Wahnschaffe recovered his self-control, and coldly dismissed
the other’s attempts at consolation. “And what is your information
concerning the woman?” he asked in his most official tone. “What
results have you in that direction?”

“I was just about to come to that, sir. We have done our best, and have
succeeded in uncovering the woman’s antecedents. It was an extremely
difficult task, and we had to send a number of agents to different
parts of the country. The name and occupation of her father could
not be discovered, since her birth was illegitimate. Her mother is a
Frisian. She was housekeeper on a small estate near Oldenburg. After
that she lived with a pensioned tax-gatherer. After his death she
opened a small shop in Hanover, but the business failed. In 1895 she
was convicted of fraud, and spent three months in prison at Cleve. We
lost track of her after that, until she turned up in Berlin in 1900.
First she lived in Rixdorf. Next she rented rooms--first in Brüsseler
Street behind the Virchow Hospital, at present in Zionskirch Square.
She has been accused of renting rooms for immoral purposes, but nothing
could be proved against her. She pretends to be an art-embroiderer, but
as a matter of fact she practises fortune-telling and clairvoyance. To
judge by her way of living there is money in the business. She never
had but two children, Karen, and a son, now twenty-six, named Niels
Heinrich, who is known to the police as a worthless rogue and has come
into conflict with the law on several occasions. Karen has had a shady
career since her early girlhood. No doubt her mother put her up to
everything. When she was seventeen her mother is reported to have sold
her to a Dutch ship captain for five hundred gilders. She has given
birth to two illegitimate children, at Kiel in 1897 and at Königsberg
in 1901. Both died shortly after birth. In addition to the cities
named, she has lived in Bremen, Schleswig, Hanover, Kuxhaven, Stettin,
Aachen, Rotterdam, Elberfeld, and Hamburg. At nearly all these places
she was a registered prostitute. We lost sight of her between 1898 and
’99. Her circumstances seemed to have improved temporarily during that
year. According to one informant she accompanied a Danish painter to
Wassigny in the North of France. From Hamburg, where she gradually sank
lower and lower, she was brought to Berlin in the manner concerning
which we had the honour of rendering you an account in our report of
February 14th.”

Girke drew a long breath. His achievement in its architectonic
structure somehow impressed him anew. He enjoyed the methodical
arrangement of the material gleaned from so many sources, and threw
a glance of triumph at the Privy Councillor. He did not observe the
latter’s stony expression, but continued on his victorious progress.
“On her arrival in Berlin she sought out her mother, and they
rapidly became very intimate again. The mother came to visit both at
Kronprinzenufer and at all the other places. The brother Niels Heinrich
also came to see Karen--twice at Fehrbelliner Street, once on Gaudy,
and five times on Stolpische. Quarrels arose among these three persons,
which grew noisier on every occasion. On the eleventh inst., at five
o’clock in the afternoon, Niels Heinrich left his sister’s flat in a
rage, uttered threats and boasted and created an uproar in a gin-shop.
On the twelfth he came from the house in the company of your son.
They went together as far as Lothringer Street; there your son gave
the fellow money. On the sixteenth he walked up and down before the
house on Kronprinzenufer till evening. When your son, accompanied by
the student Voss, appeared in the street, he approached them. After
a brief exchange of words your son gave him money again, gold-pieces
as well as a bank note. Your son and Voss walked on together as far
as the Tiergarten, and during that time Voss seemed to be violently
expostulating with your son. The subject of their conversation is
unknown. Our agent did not succeed in getting close enough to them, and
I had other engagements that day. We are credibly informed, however,
by parties in the house on Kronprinzenufer, that Voss is often of an
extreme insolence and bitter aggressiveness which are both directed
again your son.”

Albrecht Wahnschaffe was white to the very lips. To hide the tumult of
his soul, he arose and went to the window.

The foundations were trembling. The peak of life on which he stood
was being obscured by dark fumes, even as out there the smoke and
soot which the wind blew down from the great smoke-stacks covered all
things. The chaotic noises of toil and the whir of machines floated
dully to him. On roofs and cornices lay soiled snow.

What was to be done? There were provisions in law for extreme cases;
but to have Christian declared irresponsible would not destroy the
disgrace. There was nothing to do but persuade, prevent, guard, hush up.

Words finally wrung themselves from his aching throat: “Does he
associate with any other questionable people?”

“Not that I know of,” Girke answered. “With plain people, yes; both
in the house and on the street. But he goes to lectures regularly,
and studies at home. He does not associate with his fellow students
or, rather, did not until lately. We are told, however, that at the
university his personality has aroused attention. Two days ago he
received a visit from a Herr von Thüngen, who is stopping in the Hotel
de Rome. Whether this event will have any consequences we cannot say
yet.”

With clouded brow the Privy Councillor said: “I have bought all of my
son’s possessions. The proceeds of the sale, amounting to thirteen
million five hundred thousand marks, have been deposited in the
Deutsche Bank. There are unhappily no legal methods by means of which
I can be informed concerning the use to which this money is put, and
whether not only the income but the capital is being used. Some clear
information on this point would be of importance.”

The sum named filled Girke with a reverential shudder. He lowered his
head, and saliva gathered in his month. “In addition to the thirteen
millions, your son also receives his annual income, doesn’t he?”

Herr Wahnschaffe nodded. “It is paid him by the firm in quarterly
installments through a branch of the Bank of Dresden.”

“I merely ask, of course, to have a clear view of the situation.
Considering such unlimited means, your son’s way of life is mysterious,
most mysterious. He usually takes his meals at very humble inns and
restaurants; he never uses a motor or a cab, and even the tramway quite
rarely. He walks long distances both morning and evening.”

This bit of information stabbed the Privy Councillor. It made a deeper
impression on him than anything else the detective had told him.

“I shall have due regard to your wishes in every respect, sir,” Girke
said. “The information you last referred to will not be easy to obtain.
But I shall see to it, sir, that you will be satisfied with the
services of our firm.”

That ended the interview.


IV

From the unconscious brooding of many days there arose in the mind of
Albrecht Wahnschaffe the clear memory of an incident which had taken
place at Aix-les-Bains when Christian was fourteen years old.

Albrecht Wahnschaffe had made the acquaintance of a Marchesa Barlotti,
a witty old lady who had been a famous opera singer in her youth, and
who was now of a positively fascinating ugliness. One day she had met
Albrecht Wahnschaffe and Christian on the promenade, and had been so
enchanted by the boy’s beauty that she had cordially asked him, in
her fine, free way, to visit her. Christian had turned pale; but his
father had promised, and appointed an hour in his stead. But Christian,
in whom the ugliness of the Marchesa had aroused an unconquerable
aversion, calmly and coldly refused obedience to his father’s wish.
No persuasion or request or command had influenced the boy. Albrecht
Wahnschaffe fell into one of those Berserker rages which made him drunk
and dizzy; it didn’t happen more than once in ten years, and when the
attack had passed he felt like a man who had had a serious illness. In
his rage he had approached Christian and struck him with his stick. But
no second blow fell. The expression in the boy’s face paralyzed his
arm. For it was as of ice, yet as of flame: there was in it a loftiness
and also a deadly scorn, against which anger broke as glass will break
on granite. And that icy and infinitely astonished expression seemed
to say: You hope to chastise me? To force me?

And the father, in his amazement and humiliation and shame, had
recognized the fact that here was a human soul that could not and must
not be forced, never, under no circumstances, unto no purpose in the
world.

It was this incident that came into his mind now, and was the reason
why he definitively gave up the intention of using force.

Months ago he had written to Christian, asking him to come home and
explain himself, to rescue his parents from the pressure of anxiety
and confusion, and especially his mother, who was suffering beyond her
strength. To this letter Christian had replied laconically that there
would be no purpose in his coming, and that there was no ground for
anxiety, that he was very well and in excellent spirits, and that no
one need suffer because he followed his own devices.

But what was the sense of his action? Was there any key to this
mystery? Was it possible in this age of science and enlightenment to
conceive of a mystic metamorphosis of personality?

He had a vision of Christian walking through the long streets,
especially at night, going into humble inns and eating poor food.
What was the meaning of it? And he could imagine meeting Christian on
such an occasion, and could see his son’s conventional courtesy, the
proud, cool eyes, the firm, white teeth which that conventional smile
revealed. And even to imagine such a meeting filled him with fear.

But perhaps that was necessary. Perhaps he would have to go to him.
Perhaps all that had happened did not in reality have the deadly
seriousness which it seemed to have at a distance. Perhaps there was
some simple confusion that could be cleared and disentangled easily
enough.

The thought of Christian burrowed deep into his brain, and his fear
grew. If he sought release from that thought, it emerged to torment
him the more, in dreams, in sleepless nights, amid the tumult of
affairs, in conversation, in every place, at all times, through all the
weeks and months.


V

The castle of the Wahnschaffes, built for delight and splendour, lay
desolate. The great reception halls and the guest-rooms were empty.
Some American friends had announced their arrival; but Frau Wahnschaffe
had begged to be excused.

Her husband sent her delicacies and flowers from the hothouses. She
cared for neither. In a lethargy she sat in an armchair or lay in her
bed of state. The curtains were drawn even by day. The electric lamps
were veiled.

Memories of Christian’s childhood were her refuge. She lived them
over in imagination: how Christian as a child of five had lain in bed
with her. Early in the morning the nurse had brought him in his loud
delight, still with the rosy warmth of sleep upon him. She recalled the
bird-like voice, the golden locks, the flexible hands, the radiant,
deep-blue eyes. He had stretched out his little hands after her ropes
of pearls, when she had come in evening dress into the nursery. Once
little maidens had placed a wreath of sweet peas on his head and danced
about him in innocent homage. He had raced through the park with two
dogs, and stopped with an admirable gesture of astonishment before a
statue of bronze. Later, when he was a youth, at the carnival in Mainz
he had stood amid lovely women in a flowery chariot and raised a silver
goblet toward the beholders.

Unforgettable to her were his gestures, his glances, his resilient
walk, the dark tones of his voice. Equally unforgettable were the
expectation of his coming, the delight of his presence, the admiration
that met him from the eyes of men. The world contained him only.

She read the few letters that he had written her. She guarded them
like relics in a little ebony box. They were sober, dry notes, but to
her they were magical. There were ten or twelve lines from Paris or San
Sebastian, Rome, Viareggio, Corfu, or the Isle of Wight. Once she had
drunk all the beauty of earth from these places. Now that he was no
longer there, they faded and died to her.

She had loved her womb because it had borne him; she hated it now
because she had lost him. But how or why she had lost him--that was a
thing unfathomable. She brooded over it by day and night.

No one could guide her. No thought revealed a gleam of light. She stood
before a wall and stared at it in despair. She listened, but no voice
reached her ear from the other side. All that people told her seemed
absurd and false.

In her bedroom hung a portrait of Christian painted in his twentieth
year. It had been done three years before by a Swedish painter. It was
very like him, and she adored it. One night she took it from the wall
and placed it on a table and lifted the shade from a lamp nearby. She
crouched in a chair, rested her head upon her hands, and gazed at the
picture steadily and with a questioning passion.

She asked the picture, but it gave no answer. She thrilled with a
desire to take that head into her hands. But the face on the canvas
smiled its equivocal and remote smile. If only she could have wept! But
tears were denied her: too hard and unmoved had she passed through life.

When morning came her maid found her still sitting before Christian’s
picture. The painted face beside the burning lamp still smiled its
alien smile.


VI

Johanna Schöntag wrote to Christian: “It is two months now since I
parted from you. In those two months misfortune has been very busy with
me and mine. My father committed suicide; that was why I was summoned
home so suddenly. Rash speculations complicated his affairs beyond
his power; he saw no way to prevent his being reduced to beggary,
and determined to leave the scene of his failure thus abruptly. All
obligations have been decently satisfied, and his good name has been
saved. We are also told, as if it were a consolation, that he lost his
head too soon, that things might have turned out better than he feared.
But we are in an unenviable situation, and life is not showing us an
admirable aspect. Such sudden transformations should be confined to
melodrama. I am still badly confused; I hardly know what is happening
to me. I envy those who have an aim of some kind and also the vitality
to pursue it. I wonder whether you will write to me. Or have you
already forgotten me? Have I even the right to ask that?”

She sent this letter to Crammon with the request to forward it. Crammon
replied: “My dear Rumpelstilzkin:--I hope that your voice will not die
in the desert. Unhappy things have taken place. The man to whom you are
writing has denied himself and his own past and all who love him. The
Lord has darkened his soul; we are striving for his salvation. May your
assistance bear rich fruit.”

The words frightened her, and she did not know how to interpret them.
She had time to reflect, for weeks passed before she received an answer
to her letter; and this answer was worse than none at all. It came not
from Christian himself but from Amadeus Voss, and was as follows:

“My dear Fräulein:--While arranging some documents which my friend
Christian Wahnschaffe left in the apartment which I have taken off his
hands, I found your letter among other things. Since he has failed
for some months, with very rare exceptions, to answer any letters, I
think I may take it for granted that you have not heard from him. I
can hardly dare hope to make up for his negligence. Who am I? What am
I to you? You may not even recall me. I, on the contrary, remember
you very exactly, and regret most constantly that I did not succeed
in making you more conscious of my devotion and sympathy. But I am
diffident by nature, and the fear of being repulsed or having my
feelings misunderstood has assumed morbid intensity in my mind. Do not
therefore, pray, regard it as a tactless importunity if I venture to
write you in Christian’s stead. The thought of your uncertainty and
fruitless waiting pained me, and I determined to put an end to it so
far as it lies in my power to do.

“I believe I can give you the assurance that Christian Wahnschaffe
is not as guilty, so far as you are concerned, as he may seem to be,
unless we agree that his guilt toward all who knew and loved him is the
same. To speak of his practising neglect or failing in a duty would
be unbecoming in me as well as incorrect in fact. He has sloughed off
his former skin, and the coin in which he pays to-day is of another
mintage. Whether its value is higher or lower than formerly it is not
my office to decide. He has, in the proverbial expression, burned his
bridges behind him. What he does may arouse the horror of the morally
immature; I, too, I confess, find the motivation obscure and difficult.
But one must have patience and faith in a benevolent providence; for we
all eat the bread of some abyss and it is bitter on each man’s lips.

“It is in view of the uncommon circumstances that I beg you to pardon
my taking upon myself the part of an _alter ego_ of our friend and
making his affairs, as it were, my own. I have done it only after
mature reflection; and what may at first seem to you sheer forwardness,
and an indelicate intrusion into secrets that are not my own, has been
prompted purely by a profound regard for your peace of mind. In closing
may I express to you my deep and sincere sympathy? You have suffered
from terrible visitations. God in His goodness will assuredly brighten
your path again.”

Johanna read this letter innumerable times, and each time with a pang
of intolerable shame, each time on the verge of tears. It made her feel
so exposed and affronted. And then she would burrow again and again
into the artifice of those stilted sentences. Frightened and desperate,
and yet with a stabbing curiosity, she asked: What could have happened
to make Christian, him whom she trusted immeasurably, whom she knew to
be the soul of delicacy and reserve--what could have happened to make
him callously expose the most intimate things in life to the treachery
and hypocrisy of this man?

In her excitement she went to Crammon’s house, but he had left Vienna
long ago. She asked where he was, but received no certain information.
Aglaia named a Berlin hotel, Constantine the château of Count Vitztum
in the mountains of Saxony. Johanna wrote letters, tore them up,
reflected and brooded, was pursued by shame and doubt, and finally
determined to write to Amadeus Voss. She wrote a brief note in her
rigid, angular writing, her left hand clenched in rage, her forehead
wrinkled, her little teeth gnawing at her lip. With a certain mockery
of implication she thanked him for his trouble, contemptuously ignored
his indiscretion, controlled her profoundly instinctive aversion,
and finally, with an impatient turn of speech, demanded some clear
information concerning Christian Wahnschaffe, since she had never
been taught the reading of riddles or the solving of mysteries. She
admitted that she had no right to make this demand, since her interest
in Christian was merely a friend’s. But as such it was strong and kind
enough to justify her inquiries.

Four days later Voss’s answer reached her. Her heart beat as she held
the letter. Unopened she hid it in a drawer. Not till evening, when she
had locked herself into her room, did she open and read it.

“My dear Fräulein Schöntag:--I am surprised that you are unaware of
a rumour which the very sparrows twitter from the house-tops here.
Everybody whispers and peers and is astonished, and dares not trust the
evidence of his senses. Hence to spare you unnecessary circumlocutions
I shall proceed at once to the point. You may remember that I left
Hamburg a week before Christian Wahnschaffe, and rented a comfortable
apartment for us both in Berlin. Since we had both determined to study
medicine there, I had every reason to suppose that as long as our
relations were harmonious we would have a common household. So I waited
for him, and he came at last; but he did not come alone. He brought a
woman with him. Here words fail me. I use the word woman because my
consideration for you forbids me the use of any other. And yet how
shall I convey the true state of affairs, if I shrink back from the
unchangeable facts? The truth cannot remain hidden. This person’s name
is Karen Engelschall. He rescued her in a state of hopeless degradation
from some harlots’ haunt near the harbour. She is a characteristic
outcast. Her appearance is coarse and her manners repulsive. She
expects to be confined shortly. She was in the power of a ruffian who
maltreated her and beat her; whenever she thinks of him she shakes with
terror and horror. She is between thirty and thirty-two years old, but
she looks older. One look at her face suffices to convince one that she
is familiar with every vice and with every crime.

“My dear young lady, pray do not stop here as you would stop listening
were I saying these things to you. The words I have written down are
brutally frank, and your imagination, unaccustomed to such images,
may identify me with the horrors I am forced to evoke. But I shall
be patient, if it be so, until your impressions become sufficiently
clarified to do me justice. What I have said is only an introduction,
and I must proceed.

“He came with his cases and boxes, but he had discharged his valet.
Toward me he was of an extreme cordiality, and indeed he seemed far
more cheerful than he had been when I left him. Two rooms were set
aside for this woman--a bedroom and a sitting-room. There remained
three rooms for him and two for me. But I had not been prepared for
this additional companion and hardly knew what to say. He gave me a
superficial explanation of her presence, but he withheld his real
confidence. How repulsive is this smoothness of the mere worldling,
how indistinguishable from downright falseness! To smile and be silent
convinces no one, though it may serve to deceive. We who are lowly
born do not know such gestures, and disdain to take refuge in polite
irresponsibility. The woman appeared at our meals. She sat there like
a clod, played with the cloth, asked foolish question, rattled the
silver, and used her knife as a shovel. Whenever Wahnschaffe glanced
at her, she looked like a thief who had been caught. I was confounded.
He seemed to me out of his senses. His entire behaviour toward her
was marked by a considerateness so exquisite that I was compelled
to believe that her influence over him had been gained in some
supernatural way. But what was its nature? I soon ascertained beyond a
doubt that she was not his mistress. Nor was such a thing conceivable;
it was a thought to be dismissed at once. What then was the source of
her power? It was in some devilish magic. Do not think that my mind is
wandering. In hours of spiritual insight I have looked deeply into the
secrets of creation. The human soul, poor and rich at once, has endless
capacities and powers of transformation. The stars gleam over us and we
know them not, neither their influence nor their power. The fissures of
the earth have been closed, and we know but as through the memory of a
dream that there are demons seeking to rule us. I trust that in this
matter we shall some day understand each other when we meet. Accept
this prophecy in proof of the truth of my assertions.

“I must continue. I no longer felt at home in those handsome rooms.
At night I often stood alone in the darkness, and listened for sounds
from the rooms of the other two. I conquered my aversion, and sought
out the woman when she was alone. She was talkative in a disagreeable
way. I did not conceal my contempt. In his presence she was dull.
Superficially she seems to rule him through her own servility. The
sight of her complete degradation impressed an eye satiated with
the glories of this world. I tried to discover in her some alluring
quality, some trace of lost or ruined beauty, some charm, however
humble or even perverse. I hoped to discover her secret by seeming to
agree with her and appreciate the situation. I watched for some sign of
a change in her soul, some symptom of expiation or conversion. I found
instead a crude, stained, stubborn, bestial, lumpish, unformed creature.

“I shuddered. All too near was the time when it had taken all my
passionate energy to save myself from the slime; too deeply had I
suffered among those from whom the Lord averts His countenance; too
many midnights lay behind me in which my soul hovered over the abyss;
too long had I been ground between the millstones of sin; too accursed
was this woman in my eyes, far too accursed for me to see her glide
calmly and sinuously to a point of sloth where she could rest from
past evil and prepare herself for more. I felt impelled to flee. It
was no spectacle for me. My spirit threatened to become poisoned again
and also my heart--that writhing thing that made me a burden to myself
and to mankind. I told Wahnschaffe that he could have my rooms; but
he urged me to stay, saying that he felt uncomfortable in the house
and would leave it. Aha, I thought, he is lusting after palaces; this
is too humble for him. But to every one’s astonishment he sought far
humbler quarters, stayed but a week, sought others that were still
meaner, and thus changed his abode twice more until he moved with the
woman to the reeking and buzzing tenement house in the north end of the
city where he is now.

“If I did not know the facts and were told them, I should laugh
incredulously. The widow Engelschall, Karen’s mother, was furious when
she heard of it. I have met her too, and I cannot describe her without
physical nausea. Karen’s brother, a rogue and an outcast, questioned
Wahnschaffe and threatened him. He is surrounded by the offscourings
of the earth. Yet there he studies, sleeps in a dark hole on a shabby
sofa of leather--he the spoiled darling, the expectancy and rose of his
own class, the epicure and the allurer, the Adonis and Crœsus! Does my
voice seem to pierce your ears even from the pallor of this written
sheet? Is your inmost mind petrified? Then pray come here and be a
witness to this experiment in monasticism, this modern hermitage, this
sombre farce. Come, for perhaps we need you as one of the hearts that
once glowed for him. Perhaps eyes from the world of his old delights
will be the mirrors in which he will see himself, and find and recover
himself once more.

“Do I seem to triumph in his downfall? I should not wish to do so; yet
there may be a touch of grimness in my soul. For it is I who prepared
the way, I whom dreams of sin like a leprosy of the soul condemn to
this very day to an accursed disquietude. He throws away what he has.
Millions that breed new millions lie in the bank, and he does not
regard them. He lives without luxury or diversion or agreeable company,
without plays or cars or games or love or flirtation, without being
honoured or admired or spoiled. I await the hour in which he will
laugh and declare the period of forgetfulness to be over. So long as
the millions breed millions, and his father and mother guard their
strong-boxes for him in the background, there is no room for serious
fear. His clothes and linen, his cravats and jewels and toilet articles
are largely still here where I live alone. He drops in at times to
bathe and change his garments. His appearance is what it always was; he
looks as though he were going to a luncheon with a minister of state or
to a rendezvous with a duchess. He is not melancholy or thoughtful or
hollow-eyed. He is as arrogant, as dry of soul, as insignificant, as
princely as ever. But there is a new lightness in his actions, a new
decisiveness in his speech. And he laughs oftener.

“Once he did not laugh, on that day in his castle when I told him of
darkness and of terror, before he went to meet the dancer. He listened,
listened day and night, and asked and listened again. But was it
compassion that stirred in his soul? By no means. He is not even a
Christian; no heavenly spark enlightens his soul; he knows nothing of
God, and is of those to whom the passage in Corinthians applies: The
natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they
are foolishness unto him; neither can he know them, because they are
spiritually discerned. I had desired to awaken him. I spoke as with
tongues of flame out of the nethermost depths. But he was the stronger:
he lured me to his Saturnalia and drove me into crime, and I forgot my
eternal weal for the sake of the lusts of this earth. He was like a
shadow to me; now I am myself like a shadow, and he insults the holy
thing he mocks. What knows he of the axe and the ring? I know of both.
What knows he of the signs and symbols that become torches in the
darkness of the soul? To him all things are concrete and finite;--the
nail and the board, the bell and the candle, the stone and the root,
the trowel and the hammer are but dead things to him, but not to me.
Rome and Galilee rise and battle. Torment proceeds from him; a torment
drives me to him. It is as though we were brothers and linked in the
flesh and had crept out of the same womb, and yet neither can find or
understand the other.

“Why does he live close to that woman? What does he expect of her? He
speaks of her in a tone of strange suspense. It is an uncanny, rash,
and insatiable curiosity that is in him. Once he lusted after palaces,
now he lusts after sties; once he desired counts and artists, cavaliers
and cocottes with ropes of pearls, now he seeks drunkards and paupers,
pimps and prostitutes. It is a lust that is in him, and neither
pilgrimage nor aspiration nor prayer--lust after the nail and stone,
the bell and candle, the stone and root, the trowel and hammer, and all
things wherein there is power and from which proceed both suffering
and knowledge. I have seen his eyes gleam when I spoke of the death
of an outcast, or of a deaf-mute’s drowning himself, who was my own
brother and died through his fault; and likewise when I spoke of the
self-inflicted death of another which I caused in my downtrodden youth.
I watched him well amid his jewels and paintings and silver plate, and
the flowers and costly books of his houses, when these things began to
satiate him, and when he began to listen greedily for the wailing that
comes from prison houses, and when a sleep full of fear came over him.
And now he plays with the poor and the things of the poor, and wanders
by and collects these things and takes delight in them; he reaches out
after one and then after another, and desires to know what is in each
and what that signifies, and yet remains the man he was. There is no
salvation in this, for it is written: Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard,
neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath
prepared for them that love him.

“But why does the woman follow him? Why does she refuse the monstrous
sums which his family has offered her to leave him? Why does she
calmly return with him to her own underworld, when she must be panting
after his gold, his jewels, his houses and gardens, his power and his
freedom? What holds her? Why does she tarry? What devil’s work is being
done? It happened recently that I walked home with him during a violent
snow-storm. He had given me a letter of his friend Crammon to read. It
was a long and foolish whine, such as one would rather expect from an
elderly blue-stocking than from a man of sense. We argued about the
letter, that is to say, he would not take it seriously, while I talked
myself into a rage over it.

“Then he told me that a certain Baron von Thüngen, one of his former
boon-companions, had visited him on the previous day. You may remember
him; he was one of those who danced attendance on Eva Sorel--a
reddish-blond, affected dandy. This man, Wahnschaffe told me, had
hunted for him long and had sat talking with him a whole day. He had
said that he was dissatisfied with his life and longed for another
way of living; that he did not know what to do, but had become a prey
to unbearable melancholy; that he had always felt a deep sympathy
for Wahnschaffe, but had not ventured to approach him; and that all
he asked now was the privilege of sometimes spending an hour in his
company. All this Wahnschaffe told me half diffidently, half in
surprise. But the matter was not clear to me, and I said that Thüngen
was probably merely one of those half-crazy idlers who had lost his
appetite, and whose palate lusts for more sharply seasoned food. He did
not take my rudeness amiss, and only said that such a judgment was rash.

“When we had reached our goal I went upstairs with him to Karen
Engelschall’s rooms. I did not wish to leave him. I was angry because
he had again gotten the better of me by his icy sobriety. When we had
passed through the narrow hall-way, we heard Karen’s screeching voice
from the kitchen as well as the sound of wood chopping. We opened
the kitchen door. The pregnant woman was kneeling by the hearth and
splitting kindling wood. On a chair near the wall Isolde Schirmacher,
the young girl that waits on her, leaned back with a yellowish pale
face and closed eyes. An indisposition had overtaken her; it seemed
epileptic in character, for her limbs were rigid and her head bent
over backwards. She had evidently been at this task before, and Karen
had taken her place. The girl’s condition seemed to have caused her
no concern. She split the wood with her hatchet, and, unconscious
of our presence on the threshold, talked bitterly and blasphemously
concerning her pregnancy: she didn’t want another brat; she had a
horror of it; it ought to be throttled at its first breath. Her talk
was pure filth--impossible to report. Then Wahnschaffe entered the
room, and lifted Isolde Schirmacher from her chair, and carried her,
as though she were no burden at all, into the next room, and laid her
on the bed. Then he came back, and said to the woman: ‘Let that be,
Karen,’ and took the hatchet from her hand and heaped up the wood that
had been cut. The woman was frightened. She obeyed him, and was silent,
as though speech had died within her. This thing I saw with my own
eyes, and from this picture you can see the nature of the woman and the
relations of Wahnschaffe and herself.

“No peace is left in me. From an invisible wound in the world’s body
the blood keeps flowing. I cry out for a vessel to receive it, but no
one brings me such a vessel. Or are the sickness and the wound within
myself? Is there such a thing as the yearning of the shadow for its
body? Is it conceivable that the unimaginable has come to pass, and
yet that he who yearned and sobbed and struggled and prayed for it to
come to pass cannot recognize it now? There is some strange fatality in
it all. I have learned now to tell fruit from rottenness, the bitter
from the sweet, the fragrant from the stinking, the hurtful from the
harmless. And I have also learned how limbs swing from their sockets,
how vertebra joins vertebra, how muscle is intertwined with muscle,
how ligament grows on ligament, how the veins pulse and how the brain
is stratified. I can open the magic clockwork and put my hand into the
mechanism that is forever rigid. There are compensations; but always at
the sombre gates of existence must I pay my entrance fee to brighter
regions. The other day I had a vision: You stood with me beside the
corpse of a young person, and asked me to cut out the heart which had
survived by a little the death of its body and twitched under my knife.

“That one more thing I wanted to tell you. With it I close.”

Johanna sat over that letter all night until morning. A storm of March
swept about the house. Her virginal room, with its hangings of white
silk and the white enamelled furniture, seemed already bare and rifled
to her. For on the morrow she was to leave it forever.


VII

Dead and wounded men lay on the red velvet sofas of the restaurant.
They had been carried here hurriedly, and people were trying to help
the living. Through the open doors there blew in an icy blast mixed
with snow. Random shots were still fired in the streets, soldiers
galloped up and down, an infantry squad appeared and disappeared.
Guests hovered at the windows. A German waiter said: “They have mounted
cannons on the Neva.” A gentleman in a fur-coat entered hastily and
said: “Kronstadt is in flames.”

In one of the halls which were used for exclusive banquets, there was
a brilliant company invited by Count Tutchkoff, one of the friends of
the Grand Duke Cyril. There were Lord and Lady Elmster, the Earl of
Somerset, Count and Countess Finkenrode, gentlemen belonging to the
German and Austrian embassies, the Marquis du Caille, and the Princes
Tolstoi, Trubetzkoi, Szilaghin, and their ladies.

The Grand Duke and Eva Sorel had come late. The dinner was over, and
the general conversation had ceased. The couples whispered. The Duke,
sitting between Lady Elmster and the Princess Trubetzkoi, had fallen
asleep. However animated the company, this would happen from time to
time; every one knew it, and had become accustomed to it.

Though he slept, his pose remained erect and careful. From time to
time his lids twitched; the furrow on his forehead deepened so that
it seemed black; his colourless beard was like a fern on the bark of
a tree. One might have suspected that he feigned sleep in order to
listen; but there was a slackness in his features that showed the
uncontrolled muscles of sleep, and lent his face the appearance of a
lemur. On his excessively long, lean hand, which rested on the cloth,
and, like his lids, twitched at times, gleamed a solitaire diamond, the
size of a hazelnut.

A restlessness had stolen over the company. When the rifles outside
began to rattle again, the young Countess Finkenrode arose and
turned frightened glances toward the door. Szilaghin approached her,
and calmed her with a smile. An officer of the guards entered, and
whispered a report to Tutchkoff.

Eva and Wiguniewski sat a little aside, in front of a tall mirror that
reflected a pallid image of them and of a part of the room.

Wiguniewski said to her: “Unhappily the report is vouched for. No one
thought of such a thing.”

“I was told he was in Petrograd,” Eva answered. “In a German newspaper,
moreover, I read a report that he was arrested in Moscow. And where are
your proofs? To condemn Ivan Becker on hearsay is almost as terrible as
the crime of which he is accused.”

Wiguniewski took a letter from his pocket, looked about him carefully,
unfolded it, and said: “From Nice he wrote this to a friend of his
who is also my friend. I am afraid it puts an end to all doubt.”
Painfully, and with many hesitations, he translated the Russian words
into French. “I am no longer what I was. Your suppositions are not
groundless, and the rumours have not lied. Announce and confirm it to
all who have set their hopes on me and given me their trust on definite
conditions. A terrible time lies behind me. I could not go farther on
my old and chosen path. You have been deceived in me, even as a phantom
has misled me. In a case like mine it requires greater courage and
strength to confess sincerely, and to wound those who had put their
faith and trust in me, than to mount the scaffold and give up one’s
life. Gladly would I have suffered death for the ideas to which all
my thoughts and feelings have been devoted hitherto. All of you know
that. For I had already sacrificed to them my possessions, my peace, my
youth, my liberty. But now when I have come to recognize these ideas
as destructive errors, I must not serve them for another hour. I fear
neither your accusations nor your contempt. I follow my inner light
and the God that is within. There are three truths that have guided
me in that searching of my soul which led to my conversion: It is a
sin to resist; it is a sin to persuade others to resistance; it is a
sin to shed the blood of man. I know all that threatens me; I know the
isolation that will be mine. I am prepared for all persecutions. Do
what you must, even as I do what I must.”

After a long silence Eva said: “That is he. That is his voice; that is
the bell whose chime none can resist. I believe him and I believe in
him.” She threw a sombre glance at the face of that sleeper beside the
radiant board.

Wiguniewski crushed the letter, and thrust forward his chin with a
bitter gesture. “His three truths,” he replied, “will be as effective
against our cause as three army divisions of Cossacks. They will
suffice to fill the dungeons on both sides of the Urals, to unman our
youth, to bury our hopes. Each one is a whip that will smite unto the
earth an hundred thousand awakened spirits. Crime? It is worse; it is
the tragedy of all this land. Three truths!” He laughed through his
compressed teeth. “Three truths, and a blood-bath I will begin that
will make those of Bethlehem and St. Bartholomew seem jests. You may
look at me. I do not weep; I laugh. Why should I weep? I shall go home,
summon the popes, and give them this rag; and let them made amulets of
it to distribute among those who wait for salvation. Perhaps that will
suffice them.”

Eva’s face grew hard. An evil fascination still drew her eyes toward
that sleeper’s face. Upon the edges of her lips hovered a morbid smile;
the skin of her cheek glimmered like an opal. “Why should he not
follow the command of his soul?” she asked, and for a moment turned
her diademed brow toward the prince. “Is it not better that a man
should express and embody himself completely than that many hundreds
of thousands be helped in the dreary mediocrity of their rigid lives?
He has said it in his own beautiful way: ‘I follow the inner light and
the God that is within.’ How many can do that? How many dare? And now I
understand something he once said”--more penetratingly she looked into
that sleeper’s face--“‘one must bow down before that!’ So that was in
his mind. Strange ploughs are passing over this earth of yours, prince.
In its lacerated body there streams a darkness into which one would
like to plunge in order to be born again. A primitive breath is there,
and chaos; there the elements thunder and the most terrible dream
becomes reality, an epic reality of immemorial ages. Of such life I
once had no perception, except in some great marble in which a nameless
woe had become rigid and eternal. I feel as though I were looking back
on this scene from the height of centuries to come or from a star, and
as though everything were vision.” All this she said in a trembling
voice and with an impassioned melancholy.

Wiguniewski, who had been a constant witness of her inner
transformations for months past, was not surprised at her speech. His
eyes, too, sought the sleeper’s face. With a deep breath he said,
“Yesterday a student of nineteen, Semyon Markovitch, heard of Ivan
Becker’s recanting and shot himself in his room. I went there and
saw the body. If you had seen that dead boy, Eva, you would speak
differently. A little differently, at all events. Did you ever see
a lad lie in his coffin with a little black wound in his temple? He
was charming and innocent as a girl, and yet he could experience this
unspeakable woe and entertain this determined despair at a loss beyond
measure.”

A shiver passed over Eva’s shoulders, and she smiled with a glittering
feverishness that made her seem strangely possessed and heartless.
The Prince continued in a matter-of-fact tone. “No doubt there’s a
good deal that is alluring about this letter. Why shouldn’t a man
like Ivan Becker render his breach of faith less repulsive by some
plausible psychological excuses? I am ready to grant you that he
acted neither in conscious hypocrisy nor from any self-seeking motive.
But he wouldn’t be the genuine Russian that he is--emotional, turbid,
fanatical, self-tormenting--if his transformation were not to entail
all the fatal consequences of a systematic and deliberate treachery.
He thinks that what he calls his awakening will serve mankind. In the
meantime, out of blindness and weakness, confusion and mistaken moral
fervour, he rushes into the claws of the beast that waits mercilessly
in every corner and nook of Europe seeking to destroy and annihilate.
And what I am doing now is passing a most charitable judgment. We
happen to know that he has opened negotiations with the Holy Synod and
is corresponding eagerly with the secret cabinet. Here in Moscow, as
well as in Kiev and Odessa, arrests have been made in rapid succession
which must be attributed to him. As things are, he alone could have
furnished the information without which the authorities would not have
ventured on these steps. These are facts that speak for themselves.”

Eva pressed her right hand against her bosom, and stared, as though
fascinated, into the air where she saw a vision that caused her to feel
a rapidly alternating horror and ecstasy. Her lips moved as though to
put a question, but she restrained herself.

With large and earnest eyes she looked at Wiguniewski, and, whispered:
“I suddenly have a longing that burns my heart, but I do not know after
what. I should like to climb a mountain far beyond the snowline; or
fare on a ship out into uncharted seas; or fly above the earth in an
aeroplane. No, it is none of these things. I should like to go into a
forest, to a lonely chapel, and cast myself down and pray. Will you go
on such a pilgrimage with me? To some far monastery in the steppes?”

Wiguniewski was puzzled. Passion and sadness were in her words, but
also a challenge that wounded him. Before he could formulate an
answer, the Marquis du Caille and Prince Szilaghin approached them.

The sleeper opened his eyes and showed their slothful stare.


VIII

The costumer and the wig-maker had arrived in Edgar Lorm’s study. He
was going to try on his costume for the rôle of Petrucchio. “The Taming
of the Shrew” was soon to be given with new scenery and a new cast, and
he looked forward to playing the impetuous and serene tamer.

Judith, sitting on a low stool in her over-dainty sitting-room, her
arms folded on her knees, heard his resonant voice, although three
closed doors separated them. He was quarrelling; tradesmen and
assistants always enraged him. He was difficult to satisfy, for what he
demanded of himself he also required of others--the tensest exertion
and the most conscientious toil.

Judith was bored. She opened a drawer filled with ribands, turned over
the contents, tried the effect of different ribands in her hair, and
looked at herself in the glass with a frown. That occupation tired her
too. She left the drawer open and the many-coloured silks scattered
about.

She went through the rooms, knocked at Lorm’s door and entered. She
was surprised at his appearance. In the lace-trimmed, velvet doublet,
the pied hose, the broad-brimmed hat with its adventurous feather, the
brown locks of the wig that fell to his shoulders, he looked a victor,
handsome, bold, fascinating. And his very way of standing there was art
and interpretation; the whole world was his stage.

Like soldiers at attention, the costumer and wig-maker stood before him
and smiled admiringly.

Judith smiled too. She had not expected to find him in a new
transformation, and she was grateful for the experience. She came
to him, and touched his cheeks with her fingers. His eyes, still lit
by the ardour of the poet’s creation, asked after her desire. He was
accustomed to have her express some wish whenever she condescended to a
caress. With her arm she drew his head down a little and whispered: “I
want you to make me a present, Edgar.”

He laughed, embarrassed and amused. The good-natured observation of the
two strangers was painful to him. He drew her arm through his and led
her to the library. “What shall I give you, child?” The bold fervour of
Petrucchio which, with the donning of the costume, had passed into him,
faded from his face.

“Anything you please,” Judith answered, “but something remarkable that
will delight me and something that you are fond of.”

He smacked his lips, looked merry and yielding, glanced about him, took
up one object after another, pushed his chin forward and reflected,
mimicked a whole scale of emotions from puzzled helplessness to anxious
serviceableness, and finally struck his forehead with a roguish and
graceful gesture. “I have it,” he cried. He opened a little cabinet,
and with a bow gave Judith a watch of very old Nürnberger make. Its
case was of exquisite old gold filigree work.

“How charming,” said Judith, and balanced the watch on the palm of her
hand.

Lorm said: “Now amuse yourself admiring it. I must go and send those
fellows away.” With a swift, resilient tread he left the room.

Judith sat down at the great oak table, looked at the engraved
ornamentation on the watch, pressed a little spring, and, when the oval
sides of the case flew open, gazed into the ancient, lifeless works.
“I shall take it all apart,” she determined. “But not now; to-night. I
want to see what’s inside.” And she looked forward with a glow to the
evening hour when she would take the watch apart.

But the present, charming as it was, did not suffice her. When Lorm
returned in modern dress, a clean-shaven gentleman and husband, she
held out the watch-case from which she had slipped the works, and
begged or rather commanded him, who was now the man of common clay:
“Fill it with gold pieces, Edgar. That’s what I want.”

She was all voracity, avidity, desire.

Lorm lowered his head in vicarious shame. In a drawer of his desk he
had a little roll of gold-pieces. He filled the watch-case and gave it
to her. Then he said, “While you were out driving to-day, your brother
Wolfgang called. He stayed about an hour. He seems to have a rather
sterile nature. It amused me--the difficulty he had in placing me in
some social category whose ways he understood. He’s a born bureaucrat.”

“What did he want?” Judith asked.

“He wanted to consult you about Christian. He’s coming again to do so.”

Judith arose. Her face was pale and her eyes glittered. Her knowledge
of Christian’s changed way of life was derived from a talk she had
had with Crammon during his visit to Berlin, from the letters of a
former friend, and from messages that had come to her directly from her
parents. The first news had awakened a rage in her that gnawed at her
soul. Sometimes when she was alone and thought of it she gritted her
teeth and stamped her feet. Further details she heard made the very
thought of him fill her to the brim with bitterness. If she had not
possessed the gift of forcing herself to forgetfulness, of commanding
it so successfully as to annihilate the things she desired not to
be, her inner conflicts over this matter would have made her ill and
morose. Every enforced recollection awakened that rage in her, and
recoiled against him who caused it.

Lorm knew and feared this fact. His instinct told him, moreover, that
what Judith feared in Christian’s actions was an evil caricature
of her own fate; for she did not conceal the fact from him that she
considered herself as one who had voluntarily fallen from her original
station. But he thought too modestly of himself to resent this attitude
of hers. To tremble at the opinions of people had become a part of her
innermost nature. Although she was no longer upheld by the elements
that had once nourished her aristocratic consciousness, her being was
still rooted in them, and she felt herself degraded in her new life.

But even this could not explain the wild fury to which she yielded at
any mention of Christian’s name.

Her attitude was that of a cat at bay. “I don’t want him to come back,”
she hissed. “I don’t want to hear anything about that man. I’ve told
you that a hundred times. But you’re always so flabby, and go in for
everything. Couldn’t you have told him that I won’t listen? Get a car
and drive to him at once. Forbid him absolutely to enter my house or
to write me. But no! You’re such a coward. I’ll write to him myself.
I’ll tell him that his visits will always be a pleasure to me, although
his sudden fondness is queer enough, but that I will not, under any
circumstances, listen to a word about that man.”

Lorm did not dare to contradict her. With gentle superiority he said:
“I don’t understand your extreme bitterness. No one considers your
brother Christian to have done anything criminal. He is very eccentric,
at the worst. He harms no one. What injury has he done you? Weren’t you
and he very fond of each other? You used always to speak of him with an
affectionate and proud emphasis. I don’t understand.”

She became livid and drunk with rage. “Of course,” she jeered, “you!
Does anything touch you? Have you any sense left for anything but
grease-paint and old rags? Have you any conception of what those words
stood for--Christian Wahnschaffe? What they meant? You in your world of
lies and hollowness--what should you understand?”

Lorm came a step nearer to her. He looked at her compassionately. She
drew back with a gesture of aversion.

She was beating, beating the fish.


IX

Karen Engelschall said: “You don’t have to worry; there’s no chance
of his getting back before night. If he does, I’ll tell him you’re an
acquaintance of mine.”

She gave Girke a slow and watchful look. She sat by the window, resting
her body with the broad satisfaction of those women of the people to
whom sitting still is an achievement and a luxury. She was sewing a
baby’s shift.

“Anyhow we don’t have much to talk about,” she continued with a
malicious enjoyment. “You’ve said your say. They offer me sixty
thousand if I go and disappear. That’s all right enough. But if I wait
they’ll go a good bit higher. I’m somebody now. I’ll think it over; you
can come back next week.”

“You should think very seriously,” Girke replied in his official
manner. “Think of your future. This may be the highest offer. Six
months ago you didn’t dream of such a thing. It’s very pleasant to live
on one’s own income; it’s every one’s ideal. It is very foolish of you
to lose such an opportunity.”

With her malicious smile she bent lower over her work. An undefined
well-being made her press her knees together and close her eyes. Then
she looked up, swept her tousled, yellow hair from her forehead, and
said: “I’d have to be a bigger fool than I am to be taken in. D’you
think I don’t know how rich he is? If he wanted to buy me off he’d make
your offer look like dirt. Why shouldn’t I make a good bargain? No, I’m
no fool. This here, as you say, is my great chance, but not the way
you think. I’m going to wait and see. If I’m wrong, well, I done it to
myself.”

Girke shifted his position uncomfortably. He looked at his watch, and
then with his prying eyes regarded the room with its common wall-paper,
furniture, and carpet.

“I can tell you one thing that’ll please you, and I don’t mind because
it don’t change nothing,” Karen Engelschall said. “His people are
all wrong if they think it’s on my account that he’s acting the way
he does, and that he’d have stayed with them except for me. ’Course,
I could make fools of you all and pretend he’d changed his life on
my account. What good would that do? A new-born child could see that
there’s something queer and crazy about it. So why should I go and
play-act in front of you, when I myself just sit here and wonder and
wonder!”

“That’s very true,” said Girke, amazed at her frankness. “I understand,
and what you say interests me immensely. I have always said that we
could count on the most valuable assistance from you. Now you would do
me a very real service if you would answer a few questions. I should
not, of course, forget your assistance but show my appreciation very
practically.”

Karen giggled quietly. “I believe you,” she answered. “You’d like to
spy around a bit and then go and report. No, I’m not fond of that sort
o’ thing. There’re other places where you can hear a lot. There’re
people what can tell you all you want to know. There’s that friend of
his, that Voss: Go to him!” The name brought rage to her eyes. “He acts
as if there wasn’t nothing he didn’t know in the world, and treats a
person so mean and low that you’d like to punch his dirty nose for him.
Ask him who gets the money. I don’t, but Voss ought to be able to tell
you.”

“I’m afraid you overestimate that,” said Girke, with his most expert
air. “There is no doubt that the man in question is at the bottom of
all the trouble. But things being as they are, even ten times the
amount that satisfies his greed would be inconsiderable. I can give
you that very definite assurance. There must be other and quite
unaccounted drains on his purse.”

“I don’t understand a word of what you’re saying there,” Karen
answered, and showed her small, yellow, evil teeth. “Maybe you’d like
to search my wardrobe or my mattress here, eh? Maybe you think this
place is too fine or that I got expensive clothes and jewels? And did
you ever see that hole over at Gisevius’s where the elegant gentleman
himself sleeps? We’re living in luxury, we are! Why, the very mice
starve here. I found one dead in a corner over there the other day.
Most people hate mice, but they don’t bother him. And it’s pitiful for
a man that’s lived like he has. According to what people say, he must
have been just like the emperor. He had castles and game-preserves and
motor cars and the handsomest women, and they just threw themselves at
his head. And never no trouble and no worry, more of everything than he
could use, and money and clothes and eating and drinking and friends
and servants and everything. And now he’s at Gisevius’s, where the mice
die of hunger.”

Her burning eyes were fixed on Girke, but in reality she saw him
no longer. She was no longer speaking to this unknown man, whose
professional curiosity left her quite unmoved. She was relieving
herself by breaking the convulsive silence of her lonely days. Her
hands lay on her lap like empty shells, and the child’s garment had
slipped to the floor. Her tongue was unleashed. The words poured
forth--words born of her brooding, words familiar to her through many
days and nights of strangeness and amazement. In her voice there was
something metallic, and in her face the slack muscles grew taut.

Girke listened tensely and took mental notes. He noticed that he need
ask no questions now. The machine, fed by a secret fire, had started
itself.

Karen went on: “He comes here and sits down and looks around. He sits
down and opens a book and studies. Then he puts the book away and
looks around again. Then he notices me sudden like, as if I’d just
been blown in. If only he don’t begin asking questions again, I says
to myself. Then I say to him: ‘There was a big noise in the street
to-day.’ Or I say: ‘Isolde’s hands are swollen; we got to have some
ointment. My mother was here,’ I says maybe, ‘and told me of a place
on Alexander Square where you can buy linen cheap.’ He just nods. Then
I put on the water for the coffee, and he tells me how a mangy dog
followed him for a long time and how he fed it, and that he’d been to
a workingmen’s meeting in Moabit and had talked to some people. But he
don’t tell me much, and acts kind of ashamed. I’m satisfied so long as
he don’t ask questions. But his eyes get that expression in ’em, and
then he asks if my time wasn’t coming soon,”--brutally she pointed to
her distended body--“and if I wasn’t glad, and how it was the other
times, and if I was glad then, and if I’d like to have this or that.
And he brings me apples and cake and chocolate and a shawl and a
fur-piece for my neck. ‘Look, Karen,’ he says, ‘what I’ve brought you,’
and he kisses my hand. Kisses my hand, I tell you, ’sif I was God knows
what, and he didn’t know about me. Did you ever hear of anybody kissing
the hand of a woman like me?”

She was pale as she asked the question; her features were distorted,
and the helmet of her yellow hair seemed to rise. Girke’s eyes became
blank and stony. “Very remarkable,” he murmured; “most interesting.”

Karen paid no attention to him. “‘How are you, Karen?’” she mocked
Christian’s voice. “‘Do you want for anything?’ What should I be
wanting? So I get desperate and I says: ‘A runner for the floor or
cretonne curtains for the bedroom. Red cretonne,’ I says, ‘because it
pops into my mind. Sometimes we go out together to Humboldthain or the
Oranienburger Gate. He thinks to himself and smiles and says nothing.
The people stare and I get a goose-flesh. I’d like to scream out at
’em: ‘Yes, there he is, the great man, that’s him walking with me. And
this is me--a woman of the streets that’s going to have a baby. A fine
couple, eh? Mighty fine! We’re a grand couple, we are!’ Sometimes that
Voss comes and they talk in the other room; or anyhow Voss talks. He
knows how to, too; better’n any preacher. And once there was a baron
here, a young blond fellow. That was a funny business. He took to
crying, and cried and cried like a child. Christian said nothing, but
just sat down by him. You never know what he’s thinking. Sometimes he
walks up and down the room, and other times he’ll stand and look out
of the window. I don’t know where he goes, and I don’t know where he
comes from. Mother says I’m a fool. She says she’s going to find out
what’s what. If she smells money she sticks like a burr. Only I wish
she hadn’t sicked Niels Heinrich on to me. He gets more shameless all
the time. I get scared when I hear him on the stairs. He begins to cut
up rough in the hall. Last Monday he was here and wanted money. ‘I got
none,’ I says, ‘you go to work.’ He’s learned bricklaying and can earn
good money, but doing nothing suits him better. He told me to shut my
trap or he’d lay me out. Just then Christian came in. Niels Heinrich
glares at him. My legs was shaking, and I draws Christian aside and
says: ‘He wants brass.’ Christian didn’t know what I meant. So I says:
‘Money.’ And he gave him money, gave him a cool hundred, and turned and
went out. Niels Heinrich followed him; I thought there’d be a fight.
Nothing happened; but it was a nasty business. I can’t get the scare
out of my bones.”

She stopped and panted for breath.

Girke thought it his duty to interpolate: “We have accumulated
sufficient evidence to prove that Niels Heinrich pursues him with
demands for money.”

Karen scarcely listened. Her face grew darker and darker. She put her
hands against her breast, arose clumsily, and looked around in the
room. Her feet were turned inward and her abdomen protruded. “He
comes and he goes, he comes and he goes,” she complained, in a voice
that gradually became almost a scream. “That’s the way it is, day out
and day in. If only he wouldn’t ask questions. It makes me feel hot
and cold. It’s like being searched by a matron. D’you know how that
is? Everything’s turned inside out and everything’s handled. Awful!
And I ought to try to be comfortable here; there’s nothing better in
the world. When you’ve been kicked around like some stinking animal,
you ought to thank God to have a chance to breathe easy. But to sit
and wait and tell how things was at this place and at that, and how
this thing happened and the other--no, I can’t stand it no more! It’s
too much! It’s like splitting a person’s head open!” She struck her
fist against her temple. She seemed an animal, an animal with all the
ugliness of a human soul dead or distorted, a wicked savage awakened
now and untamable.

Girke was confounded. He got up, and pushed the chair, both as a
protection and a weapon, between the woman and himself. He said: “I
won’t take up more of your time. I beg you to consider my proposition
carefully. I shall drop in again some time.” He went with a sensation
as of danger at his back.

Karen hardly observed that she was alone in the room. She brooded. Her
thinking processes were primitive. Two uncertainties tormented her to
the point of morbidness and rage: What impelled Christian to search her
soul and past, again and again, with the same patience, kindliness,
and curiosity? And what inexplicable force made her answer, explain,
relate, and give an accounting of her life?

Every time he began she struggled, but she always yielded to that
force. She always began by turning her face in horror from her own
past. But soon she was forced by an implacable power to embrace that
vision, and everything that she had experienced, everything that had
vanished, all that was desolate, turbid, dark, and dangerous reappeared
with an incomparable vividness. It was her own life, and yet seemed
another’s, who was herself and yet some one else. It seemed to her that
all those desolate, turbid, dark, dangerous things began over again,
doubly terrible, with a foreknowledge of each day’s disconsolate end.

Forgotten things and places plagued her and emerged terribly from
her consciousness: rooms and beds and walls, cities and streets and
street-corners and public houses and dark halls that led to police
courts; human beings and words, and certain hours and days and tears
and cries; and all terrors and degradations and crimes, all mockery
and wild laughter--all this came back to her, and the past arose and
lacerated her mind.

It was like being in an inconceivably long shaft through which one had
already passed. And now one was commanded to retrace one’s steps and
fetch something that one had forgotten. One resisted desperately and
struggled against the command, but in vain. One had to turn back to
search for that forgotten thing without knowing what it was. And as
one wandered along, a figure met one from the opposite direction, and
that other figure was one’s very self. One was inclined to believe in a
mirror and its image. But that other self was lacerated; its breast was
torn open, and within it one saw the crimson gleaming of a naked heart.

What was it? What did it all mean?

She fell back on the chair with a deep moan, and covered her face with
her hands. Oh, he should be made to pay dearly for it--that tormentor
of hers.

The darkness crept in and blotted out her form.


X

Amadeus Voss said to Christian: “I’ll tell you exactly how you feel.
You are like a man who wants to harden himself to bear cold, and
suddenly strips off his garments; or like one who has never drunk
whiskey nor even smelt it, and suddenly pours down a bottle of the
vilest sort. But you are freezing in the cold, and reeling from the
liquor. And that is not the worst. The worst is that you feel a secret
horror. And how could it be otherwise? The elements of which you are
made are in bitter conflict with your will. You are full of horror and
will not confess it to yourself. Your hands are touching a hundred
things, dirty and common and ugly, that once did not so much as enter
the circle of your life. Now you sit and look at your nails that are
still well manicured. You look at them with disgust, and you cannot
bring yourself to touch the glass that greasy lips have touched and
calloused hands have held. Yes, you are sorriest of all for your hands.
And of what avail is the whole experiment so long as you feel sorry for
your hands? Do you think you really lie on that bed and rest on that
sofa?”

“I believe I do, Amadeus.”

“You are wrong. When the nights are cold, is it really you who stir the
fire in that stove?”

“Who else? I’ve even learned how to do it.”

“And is it you who light the kerosene lamp, you whose light pressure
made the lustres in palaces to radiate? No, it is not your real self.
Think of that smoky ceiling. How restless you must be, and how shaken
by aversion! Can you really sleep there? And is not your awakening
ghastly? You go about among the poor, but your clothes are handsome;
any one can see that a good tailor made them, and that they were
pressed recently. It makes those people grin and feel cheated, for
in their eyes the greatest cheat is a rich man who apes the poor.
They will not take you seriously, though you were to throw your whole
fortune into the river or were to wander among them in rags. You only
embitter them, and they take your mood for a deception and a morbid
whim. You don’t know them. You do not know the utter raggedness
of their souls; you do not know what they have lacked and have
been forced to lack for generations, nor how they hate you for the
bitterness of that necessity. You do not know their interests, nor
their thought, nor their speech. And they will never, never comprehend
that a man can renounce that which is the very blood of all their
hopes and wishes, the essence of their dreams, their envy and their
rancour. They toil for ten, twenty, thirty years, to have breath and
food in their belly. And you expect them to believe that all you ask
is a little breath and food--you, to whom they were hitherto but
nameless beasts of burden, you for whom they sent their sons into
mines and their daughters into the streets and hospitals, for whom
their lungs were corroded by the fumes of mercury and the shavings
of steel, for whom hundreds of thousands were sacrificed in the dumb
heat of those daily battles which the proletarian fights with capital,
sacrificed as stokers and masons, weavers and smiths, glass-blowers
and machine-hands, all wage-slaves of your own? What do you hope to
accomplish? With what powers of the spirit are you reckoning? What
space of time do you give yourself? You are but a gamester, nothing
but a gamester; and so far you are but playing with counters, without
knowing whether you will ever be able to redeem them.”

“All that you say is true,” Christian replied.

“Well, then?”

“I cannot do otherwise than I am doing.”

“Not a week ago such a horror of that place seized you that you fled to
the Hotel Westminster to spend the night there.”

“It is true, Amadeus. How do you know it?”

“Never mind that. Do you want to smother your very soul in horror? See
to it that you leave a way of escape for yourself. These Engelschalls,
mother and son, will make your life a veritable hell. If you fall into
their snares, you’ll be worse off than some poor devil in the hands of
usurers. Surely you’re not deceived in regard to the character of that
crowd? A child would know what they are after. I warn you. They and
others like them--the longer you live with them, the nearer will they
bring you to despair.”

“I am not afraid, Amadeus,” Christian said. “One thing I don’t
understand,” he added gently, “and it is that you of all people would
deter me from doing what I feel to be right and necessary.”

Voss answered with intense passion. “You threw me a plank so that I
might save myself and reach the shore. Will you thrust me back into the
abyss before I feel the firm earth beneath my feet? Be what you really
are! Don’t turn into a shadow before my very eyes! If you withdraw the
plank, I cannot tell what will become of either of us.”

His face was horribly distorted, and his clenched hands shook.


XI

In his increasing oppression and confusion of mind, surrounded by
hostility, mockery, and unbelief, the face of Ivan Becker appeared to
Christian like a beautiful vision. Suddenly he knew that in some sense
he had been waiting for Becker and counting on him.

He was heavily burdened, and it seemed to him that Becker was the one
human being who could ease that burden. At times he was near despair.
But whenever he thought of the words and the voice of Becker and those
hours of the beginning of his present path--hours between darkness and
dawn--his faith would return.

To him Becker’s word was the word of man, and Becker’s eye the eye of
the race; and the man himself one upon whom one could cast all one’s
own burdens and fetters and obstacles.

That vision grew clearer and clearer. Becker became a figure with an
abyss in his breast, an inverted heaven, in which the tormenting and
the heavy things of the world could be cast, and in which they became
invisible.

He sent a telegram to Prince Wiguniewski requesting Becker’s present
address. The reply informed him that, in all likelihood, Becker was in
Geneva.

Christian made all preparations to go to Switzerland.


XII

Karen gave birth to a boy.

At six o’clock in the morning she called Isolde Schirmacher and bade
her go for the midwife. When she was alone she screamed so piercingly
that a young girl from a neighbouring flat hastened in to ask what
ailed her. This girl was the daughter of a Jewish salesman who went
about the city taking orders for a thread mill. Her name was Ruth
Hofmann. She was about sixteen. She had dark grey eyes and ash-blond
hair that fell loose to her shoulders, where it was evenly clipped and
made little attempts to curl.

Isolde in her haste had left the hall-door open, and Ruth Hofmann had
been able to enter. Her pale face grew a shade paler when she caught
sight of the screaming and writhing woman. She had never yet seen a
woman in labour. Yet she grasped Karen’s hands and held them firmly in
her own, and spoke to the suffering woman in a sweet and soothing voice
until the midwife came.

When Christian arrived, a cradle stood by Karen’s bed, and on its
pillows lay an unspeakably ugly little creature. Karen nursed the child
herself; but no maternal happiness was to be seen in her. A sombre
contempt lay in the very way in which she handled the infant. If it
cried, she gave it to Isolde Schirmacher. The odour of diapers filled
the room.

On the second day Karen was up and about again. When Christian came
that evening, he found the widow Engelschall and Ruth Hofmann. The
widow Engelschall said that she would take the child into her care.
Karen cast an uncertain glance at Christian. The woman said in a loud
tone: “Five thousand marks for the care of it, and everything’s
settled. What you need is rest, and then you’ll have it.”

“Far’s I’m concerned you can do what you please,” said Karen peevishly.

“What do you think, Herr Wahnschaffe?” The widow Engelschall turned to
Christian.

He replied: “It seems to me that a child should stay with its mother.”

Karen gave a dry laugh, in which her mother joined. Ruth Hofmann arose.
Christian asked her courteously whether she had any request to make.
She shook her head so that her hair moved a little. Suddenly she gave
him her hand, and it seemed to Christian as though he had long known
her.

He had already told Karen that he was leaving the city for a time; but
he postponed his departure a whole week.


XIII

The house was slowly turning in for the night. Heavy trucks rattled
on the street. Boys whistled piercingly. The outer door was closed
thunderously. The walls shook with the tread of a hundred feet. In the
yard some one was driving nails into a box. Somewhere a discordant
voice was singing. Tumult arose from the public houses at the corners.
A bestial laugh sounded from above.

Christian opened the window. It was warm. Groups of workingmen
came from Malmöer Street and scattered. At one corner there was a
green-grocer’s shop. In front of it stood an old woman with a lidless
basket, in which there were dirty vegetables and a dead chicken with a
bloody neck. Christian could see these things, because the light of the
street lamp fell on them.

“She’ll take the child for four thousand,” said Karen.

Surreptitiously Christian glanced at the cradle. The infant both
repelled and attracted him. “You had better keep it,” he said.

Hollow tones could be heard from the adjoining flat. Hofmann had come
home. He was talking, and a clear boyish treble answered him.

The clock ticked. Gradually the confused noises of the house blended
into a hum.

Karen sat down at the table and strung glass beads. Her hair had
recently become even yellower and more touselled; but her features
had a firmer modelling. Her face, no longer swollen and puffed from
drinking, was slimmer and showed purer tints.

She looked at Christian, and, for a moment, she had an almost mad
feeling; she yearned to know some yearning. It was like the glowing of
a last spark in an extinguished charcoal stove.

The spark crimsoned and died.

“You were going to tell me about Hilde Karstens and your foster-father,
Karen,” Christian said persuasively. “You made a promise.”

“For God’s sake, leave me alone! It’s so long ago I can’t remember
about it!” She almost whined the words. She held her head between her
hands and rested her elbows on her knees. Her sitting posture always
had a boastful lasciviousness. Thus women sit in low public houses.

Minutes passed. Christian sat down at the table facing her. “I want
to give the brat away,” she said defiantly. “I can’t stand looking at
it. Come across with the four thousand--do! I can’t, I just can’t bear
looking at it!”

“But strangers will let the child sicken and perhaps die,” said
Christian.

A grin, half coarse and half sombre, flitted across her face. Then
she grew pale. Again she saw that mirrored image of herself: it came
from afar, from the very end of the shaft. She shivered, and Christian
thought she was cold. He went for a shawl and covered her shoulders.
His gestures, as he did so, had something exquisitely chivalrous about
them. Karen asked for a cigarette. She smoked as one accustomed to it,
and the way she held the cigarette and let the smoke roll out of her
mouth or curl out from between pointed lips was also subtly lascivious.

Again some minutes passed. She was evidently struggling against the
confession. Her nervous fingers crushed one of the glass beads.

Then suddenly she spoke: “There’s many that isn’t born at all. Maybe
we’d love them. Maybe only the bad ones are born because we’re too low
to deserve the good ones. When I was a little girl I saw a boy carry
seven kittens in a sack to the pool to drown ’em. I was right there
when he spilled them into the water. They struggled like anything and
came up again and tried to get to land. But as soon as one of the
little heads came up, the boy whacked at it with a stick. Six of ’em
drowned, and only the ugliest of ’em managed to get into a bush and get
away. The others that was drowned--they was pretty and dainty.”

“You’re bleeding,” said Christian. The broken bead had cut her hand.
Christian wiped the blood with his handkerchief. She let him do it
quietly, while her gaze was fixed on old visions that approached and
receded. The tension was such that Christian dared scarcely breathe.
Upon his lips hovered that strange, equivocal smile that always
deceived men concerning his sympathies.

He said softly: “You have something definite in mind now, Karen.”

“Yes, I have,” she said, and she turned terribly pale. “You wanted to
know how it was with Hilde Karstens and with the cabinet-maker. He was
the man with whom my mother was living at that time. Hilde was fifteen
and I was thirteen. She and I was good friends, together all the time,
even on the dunes one night when the spring-tide came. The men were
wild after her. Lord, she was pretty and sweet. But she laughed at
’em. She said: ‘When I’m eighteen I’m going to marry a man--a real
man that can do things; till then, just don’t bother me.’ I didn’t
go to the dance at the ‘Jug of Hösing’; I had to stay home and help
mother pickle fish. That’s when it all happened. I could never find
out how Hilde Karstens got to the mounds on the heath alone. Maybe she
went willingly with the pilot’s mate. It was a pilot’s mate; that’s
all we ever knew about him. He was at the ‘Jug’ for the first time
that night, and, of course, he wasn’t never seen again. It was by
the mounds that he must have attacked her and done her the mischief,
’cause otherwise she wouldn’t have walked out into the sea. I knew
Hilde Karstens; she was desperate. That evening the waves washed her
body ashore. I was there. I threw myself down and grasped her wet,
dead hair. They separated me from her, but I threw myself down again.
It took three men to get me back home. Mother locked me up and told
me to sift lentils, but I jumped out of the window and ran to Hilde’s
house. They said she’d been buried. I ran to the church yard and looked
for her grave. The grave-digger showed it to me far off in a corner.
They looked for me all night and found me by the grave and dragged me
home. Half the village turned out to see. Because I’d run away from the
lentils my mother beat me with a spade handle so that my skin peeled
from my flesh. And while I lay there and couldn’t stir, she went to
the schoolmaster, and they wrote a letter to the squire asking if he
wouldn’t take me to work on the estate. The house was empty, and the
cabinet-maker came into the kitchen where I was lying. He was drunk as
a lord. He saw me stretched out there by the hearth, and stared and
stared. Then he picked me up and carried me into the bedroom.”

She stopped and looked about as though she were in a strange place and
as though Christian were a menacing stranger.

“He tore off my clothes, my skirts and my bodice and my shirt and
everything, and his hands shook. In his eyes there was a sparkling
like burning alcohol. And when I lay naked before him he stroked me
with his trembling hands over and over again. I felt as if I’d have to
scratch the brain out of his skull; but I couldn’t do nothing. I just
felt paralyzed, and my head as heavy as iron. If I get to be as old as
a tree, I’ll never forget that man’s face over me that time. A person
can’t forget things like that--never in this world. And as soon as ever
I could stir again, he reeled in a corner and fell down flat, and it
was all dark in the room.” She gave a deep sigh. “That was the way of
it. That’s how it started.”

Christian did not turn his eyes from her for the shadow of a moment.

“After that,” she went on, “people began to say, ‘Lass, your eyes are
too bold.’ Well, they was. I couldn’t tell everybody why. The vicar
drivelled about some secret shame and turning my soul to God. He made
me laugh. When I went into service on the estate, they grudged me the
food I ate. I had to wait on the children, fetch water, polish boots,
clean rooms, run errands for the Madame. There was an overseer that was
after me--a fellow with rheumy eyes and a hare-lip. Once at night when
I got to my little room, there he was and grabbed me. I took a stone
jug and broke it across his head. He roared like a steer, and everybody
came hurrying in--the servants and the master and the mistress. They
all screamed and howled, and the overseer tells them a whacking lie
about me, and the master says: ‘Out with you, you baggage!’ Well, why
not, I thought. And that very night I tied up my few rags, and off I
was. But next night I slunk back, ’cause I’d found no shelter anywhere.
I crept all around the house, not because I was tired or hungry, but
to pay them out for what they’d done to me. I wanted to set the house
on fire and burn it down and have my revenge. But I didn’t dare, and
I wandered about the countryside for three days, and always at night
came back to the house. I just couldn’t sleep and I’d keep seeing
the fire that I ought to have lit, and the house and stables flaring
up and the cattle burning and the hay flying and the beams smoking
and the singed dogs tugging at their chains. And I could almost hear
them whine--the dogs and the children who’d tormented me so, and the
mistress who’d stood under the Christmas tree in a silk dress and given
presents to everybody except to me. Oh, yes, I did get three apples
and a handful o’ nuts, and then she told me to hurry and wash the
stockings for Anne-Marie. But at last my strength gave out, wandering
about that way and looking for a chance. The rural policeman picked
me up and wanted to question me. But I fainted, and he couldn’t find
out nothing. If only I’d set fire to that house, everything would have
been different, and I wouldn’t have had to go with the captain when my
mother got me in her claws again. I let him talk me into going for a
blue velvet dress and a pair of cheap patent leather shoes. And I never
heard till later about the bargain that mother’d struck with him.”

With her whole weight she shoved the chair she sat on farther from the
table, and bent over and rested her forehead on the table’s edge. “O
gee,” she said, absorbed by the horror of her fate, “O gee, if I’d set
fire to that house, I wouldn’t have had to let everybody wipe their
boots on me. If only I’d done it! It would have been a good thing!”

Silently Christian looked down upon her. He covered his eyes with his
hand, and the pallor of his face and hand was one.


XIV

On the train between Basel and Geneva Christian learned from some
fellow travellers that an attempt to assassinate Ivan Michailovitch
Becker had been made in Lausanne. A student named Sonya Granoffska had
fired at him.

Christian knew nothing of the events that explained the deed. He
neither read newspapers nor took any interest in public events. He now
asked some questions, and was told what all the world was talking about.

The _Matin_ of Paris had printed a series of articles that had caused
intense excitement all over Europe, and had been widely reprinted
and commented on. They were signed by a certain Jegor Ulitch, and
consisted of revelations concerning the Russian revolution, its foreign
committee, and the activities of the terrorists. They dragged evidence
with so wide a net that they materially strengthened the case of the
Russian state against the workingmen’s delegate Trotzky, who was then
being tried at Petrograd, and thus contributed to his condemnation.

Jegor Ulitch remained in the background. The initiated asserted that
there was no such person, and that the name was the mask assumed by
a traitor to the revolution. The _Gaulois_ and the Geneva _Journal_
published vitriolic attacks on the unknown writer. Ulitch did not
hesitate to reply. To justify himself he published letters and
secret documents that vitally incriminated several leaders of the
revolutionary party.

With increasing definiteness the authorship of the _Matin_ articles
was being assigned to Becker. The newspapers openly voiced this
suspicion, and had daily reports of his supposed activities. During a
strike of the dock-hands of Marseilles, he was said to have appeared
at a strikers’ meeting in the garb of a Russian pope; a report had it
that he had addressed a humble letter to the Czarina, another that
he had become an outcast fleeing from land to land, a third, that he
had succeeded in mediating between the Russian police and his exiled
country-men, and that hence the Western Powers, who were slavishly
supine before Czarism, had somewhat relaxed their cruel vigilance.

Yet Becker’s very face remained a mystery and a source of confusion,
and the knowledge of his mere existence spread a wide restlessness.

And Christian sought him. He sought him in Geneva, Lausanne, Nice,
Marseilles. Finally he followed a hint that led him to Zürich. There he
happened to meet the Russian Councillor of State Koch, who introduced
him to several of his compatriots. These finally gave him Becker’s
address.


XV

“I’ve never lost sight of you,” said Becker. “Alexander Wiguniewski
wrote me about you, and told me that you had altered the conditions of
your life. But his hints were equivocal; so I commissioned friends in
Berlin to inquire, and their information was more exact.”

They sat in a wine room in an obscure quarter. They were the only
guests. From the smoky ceiling hung the great antlers of a stag,
to which the electric bulbs had been fastened with an effect of
picturesqueness.

Becker wore a dark litevka buttoned to his chin. He looked poor and
ill; his bearing had a touch of the subtly fugitive. Sometimes a sad
quietude overspread his features, like the quietude of waves where a
ship has gone down. In moments of silence his face seemed to become
larger, and his gaze to be fixed upon an outer emptiness and an inner
flame.

“Are you still in communication with Wiguniewski and the--others?”
Christian asked; and his eyes seemed to express a delicate deprecation
of the level impersonality of his own demeanour.

Becker shook his head. “My old friends have all turned against me,” he
replied. “Inwardly I am still deeply at one with them; but I no longer
share their views.”

“Must one absolutely share the views of one’s friends?” Christian asked.

“Yes, in so far as those views express one’s central aim in life.
The answer depends also on the degree of affection that exists among
people. I’ve tried to win them over, but my strength failed me. They
simply don’t understand. Now I no longer feel the urge to shake men and
awaken them, unless some one flings his folly at me in the form of a
polemic, or unless I feel so close to one that any dissonance between
us robs me of peace or weighs upon my heart.”

Christian paid less attention to the meaning of the words than to
Becker’s enchanting intonation, the gentleness of his voice, the
wandering yet penetrating glance, the morbid, martyred face. And he
thought: “All that they say of him is false.” A great trust filled him.


XVI

One night, as they were walking together, Becker spoke of Eva Sorel.
“She has attained an extraordinary position,” he said. “I’ve heard
people say that she is the real ruler of Russia and is having a
decisive influence on European diplomacy. She lives in incomparable
luxury. The Grand Duke presented to her the famous palace of Duke
Biron of unblessed memory. She receives ministers of state and foreign
ambassadors like a crowned sovereign. Paris and London reckon with her,
bargain with her, consult her. She will be heard of more and more. Her
ambition is inconceivable.”

“It was to be foreseen that she would rise high,” Christian remarked
softly. He wanted more and more to talk to Becker about his own affairs
and explain the errand on which he had come. But he did not find the
right word.

Becker continued: “Her soul was bound to lose the harmony that rules
her body so severely. It is a natural process of compensation. She
desires power, insight, knowledge of the obscure and intricate. She
plays with the fate of men and nations. Once she said to me, ‘The whole
world is but a single heart.’ Well, one can destroy that single heart,
which is all humanity, in one’s own bosom. Ambition is but another form
of despair; it will carry her to the outermost boundary of life. There
she will meet me and many others who have come to the same spot from
another direction, and we shall clasp hands once more.”

They had reached the shores of the lake. Becker buttoned his coat and
turned up the collar. His voice sank almost to a whisper. “I saw her in
Paris once crossing the floor in an old house. In either hand she bore
a candelabrum, and in each candelabrum burned two candles. A brownish
smoke came from the flames, a white veil flowed from her shoulders; an
undreamed-of lightness took possession of me. Once when she was still
appearing at the Sapajou, I saw her lying on the floor behind the
stage, watching with the intensest scrutiny a spider that was spinning
its web in a crack between two boards. She raised her arm and bade me
stand still, and lay there and observed the spider. I saw her learning
of the spider, and I knew then the power of utter absorption that she
had. I scarcely knew it, but she drew me into the burning circle of her
being. Her unquenchable thirst for form and creation and unveiling and
new vision taught me whom she called her master. Yes, the whole world
is but a single heart, and we all serve but a single God. He and I
together are my doom.”

Christian thought restlessly: “How can I speak to him?” But the right
word did not come.

“The other day,” Becker said, “I stood in a chapel, lost in the
contemplation of a miracle-working image of the Mother of God, and
thinking about the simple faith of the people. A few sick men and women
and old men were kneeling there and crossing themselves and bowing to
the earth. I lost myself in the features of the image, and gradually
the secret of its power became clear to me. It was not just a painted
piece of wood. For centuries the image had absorbed the streams of
passionate prayer and adoration that had come to it from the hearts of
the weary and the heavy-laden, and it became filled with a power that
seemed to proceed from it to the faithful and that was mirrored in
itself again. It became a living organism, a meeting place between man
and God. Filled with this thought, I looked again upon the old men and
the women and the children there, and I saw the features of the image
stirred by compassion, and I also kneeled down in the dust and prayed.”

Christian made no comment. It was not given him to share such feelings.
But Becker’s speech and ecstatic expression and the great glow of his
eyes cast a spell upon him; and in the exaltation which he now felt,
his purpose seemed more possible to realize.

Walking restlessly up and down in the inhospitable room of his hotel,
he was surprised to find himself in an imaginary conversation with
Becker, which drew from him an eloquence that was denied him in the
presence of men.

“Hear me. Perhaps you can understand. I possess fourteen millions, but
that is not all. More money pours in on me, daily and hourly, and I
can do nothing to dam the torrent. Not only is the money a vain thing
to me, but an actual hindrance. Wherever I turn, it is in my way.
Everything I undertake appears in a false light on account of it. It is
not like something that belongs to me, but like something that I owe;
and every human being with whom I speak explains in some way how and
why I owe it to him or to another or to all. Do you understand that?”

Christian had the feeling that he was addressing the Ivan Becker of his
imagination in a friendly, natural, and convincing tone; and it seemed
to him that Ivan Becker understood and approved. He opened the window,
and caught sight of some stars.

“If I distribute it I cause mischief,” he continued, and walked up
and down again without articulating a sound. “That has been proved.
The fault is probably in me; I haven’t the art of doing good or
useful things with money. And it’s unpleasant to have people remind
me wherever I go: ‘You’ve got your millions behind you; whenever you
have enough of this, you can quit and go home.’ This is the reason why
everything glides from my grasp and no ground is secure under my feet;
this is the reason why I cannot live as I would live, nor find any
pleasantness within myself. Therefore relieve me of my millions, Ivan
Michailovitch. Do with them whatever you wish. If necessary we can go
to a notary and make out a deed of gift. Distribute the money, if you
desire, feed the hungry, and relieve the suffering. I can’t do it; it
repels me. I want to be rid of my burden. Have books printed or build
refuges or bury it or waste it; only take the burden from me. I can
only use it to fill maws that afterwards show me their teeth.”

And as he spoke those words within himself, a serenity overspread his
features. His smooth forehead, his deep blue eyes, his large and rather
pallid cheeks, his healthy red lips, and the clean-shaven skin about
them were all bathed in that new serenity.

It seemed to him that on the next day, when he would see Becker, he
might be able to speak to him quite as he had spoken to-night, or at
least nearly so.


XVII

One passed through a little hall-way into a poorly furnished room.
There were several young men in this hall. One of these exchanged a few
words with Becker, and then went away.

“It’s my bodyguard,” Becker explained, with a faint smile. “But like
all the others they distrust me. They’ve been ordered not to lose sight
of me. Didn’t you notice that we were constantly shadowed out of doors?”

Christian shook his head.

“When that unhappy woman pointed her revolver at me in Lausanne,”
Becker went on, shivering, “her lips flung the word ‘traitor’ at me.
I looked into the black muzzle and awaited death. She missed me, but
since that moment I have been afraid of death. That evening many of
my friends came to me, and besought me to clear and justify myself.
I replied to them and said: ‘If I am to be a traitor in your eyes, I
shall not avoid any of the horror, any of the frightfulness of that
position.’ They did not understand me. But a summons has come to me to
destroy, to extinguish and destroy myself. I am to build the pyre on
which I am to be consumed. I am to spread my suffering until it infects
all who come near me. I am to forget what I have done and abandon hope,
and be lowly and loathed and an outcast, and deny principles and break
fetters and bow down before the spirit of evil, and bear pain and cause
pain, and tear up and plough the earth, even though beautiful harvests
be destroyed. Traitor--how little that means! I wander about and hunger
after myself. I flee from myself, and yet cry out after myself, and am
the sacrificer and the sacrifice. And that has caused an unparalleled
increase of pain in the world. The souls of men descend to the source
of things in order to become brothers to the damned.”

He pressed his hands together and looked like a madman. “My body
seeks the earth, the depths, pollution, and the night,” he said. “My
innermost being gapes like a wound; I feel the thongs and weight of
doom and the terror of time; I pray for prayers; I am a shadowy figure
in the ghostly procession of created things in travail; the grief that
fills the air of the world grinds me to dust; _mea culpa, mea maxima
culpa!_”

The feeling of pained embarrassment grew in Christian. He simply looked
at Becker.

Suddenly, a repeated knocking sounded at the outer door. Becker started
and listened. The knocking increased in loudness and speed.

“It has come after all,” Becker murmured in consternation. “I must
leave. Forgive me, I must leave. A car is waiting for me. Stay a few
minutes longer, I beg of you.” He took a valise that lay on the bed,
looked about vaguely, pressed his mutilated hand to his coat, and
murmured hastily, “Lend me five hundred francs. I spent my last money
at noon. Don’t be angry with me; I’m in a fearful hurry.”

Mechanically Christian took out his wallet and gave Becker five
bank-notes. The latter stammered a word of thanks and farewell, and was
gone.

Christian left the house fifteen minutes later in a bewildered
condition. For hours he wandered in the valleys and on the hills around
the city. He took the night train back to Berlin.

During the many hours of the journey he felt very wretched in body and
soul.


XVIII

In his flat he found many begging letters, one from his former valet,
one from a Society for Succouring the Shelterless, one from a musician
whom he had met casually in Frankfort. There was also a letter from the
bank, requesting his signature on an enclosed document.

Next day Amadeus Voss asked for six thousand marks; the widow
Engelschall, loudly lamenting that her furniture would be sold unless
she met a promissory note, asked for three thousand.

He gave and gave, and the act of giving disgusted him. In the lecture
halls of the university they came to him--the merest strangers,
the most indifferent persons. Wherever he appeared, even in an
eating-house, people came to him and told him of their troubles, and
were diffident or brazen, and begged or demanded.

He gave and gave, and saw no end to it and no salvation in it, and felt
a leaden heaviness steal over him. And he gave and gave.

He saw greed and expectation in every eye. He dressed himself more
plainly, he cut down his expenditures to the barest necessities; the
gold towered up behind him like rolling lava, and burned everything he
touched. He gave and gave, and people asked and asked.

And so he wrote to his father: “Take my money from me!” He was aware
of the strangeness and the unheard-of nature of what he asked, so he
accompanied his request with elaborate reasons and persuasive phrases.
“Assume that I have emigrated and have been lost sight of, or that I
live far away under a false name, or that through your fault or mine
there had been a definite breach between us, that you had therefore
reduced my allowance to a minimum, but that my pride forbade my
accepting even that, since I desire to stand on my own feet and live
by the work of my hands. Or else imagine that I had wasted my means,
and hopelessly mortgaged the capital and interest still due me. Or,
finally, imagine that you yourself had become impoverished, and were
forced to withdraw all assistance from me. At all events, I want to
live without independent means. I have lost all pleasure in living with
them. It is hard, I know, to explain that to any one who has money and
has never been without it. Do me this favour! First of all, dispose
of the sums that are banked in my name; next stop the income that has
hitherto been paid out to me. The money is all yours, indisputably so.
During our conversation last year you gave me very clearly and justly
to understand that I have always lived on the fruit of your labour.”

Lastly he made the proposal to which he had referred in his imaginary
conversation with Ivan Becker. “If it wounds your sensibilities to
make a personal or practical use of the money which I am returning to
you who gave it--use it to build orphanages, homes for foundlings,
hospitals, institutions for the disabled, or libraries. There is so
much misery in the world, and so much suffering that needs to be
alleviated. I cannot do these things. They do not attract me; indeed,
the very thought of them is disagreeable. I do not deny that this
specific inability argues a weakness in my character; so if you
determine to expend the money upon charities, don’t do it in my name.”

He ended thus: “I do not know whether it even interests you to have me
say that I think of you affectionately. Perhaps in your heart you have
already cast me off and separated yourself from me wholly. If any bond
is to continue to exist between us, it can only be, however, if you do
not refuse me your help in this matter, which is, from one point of
view, so difficult, and from another, so perfectly simple.”

The letter remained unanswered. But several days after it had been
sent, a friend of the Wahnschaffe family, Pastor Werner, called on
Christian. He came both on a mission from the Privy Councillor and of
his own impulse. Christian had known him since childhood.


XIX

Very attentively the clergyman examined the room, the shabby, ugly
furniture, the window shades bordered by sentimental pictures, the
dirty, white-washed walls, the dim, little lamp, the split boards of
the flooring, the imitation leather of the sofa, the chest of drawers
which was broken and which bore a cheap plaster of Paris bust. A dumb
yet fiery amazement appeared on his face.

“I am asked to inform you,” Pastor Werner said, “that your father is of
course ready to comply with your request. What else, after all, can he
do? But I need not conceal from you the fact that his anxiety about you
is very grave, and that he finds your actions wholly incomprehensible.”

Christian answered a little impatiently. “I told him months ago that
there wasn’t the slightest ground for anxiety.”

“You must admit,” Werner objected gently, “that your latest plan does
involve the question of your very existence. Have you taken up any
occupation that secures you from need?”

Christian replied that, as his father was aware, he was definitely
preparing himself for a profession. The measure of his talent and
success was, of course, still in question.

“And until that profession begins to pay, what will you live on?” the
pastor asked. “Let me repeat to you the words which your father cried
out at our last interview: ‘Does he intend to beg? Or to accept gifts
from the charitable? Or starve? Or trust to chance and false friends?
Or take refuge in shady and dishonourable things, and yet be forced at
last, a remorseful fool, to ask for that which he now casts aside?’ I
have never in all these many years seen your father in such a state of
mind, or heard him express such grief and such passion.”

“My father may calm himself,” Christian replied. “Nothing of what he
fears is likely to happen; nor what, perhaps, he hopes, namely, that I
shall ask my patrimony back again. It is as inconceivable as that the
bird should return to the egg or the burning log to the tree whence it
came.”

“Then you did not intend to renounce all pecuniary assistance at once?”
the pastor asked, feeling his way carefully.

“No.” Christian hesitated. “I suppose not. I’m not equal to that;
not yet. One has to learn that. It is a difficult thing and must be
learned; and life in a great city would involve fatal and disturbing
elements. Then, too, I have assumed certain obligations; there are
several people who have definitely been counting on my help. I don’t
know whether they could follow my own course. I haven’t in fact, any
programme at all. What good would it do me? My great aim just now is to
get into a situation that is clear and reasonable, and get rid of all
sorts of stupid torments. I want to drop the burden of the superfluous;
and everything is superfluous except what I and those few people
absolutely need on the most stringent estimate. But every supposed
need, I think, can be reduced, until such gradual renunciation produces
a profit.”

“If I understand you correctly,” the pastor said, “it is your
intention to retain such a portion of your fortune as will secure you
against actual need.”

Christian sat down at the table and rested his head on his hand. “Yes,”
he said softly. “Yes. But there the great difficulty arises. I cannot
fix the boundary between necessity and superfluity in terms of money.
Unhappily I was brought up amid conditions that make it hard for me
to have a practical opinion on this net basis. I lack a norm of what
is necessary and what is dispensable, and I lack it especially where
others are concerned. You’ve understood me quite rightly. I want to
retain a part, but only a very small part; and I hate to bargain with
myself over the exact amount. The whole question of money is so absurd
and trivial; it is only dragged in the wake of the really important
things. One thing I couldn’t endure; and that would be to invest a
capital, however modest, and use the interest. Then I’d be a capitalist
again, and back in the world of the protected. But what other way is
there? You’re an experienced man. Advise me.”

The clergyman considered. From time to time he looked searchingly at
Christian; then he lowered his eyes and reflected again. “I am rather
confounded by your words,” he confessed at last. “Much that you say
surprises me--no, everything--yet it also seems to give me a certain
insight. Very well then; you ask my advice.” Again he thought, and
again observed Christian. “You renounce your personal fortune as well
as the income which the firm and family have paid you. So far, so good.
This renunciation will be officially acknowledged. I am also willing
to believe that you will never ask back what you now renounce. The
manner in which you bind yourself impresses me more than many solemn
oaths would do. You are through with your past. That, too, will be
respected on the other side. I understand the spiritual pain caused you
by the question as to what leeway you should permit yourself in the
matter of your personal and bodily needs during the period on which
you are entering, and which will be bitter and full of necessities for
self-conquest. I understand that. The problem is one of inner delicacy,
of spiritual modesty. To consider it runs counter to your feelings and
attitude. Yes, I understand that.”

Christian nodded, and the pastor continued in a raised voice. “Then
listen to me. What I shall propose is subtle and difficult. It is
almost like a game or a trick. You may remember that I am chaplain
of the prison at Hanau. I try to help the souls of the lost and the
outcast. I study these people. I know their inmost motives, the
darkness of their hearts, their frozen yearnings. I dare to assert that
there is not one of them who cannot, in the higher sense, be saved,
nor one whose heart will not be reached by simple words earnestly
realized in action. That awakens the divine spark, and the vision of
such an awakening is beautiful. I serve my cause with all my strength,
and the improvement and transformation of some of my flock has been so
complete, that they have returned into society as new men, and bravely
resisted all temptations. I admit that success often depends on my
ability to save them from immediate need. Here is my problem. Kindly
people help; the state, too, though in its frugal manner, contributes.
But it is not enough. How would it be if from the fortune which you are
returning to your father a capital were to be deducted the interest
of which is to be used for my discharged convicts? Don’t draw back,
but hear me out. This capital would be in good securities and would
amount, let us say, to three hundred thousand marks. The interest
would be in the neighbourhood of fifteen thousand marks. That would
suffice. A great deal of good could be done with it. To touch or sell
the securities would be a privilege reserved to you alone. From the
capital itself you take in monthly or quarterly installments such sum
or sums as you need to live on. To draw and expend the interest should
be a privilege reserved to me and my successors. All these conditions
must be secured by legal means. The purpose, as you see, is a double
one. First, the plan will effect a great and needed good; secondly,
it furnishes an inherent norm and aim for you. Every superfluous or
thoughtless expenditure of yours jeopardizes a human soul; every
frugality you practise is at once translated into concrete human weal.
That gives you a point of orientation, a line of moral action. It is,
if I may call it so, an automatic moral mechanism. I judge that the
independence you desire will be achieved in two or three years. Within
that time you can hardly use up even one-tenth of the capital according
to your present standard of life. Of course, even this plan involves
a problem for you, but it is a problem that would, I think, attract
you. You don’t have to think of my humanitarian aims. I know that in
your letter to your father you expressed your dislike of such aims, a
dislike which I have no means of understanding. But I could tell you
things and relate circumstances that would show you how the subtlest
fibres of humanity are poisoned, and what a sacred duty it is to plough
up the spiritual soil in my particular little field. If you could once
see face to face some of these men restored to freedom and hope, your
heart would be won for my cause. It is such visible evidence that
instructs and converts.”

“You have too high an opinion of me,” Christian said, with his old,
equivocal smile. “It’s always the same. Everybody overestimates me in
this respect and judges me wrongly. But don’t bother about that, and
don’t ask about it. It doesn’t matter.”

“And what answer do you make to my proposal?”

Christian lowered his head, and said: “It’s a nice little trap that
you are setting for me. Let me consider it a moment. I am to feed, one
might say, on my own charity. What a horrible word that is--charity.
And by feeding on it myself I, of course, diminish it. And that, you
think, will constitute a sort of moral gymnastic for me, and make it
easier to realize my purpose----?”

“Yes, that was what, since you have chosen this path, I had in mind.”

“Well, if I disappoint you, you will have nothing to regret but
your own modesty,” Christian continued, with a peculiarly mocking
expression. “You could ask twice or even three times the sum you named,
and I would probably or, rather, assuredly not refuse. For into whose
pockets the millions go that I refuse, is a matter I care little about.
Why don’t you do that and thus decrease your own risk?”

“Is your question inspired by distrust of the cause I represent?”

“I don’t know. Answer it, if you don’t mind.”

“I’ve explained the situation to you. The circumstances themselves are
the guide to what I can and ought to ask for. On the one hand there is
an urgent need. On the other hand there are definite considerations
that not only set a natural limit, but forbid my using this opportunity
in such a way as to give a handle to the malicious and quarrelsome.”

Christian continued his purely argumentative resistance. “Do you think
it means anything to me or attracts me to know that you will give some
discharged criminal, whose moral nature you think you have saved, one
or two hundred marks to start life anew? That doesn’t mean a thing to
me. I don’t know those men. I don’t know how they look or act or talk
or smell, or what they’ll do with the money, or whether it will really
be of service to them. And since I don’t know that, the arrangement has
no meaning to me.”

Pastor Werner was taken aback. “To be sure,” he replied. “But I do know
them, you see.”

Christian smiled again. “We’re very differently constituted; we neither
think nor act alike.” Suddenly he looked up. “But I’m not making these
objections to create difficulties. Quite the contrary. You personally
ask me for assistance and I personally render it. In return you do me
the service of acting as my paymaster and showing me how to solve my
problem. I hope you will have no reason to complain.”

“Then you do consent and I may proceed to make definite arrangements?”
the clergyman asked, half delighted and half doubtful still.

Christian nodded. “Go ahead,” he said. “Make what arrangements seem
best to you. It’s all too trivial to bother about.”

“What do you mean by that exactly?” Werner asked, just as Eva had once,
between laughter and amazement, asked his meaning. “A while ago you
also said that what was really important was dragged down by these
matters of money. What is the truly important thing to you?”

“I can’t explain that to you. But I feel the triviality of all this.
All I am doing is the merest beginning, and everyone overestimates it
absurdly and makes a mountain of this molehill. I haven’t reached the
real difficulty yet. And that will consist in earning back all one has
given away--earning it back in another manner, and so, above all, that
one does not feel one’s loss.”

“Strange,” murmured the pastor. “It is strange. To hear you talk, one
would think you were discussing a sporting event or a matter of barter.”

Christian laughed.

The pastor came up to him and laid a hand on his shoulder. His eyes
were serious as he asked: “Where is the woman whom you ... have taken
in?”

Christian’s reply was a gesture in the direction of Karen’s flat.

A thought that was strange and new seemed to flash into the clergyman’s
mind. “Then you don’t live with her?” His voice sank to a whisper. “You
are not living together?”

“No,” Christian answered with a frown. “Certainly not.”

The pastor’s arm dropped. There came a long silence. Then he spoke
again: “Your father is stricken to the heart by a feeling as though
several people whom he loves had succumbed to the same disease. He
tries to hide his emotion, but he doesn’t succeed. Before he had any
reason to be anxious about you, he once spoke to me of your sister
Judith. He used the expression, ‘self-degradation.’ He described her as
afflicted by a perverse impulse toward self-degradation.”

Christian swept the matter aside with a vivid gesture. “Oh, yes,
Judith! She flings a trivial challenge at the world. That’s no
self-degradation. She’s curious as to how far she dare go, how far
others will go for her, and what the upshot will be. She confessed as
much to me. She’ll plunge into water and be affronted because it’s
wet; she’ll go through fire in the hope that it won’t burn her. After
her experiment she’ll hate both fire and water. No, I have nothing in
common with that.”

“You speak very harshly for a brother,” the pastor said with gentle
reproachfulness. “However that may be, this new trouble has wounded
your father to the very core. He feels that all his life’s effort
is being negated from within, and that the fruit of all his toil is
rotting in his hands. He stood on the very peaks of success. What does
it mean to him now? His own flesh and blood rises up against him. His
hand seemed blessed; he feels it withering now. His wealth carried him
to a very great height. Now he is lonely there, and the son who, above
all others, should rejoice in that station, turns from him, and fills
him with a feeling for which he knows no name but shame and disgrace.”

Christian did not answer. He seemed quite indifferent. Werner
continued: “I ask you to consider the social structure of mankind.
Cruelty and force may seem to cling to it, yet there is something
infinitely delicate and venerable within. You might liken it to a tree,
deep-rooted in the earth, expanding in the air with many branches and
twigs, buds and blossoms. It has come to be through some action of God,
and no one should contemn it.”

“Why do you tell me that?” Christian asked, with a subtle withdrawal of
himself.

“Because your father suffers. Go to him, and explain yourself and your
ways. You are his son; it is your duty.”

Christian shook his head. “No,” he answered. “I cannot.”

“And your mother? Do I have to remind you of her too? I did not think
I should have to admonish you in her name. She waits. All her days are
one long waiting.”

Once more Christian shook his head. “No,” he said, “I cannot.”

The pastor buried his chin in his hollow hand and looked dully at the
floor. He left with divided feelings.


XX

Crammon desired a friend. The one who was lost could never be replaced.
The hope of winning him back still smouldered within, but the empty
space in his bosom was desolate and chill. To install a lodger there
seemed wise and would be stimulating.

Franz Lothar von Westernach had the first claim upon the place. They
had agreed by letter to meet at Franz Lothar’s country house in Styria,
so at the beginning of spring Crammon left Vienna. At Nürnberg he left
in the lurch a certain handsome Miss Herkinson in whose car he had
travelled from Spa.

To an acquaintance whom, by a mere chance, he met in the dining-car, he
said, “I can no longer bear the noise that young people always make.
The subdued and clarified attracts me now. The fifth decade of our
lives demands milder ways.”

Crammon found Franz Lothar in the thick of a mental struggle. His
sister Clementine wanted him to get married. Laughing and yet helpless,
he confided the state of affairs to Crammon. His sister had picked
out a girl of excellent family, and was sure that the alliance would
have a wholesome influence on her brother’s career, as well as on his
uncertain and idle way of life. All preliminaries had been arranged,
and the parents of the young lady had intimated their full approval.

Crammon said: “Don’t let them take you in, my son. The affair can have
none but a disgraceful outcome. I do not know the girl in question
personally. But she is a vampire. Her ancestors were among the most
infamous robber knights of the Middle Ages. Later they came into
conflict with the empire on account of cruelty to their serfs. You can
imagine what your future would be.”

Franz Lothar was highly amused. Crammon’s rage at the thought of being
robbed of this friend too, in the same old stupid way, was positively
rabid and passed all the bounds of decency. He treated Clementine with
embittered silence. If any dispute arose, he barked at her like an
angry dog.

Franz Lothar’s own indecision and fear of change saved Crammon from
further conflicts. He simply informed his disappointed sister one day
that he was thoroughly unprepared for so important a step, and begged
her to break off the negotiations.

This turn of affairs satisfied Crammon, but brought him no definite
peace of mind. He wanted to prevent the possibility of a similar
assault on his contentment. The best thing seemed to be to marry off
Clementine herself. It would not be easy. She was no longer in her
first youth; she had had her experiences and knew her world; she
possessed a clear vision and a sharp understanding. Great care would
have to be taken. He looked about in his mind for a candidate, and his
choice fell on a man of considerable wealth, distinguished ancestry,
and spotless reputation, the Cavaliere Morini. He had made his
acquaintance years ago through friends in Trieste.

He took to cultivating Clementine’s society. Fragrant little anecdotes
of married bliss and unstilled longing and cosy households flowed from
his lips. He found her very receptive. He dropped, as though casually,
intimations of his friendship with an uncommonly distinguished and able
Italian gentleman. He built up the character with an artist’s care, and
turned the excellent cavaliere into a striking figure. Next he wrote to
Morini, feigned deep concern for his well-being, recalled the memory
of hours they had passed together, pretended a great longing and a
desire to see him again, and inquired after his plans. So soon as the
correspondence flourished it was not difficult to mention Clementine
and praise her admirable qualities.

Morini nibbled at the bait. He wrote that he would be in Vienna in
May, and would be charmed to meet Crammon there. He added that he
dared scarcely hope to meet the Baroness von Westernach at the same
time. Crammon thought, “The old idiot!” but he persuaded Franz Lothar
and Clementine to promise to join him in Vienna. The plan succeeded;
Morini and Clementine liked each other at once. Crammon said to
her: “You have charmed him wholly.” And to him: “You have made an
ineffaceable impression on her.” Two weeks later the betrothal took
place. Clementine seemed to revive and was full of gratitude toward
Crammon. What he had planned, hardly with the purest intentions, became
an unalloyed blessing to her.

Crammon bestowed upon himself the recognition he held to be his due.
His action was as useful as any other. He said: “Be fruitful and
multiply! I shall be the godfather of your first-born. It goes without
saying that I shall celebrate that event with a solemn feast.”

Furthermore he said: “In the records of history I shall be known as
Bernard the Founder. Perhaps I am myself the remote ancestor of a race
destined to fame--a race of kings. Who can tell? In that case my far
descendants, whom God protect, will have every reason to regard me with
veneration.”

But all this was but the deceptive flash of a fleeting mood. The worm
of doubt burrowed in his mind. The future seemed black to him. He
prophesied war and revolution. He took no joy in himself or in his
deeds. When he lay in bed and the lights were out, he felt surrounded
by troops of evils; and these evils fought with one another for the
chance to lacerate him first. Then he would close his eyes, and sigh
deeply.

Fräulein Aglaia became aware of his depression, and admonished him to
pray more industriously. He thanked her for her counsel, and promised
to follow it.


XXI

The sweetishly luring waltz arose. Amadeus Voss ordered champagne.
“Drink, Lucile,” he said, “drink, Ingeborg! Life is short, and the
flesh demands its delight; and what comes after is the horror of hell.”

He leaned back in his chair and compressed his lips. The two ladies,
dressed with the typical extravagance of the Berlin cocotte, giggled.
“The dear little doctor is as crazy as they’re made,” one of the two
said. “What’s that rot he’s talking again? Is it meant to be indecent
or gruesome? You never can tell.”

The other lady remarked deprecatingly: “He’s had a wonderful dinner,
he’s smoking a Henry Clay, he’s in charming company, and he talks about
the horror of hell. You don’t need us nor the Esplanade for that! I
don’t like such expressions. Why don’t you pull yourself together, and
try to be normal and good-natured and to have a little spirit, eh?”

They both laughed. Voss blinked his eyes in a bored way. The sweetishly
luring waltz ended with an unexpected crash. The naked arms and
shoulders, the withering faces of young men, the wrinkled corruption
of faces more aged--all blended in the tobacco fumes into a glimmer as
of mother of pearl. Visitors to the city came in from the street. They
stared into the dazzling room half greedily and half perplexed. Last
of all a young girl entered and remained standing at the door. Amadeus
Voss jumped up. He had recognized Johanna Schöntag.

He went up to her and bowed. Taken by surprise she smiled with an
eagerness that she at once regretted. He asked her questions. She gave
a start, as though something were snapping within her, and turned cold
eyes upon him. She shuddered at him in memory of her old shudders.
Her face was more unbeautiful than ever, but the charm of her whole
personality more compelling.

She told him that she had arrived two days ago. At present she was in a
hotel, but on the morrow she would move to the house of a cousin near
the Tiergarten.

“So you have rich relations?” Voss said tactlessly. He smiled
patronizingly, and asked her how long she intended to stay in this
nerve-racking city.

Probably throughout the autumn and winter, she told him. She added that
she didn’t feel Berlin to be nerve-racking, only tiresome and trivial.

He asked her whether he would have the pleasure of seeing her soon, and
remarked that if Wahnschaffe knew she was here, he would assuredly look
her up.

He talked with an insistent courtesy and worldly coolness that had
apparently been recently acquired. Johanna’s soul shrank from him. When
he named Christian’s name she grew pale, and looked toward the stairs
as though seeking help. In her trouble the little nursery rhyme came
to her which was often her refuge in times of trouble: “If only some
one kind and strong, would come this way and take me along.” Then she
smiled. “Yes, I want to see Christian,” she said suddenly; “that is why
I have come.”

“And I?” Voss asked. “What are you going to do with me? Am I to be
discarded? Can’t I be of assistance to you in any way? Couldn’t we take
a little walk together? There’s a good deal to be discussed.”

“Nothing that I know of,” Johanna replied. She wrinkled her forehead
like one who was helpless and at bay. To get rid of the burden of
his insistence courteously, she promised to write him; but she had
scarcely uttered the words when they made her very unhappy. A promise
had something very binding to her. It made her feel a victim; and the
uncanny tension which this man caused her to feel paralyzed her will,
and yet had a morbid attraction for her.

Voss drove home in a motor car. His mind was filled by one gnawing,
flaring thought: Had she been Christian’s mistress or not? From
the moment he had seen Johanna again, this question had assumed an
overwhelming importance in his mind. It involved possession and
renunciation, ultimate veracity and deceit; it involved inferences that
inflamed his senses, and possibilities that threatened to be decisive
in his life. He fixed his thoughts upon the image of Johanna’s face,
and studied it like a cabalistic document. He argued and analysed and
shredded motives and actions like a pettifogger. For his darkened
life had again been entered by one who caused strange entanglements
and enchainments and focused all decisions in one point. He felt the
presage of storms such as he had not ever known.

Next morning, when he came from his bath and was about to sit down to
breakfast, his housekeeper said to him: “Fräulein Engelschall is here
to see you. She’s in the sitting-room.”

He swallowed his chocolate hastily and went in. Karen sat at a round
table, and looked at photographs that were lying on it. They all
belonged to Christian and were pictures of friends, of landscapes and
houses, of dogs and horses.

Karen wore a very simple suit of blue. Her yellow hair was hidden by
a grey felt hat adorned by a silk riband. Her face was thin, her skin
pale, her expression sombre.

She disdained to use any introductory turns of speech and said: “I’ve
come to ask you if you know about things. He might have told you
first; he didn’t tell me till yesterday. So you don’t know? Well, you
couldn’t have done nothing about it either. He’s given away all his
money. All the money he had, he’s given to his father. The rest too,
that came in by the year, I don’t know how many hundred thousands--he’s
refused that too. He kept his claim to just a little,--not much more
than to keep from starving, and, by what he told me, he can’t use that
the way he wants to. And you know how he is; he won’t change. It’s just
like when the sexton’s through ringing the church bell; you can’t get
back the sound of the chiming. It makes me feel like screaming, like
just lying down and screaming. I says to him: ‘My God, what’ve you gone
and done?’ And he made a face, as if he was surprised to see any one
get excited over a little thing like that. And now I ask you: Can he do
that? Is it possible? Does the law allow it?”

Amadeus was quite silent. His face was ashen. Yellow sparks leaped
behind his lenses. Twice he passed his hand over his mouth.

Karen got up and walked up and down. “That’s the way things are,”
she muttered, and with grim satisfaction her eyes wandered about the
elegant room. “First on the box and then in the dirt. That’s the way
it is. Far’s I’m concerned I could make my bargain now--if only it’s
not too late. Maybe it is, maybe I’ve waited too long. We’ll see.
Anyhow, what good’s the money to me? Maybe I’d better wait a while
longer.” She stepped to the other side of the table, and caught sight
of a photograph which she had not yet seen. It was a picture of Frau
Wahnschaffe, and showed her in full evening dress, wearing her famous
rope of pearls which, though slung twice, hung down over her bosom.

Karen grasped the picture, and regarded it with raised brows. “Who’s
this? Looks like him. His mother, I suppose. Is it his mother?” Voss’s
only answer was a nod. In greedy astonishment she went on: “Look at
those pearls! Can they be real? Is it possible? Why, they must be
the size of a baby’s fist!” In her pale eyes there was a hot glow;
her wicked little nether teeth gnawed at her lip: “Can I keep this?”
she asked. Voss did not answer. She looked about hastily, wrapped the
photograph in a piece of newspaper and slid it under her jacket. “Good
Lord, man, why don’t you say something?” She flung the question at Voss
brutally. “You look like hell. But don’t you think I feel it too? More
than you perhaps. You got legs of your own to stand on like the rest
of us!” She gave a cynical laugh, glanced once more at Voss and at the
room, and then she went.

For a while Voss sat without moving. Again and again he passed his hand
over his mouth; then he jumped up and hurried into the bedroom. He
went to the dressing-table on which lay the precious toilet articles
that Christian had left behind him--gold-backed brushes and combs,
gold-topped flasks, gold cases and boxes for salves and shaving powder.
With feverish haste Voss swept these things into a heap, and threw them
into a leather hand-bag which he locked and secured in a closet. Then
he went back to the sitting-room, and paced up and down with folded
arms. His face shrunk more and more like the faces of the dead.

Then he stood still, made the sign of the cross, and said: “Lead us not
into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”


XXII

An old-fashioned phaeton was waiting at the station. Botho von Thüngen
got into it. He wrapped his feet in the carriage robes, for the evening
was cool and the drive to the manor house long. The road passed
straight across the flat Brandenburg plain.

Botho sat rigidly erect in the carriage and thought over the coming
interview with the baron, his grandfather, who had summoned him.
Herr von Grunow-Reckenhausen of Reckenhausen was the head of the
family, final judge in all controversies and court of last appeal. His
sentences and commands were no more to be disputed than those of the
king. His sons, his sons-in-law, and his grandsons trembled before him.

The ramifications of the family spread far and wide. Its members were
in the government and in the Reichstag; they were general officers in
the army, landed proprietors, industrial magnates, superior deaconesses
of the State church, governors of provinces, and judges in the higher
courts. On the occasion of Bismarck’s death, the old baron had retired
from public life.

Black and verging upon ruin, the manor house arose in its neglected
park. Two great Danes growled as they emerged from the entrance
hall, which was illuminated by candles. The rather desolate hall in
which Botho faced his grandfather at supper was also lit by candles.
Everything about the house had a ghastly air--the shabby wall-hangings,
the cracked and dusty stucco of the ceilings, the withered flowers on
the table, the eighteenth century china, the two dogs who lay at the
baron’s feet, and not least the old baron himself, whose small head and
oblong, lean, malicious face bore a resemblance to the later pictures
of Frederick the Great.

They remained in the hall. The baron sat down in an armchair by the
fire. A silent, white-haired servitor threw logs into the fireplace,
cleared the table, and withdrew.

“On the first you are going to Stockholm,” the old gentleman declared,
and with a moan wrapped his plaid shawl tighter about him. “I’ve
written to our ambassador there; his father was an old friend and
fraternity brother of mine, and he will be sure to befriend you. So
soon as you return to Berlin, be sure to call on the secretary of
state. Give him my regards. He knows me well; we were in the field
together in the year ’seventy.”

Botho cleared his throat. But the old baron neither desired nor
expected an interruption. He continued: “Your mother and I have agreed
that your engagement is to be officially announced within a few days.
Things have dragged on long enough. Next winter you two are to marry.
You are in luck, my boy. Not only has Sophie Aurore a princely estate
and a million in cash, but she’s a beauty of the first order, and a
racy one to boot. By Gad, sir, you hardly deserve that, and you seem
hardly to appreciate it.”

“I feel very close to Sophie Aurore, and love her very dearly,” Botho
replied diffidently.

“You say that, and you look as nervous as a cat when it thunders.”
The old gentleman was irate. “That sort of effeminate and sentimental
twaddle is sickening. We weren’t debating whether you loved her or
not, and I didn’t ask you. It would be much more pertinent to ask
you about your recent conduct. And if I did, the best thing you
could do would be to observe silence in seven languages, as the late
lamented Schleiermacher used to say. You ran after a dancing woman,
wasted a fortune, and almost missed the proper moment for entering
upon your career. Well, I understand that. Madness, of course. But I
was young once. Wild oats. But that, as I am told, you consort with
filthy proletarians, spend your nights in God knows what dens, and
frequent meetings of the Salvation Army--that surpasses both belief and
decency. I thought I’d let those things be, but you have a trick of
rousing one’s gall. What I wanted to do was this: to give you definite
directions and get a definite answer.”

“Very well. My answer is that I can neither go to Stockholm nor marry
Sophie Aurore.”

The old baron almost flew out of his chair. “What----? You----? I
don’t----!” He grew inarticulate.

“I am already married.”

“You are already ... already ... what!” The old man, greenish pale,
stared at his grandson, and collapsed in his chair.

“I have married a girl whom I seduced three years ago. She was the
daughter of my landlady. You know what life is like. After a night of
revelry I came back to my rooms rather drunk and morally insensitive.
The girl was a seamstress in a fashionable tailoring establishment.
It was early morning and she was on her way to work. I drew her into
my room. When she gave birth to my child, I was far away, and had
long forgotten the incident. Her parents disowned her; the child was
boarded out and died; the girl herself sank lower and lower. It’s a
common enough story. Through an unescapable dispensation of fate I met
her again two months ago, and learned of all the wretchedness she had
gone through. In the meantime my views of life had undergone a radical
change, chiefly through my meeting a ... peculiar personality. I did
my duty. I know that I have lost everything--my future, my happiness,
the love of my mother and my betrothed, the advantages of my birth, the
respect of my equals. But I could not do differently.”

The young man’s firm and quiet words seemed to have turned the baron to
stone. The bushy eyebrows almost hid the eyes beneath; the bitter mouth
was but a cavern between chin and nose. “Is that so?” he said after a
while in the wheezing pipe of age. “Is that so? You come to me with a
_fait accompli_ and with one of a particularly loathsome sort. Well,
well. I haven’t any desire to bandy words with a God damned fool. The
necessary steps will be taken. All support will be withdrawn from you,
and you will be put under lock and key where you belong. Fortunately
there are madhouses in Prussia, and I am not quite without influence.
It would be a nice spectacle, would it not, a Botho Thüngen publicly
wallowing in the gutter? A new triumph for the Jewish press! Yes, no
doubt. I needn’t stop to remark that we are strangers from this day on.
You need expect no consideration under any circumstances. Unfortunately
I must endure your presence in the house to-night. The horses are too
tired to drive back to the station.”

Botho had arisen. He passed his hands several times over his reddish
blond hair. His freckled face had a sickish pallor. “I can go on
foot,” he said. But he listened and heard the downpour of rain, and
the thought of the long tramp frightened him. Then he said: “Are you
so sure of your own righteousness? Do you feel so utterly sure of all
you have and do and say? I don’t deny that your threats frighten me. I
know that you will try to carry them out. But my conviction cannot be
changed by that fact.”

The baron’s only answer was a commanding gesture toward the door.

In the room which had been prepared for him, Botho sat down at a table,
and by the light of a candle wrote with feverish intensity:

“Dear Wahnschaffe:--My difficult task is accomplished. My grandfather
sat before me strong as a cliff; I received his verdict like a shaking
coward. The fieriest emotions turn into lies before these inexorable
souls, whose prejudices are their laws and whose caste is their fate.
Ah, their courage in living themselves out! Their iron souls and
foreheads! And I, on the other hand, I am the _reductio ad absurdum_ of
my race; I am a prodigal son from top to toe. Somewhere I read about a
man who overcame God through the strength of his utter weakness. This
sombre landscape, this rigid northern world--what could it produce as
an adversary of that old Torquemada of high lineage but an hysterical
revolutionary like myself?

“My childhood, my boyhood, my youth, these are but paragraphs in a
heartless tract on the art of seeming what one is not, of striving
for what is without worth. I knew as little about myself as the nut’s
kernel knows of the nut. I idled and drank and gambled, and made a
prostitute of time itself, which had to please me or endure my hate.
We were all blind and deaf and unfeeling. But it is a crime to gain
sight and hearing and a heart. I met Sophie Aurore and loved her. But
I loved her imperfectly, for I was a man with crippled senses. One is
supposed to sow one’s wild oats, as you know; and one is supposed to
do that before uniting one’s life with a being whose image and memory
should be too sacred to be dragged through vice and dirt. But some fate
in this mad world brought me under the influence of Eva Sorel. For the
first time I learned what a woman truly is and what her significance
may be. It helped me to understand Sophie and to feel what I must be to
her.

“And then I saw you, Christian. Do you recall the day when you read
those French verses to Eva and the others? The way you did it forced me
to think of you for days and days. And do you remember how in Hamburg
you broke the silver handle of the whip with which Eva had struck your
friend’s face? The scales dropped from my eyes. I remained on your
track; I sought every opportunity of being near you. You did not know
it. When you disappeared I looked for you. They told me you were in
Berlin, and I sought and at last found you, and under what conditions?
My soul was so terribly full that neither then nor later could I
explain to you the inexplicable mystery and strange magnetism that
drew me to you. To-day I had to speak out to you, and the words that I
address to you give me strength.

“I need consolation. I love Sophie Aurore and I shall love her till I
die. The letter of parting which I had to write her was the bitterest
thing in all my useless and mistaken life. She has not answered it. I
have broken her life and trodden on her heart, but I have saved another
life and kept another heart from despair. Have I done right? When
people used to talk of sacrificing oneself for a cause or for another
human being, it always seemed empty verbiage to me. Since I have known
you, the thought has acquired a deeply serious significance. All this
may sound strange to you and even discordant. You do not brood nor
take yourself spiritually to task; and that is the incomprehensible
thing about you. Yet I know none but you whom I would make the arbiter
of my conscience and whom I would ask: Have I done right?”


XXIII

The latch must have been left open. Isolde Schirmacher had been the
last to go out. Twilight had just fallen when the door of the room
opened, and Niels Heinrich entered.

Karen did not get up. She looked over at him. She wanted to speak, but
the words seemed to perish in the drouth of her throat.

His face had its usual expression of impudent disgust. His flat,
eternally sniffing, and inquisitive nose had a yellow tinge. He wore a
blue cap, baggy trowsers, and a yellow shawl slung around his neck.

Wrinkling his nose like a dog he looked about him. Then he closed his
left eye and spat.

At last Karen murmured: “What do you want?”

He shrugged his shoulders, and showed his neglected teeth. In one,
near the corner of his mouth, he had a large gold-filling which was
evidently new.

“Well, what is it?” Karen asked again. There was the fear in her voice
that she felt so often now.

Again he showed his decayed front-teeth. It might have been a smile.
He went up to the chest of drawers and pulled out one of the drawers.
Deliberately he rummaged among its contents. He took out under
garments, neck-wear, stockings, corsets, and threw them on the floor.
He went on to the second drawer, then to the third, and littered the
floor with what he found. Then he approached the wardrobe, but it was
locked. He stretched out his hand toward her with a speaking gesture of
command. Karen saw the destruction and confusion he had caused, and
did not respond at once. An hallucination as of renewed impoverishment
flamed up in her blunted soul. Niels Heinrich seemed its messenger. She
was so in fear of him that she wanted to cry out. He made a grimace
and gently swung his hand about on the pivot of his wrist. Karen
acknowledged the compulsion of that gesture; she put her hand into her
pocket, and gave him the key.

He wrenched open the door of the wardrobe, peered in, hauled out
card-board boxes, which he calmly overturned, threw garments on the
floor as he had thrown the linen, finally discovered a wooden box,
and pried off the cover with his knife. He found a golden brooch, the
old brooch with the motto, “Ricordo di Venezia,” and a little silver
chain. He slipped these three objects into his pocket. Then he went
into the adjoining room, where Karen heard him moving about. There was
no expression in her staring eyes. He came back at the end of a few
minutes. It had grown dark, and in the inner room a candle which he had
lit was left burning. In passing he threw a contemptuous glance at the
cradle. He did not take the trouble to close the outer door behind him.

In the dim light that shone in from the inner room, Karen surveyed
her scattered possessions. Suddenly she put her hand into her bosom,
drew forth the photograph of Frau Wahnschaffe, and lost herself in an
absorbed and sombre contemplation of it.

She saw the pearls, only the pearls.


XXIV

At the foot of the stairs by the street door, Niels Heinrich saw the
figure of Ruth Hofmann. She was waiting for her brother, who had gone
across the street to buy bread. The lad limped a little, and Ruth had
never been able to fight off the fear that he would be run over.

She looked at the pavement, glittering under the street lamps, at the
light of other lamps in the many windows, and finally higher, where
she was accustomed to see the stars, but where now there was only the
confused and reddish glow of clouds.

Niels Heinrich stopped. Ruth looked up at him with her large grey
eyes. He took in all details of the little figure--the thick hair with
its curling ends, the shabby flannel dress, the soiled, worn shoes,
and last of all the clear, pale face flooded with an alien spiritual
life. His glance clung savagely to her, and ripped the garments from
her body. The girl, shuddering as she had never done before, chilled
to the marrow by an unknown force, turned away toward the stairs, and
hesitantly began to mount them.

Niels Heinrich looked after her. “Jew wench!” he murmured from clenched
teeth. A greeting from the home-coming Gisevius awakened him from his
thoughts. He lit a cigar, pushed the blue cap down toward the nape of
his neck, and slouched down the street.


XXV

Toward the end of May Letitia gave birth to twins--both girls.
Stephen had the feeling that this was rather excessive; nevertheless
festivities were arranged. The house and garden were hung with gay
lanterns, the neighbours were invited, and the common people fed. There
was music and dancing and shouting. His brothers got drunk and brawled,
and there were wild goings-on.

Letitia lay in her handsome bed under the sky-blue canopy. From time
to time she asked to see the twins. Each was presented appetizingly
reposing on a pillow. They were mysteriously alike. The nurse, who bore
the mellifluous name Eleutheria, brought them in--one on her right arm,
one on her left. One had a red riband fastened to its shoulder, the
other a green; this was for identification. The red-ribanded baby was
to be christened Georgette, the other Christina. Such was Letitia’s
wish. Stephen desired each child to have in addition a string of richer
and more gorgeous names. Tirelessly he turned the pages of all the
novels and chronicles within reach, and finally brought a florilegium
of names to his wife: Honorata, Friedegunda, Reinilda, Roswitha,
Portiuncula, Symphorosa, Sigolina, Amalberga. Letitia laughed until she
cried. She pointed to the ugly nurse and said: “None has so beautiful a
sound as Eleutheria. I insist on Georgette and Christina.” And already
she knew that Christina was going to be her favourite.

She looked so charming as she lay there that people came to admire her
as one admires a painting. These people were all uneducated and stupid,
and Letitia was bored. Sometimes she played chess with Esmeralda, and
the girl, drunk with curiosity, asked her a thousand questions. When
Letitia was in labour, the girl had lain huddled on the verandah, and
her crude and sensual imagination was filled with images that both
allured and horrified her. Letitia felt that and said: “Go away! I
don’t like you to-day.”

She seemed to herself beloved of God and blessed by His angels. She was
proud of being what she was--an unusual being chosen for an unusual
fate. She seemed new to herself in every way. She loved herself, but
there was no raw selfishness nor idle admiration in this love. It was
something akin to the gratitude and joy of one who had been found
worthy of great gifts.

The fact that she possessed two children, two real children with little
hands and feet, who could struggle and cry, who could be dressed and
undressed, who could be fed and caressed--no, it was not this fact that
filled her so full of happiness. It was the expectation that grew out
of the children, the mystery of these unknown personalities whose being
and becoming proceeded from her own. And so she lay there, lovely,
dainty, serene, given over to her dreams.

In the meantime Stephen and old Gunderam renewed their old fight over
the Escurial. “The contract’s a scrap of paper,” the old man jeered.
“Two girls don’t make one boy. I’m not looking out for quantity. Two
hens don’t make a rooster.” Stephen shouted that he was not going to
be cheated of his rightful inheritance, that he would take the matter
into court, and make a public scandal of it. The old man, his hands at
his hips, had no reply but an evil chuckle. So the quarrelling went
on, morning, noon, and night. The old man locked his door, and had
the boxes that had stood packed for twenty years gotten into final
readiness. Stephen smashed plates and glasses, threw chairs about,
cursed and threatened, rode horses half to death, was himself seized
with convulsions, sent for a doctor, and had morphine injections
prescribed to quiet him.

Partisanship rose high. The old man gained the support of his wife,
Stephen that of his brothers. The latter made the servants rebellious,
and Doña Barbara shrieked and cursed them. The brawls increased in
violence; night was full of ghastly rumours. Once the report of a
pistol rang out, and every one rushed into the open. Stephen was
missing. He lay abed with a smoking revolver and moaned. He had aimed
at his heart and hit a medicine bottle. Its fragments swam in a yellow
liquid on the floor. The old man said: “I’m not surprised that a man
who’s such a fool as a lawyer can’t shoot straight. But it takes a
damned lot of malice to aim as badly as that.” Whereupon Doña Barbara
could not help observing: “Only a Gunderam could say anything so vile!”
And so the two old people quarrelled until dawn.

Stephen succumbed more and more to the use of morphine. When he was not
under its influence he tormented man and beast. His brothers finally
rebelled against the insults which he heaped upon them. They laid a
plot, and fell upon him and beat him so that he roared like a buffalo.
Letitia rushed to help him, and summoned men servants. A regular battle
ensued. “Don’t leave me,” Stephen whined, and she had to sit down by
him, and offer him consolation from the depths of her contempt. He
asked her to read him poetry, and she consented. She did not read poems
of her own choice, but easy, sentimental verses by second-rate writers.
Among the fifteen or sixteen volumes which formed the family library,
there was a greasy copy of an old-fashioned anthology of German verse.
She read from it, and Stephen said: “What wonderful words!” And he wept.

But at other times he treated her with coldness and contempt; for,
in the last analysis, she seemed to him to bear the guilt of all his
failures and troubles. Letitia was quite indifferent; her mind was made
up. Strength was given her will by the very horror with which the house
and its inhabitants, the family and its life, the land and its whole
atmosphere filled her. Whenever Stephen wanted to kiss her, she grew
very pale, and looked at him as though he had lost his senses. Then he
would rage, and threaten her with the cowhide whip. But she had learned
to smile in a way that tamed him and robbed him of inner assurance.

For six weeks Friedrich Pestel had now been in Buenos Ayres. She
corresponded with him secretly. The Indian boy who had once accompanied
her to the observatory was her faithful and discreet messenger. She
promised to take him along to Europe, for this was his great wish.
Eleutheria desired the same, and swore eternal devotion when Letitia
carefully and gradually gave her her confidence. All details of the
flight were discussed with Friedrich Pestel. Letitia was to be in
Buenos Ayres on the day of the sailing of the Portuguese steamer _Dom
Pedro_. An intricate intrigue was needed to convey the twins to the
city. Letitia thought out a clever plan; it was like the plot of a
detective novel.

There lived in the capital city an aged and childless couple, Señor and
Señora Herzales. The old man was a brother of Doña Barbara, and his
wealth would, upon his death, fall to the Gunderam children. But since
both he and his wife were misers of the filthiest kind, there was
always the fear lest by some whim or in some rage they should make a
will to the disadvantage of their kinsmen. They had not written to the
Gunderams in years. There were no personal contacts except visits of
state, which Stephen and his brothers occasionally paid them. Letitia
was, of course, aware of all this. She forged a letter, supposedly from
Señora Herzales, in which the old woman expressed the desire to see the
young wife of Stephen and her children, and, in order that the uncle
and aunt might get the better acquainted with her, the letter demanded
that Letitia come alone, although there was no objection to Stephen’s
coming to fetch her home at the end of a week.

This letter, cleverly written by Letitia in a handwriting unlike her
own, arrived with the proper postmark from Buenos Ayres and caused a
great stir in the Gunderam clan. A solemn family council was held;
greed and fear conquered all hesitation. Doña Barbara dictated to
Letitia a humble and grateful letter of acceptance, in which she was
permitted to announce her arrival on a day set by herself. This letter
Letitia succeeded in intercepting.

On the fateful morning her heart beat like an alarm clock. The rickety
coach drew up; Eleutheria got in; the slumbering twins were handed to
her. Stephen examined the carriage, tested the harness, and graciously
patted the horses. The Indian boy brought the hand luggage, stowed it
away properly, and calmly mounted the box. Don Gottfried, Doña Barbara,
Esmeralda and her brothers solemnly awaited Letitia. Five minutes
passed, and ten and twenty, and still Letitia did not come. Stephen
grumbled, Don Gottfried laughed a jeering laugh, Doña Barbara glanced
furiously up at Letitia’s windows. At last she appeared.

At the last moment she had mislaid the little bag that held her jewels.
They were her one possession. She had no money at all.

With a radiant smile she gave her hand to each in turn, permitted
her husband to kiss the tip of her chin, and cried out in a slightly
husky and long-drawn-out and lamenting voice: “Don’t forget me, and
remember me to Father Theodore!” The latter was a Capuchin monk, who
occasionally came to the farm to beg. It was a sheer, joyous whim that
made her mention him at this moment.

The wintry sun disappeared in the fog. Letitia thought: “Where I am
going now it is summer.”

Twenty-four hours later she stood with Friedrich Pestel on the deck of
the _Dom Pedro_, and looked back with happy eyes upon the disappearing
shore.


XXVI

The driver roared, but it was too late. An edge of the rattling wagon
laden with steel rails caught the limping boy and knocked him down. A
crowd gathered, and a helmeted policeman made his way through it.

Christian had just turned the corner when he saw the boy lying there.
He approached, and some women made room for him. As he bent over the
boy, he saw that the latter had only been stunned; he was stirring and
opened his eyes. Nor did he seem to be hurt. He peered anxiously about,
and asked after the money that he had had in his hand before he had
fallen. It had consisted of twenty or thirty nickel coins, which were
now scattered in the mud.

Christian helped the boy get up, and wiped the spattered face with his
white handkerchief. But to the boy the recovering of his money was of
greater importance, although he could not bend over and could hardly
stand. “Have patience until the wagon is gone,” Christian said to him,
and motioned the driver to proceed. The latter had become involved in a
violent altercation with the policeman. But when the policeman saw that
no great damage had been done, he also told the driver to go ahead,
and merely took down the man’s name as well as the boy’s. The boy was
Michael Hofmann, Ruth’s brother.

Christian bent over, and gathered the coins out of the mire. The
spectators were amazed that a well-dressed gentleman should bend over
in the street to gather nickel coins. Some recognized him. They said:
“He’s the one that lives back there with Gisevius.”

Now at last Ruth came hurrying. She had been frightened from her post
by Niels Heinrich Engelschall. She had waited on the stairs until he
had disappeared. Then she had come down and heard the hubbub in the
street, and had thought that it must be connected with the fellow who
had stared at her with such savage impudence. She had hesitated again
until a foreboding drove her forth.

She did not make much ado and hid her fright. She questioned her
brother in a cheerful voice. Her German was very pure and perfect, and
she spoke very swiftly, with a bird-like twitter in her throat.

When he had gathered the coins, Christian said: “Now let us count them
to be sure that they are all here.” Taking the boy by the arm, he led
him across the street and into the house. Ruth had taken her brother’s
other arm, and thus they mounted the stairs. They entered a room which
looked empty on account of its size, although it held two beds, a
table, and a wardrobe. It was the only room of that dwelling. A kitchen
adjoined it.

Michael sat down on the bed, still slightly stunned by his fall. He was
about fourteen, but his tense features and his passionate eyes had a
maturity far beyond his years.

Christian laid the coins on the table. They made no sound, so
encrusted were they with mud. Ruth looked at Christian, shook her head
compassionately, and hurried into the kitchen for a wet cloth with
which to clean his spattered garments. She kneeled down before him.
He drew back, but she did not perceive his motive and followed him on
her knees. So he resisted no longer, and felt a little foolish as she
eagerly and skilfully brushed his trousers.

Suddenly she raised her face to him. His glance had been resting on the
table, which was covered with many books. “Are those your books?” he
asked.

She answered: “To be sure they are.” And she looked at him with eyes
that were astonishingly bright with a frank spiritual recognition of
their inner kinship. The old arrogant expression with which he had been
wont to shield his soul melted from his face. But even as it did he
became aware of something that made him angry with himself, that seemed
unnatural and absurd to him, and filled him with the fear of something
evil and ghastly in his own eyes. For it seemed to him that he had seen
a bloody mark on the girl’s forehead.

In his fright he turned his eyes away, and resisted the impulse to
look again. But when he had regained his self-control and looked upon
her, there was nothing to be seen. He sighed with relief, but frowned
angrily at himself.


XXVII

When the _Dom Pedro_ had been on the high seas not more than a week,
Letitia was forced to the sorrowful conclusion that Friedrich Pestel
was not the right man for her.

She desired a man of imaginative ardour and impassioned soul. In face
of the unending sea and the starry vault of heaven, a fadeless yearning
had reawakened in her, and she told Pestel frankly and honestly that
she could not be happy with him. Pestel was overwhelmed with amazement.
He did not answer, and became melancholy.

Among the passengers there was an Austrian engineer who had been
building railroads in Peru and was on his way home. His boldly romantic
appearance and happy faculty of anecdote delighted Letitia. She could
not let him perceive it on account of the other passengers who took
her to be Pestel’s wife. But the engineer, who was something of an
adventurer and courageous, had his own thoughts.

In spite of his genuine pain and disappointment, Pestel reproached
himself for having bought the expensive first-cabin tickets for
Letitia, the nurse, and the twins, and a second-cabin passage for the
Indian boy, out of his own pocket. In addition he had, just before
their departure and in all haste, bought several frocks and some linen
for the woman whom he had saved from captivity, and to whom, as he
thought, he was about to be united for life.

The Indian boy was sea-sick and also home-sick, and Letitia promised to
send him back to the Argentine from Genoa.

Among the other passengers who regarded Letitia with a vivid eye was
an American journalist who had spent several months in Brazil. He was
witty, wrote clever verses, organized parties and dances, and soon
seemed as charming to Letitia as the Austrian engineer. Between these
two little skirmishes of jealousy took place, and each felt the other
to be an obstacle.

One night they were the last guests at the bar; neither wanted to turn
in, and they agreed to throw dice for a bottle of claret.

The Austrian lost.

The bottle arrived. The American filled the glasses; they drank, leaned
back and smoked, looked searchingly at each other from time to time,
and said nothing.

Suddenly the Yankee, still holding his pipe between his teeth, said:
“Nice woman.”

“Charming,” the Austrian agreed.

“Has a strong sense of humour for a German.”

The engineer thoughtfully blew rings of smoke. “She is altogether
delightful,” he said.

They fell silent again. Then the American said: “Isn’t it rather absurd
of us to spoil each other’s chances? Let us throw dice, and abide by
that!”

“Very well, let us do so,” the engineer agreed. He took the dice-box,
shook it, and emptied it. The little cubes rattled down on the marble.
“Eighteen,” the engineer announced, astonished at his own good fortune.

The other gathered up the dice, also shook the box, let the dice glide
on the table-top, and calmly announced “Eighteen!” He was equally
unable--with more reason of course--to hide his astonishment.

The two men felt rather helpless. They were careful not to repeat their
question to fate. They finished their wine, and separated with all due
courtesy.

Letitia lay abed with wide-open eyes and listened to the throb of the
engines, the soft crashing of the walls of the ship, and the humming
of Eleutheria, who was soothing the twins in the adjoining stateroom.
She thought of Genoa, the fast approaching goal of her voyage; and
her imagination showed her gorgeously clad grandees and romantic
conspirators in the style of Fiesco of Genoa, and torch-lit alleys and
adventures of love and passion. Life seemed to her aglow with colour,
and the future a gate of gold.


XXVIII

The child had disappeared.

Christian asked after its whereabouts. Karen shrugged her shoulders
stubbornly. So Christian went to the dwelling of the widow Engelschall,
who informed him with harsh brevity: “I put the child in good hands.
You’ve got no right to worry. Why do you? It ain’t yours!”

Christian said: “You have no reason not to tell me where it is.”

The woman answered insolently: “Not on yer life! I ain’t got no call to
do it. The kid’s well off where he is, and you ain’t going to refuse to
pay a bit to his foster-mother, are you? It’s your dooty, and you can’t
get out of it.”

Silently Christian regarded the fat moon-like face on its triple
chin, from which the voice rumbled like that of an old salt. Then he
became aware of the fact that that sweaty mass of flesh was contorting
itself to an expression of friendliness. Pointing to the glass door,
which separated the hexagonal room in which they were from the other
rooms, she asked in sweetish High German whether he wouldn’t come in
and partake of a little coffee. Coffee and fine pastry, she said, who
would refuse that? She explained that she was expecting a baroness, who
was coming from Küstrin especially to see her in order to get advice on
important family matters. He could see that she wasn’t born yesterday
either, had nice friends of her own, and knew how to treat people of
rank. Again she asked him to stay.

In this dim room there were several tables covered with well-thumbed
copies of periodicals and comic papers. It looked like a dentist’s
reception room. The woman’s fat fingers were covered with rings that
had brightly coloured stones. She wore a bodice of red silk and a black
skirt, the girdle of which was held by a silver buckle as massive as a
door knob.

When Christian came in to see Karen that evening, she sat by the oven
resting her head on her hand. Christian had brought her some oranges,
and he laid the fruit on her lap. She did not stir; she did not thank
him. He thought that perhaps she was longing for her child, and did not
break her long silence.

Suddenly she said: “It’s seven years ago to-day that Adam Larsen died.”

“I have never heard of Adam Larsen,” Christian said. Since she made no
remark, he repeated: “I’ve never heard of Adam Larsen. Won’t you tell
me about him?”

She shook her head. She seemed to crouch as for a leap at the wall
under his look. Christian carried a chair close up to Karen. He sat
down beside her, and urged her to speak: “What about Adam Larsen?”

She took in a deep breath. “It was the only good time in my life, the
time I had with him, the only beautiful time--five months and a half.”

She delved deep, deep into her consciousness. Things there yearned for
the light. “It was the time I was expecting my second child,” she said.
“We were on the way from Memel to Königsberg, myself and Mathilde Sorge
and her intended. Oh, well, intended is what they call it. On the way I
noticed that I was going to get into a mess pretty soon. They advised
me to leave the train. One station before we got to Königsberg I did
get out. Mathilde stayed with me, though she scolded; her intended went
on to the city. It was a March evening, cold and wet. There was an inn
near the station where they knew Mathilde. She thought we could get
lodging there, and there was no time to lose; but they were having a
fair in that place, and every room was taken. We begged for a garret or
anything; but the innkeeper looked at me, and saw what was the matter.
I was leaning against the wall and shaking. He roared, and told us
to go to the devil; he didn’t want to have anything to do with such
things. I lay down on a low wagon in the yard. I couldn’t have gone on,
not if they’d set the dogs on me. The farmer that owned the wagon came,
and he wasn’t pleased; but Mathilde, she talked to him a while, and so
he drove on slowly toward the city. Mathilde walked beside the wagon. I
felt I don’t know how; I thought if I could just be dead--quite dead!
The wheels bumped on the stones, and I screamed and shrieked. The
farmer said he’d had enough of that. We were in the suburbs by this
time, so they tugged me out of the wagon, and held me up. There was
a young man who had seen us, and he helped too. The rain fell by the
bucket, and I was clean done for. I asked them for God’s sake to get me
in anywhere, if it was only a hole or a cellar. At the corner there was
a cheap music-hall for working people. They dragged me through the door
into a little room, and pushed two benches together, and laid me on
them. The room was full of the gay dresses of the lady performers; on
one side of the room was the bar, on the other side the auditorium. You
could hear the music and the applause and the roars of laughter. Some
women, got up in dirty silks and spangles, came in and stood around me,
and quarrelled and screamed for one thing or another. Well, there’s no
use going on with that part. The child was born there, and it was dead.
They’d sent for a policeman and for a doctor too; but it was the young
man we had met on the street who was really kind and wouldn’t leave me
in my trouble. And that was Adam Larsen.”

“And he continued to help you? And you stayed with him?” Christian
asked tensely.

Karen went on: “He was a painter, a real one, an artist. His home was
in Jutland; he was lean and very fair. In those days my hair was just
the colour of his. He had an aunt living in Königsberg, and he was glad
to stay with her a while, because he was hard up. But when I was lying
in the charity home to which they’d removed me, he got the news from
Copenhagen that he’d been given a stipend by the state of two thousand
talers for two years. He asked me if I wouldn’t like to go with him.
He meant to go to Belgium to a famous painter who was living somewhere
on the French frontier. He wanted to study with him, like others who
were already there. Well, he said he was fond of me, and I said that
was all very nice, and asked him if he knew the sort of woman I was.
He said he didn’t want to know anything, and all I’d have to do was to
have confidence in him. So I thought to myself, ‘Here’s one that’s got
a heart,’ and I grew to be fond of him too. I’d never cared for any man
yet; he was the first, and he was the last too. And so I went away with
him. The great painter lived in a French village, and we moved to a
little town called Wassigny not far from there. Larsen rented a little
house. Every morning he’d ride over to the village on his bicycle;
if the weather was bad he walked. It was half an hour’s walk. In the
evening he’d come back, and we’d have a nice little dinner and tea and
chat. And he’d get real enthusiastic, and tell me how he loved painting
here--the trees and the fields and the peasants and the miners and the
river and the sky, and I don’t know what all. I didn’t understand that,
of course; but what I understood was that I felt as I’d never felt
before in life. I couldn’t believe it when I woke up in the morning;
I couldn’t believe it when the neighbours smiled at me. Near the
village there was a pool with water lilies, and I used to go often and
often and look at it. I’d never seen anything like that before, and I
couldn’t rightly believe in it. I knew that couldn’t last; it wasn’t
possible that it could last long. And sure enough, in August, Adam took
to his bed one day. He had a fever, and it got worse and worse; and in
six days he was dead. That was the end of everything. That was the end
of everything.”

Her hands kept clutching her hair, and for the third time she said:
“That was the end of everything.”

“And then?” Christian whispered.

She looked at him, and every muscle in her face quivered: “Then? Oh,
the things that happened then ... then...!”

“Couldn’t you somehow find a way of life without ... without ...”
Christian stammered, frightened by the blind, white rage in her face.
She clenched her fists and cried so loud that her words re-echoed from
the walls: “Oh, then! The things that happened then!”

Her whole body quivered. “Don’t touch me,” she said with a nervous
start.

Christian had not touched her at all.

“Go on now,” she said. “I’m tired. I’ve got to sleep.” She got up.

He stood at one door, Karen at the opposite one. She lowered her head,
and said in a toneless voice: “It’s crazy--me talking to you this
way--so familiar and all.” And her face showed both hatred and fear.

When she was alone beside her bed, she lost herself in the
contemplation of the picture of the woman with the pearls. Once she
turned around, and looked wildly into the other room, to the spot where
Christian had stood.

And Christian could not forget her words and the way she had said: “Oh,
then....”


XXIX

Weikhardt had been working at his Descent from the Cross for two
years, yet he could not finish the picture. No effort, no absorption,
no lonely contemplation, no spiritual seeking would bring him the
expression on the face of Christ.

He could not create that expression--the compassion and the pain.

He had scratched the face from the canvas a hundred times; he had tried
many models; he had spent hours and days studying the old masters; he
had made hundreds and hundreds of sketches; he had tried and tried. It
was all in vain; he could not create it.

In the spring he had married Helen Falkenhaus, the girl of whom he
had once spoken to Imhof. Their married life was a quiet one. Their
means were small, and they had to be content with very little. Helen
bore every privation with great sweetness. Her piety, which often had
a touch of expectant passion, helped her to ease her husband of the
consciousness of his burdens and responsibilities.

She had an understanding of art, a high and fine perception of its
qualities. He showed her his sketches, and she thought many of them
very beautiful. At times he seemed to her to have come near the vision
of which she too had a glimpse; but she was forced to admit that he
never quite embodied it. He attained compassion and pain, but not the
compassion and the pain of Christ.

Just then there arrived in Munich the Polish countess for whom he
had copied the cycle of Luini. One evening she gave an entertainment
to which Weikhardt was invited, and among the crowd he caught sight
of Sybil Scharnitzer. He had seen her years ago in the studio of
a fashionable painter. She had been surrounded by admirers and
flatterers, and he had carried away only a general impression of her
beauty.

This time she inspired him with a strange and magical excitement. He
knew at once that he needed her, that between her and his work there
was some mystic bond. He approached her and held her by his vivid
eloquence. Carefully he revealed his purpose. Absorbing her mien, her
gesture, that look of hers that went to the very soul, he saw clearly
what he expected of her and what she could give him. In this eye, when
it was wide open, he saw that more than mortal look which had hitherto
been but dim in his mind. He begged her to sit for him. She thought a
little and consented.

She came. He asked her to bare her neck and shoulders, and to swathe
her bust in a black shawl of Venetian lace. He stood at his easel, and
for ten minutes he gazed at her steadily. Scarcely did his lids stir.
Then he took a piece of charcoal, and drew the outlines of the head of
Christ. Sybil was astonished. At the end of an hour he thanked her, and
that was the first time he had spoken. He begged her to come again.
Quite as amazed as she had been at first, she pointed at the canvas.
But he smiled secretively, told her that his technical approach was a
roundabout one, and asked her to have patience.

When she left, Helen came in. He had told her of his plan, and his
confidence had prevailed over her doubts. She knew the history of Sybil
Scharnitzer, and had observed her that evening at the countess’s with
the cold scrutiny which one woman gives another. She looked at the
charcoal sketch, and was silent for many minutes. At last, under his
questioning look, casting down her own eyes, she asked: “Did any model
ever appear so disguised?”

Weikhardt had recovered his usual, phlegmatic temper. “Very few people
will understand my excursion behind the scenes--painters least of all.
I can see them crossing themselves and making venomous comments.”

“That doesn’t matter,” said Helen. “But what do you mean by an
excursion behind the scenes?”

“I mean the scenes set by God.”

Helen thought this over, but his words hurt her. She said: “I could
understand that perfectly if Sybil’s face were genuine; but you
yourself have told me who and what she is. You know that it is a
beautiful screen, with emptiness behind it. And in this vain deception
you think you will find what is deepest in the world--the Saviour, your
vision of the Saviour? Isn’t it as though you had delivered yourself
into the power of falseness itself?”

“No,” Weikhardt answered, “it is not. You don’t see far enough. Things
cohere together far more closely than you think. One body, one element,
one stream--each is more interwoven with all things than you realize.
The soulless emptiness in Sybil Scharnitzer’s breast is the reflection
of some light, and to me personally it is a concrete thing. If a form
deceives me, I am still grateful to it, for it forces me to create
its content from within myself; and the creative dream is the greater
thing. Can a blade of grass be a lie? Or a shell by the shore? And if I
were strong enough and guiltless enough and devout enough, it would be
given me to find in every blade and shell the compassion and the pain
of Christ. There is an element of chance in these things, or else some
dispensation.”

Helen did not contradict him.


XXX

That word of Karen’s, that desperate “then!” gave Christian no rest.

He had worked hard all day. He had not left the Physiological Institute
until seven o’clock. Then he had eaten a frugal evening meal, and had
gone home on foot. Thoroughly tired, he had thrown himself on the sofa,
and fallen asleep.

When he woke up it was dark night. The house was quite silent. He lit
a light, and looked at his watch; it pointed to half-past eleven. He
considered for a little, and then determined to go across the courtyard
to see Karen. He was sure to find her awake; sometimes she kept her
lamp burning until two o’clock. For some time she had been doing
embroidery work; she said she wanted to earn some money. So far she had
not succeeded, but she had taken no great pains to sell her work.

He crossed the dark court, and mounted the dark stairs. He stopped at
the open hall window of the third floor. The night was sultry. On one
side, through a canyon between the black and lifeless brick walls of
two houses, he saw smoke stacks project into the darkness. They came
from the earth itself and overtopped the roofs. They were tipped with
lightning-rods, and from some of them came thick fumes shot with the
quiver of flames. Below was blackness, empty land hedged in by wooden
fences, rough beams piled in heaps, low isolated huts, sand-pits and
mortar-pits, and darkness and silence over all.

To the left of the stairs was the door to the Hofmanns’ flat. When he
was letting himself into Karen’s rooms, he still gazed back at that
door. He thought he was being called thither, but it was a delusion.

Karen was in bed. “Why, what do you want so late?” she grumbled. “I’d
like a little quiet sometime.”

“I beg your pardon,” he said courteously. “I didn’t mean to disturb
you. I thought we might chat for a little while.”

“I’d like to know the good of all this talking, day and night.” She was
annoyed, and even her laugh showed it.

He sat down on the edge of the bed. “You must tell me what happened
to you after Adam Larsen’s death,” he said. “I can’t get rid of the
impression of your words: the things that happened then.... Of course,
I can imagine in a general way. I have insight enough into life now to
make a guess....”

She interrupted him with a note of contempt in her voice. “No, you
can’t guess nothing and you can’t imagine nothing. I’d bet my last rag
on that.”

“That’s all the more reason why I’d like you to tell me about it,” he
urged her. “You have never done so.”

There was an hostility in her silence, and it suddenly became clear
to him that some stubborn instinct in her refused to initiate him
wholly into her world. All that he had done for her had not sufficed to
conquer the distrust of him and his kind that was bred into her very
bone. The realization of this fact made him feel sad and helpless.

“I went to bed at seven to-day,” she said, blinking her eyes. “I wasn’t
feeling a bit well. I believe I’m going to be sick.”

Christian looked at her, and he could not keep the disquietude and
urgency out of his eyes.

Karen closed her lids. “Nothing but torment, torment, torment,” she
moaned.

Christian was frightened. “No, no. Forgive me. I’ll go.”

“You might as well stay.” She laid her cheek on her folded hands, and
drew up her limbs under the covers. A common but not disagreeable odour
came from her hair and skin.

Wearily and idly she talked into the pillow. “It’s the common, ordinary
thing, always the same. Women that tell you something else are liars.
Of course, a good many will invent long romances to seem interesting,
but I can’t do that. What do I care about it? No, it’s always the same
story, common and horrible and filthy from A to Z. Oh, yes, you might
as well stay now and sit down. I’ll tell you what I can. If you’ve just
got to know, I might as well tell you, but it’s hard. I don’t know
where to begin. There is no beginning. There’s nothing definite,--no
romance nor nothing.”

Christian sat down again. “When Adam Larsen died,” he said, “was there
no path for you? Was there no one among his friends or relatives who
paid any attention to you or helped you?”

She laughed a sarcastic laugh. “Hell! You’re all off there. His friends
didn’t hardly know about me. His brother came to the funeral, but I
didn’t dare so much as speak to him. He was one of the righteous kind,
with a golden watch-chain and a tip of five sous for the servants. And
I was in a strange country, and didn’t know the language, and had to
see about getting away. I had thirty francs in cash, and the question
was: where could I go? I tried to get work once or twice. But what
sort of work was I to do? I hadn’t learned nothing. Was I to go as a
servant, and black boots and scrub floors? No, thank you! I was used
to something different now, and I thought I could get along somehow.
Anyhow I didn’t give a damn what became of me; I didn’t matter so much.
In Aachen I took a job as a waitress. Nice occupation! I can’t give you
an idea of that--the tiredness in your legs, the abuse you got to take!
For food they give you the scraps; the bed ain’t fit for a dog. What
they expect of you makes you crazy mad.

“Well, when you live that way you’re open to all sorts of swindling
talk. I went into a house; stayed there four months, and then went into
another. I had debts, too. Suddenly you’re in debt, you can’t figure
out why. Board and lodging and clothes--they charge you three times
over for everything: you got to pay for the air you breathe. All you
think of is how to get out, or something awful will happen. Well, then
maybe some fellow comes along in high feather, throws money out of the
windows, pays for you, and gets you out. You go with him, and on the
third morning somebody knocks at the door. Who’s there? Police! Your
man’s a thief, and you have the devil’s own time clearing yourself of
complicity. What now? You have to have a roof and a bed, and some one
to talk to; you want a warm bite and a cool drink. You’ve got the mark
of the trade on you, and no one trusts you. You’re shoved and you’re
pulled, and you go down and down, day by day, step by step. You hardly
notice it, and suddenly you’re at the bottom.”

She curled herself up more compactly under the covers, and continued
in a blunter tone. “It’s easy to say that--at the bottom; but really
there’s no such thing. There’s a lower depth under every depth; and
there ain’t no words to tell you how it is down there. No one can
imagine it who hasn’t been there. No seeing from the outside and no
knowing will make people realize it. You live in a place for which they
charge you five times as much as is fair and decent. You’re common
property, and everybody gets out of you all he can. You don’t care if
the place is elegant or like a pigsty. It gives you the horrors to open
the door of it. It ain’t yours; it’s everybody’s. It’s the place where
everybody sort of sheds his filth, and you know them all and remember
them all. It does you no good to go to bed and try to sleep. Another
day is bound to come. There are the same greasy public houses and the
same faces, always the same crowd. And then there’s the street--what
you call your territory. That’s where you go by night. You know every
window and crossing and lantern: you stare and turn and ogle and grin,
and open your umbrella if it rains, and walk and stand around and keep
a sharp eye on the police, and make up to any man if he’s got torn
shoes or sports a fur ulster. And then you promise him God knows what;
and all the time you’d like to scratch his heart out if he walks off,
or spit in his face if he condescends to you. There it is! That’s the
main thing. Pain and worry--Lord, all people have them. But what you
get to find out about men there--oh, I tell you!”

Her last words were a cry again, a great cry, such as that other cry
which Christian had not been able to forget. He sat very straight, and
looked past the lamp to a certain spot on the wall.

Karen seemed, as she went on, to be addressing the floor. “Then there’s
the lodging-house keeper, who steals and cheats. There’s the owner
of the house, who acts by daylight as if he wanted to kick you, and
comes slinking to your door at twilight. There’s the shop-keeper, who
overcharges you, and acts as if he was doing you a favour by giving you
rotten stuff for your good money. There’s the policeman that grudges
you every step you take. If you don’t slip him a bribe, he pulls you in
and you go to jail. There’s the innkeeper; maybe you owe him a bit. He
torments you if you got no brass, and wheedles and flatters when you
have a little. I don’t mention your own man; but you got to have one
if you want to or not, otherwise you’ve got no protection. When he’s
sent to the penitentiary, you got to get another. They’re all handy
with their knives, but Mesecke was the worst of the lot. But I tell you
what’s hell--hell like nothing else in the whole, wide world--that’s
your business and your customers. It don’t matter if they’re elegant
or common, young or old, skinflints or spendthrifts--when they get to
you they’re no better than carrion on a dung-heap. There you see what
hypocrisy is and rascality; there you see the dirty souls as they are,
with their terror and their lies and their lusts. Everything comes out.
It comes out, I tell you, because they ain’t ashamed to let it. They
don’t have to be. You get to see human beings without shame, and what
you see is the miserable, hideous flesh. Would you like to know how it
is? Drink of a cess-pool and you’ll know! It don’t matter if it’s a man
that beats his wife when she’s with child, or lets his children starve,
or a student or an officer that’s gone to the dogs, or a frightened
parson, or a merchant with a huge belly--it’s the same, the same--man
without shame and the hideous flesh.”

She laughed with tormented scorn, and went on: “I met Mesecke when I
was discharged from the hospital. I had no one then. Before that I’d
been in jail three weeks on account of a scamp named Max. He was bad
enough, but he was a sweet innocent compared to Mesecke. A young man
happened to turn up in the café, a college student or something like
that. He treated us to one bottle of champagne after another, day in
and day out. You knew right away that there was something rotten about
it. And he always wanted me, just me, and he made the money fly. So
one day Mesecke took him aside, and said to him right out: ‘That money
comes out of your father’s safe. You stole it.’ The boy owned right up,
and his knees just shook. So Mesecke got his claws into him, and showed
him how to get more. And he and a skunk named Woldemar promised to take
him to an opium den that was, they told him, just like heaven on earth.
That night, when the boy was with me, he began to cry and whine like
everything. I felt sorry for him, ’cause I knew he’d come to a bad end;
and I told him so, and told him straight and rough. Then he emptied his
pockets, and I’d never seen that much money in my life; and it was all
stolen money. I got kind of dizzy, and told him to take it and put it
back; but he wanted me to have it and buy myself something for it. I
trembled all over, and told him for God’s sake to take it home; but he
cried and fell on his knees and hugged me, and suddenly Mesecke was in
the room. He’d been hidden and heard everything, and I hadn’t had an
idea. But the boy’s face turned as grey as a piece of pumice stone; he
looked at me and at Mesecke, and of course he thought it was a plot.
I was glad when Mesecke crashed his fist into my temple, so that the
air seemed to be full of fire and blood, and then kicked me into a
corner. That must have made the boy see I was innocent. Then Mesecke
took hold of Adalbert--that was his name--and went off with him.
Adalbert said nothing, and just followed. He didn’t turn up the next
day nor the next nor the day after that, so I asked Mesecke: ‘What did
you do to Adalbert?’ And he said: ‘I put him on board a ship that was
going overseas.’ Yes, I thought to myself, that’s a likely story. So I
asked him again; and this time he said if I didn’t hold my tongue he’d
scatter my bones for me. Well, I kept still. Maybe Adalbert did take
passage on a ship; it’s possible. We didn’t ever hear no more about
him. And I didn’t care so much, for there was something else every day.
I had to be careful of my own skin, and get through the night somehow,
and through the day. And it was always the same, always the same.”

She sat up, and took hold of Christian’s arm with an iron grip. Her
eyes sparkled, and she hissed out through clenched teeth: “But I didn’t
really know it. When you’re in the thick of it you don’t know. You
don’t feel that it’s no life for a human being; and you don’t want to
see, and you don’t dare to know that you’re damned and in a burning
hell! Why did you take me out of it? Why did things have to happen this
way?”

Christian did not answer. He heard the air roar past his ears.

After a while she let his arm go, or, rather, she thrust it from her,
and he arose. She flung herself back on her pillows. Christian thought:
“It has been in vain.” The dread that he had felt turned to despair. In
vain! He heard the words in the air about him: “In vain, in vain, in
vain!”

Then, in a clear voice that he had never heard her use before, Karen
said: “I’d like to have your mother’s rope of pearls.”

“What?” Christian said. It seemed to him that he must have
misunderstood her.

And in the same, almost childlike voice, Karen repeated: “Your mother’s
pearls--that’s what I’d like.” She was talking nonsense, and she knew
it. Not for a moment did she think it conceivable that her desire could
be fulfilled.

Christian approached the bed. “What made you think of that?” he
whispered. “What do you mean by that? What?”

“I’ve never wished for anything so much,” Karen said in the same clear
voice. She was lying very still now. “Never, never. At least, I’d love
to see them once--see how things like that look. I’d like to hold
them, touch them, just once. They don’t seem real. Go to her and ask
for them. Go and say: ‘Karen wants so much to see your pearls.’ Maybe
she’ll lend them to you.” She laughed half madly. “Maybe she’d let you
have them for a while. It seems to me that then”--she opened her eyes
wide, and there was a new flame in them--“that then things might be
different between us.”

“Who told you of them?” Christian asked as though in a dream. “Who
spoke to you of my mother’s pearls?”

She opened the drawer of the little table beside her bed, and took out
the photograph. Christian reached out for it eagerly, although she was
going to give it to him. “Voss gave it to me,” she said.

Christian looked at the picture and quietly put it away.

“Yes, that’s what I’d like,” Karen said again; and there was a wildness
in her face, and a childlikeness and a pathos and a greed, and a
certain defiance which was also like a child’s. And her smile was wild,
and her laughter. “Oh, there’s nothing else I’d want then. I would
taste the pearls with my tongue and bury them in my flesh; and I’d let
no one know and show them to no one. Yes, that’s what I want, only
that--your mother’s pearls, even if it’s for just a little while.”

Nothing could so have pierced the soul of Christian as this wild
stammering and this wild begging. He stood by the window, gazing into
the night, and said slowly and reflectively: “Very well, you shall have
them.”

Karen did not answer. She stretched herself out and closed her eyes.
She didn’t take his words seriously. When he left her, there was a
silent mockery in her mind--of him, of herself.

But the next morning Christian took the underground railway to the
Anhalter Station, and bought a third-class ticket to Frankfort. In his
hand he carried a small travelling bag.


XXXI

“Come on then, let’s see what you know!” Niels Heinrich said to his
mother, the fortune-teller Engelschall.

They were in her inner sanctum. Attached to the ceiling by a black cord
hung a stuffed bat with outstretched wings. Dark, glowing glass-beads
had been set in its head. On the table, which was covered with cards,
lay a death’s head.

It was Sunday night, and Niels Heinrich came from his favourite pub.
He only stopped here on his way to a suburban dancing-hall. He wore
a black suit and a blue and white linen waistcoat. He had pushed his
derby hat so far to the back of his head that one saw the whole parting
of his hair. In his left arm-pit he held a thin, little stick. He
see-sawed on the chair on which he had slouched himself down.

“Come on now, trot out your tricks,” and he flung a five-mark piece
on the table. In his dissipated eyes there was a shimmer as of some
mineral and an indeterminate lustfulness.

The widow Engelschall was always afraid of him. She shuffled her cards.
“You seem to be well fixed, my lad,” she fawned on him. “That’s right.
Cut! And now let’s see what you let yourself in for.”

Niels Heinrich see-sawed on his chair. For many days his throat had
been on fire. He was sick of his very teeth and hands. He wanted to
grasp something, and hold it and crush it in his fist--something smooth
and warm, something that had life and begged for life. He hated all
things else, all hours, all ways.

“A ten and a ace o’ diamonds,” he heard his mother say, “the king o’
clubs and the jack o’ spades--that don’t mean nothing good. Then
another ten and a grey woman”--consternation was on her face--“you
ain’t going to do nothing awful, boy?”

“Aw, don’t get crazy, ol’ woman,” Niels Heinrich snarled at her. “You’d
make a dog laugh.” He frowned, and said with assumed indifference,
“Look and see if the cards say something about a Jew wench.”

The widow Engelschall shook her head in astonishment. “No, my boy,
nothing like that.” She turned the cards again. “No. Another ten and
a queen o’ hearts--that might mean a money order. Lord love us--three
more queens. You always was a great one for the women. And that reminds
me that red Hetty asked after you to-day. She wanted to know if you’d
come to the Pit to-night.”

Niels Heinrich answered: “Gee, I just kicked her out a day or two ago.
Her memory must be frozen. Gee!” He leaned back and see-sawed again.
“Aw, well, if you can’t tell me nothing pleasant, I’ll take back my
fiver.”

“It’s coming, my boy, it’s coming,” the old woman said soothingly. She
shuffled the cards again. “Have patience. We’ll get that business with
the Jew wench yet.”

Niels Heinrich stared into emptiness. Wherever he looked he had seen
the same thing for days and days--a young, smooth neck, two young,
smooth shoulders, two young, smooth breasts; and all these were
strange, of a strange race, and filled with a strange sweet blood. And
he felt that if he could not grasp these, grasp them and smell and
taste, he would die the death of a dog. He got up and forced himself to
a careless gesture. “You can stop,” he said. “It’s all a damn’ swindle.
You can keep the tip too. I don’t give a damn.” He passed his stick
across the cards, jumbled them together, and went out.

The widow Engelschall, left alone, shook her head. The ambition of her
calling stirred in her. She shuffled and laid down the cards anew.
“We’ll get it yet,” she murmured, “we’ll get it yet....”



RUTH AND JOHANNA


I

It was in the Hotel Fratazza in San Martino di Castrozza that, at the
end of years, Crammon and the Countess Brainitz met again.

The countess sat on the balcony of her room, embroidering a
Slavonic peasant scarf, and searching with her satisfied eyes the
craggy mountains and the wooded slopes and paths. As she did so, a
dust-covered motor car stopped at the entrance below, and from it
stepped two ladies and two gentlemen in the fashionable swathings of
motoring. The gentlemen took off their goggles, and made arrangements
with the manager of the hotel.

“Look down, Stöhr,” the countess turned to her companion. “Look at that
stoutish man with a face like an actor. He seems familiar to----” At
that moment Crammon looked up and bowed. The countess uttered a little
cry.

That evening, in the dining-hall, Crammon could not avoid going to
the countess’ table and asking after her health, the length of her
stay here, and similar matters. The countess rudely interrupted his
courteous phrases. “Herr von Crammon, there’s something I have to
say to you privately. I’m glad to have this opportunity. I have been
waiting for it very long.”

“I am entirely at your service, countess,” said Crammon, with
ill-concealed vexation. “I shall take the liberty of calling on you
to-morrow at eleven.”

At ten minutes past eleven on the next day he had himself announced. In
spite of the energetic way in which she had demanded this interview, he
felt neither curiosity nor anxiety.

The countess pointed to a chair, sat down opposite her guest, and
assumed the expression of a judge. “My dear sister, whom you, Herr von
Crammon, cannot fail to remember, passed from this world to a better
one after a long illness eighteen months ago. I was permitted to be
with her to the end, and in her last hours she made a confession to me.”

The sympathy which Crammon exhibited was of such obvious superficiality
that the countess added with knife-like sharpness of tone: “It was
my sister Else, Herr von Crammon, the mother of Letitia. Haven’t you
anything to say?”

Crammon nodded dreamily. “So she too is gone,” he sighed, “dear woman!
And all that was twenty years ago! It was a glorious time, countess.
Youth, youth--ah, all the meaning in that word! Don’t remind me, dear
countess, don’t remind me!

    “‘Even the beautiful dies, though it conquer men and immortals,
    Zeus of the iron breast feels no compassion within.’”

“Spare me your poetical quotations,” the countess replied angrily. “You
shan’t get the better of me as you did once upon a time. In those days
the mask of discretion was the most convenient and comfortable for
you to assume; and I don’t deny that you assumed it with the utmost
skill. But let me add this at once: One may be as discreet as a mummy,
yet there are situations in life in which one is forced to follow the
call of one’s heart, that is, if one is provided with such a thing. A
momentary hoarseness, a quiver of the lips, a moisture of the eye--that
would have sufficed. I observed nothing of the kind in you. Instead you
stood by quite calmly, while that poor girl, your daughter, your own
flesh and blood, was sold to a filthy maniac, a tiger in human form.”

Crammon’s answer was temperate and dignified. “Perhaps you will have
the kindness, dear countess, to recall my sincere and insistent
warning. I came to you late at night, tormented by conscience, and
made the most weighty and solemn representations to you.”

“Warning! Fudge! You told me wild stories. You cheated me right and
left.”

“Those are strong expressions, countess.”

“I mean them to be!”

“Too bad! Ah, well! The dewy moisture of the eye, countess, is the
sort of thing you mustn’t expect of me; I haven’t the required gift. I
found the little girl sympathetic, very sympathetic, but merely as a
human being. You mustn’t expect paternal emotions of me. Frankly and
honestly, countess, I consider those emotions vastly overestimated by
sentimental people. A mother--ah, there the voice of nature speaks. But
a father is a more or less unlucky accident. Suppose you had planned
to overwhelm me with an effective scene. Let us picture it. Yonder
door opens, and there appears a young gentleman or a young lady armed
with all necessary documents or proofs. Such proper documents and
proofs could be gathered against any normal man of forty-three like
the sands of the sea. And so this young man or young lady approaches
me with the claims of a son or a daughter. Well, do you really believe
that I would be deeply moved, and that the feelings of a father would
gush from my heart like waters from a fountain? On the contrary, I
would say: ‘My dear young man, or my dear young lady, I am charmed
to make your acquaintance,’ but that exhausts the entire present
possibilities of the situation. And wouldn’t it, by the way, be most
damnably uncomfortable, if one had to live in the constant expectation
of meeting one’s unpaid bills of twenty years ago in human form?
Where would that lead to? The offspring in question, whether male or
female, if possessed of any tact, would thoroughly consider such a
step, and pause before using an ill-timed intrusion to burden a man
who is busy stirring the dregs in the cup of life for some palatable
remnants. The conception of our charming Letitia, my dear lady, was
woven into so peculiar a mesh of circumstance, and so evidently due
to the interposition of higher powers, that my own service in the
matter shrinks into insignificance. When I met the dear girl, I had the
feeling of a wanderer who once thoughtlessly buried a cherry kernel by
the roadside. Years later he passes the same spot, and is surprised
by a cherry tree. Delightful but quite natural. But do you expect the
man to raise a cry of triumph? Is he to haunt the neighbourhood, and
say: ‘Look at my cherry-tree! Am I not a remarkable fellow?’ Or would
you expect him to go to the owner of the land and demand the tree and
uproot it, or even steal it by night in order to transplant it he knows
not where? Such a man would be a fool, countess, or a maniac.”

“I didn’t suspect you of having much spirituality, Herr von Crammon,”
the countess replied bitterly, “but I thought a little might be found.
I confess that I’m dumbfounded. Pray tell me this: Do all men share
your views, or are you unique in this respect? It would console me to
believe the latter, for otherwise humanity would seem to cut too sorry
a figure.”

“God forbid, dearest countess, that I should be guilty of disturbing
the admirable equilibrium of your mind and soul,” Crammon returned
eagerly. “God forbid! By all means consider me an exception. Most
of the people I know are quite proud of their productions, whether
the latter take the form of verse, or a new fashion in waistcoats,
or a quite original way of preparing the livers of geese. They are
insatiable for the fame of authorship. When you see them from afar, you
feel yourself forced to invent compliments; and there is no lie that
they do not swallow with a greed that makes you ashamed for them. And
no chef, no poet, and no tailor is so puffed up with creative vanity as
your common bourgeois progenitor. Compared to him the rhinoceros is a
delicate and sensitive creature. My dislike of the institution of the
family was heightened by an incident that illustrates my point. I once
asked a man, who was a notorious cuckold, how his two boys happened to
be so extraordinarily fair, since both he and his wife were very dark.
He replied with the utmost impudence that his ancestors had been Norman
knights. Norman knights, of all things in the world! And the man was a
Jew from Prague. Norman knights!”

The countess shook her head. “You’re telling me anecdotes again,”
she said, “and I’m not fond of them, least of all of yours. So you
repudiate all responsibility? You consider Letitia a stranger, and
deny the darling child? Is that, in a word, the meaning of all your
discourse?”

“Not at all, countess. I am ready for any amicable rapprochement; only
I refuse to be nailed down, and have a sentimental moral responsibility
foisted on me. Were that attempted, I should be apt to flee, although
I am by nature calm and deliberate. But let us not waste the time
discussing theories. Tell me the precise nature of little Letitia’s
misfortunes.”

Mastering the horror with which Crammon filled her, the countess
related how she had received a telegram from Genoa a month ago. The
message had been: “Send money or come immediately.” She had hastened to
Genoa, and found the poor child in a pitiful condition. Letitia had so
little money that she had to pawn her jewels to pay her hotel bills;
she was tyrannized and cheated by the Argentinian nurse whom she had
brought over; one of the twins had a touch of intestinal catarrh, the
other of inflammation of the eyes----”

“Twins? Did you say twins?” Crammon interrupted her in consternation.

“Twins. Precisely what I said. You are the grandfather of twins.” The
countess’s reply reeked with malicious satisfaction.

“The ways of Providence are indeed wonderful,” Crammon murmured, and
his eyes dulled a little, “grandfather of twins.... Extraordinary, I
confess. I must say that the affair doesn’t look humorous. Why did she
leave her husband? Why didn’t you stay with her?”

“You shall hear all. The man maltreated her--actually and physically.
She fell into the hands of drunkards, robbers, poisoners,
horse-thieves, forgers, and slanderers. She was a prisoner in the
house; she suffered hunger; they tormented her body and soul, and made
cruel threats; she was in fear of her life; they trained wild animals
to terrorize her, and hired escaped convicts to watch her. Fear and
horror brought her to the brink of the grave. It was unspeakable.
Without the interposition and noble-hearted assistance of a German
captain, who offered her passage to Europe, she would have perished
miserably. Unhappily I could not even thank her unselfish friend; he
had left Genoa when I arrived. But Letitia gave me his address, and I
shall write him.”

“It’s all very regrettable,” said Crammon, “and yet it is what I
expected. I had a foreboding, and thence my prophecy. I thought this
Stephen Gunderam odious from the start. He was like a cheap showman
blowing a tin trumpet. I wouldn’t have trusted him with an old
umbrella, not to speak of a young girl whose exquisite qualities were
patent to all the world. Nevertheless I disapprove of her flight. If
the conditions were demonstrably insufferable, she should have sought
her freedom through the appropriate legal methods. Marriage is a
sacrament. First she jumps at it, as though it were a well-warranted
seventh heaven. Next, having experienced the discomforts which a very
imbecile would have expected under the circumstances, she takes French
leave, and steams off to Europe with two helpless and unsheltered
babes. That is neither consistent nor prudent, and I must distinctly
withhold my approval.”

The countess was indignant. “It’s your opinion that the poor child
should rather have let them torment her to death?”

“I beg your pardon. I merely point out her unfortunate way of seeking
redress; beyond that I do not presume to judge. I consider it a wrong
step to break the union sanctified by the Church, and desert both
hearth and country. It is a godless thing, and leads to destruction.
And what happened while you were with her? What did she determine on?
Where is she now?”

“In Paris.”

“In Paris! Is that so? And the purpose of her visit?”

“She wants to recuperate. I don’t grudge her the chance. She needs it.”

“I don’t question it, countess. But Paris seems an unusual place for
such a purpose. And did she directly refuse the pleasure of your
society, or do you merely fail to share her taste for recuperating in
Paris?”

The countess was visibly embarrassed. She wrinkled her brow, and her
little red cheeks glowed. “In the hotel she made the acquaintance of a
Vicomte Seignan-Castreul, who was staying there with his sister,” she
said hesitantly. “They invited Letitia to be their guest in Paris and
afterwards at their château in Brittany. The child wept, and said to
me: ‘Auntie, I’d love to go, but I can’t because I haven’t a cent.’ It
cut me to the heart, and I scraped together what I could--five thousand
francs in all. The darling thanked me from the heart, and then left
with the vicomte and vicomtesse, and promised to meet me in Baden-Baden
in October.”

“And where are the twins in the meanwhile?”

“She took them with her, of course--the twins, and their Argentinian
nurse, an English maid, and her own maid.”

“I honour your generosity, countess, but I don’t somehow like either
your vicomte or your vicomtesse.”

The countess suddenly gave a loud sob. “I don’t either!” she cried,
and pressed her hands to her face. “I don’t either. If only the dear
child does not meet with new misfortunes! But what was I to do? Can one
resist her pleading? I was so happy to have her back; I felt as though
she’d risen from the grave. No, the vicomte is not sympathetic to me at
all. He has a dæmoniac character.”

“People with dæmoniac characters are always swindlers, countess,”
Crammon said drily. “A decent man is never that. It’s a swindle in
itself, that word.”

“Herr von Crammon,” the countess announced with decision, “I expect of
you now that you show character in the other and beautiful sense of the
word, I expect you to come to Baden-Baden when Letitia has arrived,
to interest yourself in her who is closer to you than any one else on
earth, and to make up for your wrong and your neglect.”

“For the love of all the saints, not that!” Crammon cried in terror.
“Recognition, deep emotion, father and daughter fall into each other’s
arms, remorse and damp handkerchiefs! No! Anything you want, but not
that.”

“No excuses, Herr von Crammon, it is your duty!” The countess had
arisen, and her eyes were majestic. Crammon writhed and begged and
besought her. It did no good. The countess would not let him go until
he had pledged her his word of honour to be in Baden-Baden by the end
of October or, at latest, the beginning of November.

When the countess was alone, she walked up and down for a little, still
hot and gasping. Then she called her companion. “Send me the waiter,
Stöhr,” she moaned, “I’m weak with hunger.”

Fräulein Stöhr did as she was bidden.


II

Frau Wahnschaffe was on one of her rare outings. She was driving in her
electric car toward Schwanheim, when she caught sight of a group of
young men at the entrance to the polo-grounds. Among them was one who
reminded her strongly of Christian. His slenderness and noble grace of
gesture gave her so strong an illusion of Christian’s presence that
she bade her chauffeur halt, and requested her companion to walk to the
gate and inquire after the young man’s identity.

The companion obeyed, and Frau Wahnschaffe, still watching the group,
waited very quietly. The companion had no difficulty in getting the
information, and reported that the young man was an Englishman named
Anthony Potter.

“Ah, yes, yes.” That was all Frau Wahnschaffe said, and her interest
was extinguished.

That very evening a special delivery letter was brought her. She
recognized Christian’s handwriting, and everything danced before her
eyes. The first thing she was able to see was the name of a small,
third-rate Frankfort hotel. Gradually her sight grew steadier, and she
read the letter: “Dear Mother: I beg you to grant me an interview in
the course of the forenoon to-morrow. It is too late for me to come to
you to-day; I have travelled all day and am tired. If I do not hear
from you to the contrary, I shall be with you at ten o’clock. I am
confident that you will be so good as to see me alone.”

Her only thought was: “At last!” And she said the words out loud to
herself: “At last!”

She looked at her watch. It was ten o’clock. That meant twelve hours.
How was she to pass those twelve hours? All her long life seemed
shorter to her than this coming space of time.

She went downstairs through the dark and empty rooms, through the
marble hall with its great columns, through the gigantic, mirrored
dining-hall, in which the last, faint light of the long summer
evening was dying. She went into the park, and heard the plaint of a
nightingale. Stars glittered, a fountain plashed, and distant music met
her ear. She returned, and found that only fifty minutes had passed. An
expression of rage contorted her cold and rigid face. She considered
whether she should drive to the city to that shabby little hostelry.
She dismissed that plan at once. He was asleep; he was weary with
travel. But why is he in such a place, she asked herself, in a humble
house, among strange and lowly people?

She sat down in an armchair, and entered upon her bitter duel with the
slothfulness of time, from eleven to midnight, from midnight to the
first grey glint of dawn, from that first glint to the early flush of
the young morning, thence to full sunrise, and on to the appointed hour.


III

Wherever Johanna Schöntag went she was treated with loving-kindness.
Even her relatives with whom she lived treated her with tender
considerateness. This tended to lower rather than to raise her in her
own self-esteem. She considered subtly: “If I please these, what can I
possibly amount to?”

She said: “It is ever so funny that I should be living in this city of
egoists. I am the direct antithesis of such brave persons.”

Nothing seemed worth doing to her, not even what her heart demanded
loudly--the setting out to find Christian. She waited for some
compulsion, but none came. She lost herself in trivial fancies. She
would sit in a corner, and watch things and people with her clever
eyes. “If that bearded man,” she thought, “had the nose of his bald
neighbour he might look quite human.” Or: “Why are there six stucco
roses above the door? Why not five or seven?” She tormented herself
with these things. The wrongly placed nose and the perverse number of
the stucco roses incited her to plan the world’s improvement. Suddenly
she would laugh, and then blush if people looked her way.

Every night, before she fell asleep, she thought, in spite of herself,
of Amadeus Voss and of her promise to write him. Then she would take
flight in sleep and forget the morrow. His long letter weighed on her
memory as the most painful experience of her life. Words that made
her restless emerged from it in her consciousness--the saying, for
instance, concerning the shadow’s yearning for its body. The words’
mystery lured her on. All voices in the outer world warned her. Their
warning but heightened the sting of allurement. She enjoyed her fear
and let it grow. The reflection of mirrored things in other mirrors of
the mind confused her. At last she wrote; an arrow flew from the taut
string.

They met on Kurfürsten Square, and walked up the avenue of chestnut
trees toward Charlottenburg. In order to limit the interview, Johanna
announced that she must be home at the end of an hour. But the path
they chose robbed her of the hope of a quite brief interview. She
yielded. To hide her embarrassment, she remarked jestingly on the
trees, houses, monuments, beasts, and men. Voss preserved a dry
seriousness. She turned to him impatiently. “Well, teacher, aren’t you
going to talk a bit to the well-behaved little pupil with whom you’re
taking a walk?”

But Voss had no understanding of the nervous humour of her gentle
rebuke. He said: “I am an easy prey; you have but to mock, and I
am without defence. I must accustom myself to such lightness and
smoothness. It is a bad tone for us to use. You keep looking at me
searchingly, as though my sleeve might be torn or my collar stained. I
had determined to speak to you as to a comrade. It cannot be done. You
are a young lady, and I am hopelessly spoiled for your kind.”

Johanna answered sarcastically that at all events it calmed her to
see her person and presence extorting a consideration from him which
she had not always enjoyed. Voss started. Her contemptuous expression
revealed her meaning to him. He lowered his head, and for a while said
nothing. Then bitterness gathered on his features. Johanna, gazing
straight ahead, felt the danger to herself; she could have averted it;
she knew that a courteous phrase would have robbed him of courage. But
she disdained the way out. She wanted to defy him, and said frankly
that she was not in the least hurt by his disappointment in her, since
it was scarcely her ambition to impress him. Voss endured this in
silence, too, but seemed to crouch as for an attack. Johanna asked
with an innocent air whether he was still in Christian Wahnschaffe’s
apartment, and still had charge of his friend’s private correspondence.

Voss’s answer was dry and objective. He said that he had moved,
since his means did not permit him such luxury. The mocking smile on
Johanna’s lips showed him that she was acquainted with the situation.
He added that he had better say that the source of his income had given
out. He was living, he told her, in quarters befitting a student in
Ansbacher Street, and had made the acquaintance of poverty again. He
was not yet so poor, however, that he had to deny himself the pleasure
of a guest; so he asked her whether she would take tea with him some
day. He did not understand her laughter. Ah, yes, she was a young lady;
he had forgotten. Well, perhaps she would condescend to the shop of a
confiseur.

His talk aroused her scorn and her impatience.

It was Sunday, and the weather was gloomy. Night was falling. Music
resounded from the pavilions in the public gardens. They met many
soldiers, each with his girl. Johanna opened her umbrella and walked
wearily. “It isn’t raining,” said Voss. She answered: “I do it so
as not to have to think of the rain.” The real reason was that
the umbrella widened the distance between them. “When do you see
Christian?” she suddenly asked in a high-pitched voice, and looked away
from him to the other side. “Do you see him often?” She regretted her
question at once. It bared her heart to these ambushed eyes.

But Voss had not even heard her. “You still resent the matter of your
letter. You can’t forgive me for having spied upon your secret. You
have no notion of what I gave you in return. You waste no thought
on the fact that I revealed my whole soul to you. Perhaps it wasn’t
even clear to you that all I wrote you in regard to Wahnschaffe was a
confession such as one human being rarely makes to another. It was done
by implication, and you, evidently, do not understand that method. I
probably overestimated both your understanding and your good will.”

“Probably,” Johanna replied; “and likewise my good nature, for here
you’ve been as rude as possible again. You would be quite right in what
you said, if you didn’t leave out one very important thing: there must
first be a basic sympathy between two people before you can expect such
demands to be honoured.”

“Sympathy!” Voss jeered. “A phrase--a conventional formula! What
you call sympathy is the Philistine’s first resort--tepid, flat,
colourless. True sympathy requires such delicate insight of the soul
that he who feels it scorns to use the shop-worn, vulgar word. I did
not reckon on sympathy. A cleft, such as the cleft between you and me,
cannot be bridged by cheap trappings. Do you think I had no instinctive
knowledge of your coldness, your aloofness, your irony? Do you take
me for the type of pachydermatous animal that leaps into a hedge of
roses, because it knows the thorns cannot wound him? Oh, no! Every
thorn penetrates my skin. I tell you this in order that you may know
henceforth just what you are doing. Each thorn pierces me till I bleed.
That was clear to me from the beginning, and yet I took the risk. I
have staked all that I am on this game; I have gathered my whole self
together and cast it at your feet, careless of the result. Once I
desired to deliver myself utterly into the hands of fate.”

“I must turn back,” Johanna said, and shut her umbrella. “I must take a
cab. Where are we?”

“I live on Ansbacher Street, corner of Augsburger, in the third story
of the third house. Come to me for one hour; let it be as a sign
that I am an equal in your eyes. You cannot imagine what depends on
it for me. It is a wretched and desolate hole. If ever you cross its
threshold, it will be a place in which I can breathe. I am not in the
habit of begging, but I beg you for this favour. The suspicion which
I see in your eyes is fully justified. I have planned to beg you for
this, to bring it about. But this plan of mine did not originate to-day
or yesterday. It is weeks old; it is older than I know. But that is
all. Any other distrust you feel is unjustified.”

He stammered these words and gasped them. Johanna looked helplessly
away. She was too weak to withstand the passionate eloquence of the
man, repulsive and fear-inspiring as he was. Also there was a fearful
lure in the daring, in the presence of a flame, in fanning it, in
danger, and in watching what would happen. Her life was empty. She
needed something to expect and court and fear. She needed the brink of
some abyss, some bitter fume, some transcendence of common boundaries.
But for the moment she needed to gain time. “Not to-day,” she said,
with a veiled expression, “some other time. Next week. No, don’t urge
me. But perhaps toward the end of the week; perhaps Friday. I don’t see
your purpose, but if you wish it, I’ll come Friday.”

“It is agreed then. Friday at the same hour.” He held out his hand.
Hesitatingly she put hers into it. She felt imprisoned in her own
aversion, but her glance was firm and almost challenging.


IV

When Christian entered, Frau Wahnschaffe stood massively in the middle
of the room. Her arms were lightly folded below her bosom. A wave of
pallor passed over her, and she felt chilled. Christian approached. She
turned her face, and looked at him out of the corners of her eyes. She
sought to speak, but her lips twitched nervously. Christian suddenly
lost the simple assurance born of his swift and unreflective action.
He suddenly realized the monstrousness of his errand, and stood quite
silent.

“Will you stay with us for some time?” Frau Wahnschaffe asked hoarsely.
“Surely you will. I have had your room made ready; you will find
everything in order. It was unnecessarily considerate of you to spend
the night at an hotel. Do you not know your mother well enough to take
it for granted that the house is always ready to receive you?”

“I am sorry, mother,” answered Christian, “but I can stay only a few
hours. I must not and dare not delay. I have to return to Berlin on the
five o’clock train. I am sorry.”

Frau Wahnschaffe now turned her full face upon Christian so slowly that
the motion had the air of marionette’s. “You are sorry,” she murmured.
“Ah, yes. I scarcely expected even that much. But everything is ready
for you, Christian, your bed and your wardrobes. You have not been
here for very long, and it is very long since I have seen you. Let me
think: it must be eighteen months. Pastor Werner told me some things
about you; they were not pleasant to hear. He was here several times.
I seemed unable to grasp his report except in small doses. It seemed
to me the man must have had hallucinations, yet he expressed himself
very carefully. I said to him: ‘Nonsense, my dear pastor, people don’t
do such things.’ You know, Christian, that I find matters of a certain
sort difficult to understand.... But you look strange, Christian....
You look changed, my son. You’re dressed differently. Do you no
longer dress as you used to? It is strange. Do you not frequent good
society? And these fancies of the pastor concerning voluntary poverty
and renunciations that you desire to suffer ... and I hardly recall
what--tell me: is there any foundation of truth to all that? For I do
not understand.”

Christian said: “Won’t you sit down beside me for a little, mother? We
can’t talk comfortably while you stand there.”

“Gladly, Christian, let us sit down and talk. It is nice of you to say
it in that way.”

They sat down side by side on the sofa, and Christian said: “I know
I have been guilty of neglect toward you, mother. I should not have
waited to let strangers inform you of my decisions and actions. I
see now that it makes a mutual understanding harder; only it is so
unpleasant and so troublesome to talk about oneself. Yet I suppose
it must be done, for what other people report is usually thoroughly
wrong. I sometimes planned to write to you, but I couldn’t; even while
I thought the words, they became misleading and false. Yet I felt no
impulse to come to you without any other motive than to give you an
explanation. It seemed to me that there should be enough confidence in
me in your heart to make a detailed self-justification unnecessary.
And I thought it better to risk a breach and estrangement caused by
silence, than to indulge in ill-timed talk, and yet avoid neither
because I had not been understood.”

“You speak of breach and estrangement,” Frau Wahnschaffe replied, “as
though it were only now threatening us. And you speak as calmly as
though it were a punishment for children, and you were quite reconciled
to it. Very well, Christian, the breach and the estrangement may come.
You will find me too proud to struggle against your mind and your
decision. I am not a mother who wants her son’s devotion as an alms,
nor a woman who would interfere in your world, nor one who will stoop
to strive for a right that is denied her. Nothing that breaks my heart
need stop your course. But give me, at least, one word to which I can
cling in my lonely days of brooding and questioning. The air gives me
no answer to my questions, nor my own mind, nor any other’s. Explain
to me what you are really doing, and why you are doing it. At last, at
last you are here; I can see you and hear you. Speak!”

Her words, spoken in a monotonous and hollow voice, stirred Christian
deeply, less through their meaning than through his mother’s attitude
and gesture--her stern, lost glance, the grief she felt, and the
coldness that she feigned. She had found the way to his innermost
being, and his great silence was broken. He said: “It isn’t easy to
explain the life one lives or the events whose necessity is rooted
uncertainly in the past. If I search my own past, I cannot tell where
these things had their beginning, nor when, nor how. But let me put it
this way: He whom a great glare blinds, desires darkness; he who is
satiated finds food distasteful; he who has never lost himself in some
cause feels shame and the desire to prove himself. Yet even that does
not explain what seems to me the essential thing. You see, mother, the
world as I gradually got to know it, the institutions of men, harbours
a wrong that is very great and that is inaccessible to our ordinary
thinking. I cannot tell you exactly in what this great wrong consists.
No man can tell us yet, neither the happy man nor the wretched, neither
the learned nor the unlettered one. But it exists, and it meets you at
every turn. It does no good to reflect about it. But like the swimmer
who strips before he leaps, one must dive to the very bottom of life to
find the root and origin of that great wrong. And one can be seized by
a yearning for that search, which sweeps away all other interests and
ambitions, and masters one utterly. It is a feeling that I could not
describe to you, mother, not if I were to talk from now until night.
It pierces one through, all one’s soul and all one’s life; and if one
strives to withdraw from it, it only becomes keener.”

He rose under the impression of the unwonted excitement that he felt,
and continued speaking more swiftly. “That wrong does not consist in
the mere contrast between poor and rich, between arbitrary licence on
the one hand and enforced endurance on the other. No, no. Look, we’ve
all grown up with the view that crime meets its expiation, guilt its
punishment, that every human deed bears its reward within itself, and
that, in a word, a justice rules which compensates, orders, avenges,
if not before our eyes, then in some higher region. But that is not
true. I believe in no such justice; it does not exist. Nor is it
possible that such a justice exists in the universe, for if it did, the
lives men lead could not be as they are. And if this superhuman justice
of which men speak and on which they rely does not exist, then the
source of that great wrong that is in the world must be within the life
of man itself, and we must find that source and know its nature. But
you cannot find it by observing life from without; you must be within
it, within it to the lowest depths. That is it, mother, that is it.
Perhaps you understand now.”

A measureless astonishment spread over Frau Wahnschaffe’s features. She
had never heard such things, she had never prepared her mind to hear
them, and least of all to hear them from him, the beautiful, the ever
festive, the inviolable by any ugliness. For it was that vision of him
which she still nursed within. She meant to answer, she almost thought
the words had escaped her: “That search is not your function in the
world, yours less than any other’s!” The desperate words had already
shadowed her face, when she looked upon him, and saw that he was rapt
not from the sphere she hated, avoided, and feared for him, but from
herself, her world, his world and former self. She beheld one almost
unknown in a ghostly shimmer, and a presage stirred in her frozen soul;
and in that presage was the yearning of which he had spoken, although
its very name was strange to her. Also the fear of losing his love
utterly let all the years behind her seem but wasted years, and she
said shyly: “You indicated, did you not, that a particular purpose had
brought you here? What is it?”

Christian sat down again. “It is a very difficult and delicate matter,”
he answered. “I came without realizing its exact nature, of which I
seem but now to become aware. The woman whom I am taking care of, Karen
Engelschall--you have heard of her, mother--desires your pearls; and
I, I promised to bring them to her. Her desire is as strange as my
request. The whole thing, put bluntly, sounds like madness.” He smiled,
he even laughed, yet his face had grown very pale.

Frau Wahnschaffe merely pronounced his name: “Christian.” That was all.
She spoke the word in a toneless, lingering voice, almost hissing the s.

Christian went on: “I said I was taking care of that woman ... that
isn’t the right expression. It was a critical moment in my life when
I found her. Many people were astonished that I didn’t surround her
with splendour and luxury, when that was still in my power. But that
would have availed nothing. I would have missed my aim utterly by such
a method; and she herself did not dream of demanding it. If it weren’t
for her relatives, who constantly urge her to rebellion and desire,
she would be quite contented. People chatter to her too much. She,
of course, doesn’t understand my purpose; often she regards me as an
enemy. But is that strange after such a life as hers? Mother, you may
believe me when I assure you that all the pearls in the world can not
bring a soul forgetfulness of such a life.”

He spoke disconnectedly and nervously. His fingers twitched, his brow
was wrinkled and smooth in turn. The words he spoke and must yet speak
pained him; the monstrousness of his demand, which he had but now fully
realized, and the possibility that his request might be refused--these
things drove the blood to his heart. His mother neither stirred nor
spoke. Within a few minutes her features seemed to have shrunk into the
crumpled mask of extreme old age.

Christian’s fright stung him to further speech. “She is an outcast,
one of the despised and rejected. That is true; or rather, that is
what she was. But it is not permitted us to pass judgment. An accident
placed a photograph of you, wearing your pearls, in her possession; and
perhaps she felt as though you stood before her in person, and there
came over her a sudden sense of what it means to be an outcast and
despised. You and she--perhaps the world should hold no such contrasts;
and the pearls became to her confused and half-mad vision a symbol of
compensation, of moral equilibrium. She will not keep the pearls, by
the way, nor would I permit her to do so. I pledge myself that they
shall be returned, if you will accept my mere word as a pledge. I shall
return the pearls, and you yourself may set the date. Only please don’t
disappoint me in my quandary.”

Frau Wahnschaffe took a deep breath, and her tone was harsh: “You
foolish boy.”

Christian lowered his eyes.

“You foolish boy,” Frau Wahnschaffe repeated, and her lips trembled.

“Why do you say that?” Christian asked softly.

She arose, and beckoned him with a weary gesture. He followed her
into her bed-chamber. She took a key out of a leather-case, and
unlocked the steel door of the safe built into the wall. There were
her jewels--diadems and clasps, bracelets, brooches, pins, rings and
lavallières studded with precious stones. She grasped the rope of
pearls, and, as she took it out, its end trailed, on the floor. The
pearls were almost equal in magnificence and of uncommon size. Frau
Wahnschaffe said: “These pearls, Christian, have meant more to me than
such things usually do to a woman. Your father gave them to me when
you were born. I always wore them in a spirit of thankfulness to God
for the gift of you. I am not ashamed to confess that. They seemed,
I thought, to form a circle within which you and I alone had being.
I have neither touched them nor looked at them since you started on
your strange wanderings, and I believe that the pearls themselves have
sickened. They are so yellow, and some have lost their lustre. Did you
seriously think I could deny you anything, no matter what it is? It is
true that your ways are too strange for me now. My brain seems befogged
when I try to grasp all that, and I feel blind and lame. Yet to-day
some voice has spoken for you, and I would not lose that voice. So far
I have heard only vain lamentations. My whole soul shudders, but I
begin to see you again, and whatever you ask I must give you. You are
to know that, and indeed, you must have known that or you would not
have come. Take them!” She turned aside to hide the pain upon her face,
and with outstretched arm held out to him the rope of pearls. “But your
father must never know,” she murmured. “If you desire to return the
pearls, bring them yourself if possible. I would not know for whom they
are. Do with them as though they were your property.”

Property! Christian listened to the word, but it did not penetrate
his consciousness. It fell and disappeared like a stone in water;
for him it had lost all meaning. And he looked upon the pearls with
surprise and indifference, as though they were a toy, and it were
strange to talk and trouble so much about them. Their preciousness,
the value which amounted to millions, was no longer a living fact of
consciousness to him, but like a dim memory of something heard long
ago. Therefore he did not feel the burden of his mother’s trust and
his possession. The way in which he tucked the pearls into a case
his mother had found, had something so carelessly business-like, and
his word of thanks so obvious a formality, that it was clear he had
forgotten the obstacles to his errand which he had felt so keenly a
little while before.

He remained with his mother for another hour. But he spoke little, and
the environment, the splendour of the room, the air of the house, the
solemnity and sloth, the emptiness and aloofness, all this seemed to
disquiet him. Frau Wahnschaffe was unconscious of that. She talked and
became silent, and in her eyes flickered the fear over the passing of
her hour. When Christian arose to bid her farewell, her face became
ashen, and she controlled herself with extreme difficulty. But when
she was alone she reeled a little, and grasped for support one of the
carven columns of her bed and gave a cry. Then suddenly she smiled.

Perhaps it was a delusion that caused her to smile; perhaps it was a
flash of insight like lightning in a dark sky.


V

After his return from Africa, Felix Imhof was practically a ruined man.
Unfortunate mining speculations had swallowed up the greater part of
his fortune. But his attitude and behaviour were unchanged.

Exposure to the sun and air had almost blackened his skin, and his
bohemian friends called him the Abyssinian prince. He was leaner than
ever, his eyes protruded more greedily, his laughter and speech were
noisier, and the tempo of his life was more accelerated. If any one
asked after his well-being, he answered: “There’s two years’ fuel left
in this machine. After that--exit!”

He had one dwelling in Munich and another in Berlin, but his numerous
and complicated undertakings drove him to a different city every week.

Some political friends persuaded him to join in the founding of a great
daily representing the left wing of liberalism, and he consented. A
new catchword arose, a People’s Theatre; and it was his ambition to
be named among those who furthered the new panacea. He caused the
publishing house that he had financed to issue a new edition of the
classics, distinguished by tasteful editing and exquisite bookmaking.
He received twenty to thirty telegrams daily, and sent between forty
and fifty; he kept three typists busy, and suffered from the lack
of a telephone while he was in motor cars or on express trains. He
discovered the value of a half-forgotten painter of the Quattrocento
for modern connoisseurs, and by means of literary advertisements caused
fabulous prices to be offered for the painter’s few and faded works. He
gambled on the American stock exchange, and made four hundred thousand
marks; next week he lost double the amount in a deal in Roumanian
timber.

Sitting in his steam-bath, he sketched the plan of a mock-heroic
poem; between three and five at night he dictated in alternation a
translation of a novel by Lesage and an essay in economics; he carried
on an elaborate correspondence with the chief of a theosophical
society; drank like an aristocratic fraternity student, spent money
like water, subsidized young artists, was constantly on the trail of
new inventions, and fairly pursued promising engineers, chemists, and
experts in aeronautics. One of his boldest plans was the founding of
a stock company for the exploitation of the hidden coal-fields of the
Antarctic regions. He assured all doubters that the profits would run
to billions and that the difficulties were trifling.

One day he made the acquaintance of a technical expert named
Schlehdorn. The man hardly inspired confidence, but Imhof overlooked
that as well as his shabbiness. As though by the way Schlehdorn
mentioned the difficulty caused the German marine by the fact that all
glass for ships’ port-holes had to be imported from Belgium and France.
The secret of its manufacture was stringently guarded by certain
factories in those countries. Whoever succeeded in unearthing it was a
made man. Imhof swallowed the bait. He let the man inform him in regard
to possible plans, agreed with him upon a special telegraphic code, and
financed him generously. The telegrams he received sounded hopeful.
Schlehdorn, to be sure, demanded larger and larger sums. He explained
that he had had to bribe influential persons. Imhof deliberately
silenced his suspicions; he was curious what the end would be.

One day he received a telegram from Schlehdorn demanding that he come
at once to Andenne with fifty thousand francs. The matter was as good
as settled. Imhof took fifty thousand francs as well as his revolver,
and followed the summons. Schlehdorn was waiting for him, and conducted
him through the darkness to a suspicious looking inn. He was led to a
room at the end of a long hall, and the moment he had entered it, Imhof
recognized the situation for what it was. He had hardly looked about
when two elegantly dressed gentlemen appeared. The company took seats
about a round table. Schlehdorn spread out some documents in front of
him, and looked significantly at one of his accomplices. At that moment
Imhof leaped up, backed against the wall, drew his revolver, and said
calmly: “You needn’t take any further trouble, gentlemen. The fifty
thousand francs are deposited in my bank in Brussels. The trick was too
obvious and this place too suspicious. If any one stirs, he’ll have to
have his tailor mend small, round holes in his suit to-morrow.” His
cool determination saved him. The three men were intimidated, and let
him take his travelling bag and slip out. They themselves, of course,
escaped as swiftly as possible after that.

But this experience, though he gave a humorous description of it, had
a paralysing effect on Imhof. Considering the causes of his inner
tension, this incident was trivial, yet it somehow brought into
relief symptoms of weariness and satiety that multiplied and became
noticeable. His cynicism would rise to the point of savagery, and then
break down into sentimentality. “Give me a little garden, two little
rooms, a dog and a cow, and I won’t look at the scarlet woman of the
world’s Babylon again,” he perorated insincerely. A violent illness
seized upon him. Theatrically he made his final dispositions, and
summoned his friends to hear his last words. When he recovered, he gave
a feast that was the talk of all Munich for three weeks and cost him
sixty thousand marks.

On this occasion he met Sybil Scharnitzer and fell in love with her.
It was like an inner explosion. He acted like a madman; he declared
himself capable of any crime for this woman’s sake. Sybil was asked how
she liked him. Her answer was quite laconic: “I don’t like niggers.”

Her words were reported to him by three different witnesses. The sting
of them went deep. He stood in front of his mirror in the night,
laughed bitterly, and smashed the glass with his fist so that the blood
flowed.

The image of Sybil pursued him. He went wherever he was likely to meet
her. In the girl’s presence he became a boy again. He found no words,
blushed and stammered, and became the laughing stock of those who
knew him. One evening he ventured most shyly to speak to her of his
feelings. She looked at him coldly, and her eyes said; “I don’t like
niggers.” They were hard, selfish, stubborn eyes.

“I don’t like niggers.” The words became furies that pursued him. A
month later business took him to Paris, and in a cabaret he saw a young
Negro woman dancing a snake dance. An impulse of revenge urged him
to make advances to the girl. The revenge was directed less against
the unfeeling woman who had repulsed him so pitilessly than against
himself. It was the defiant rage of his own desires. He boasted of his
relations with the Negro woman, and appeared with her in public. What
drove him thereafter from dissipation to dissipation was the terror of
emptiness, the excess at the edge of life, where nature itself demands
the final fulfilment of human fate.

And his fate was fulfilled.


VI

“Oh, you’re lying to me!” Karen screamed, as Christian handed her the
jewel-box. He had not even spoken, but his gesture had promised her the
incredible; and she screamed to guard herself against the ravage of a
premature delight.

The greed with which she opened the little lock and lifted the top of
the box was indescribable. Her blood fled from beneath her skin. She
felt throttled. There lay the lustrous pearls, with their faint tints
of pink and lilac. “Latch the door!” she hissed, and raced to do it,
since he seemed too slow. She shot the bolt and turned the key. For a
moment she stood still and pressed her hands to her head. Then she went
back to the jewels.

She touched the pearls with timid finger-tips. She had two fears:
the pearls seemed as warm as living flesh; her own touch, though so
gentle, might have been too rough. The glance she turned upon Christian
faltered like a wounded bird. Suddenly she grasped his left hand
brutally with both of hers, bowed deep down, and pressed her mouth to
it.

“Don’t, Karen, don’t,” Christian stammered, but he sought in vain to
draw his hand from her furious clasp. More than a minute she crouched
there on her knees, over his hand, and he saw the flesh of her back
quiver under the cloth of her garment. “Be sensible, Karen,” he begged
her, and tried to persuade himself that he neither felt a profound
stirring of the soul nor gazed into the depth of another. “What are you
doing, Karen? Please don’t!”

She released him, and he left her. Behind him she locked the door
again. It was a curious circumstance that she took off her shoes and
thus approached the treasure. When she was not beholding it, she still
doubted its presence. With disconnected gestures, full of fear, she
finally lifted the pearls from their case. At every soft clink she
sighed and looked around. The unexpected length and weight of the
chain amazed her utterly. Gently she let it glide upon the floor, then
followed it first on her knees, then with her whole body, until she
had brought her lips, her breath, her eyes as near as possible to that
gleaming splendour. She counted the pearls, and counted them again.
She made an error. Once she counted one hundred and thirty-three, and
another time one hundred and thirty-seven. Then she counted no more,
but looked at single pearls and breathed upon them, or moistened her
finger and touched them.

She started at a rustling in the outer hall; then she again sunk her
whole self into the act of seeing. She dreamed herself into rooms which
had known the glow of these marvels, into the bodies of women whom they
had adorned, into coils of events in which they had played a part.
Shivers ran over her body. She fought with the desire to place the
pearls about her own neck. First it seemed blasphemous rashness; then
it seemed conceivable after all. She arose softly, held the necklace in
her hand, and slipped it over her head. On tip-toe she walked to the
mirror, and peered at her image from half-closed lids. It was here,
here with her, and she wore it like that woman in the picture. The
pearls were on her body--the pearls!

Evening came upon her, then night, but it brought no sleep. The pearls
were in bed with her, close to her breast, warm by her skin. She felt
them to assure herself of their presence; she listened to vague noises
in the house, which were like threats of robbery to her. Then she lit a
lamp and gazed at the pearls, and already she knew some of them. They
turned faces upon her, and whispered to her, and were distinguishable
through a warmer glow or a more pallid tint. Some of these were
familiar and some quite strange, but they were all here--a shimmering
wonder and a new life.

Thus too she passed the day that came and the night that followed the
day. She knew that disease was burrowing in her body. She had expected
it to show; but when it came, it was not with sudden violence but with
treacherous sloth. One part of her after another was affected, and at
last she could move freely no longer. She knew, too, that it was no
ordinary indisposition from which one recovers within a few days. She
felt it to be a process as of ripening which brings a fruit to its
fall, as a concentration of the hostile forces that had before been
scattered in effectiveness and in time. The life she had lived demanded
a reckoning. The physician in the Hamburg hospital had foretold it all
months before; now the time had come. She was very undemonstrative
about her condition. She lay quietly in bed. She suffered no pain, and
had but little fever.

Lying still there did not make her impatient. She was glad of the
necessity; there was no better way of guarding the pearls. People
might come and go. She had her treasure next her body, beside her very
breast. She was sure of it at every moment and with every movement,
and no one was the wiser. She pictured to herself what they would say
and do, if she were to show them her secret treasure, if she were to
call in one of those who all unconsciously passed her door or climbed
the rickety stairs, or some one from the street or the tavern or the
grog-shop--a poor fellow who had slaved all week, or a woman who
sold her body for three marks, or another who had seven children to
feed. In concentrated triumph she looked through the window at the
rows of windows across the street. There lived the others whom misery
throttled and in whom suffering whined. Like ants they crept about in
the tall houses from cellar to garret, and had no suspicion of Karen’s
pearls. Karen’s pearls! How that sounded and sang and glowed and
glimmered--Karen’s pearls....

At last the secrecy became a burden. She did not enjoy her great
possession as she would have done, had but one other shared the
knowledge of it. She needed at least one other pair of eyes. She
thought of Isolde Schirmacher, but the girl was too talkative and too
stupid. She thought of the wife of Gisevius, of a seamstress on the
fourth floor, of the huckstress in the street, of Amadeus Voss.

At last she hit upon Ruth Hofmann. The girl seemed the least harmful of
all, and she determined to show her the pearls.

Under the pretext of asking the girl to fetch her something from the
apothecary’s, she sent a message to the Hofmanns, and Ruth came in.
Karen waited until Isolde had left the room; then she sat up and asked
the girl to lock the door. Then she said: “Come here!” She turned the
coverlet aside, and there lay the great heap of pearls upon the linen.
“Look at that,” she said. “Those are real pearls, and they’re mine.
But if you mention it to anybody, God help you, or my name ain’t Karen
Engelschall.”

Ruth was amazed. Yet she looked on the pearls not with womanish
desirousness, but like an imaginative soul beholding a marvel of
the natural world. There was tension in her face, but it was wholly
pleasurable. “Where did you get them?” she asked naïvely. “How
wonderful they are. I’ve never seen anything like them. Are they all
yours? They remind me of the Arabian Nights.” She kneeled down beside
the bed, and surrounded the heap of pearls with her hands and smiled.
The hanging lamp burned, and in the dim light of the room the pearls
had an almost purple glow, and seemed animated by some dusky blood that
pulsed within them.

Karen was annoyed by Ruth’s question, and yet she was almost as happy
as she thought she would be in the surprise of another beholder.
“Stupid! ’Course they belong to me. D’you think I’d steal them?
They’re his mother’s pearls,” she added mysteriously, and bowed her
head to Ruth’s ear. She was startled for a moment as she did so by the
fragrance as of grass or the moist earth of February that emanated from
the girl. “They’re his mother’s pearls,” she repeated, “and he brought
them to me.” She did not know in what a deeply moved and reverential
tone she spoke of Christian. Ruth listened to that tone, and doubts and
guesses of her own were hushed.

“What ails you?” she asked, as she arose from her knees.

“I don’t know,” Karen answered, covering the pearls again. “Maybe
nothing. I like to rest; sometimes it does a person good.”

“Is any one with you at night? It might happen that you need something.
Have you no one?”

“Lord, I don’t need anything,” Karen answered with as much
indifference as possible. “And if I do, I can get out o’ bed and fetch
it. I’m not that bad yet.” The coarseness vanished from her face, and
yielded to an expression of helpless wonder as she went on hurriedly:
“He offered to stay up here at night. He wanted to sleep on the sofa,
so I could wake him up if I felt bad. He said he wouldn’t mind and
it’d be a pleasure. He spends his whole evenings here now, and sits at
the table studying in his books. Why does he study so much? Does a man
like him have to do that? But what do you think of him wanting to sleep
there and watch me? It’s foolish!”

“Foolish?” Ruth answered. “No, I don’t think so at all. I was going to
suggest doing the same thing. He and I could take turns. I can work
while I watch too. I mean, of course, if it is necessary. But it won’t
do to leave any one who is sick alone at night.” She shook her head,
and her ash-blond hair moved gently.

“What funny people you are,” Karen said, and thrust her disordered hair
almost to her eyes. “Real funny people.” She feigned to be looking for
something on the bed, and her eyes that refused to look at Ruth seemed
to flee.

Ruth determined to consult Christian concerning the night-watches.


VII

She spoke to Christian, but he said that her services as a night nurse
were not necessary. He could not bring himself to assign such a task to
her. She amazed him by her inner clarity and ripeness of character, yet
he saw the child in her that should be spared all the more because she
was not willing to spare herself.

She herself had thought a great deal about him, and had arrived at
definite conclusions which were not very far from the truth. To be
sure, she had heard gossip in the house, both from Karen Engelschall
and from others, but her own vision and instinct had taught her best.
What seemed mysterious to all others revealed itself as simple and
necessary to her. It was never the rare and beautiful that astonished
her in life; it was always the common and the mean.

At first she had been badly frightened of Karen. The poverty in which
her family had always lived had brought her into familiar contact with
the ugly things beneath the surface of society, yet she had never met a
woman like Karen--so degraded and so sunk in savagery. To approach her
had cost her each time a pang and a struggle.

But she had helped when Karen’s child was born; and on the following
morning she had been there when Christian was in the room too. She
had seen him bring the woman a glass of wine on an earthenware plate.
He had smiled awkwardly, and his gestures had been uncertain; and in
a flash she had comprehended everything. She knew whence he came and
whence the woman came, and what had brought them together, and why
they were living as they were. The truth which came to her seemed so
beautiful a one to her that she flushed and hurried from the room; for
she was afraid of laughing out in her joy, and seeming frivolous and
foolish.

From that day on she no longer regarded Karen shyly or with aversion,
but with a sisterly feeling that was quite natural, at least, to her.

Then came the incident of the pearls. She suspected their value only
from Karen’s feverish ecstasy, her infinitely careful touch, the morbid
glitter of her eyes. But what impressed her most was not the pearls,
nor Karen, nor Karen’s horrible happiness, but what she guessed of
Christian’s action and its motives.

One Saturday night, when Isolde Schirmacher had gone out with one
of her father’s journeymen, Christian rang the bell of the Hofmann
flat, and begged Ruth to go to a nearby public telephone and summon
a physician. Karen was evidently worse. She complained of no pain,
but she was approaching a state of exhaustion. Ruth hastened to a
certain Doctor Voltolini in Gleim Street who was known to her, and
brought him back with her. The physician examined Karen. He was frank
concerning his uncertainty with regard to her symptoms, and gave some
general advice. Afterward Ruth and Christian sat together beside the
bed. Karen stared at the ceiling. Her expression changed continually;
her breathing was regular but rapid. At times she sighed; at times her
glance sought Christian, but flitted past him. Once or twice she gazed
searchingly at Ruth.

Next day Christian came to see Ruth. She was alone; she was usually
alone. When she unlatched the door which gave immediately upon the
public hall she held a pen-holder in her hand. Her eyes still held
the absorption of the occupation from which she had come. But when
Christian asked whether he was interrupting her, she answered “No” with
quieting assurance.

He held out his hand. With a gently rhythmic gesture she put her
smooth, young hand into his.

She was voluble. Everything about her was touched with swiftness--her
walk and glance, her speech and decisions and actions.

“I must see the place where you live,” she announced to him, and on
the next forenoon she visited his room. She was a little breathless,
because, according to her custom, she had run down the stairs. She
looked about her very frankly, and hid her seriousness under a cheerful
vividness of behaviour. With boyish innocence of movement she sat down
on the edge of the table, took an apple from her pocket, and began to
nibble at it. She said she had mentioned Karen to an assistant whom she
knew at the Polyclinic, and the lady had promised to come and examine
Karen.

Christian thanked her. “I don’t believe that medical help can do much
for her,” he said.

“Why not?”

“I can’t tell you the reason. But where Karen is concerned, nature
pursues a quite logical method.”

“Perhaps you are right,” Ruth answered. “But that sounds as though
you had little confidence in science. Am I right? Why, then, are you
studying medicine?”

“It’s the merest accident. Some one happened to call my attention to it
as one of a hundred possible doors into the open. It seemed to me that
it might lead to a very early usefulness. It offers a definite aim, and
it is concerned with people--with human beings!” More pertinent reasons
that stirred within him, and that he might have given her, were not yet
ripe for speech, so he clung to a banality.

“Yes, people,” said Ruth, and looked at him searchingly. After a while
she added: “You must know a great deal; there must be a great deal in
you.”

“What do you mean by that?”

She was the first human being in whose presence he felt wholly free of
the compulsion to feign and to guard himself. In her there was a pure
element that was frank and enthusiastic, that lived and vibrated with
the souls of others. Her instincts had freedom and sureness, and her
whole inner life radiated an irresistible intensity. The very stones
gave up their souls to her. She was the seeing friend of inanimate
things. She forgot neither words nor images, and her impatience to
communicate what she had felt and the courage she had to acknowledge
and follow her own heart surrounded her with an atmosphere as definite
as the strong, sanative fragrance of plants in spring.

Life and its law seemed simple to her. The stars ruled one’s fate;
that fate expressed itself through the passions of our blood; the mind
formed, illuminated, cleansed the process.

She told Christian about her father.

David Hofmann was a typical Jew of the lower middle-classes from the
eastern part of the country. He had been a merchant, but his business
had failed, and he had left home to begin life over again. By
indomitable toil he had saved up a few thousand marks; but a sharper
had done him out of his savings, and in poverty and debt he had renewed
the struggle for a third time. His industry was tireless, his patience
magnificent. From Breslau he had moved to Posen, from Posen to Stettin,
thence to Lodz, and from Lodz to Königsberg. All winter he had tramped
the country roads from village to village and from manor-house to
manor-house. He had seen his wife and his youngest child sicken and
die, and had finally set his last hope on the life and opportunities
of the metropolis. Eighteen months ago he had come to Berlin with
Ruth and Michael, and here too he was on his feet day and night. With
mind exhausted and enfeebled body, he still dreamed of some reward
and success to ease his approaching latter years. But failure was his
portion, and in hours of reflection he would yield to despair.

She told Christian about her brother.

Michael was taciturn. He never laughed; he had no friend, sought
no diversions, and avoided the society of men. He suffered from
his Jewishness, shrank nervously from the hatred that he suspected
everywhere, repelled every advance, and felt all activity to be futile.
During the forenoon he would lie on his bed for hours with his hands
behind his head and smoke cigarettes; then he strolled to the little
restaurant where he met his father for their midday meal. When he
returned he would loiter in the yard and the alleys and at the factory
gates, beside fences or public-houses. With hat pulled down and hunched
shoulders, he observed life. Then he returned home and sat around,
brooding and smoking. He tried to avoid being seen in the evening, when
Ruth sat down to her work or their father sighed with weariness.

His eyes, which seemed to lift their gaze from a great depth, were of a
golden brown, and their irises, like Ruth’s, contrasted strongly with
the brilliant whiteness of the eye-ball.

Ruth said: “The other day I happened to come up when half a dozen
street Arabs were following him and crying: ‘Sheeny!’ He slunk along
with bowed back and lowered head. His face was terribly white; he
twitched every time he heard the word. I took him by the hand, but he
thrust me back. That evening father complained that business had been
poor. Michael suddenly leaped up, and said: ‘What does it matter? Why
do you try to do anything in such a world as this? It is too loathsome
to touch. Let’s starve to death and be done with it. Why torment
ourselves?’ Father was horrified, and did not answer. He thinks that
Michael hates him because he has not been able to keep us from poverty
and want. I do my best to talk him out of it, but he feels himself
guilty, guilty toward us, his children; and that is hard, harder than
penury.”

She felt it to be her duty to try to sustain the poor man, who
tormented himself with reproaches, and to renew his hope. She consoled
him with her lovely serenity. It was her pleasure to clear difficulties
from his path, and then to declare that they had been negligible.

When she had been a little girl of seven she had nursed her mother
through her last illness. She had done the work of a servant, and
cooked at the great stove, when she could hardly reach the lids of
the pots. She had watched over her brother, gone errands, put off
creditors, and gained respite from sheriffs. She had collected money
that was due; and at each change of dwelling she had created order in
the house, and won the good-will of those on whom her family would be
dependent. She had mended linen and brushed clothes, driven care away,
caused insults to be forgotten, and brought some cheer into the darkest
hours. She had found some sweetness in life, even when bitterness rose
to the very brim.

Christian asked her what she was working at. She answered that she was
preparing herself to take her degree. She had been relieved of all
fees at the gymnasium. To help her father, whose earnings decreased
steadily, she gave private lessons. To prolong her efforts far into
the night cost her no struggle; five hours of sleep refreshed her and
renewed her strength. In the morning she would get breakfast, set
the room and kitchen to rights, and then start upon her path of work
and duty with an air and mien as though it were a pleasure trip. She
carried her dinner in her pocket. If it was too frugal, she would run
to an automatic restaurant late in the afternoon.

One evening she returned from a charity kitchen, where twice a week
she helped for half an hour to serve the meals. She told Christian
about the people whom she was accustomed to see there--those whom the
great city had conquered. She imitated gestures and expressions, and
reported fragments of overheard speech. She communicated to him the
greed, disgust, contempt, and shame that she had seen. Her observation
was of a marvellous precision. Christian accompanied her on the next
occasion, and saw little, almost nothing. He was aware of people in
torn and shabby garments, who devoured a stingy meal without pleasure,
dipped the crusts of bread into soup, and surreptitiously licked the
spoon that had conveyed their last mouthful. There were hollow faces
and dim eyes, foreheads that seemed to have been flattened by hydraulic
pressure, and over it all a lifelessness as of scrapped machinery.
Christian was teased as by a letter in an unknown tongue, and he began
to understand how little he had learned to feel and see.

Although he had tried in no way to call attention to his presence, and
had seemed at first glance but another wanderer from the street, a
strange movement had passed through the hall. It had lasted no longer
than three seconds, but Ruth, too, had felt the vibration. She was
just filling one hundred and twenty plates, set in a fourfold circle,
with vegetables from a huge cauldron. She looked up in surprise. She
caught sight of the distinguished, almost absurdly courteous face of
Christian, and she was startled. With mystical clarity she perceived
the radiation of a power that wandered through the air without aim and
lay buried in a soul. She bent her head over the steaming cauldron, so
that her hair fell forward over her cheeks, and went on ladling out the
vegetables. But she thought of the many unhappy creatures who waited
for her on some hour of some day--suffering, confused, broken men and
women--whom she desired so passionately to help, but to whom she could
never be or give the miracle which had suddenly been revealed in that
all but momentary vibration.

In a wild enthusiasm that was foreign to her nature she thought: “One
must kneel and gather up all one’s soul....”

The one hundred and twenty tin plates were filled.

She thought of her poor. There was a young girl in a home for the
blind, to whom she read on Sunday evenings. There was an asylum for the
shelterless in Acker Street. She would look over the inmates and then
ask help for them from charitable men and women who had come to expect
her on this errand. In Moabit she had by chance come upon a woman with
a baby at her breast; both were near starvation. She had saved them,
had procured work and shelter for the woman, and taken the child to a
home for infants. But these external things did not suffice her. She
sought the establishment of human relations and the gift of confidence.
She wrote letters for people, mediated between those whom life was
threatening to divide, and thus, by giving her very self, she had also
earned the fanatical devotion of that young mother.

She knew the names of many who were in great danger, and she knew many
houses in which want was bitter. Once her interest had been excited
by some children cowering in a corner during a socialistic women’s
meeting. Another time chance had led her into the home of a striker.
She had been present when a poor woman had been dragged from the canal,
and hastened to the suicide’s family. On her way from giving a lesson
to an errand of charity in a hospital, she had met an expelled student
named Jacoby at the greasy table of a coffee-house, where he had begged
her to meet him. Bad company and want threatened him with destruction.
She had argued with him concerning his beliefs and principles and
friends, and persuaded him into new courage and another attempt.

In the street that ran parallel to her own, there lived a machinist
by the name of Heinzen with his family. An accident in a factory had
robbed the man of both his legs, and the frightful nervous shock had
reduced him to a paralytic condition. He usually lay in a state of
convulsive rigour. One day a neighbour who was plagued with rheumatism
had visited him; and this man had become aware of the fact that if
Heinzen touched any part of his body the pain there was alleviated at
once. The rumour had spread like fire. People talked of the miracle
of magnetic healing, and a great many sick men and women came to
Heinzen to be cured. He would take no money from them; but those who
believed--and their numbers increased daily--brought his wife food and
other gifts.

Ruth had heard of this. She had been in Heinzen’s flat. She was filled
by what she had seen, and gave Christian a vivid account of her
impressions.

Christian looked at her wonderingly. “Ruth,” he said, “little Ruth,
those are such difficult matters. If you once begin to be absorbed by
them, life itself is too short. I always thought that if one succeeded
in quite exhausting but a single human soul, one would know a great
deal and could well be content. But life is like the sea. Don’t you
have to think of it every minute? And how is it that you are always so
full of brightness? I don’t understand that.”

With radiant eyes Ruth looked into space. Then she arose, and from her
single shelf of books she took down a narrow yellow volume, turned to
a familiar page, and read out with childlike emphasis: “Concerning the
joy of the fishes. Chuang-tse and Hui-tse stood on a bridge that spans
the Hao. Chuang-tse said: ‘Look how the fishes dart. It is the joy of
the fishes.’ ‘Thou art no fish,’ said Hui-tse, ‘how canst thou know
wherein the joy of the fishes consists?’ And he continued: ‘I am not
like thee and know thee not, but this I know, that thou art no fish
and canst know naught of the fishes.’ Chuang-tse answered: ‘Let us
return to thy question, which was: How can I know wherein the joy of
the fishes consists? In truth thou didst know that I knew and yet thou
askedst. It matters not. I know from my own delight in the water.’”

Christian pondered the parable.

“Don’t you know it, you of all people, from your delight in the water?”
asked Ruth, and bent her head forward to catch his look.

Christian smiled an uncertain smile.

“Won’t you go with me to Heinzen’s house to-morrow?”

He nodded and smiled again. He understood suddenly what manner of human
being sat beside him.


VIII

It was two o’clock at night when Christian got up from the table in
Karen’s room and closed his books. He went to the sofa to lie down as
he was. Toward evening Karen had been seized by a violent fever. The
woman physician to whom Ruth had appealed had been there at noon, and
had spoken of tuberculosis of the bones.

Curled up in a wooden chair by the oven lay a small, white cat. She
had run in a few days before, and had made herself at home since no
one drove her out. Christian had always disliked cats intensely. He
stopped a moment and considered whether he shouldn’t drive the cat out.
Observing the animal he reconsidered.

Ruth, little Ruth.... The words ran through his head.

Karen slept heavily. On her dim face the muscles were taut. A dream
raged behind her forehead. In her throat a fearful cry was gathering.

A dream! She stood in front of a barn which had a little window in
its slanting roof. A man and a woman had just disappeared through
that window. She knew their purpose at once. In the darkness,
half-invisible, stood two lads, and it enraged the dreamer that the
lads were eagerly listening. She herself was tormented by the sensual
envy and hatred that arises in people when they see others in the
throes of passion. Her blood tingled and her heart throbbed. Suddenly
the barn seemed to have swung around, or she to have insensibly changed
her station. The barn was open; one whole wall had disappeared. But the
couple were not above, where they had entered; they were down in the
depths. The man was fully clothed, but nothing was visible of the woman
except her black stockings in the straw. From them both streamed forth
something unspeakably disgustful--a heated, sweetish air. The two lads,
as though seized by St. Vitus’ dance, hurled themselves at each other.
Then Karen felt her bodily personality dissolve. She was no longer
Karen; she was that sensual miasma, she was the woman with the man.
She lost herself in the straw, in its reddish-brown light, in those
black stockings; and as she lay there, her body swelled and expanded
and became a gelatinous, greyish-yellow ball, and reached even to the
roof of the barn. Then the ball became transparent, and she saw within
it lizards and toads and tiny, scarlet horses, on which tiny horsemen
were riding, and soldiers and spiders and worms, a loathsome swarm. The
horrible passions that penetrated everything turned into a throttling
torment. The ball burst. A corpse fluttered about like charred paper. A
white shadow expanded. Karen gave a shriek, and started from her sleep.

Her first gesture was to grasp the pearls.

Christian went up to the bed.

She murmured wildly: “Are you still here? What are you doing?”

He gave her water to drink. “I’ve been dreaming,” she said, and touched
the glass with trembling lips. The elements of her dream were already
dissolving in her mind and escaping a formulation in speech. But the
sense of that dream’s frightfulness increased; in the depth of her
consciousness flickered the terror of death.

“I’ve been dreaming,” she repeated and shook. After a while she asked:
“Why are you up so late? What did you do all day that you’ve got to
work till late at night? Why do you work so hard? Tell me!”

He shook his head and the words, “Ruth, little Ruth,” passed through
his head. “Didn’t your mother visit you to-day?” he asked, and smoothed
her pillows.

“Tell me what you’ve been doing all day!” she persisted.

“In the forenoon I went to lectures.” “And then?” “Then I went to
see Botho Thüngen, who was very anxious to talk something over with
me.” “And then?” “Then I went to court with Lamprecht and Jacoby. A
servant girl in Kurfürsten Street gave birth to a child and strangled
it to death immediately after birth.” “Did they send her up?” “She was
condemned to five years in the penitentiary. Her counsel took us to
her, and Lamprecht talked to her. She was half-clad, and kept staring
at me.” “And where were you then?” “I went to meet Amadeus Voss. He
wrote me.” “Did he ask you for money?” “No, he begged me to come and
meet Johanna Schöntag in his room.” “Who is she?” “An old friend.”
“What does she want of you?” “I don’t know.” “And then?” “Then I came
back by way of Moabit and Plötzensee.” “On foot? All that distance? And
then?” “Then I came here.” “But you didn’t stay!” “I went over to see
Ruth.” “Why do you always go to see the Jewess?” Karen murmured, and
her face was sombre. “Give me your hand,” she suddenly said roughly,
and stretched out her right hand, while her left clawed itself into
the pearls under the coverlet. She had hurt her left hand. When the
widow Engelschall had been there she had dug her nails into her own
palm, so convulsively had she grasped her treasure.

The widow Engelschall had written a blackmailing letter to Privy
Councillor Wahnschaffe, and had read it to Karen. Niels Heinrich had
stolen two thousand marks; the money had to be found or he would be
apprehended. In the letter she had shamelessly demanded ten thousand.
Karen had tried to prevent her mother from sending the letter, and the
old woman had raised a terrible outcry.

Karen thought it was almost pleasant to be ill. But why did he not give
her his hand?

The little cat had jumped from the chair. With tail erect she stood in
front of Christian, and blinked her eyes and mewed very softly. She
seemed undecided, then suddenly took heart and jumped on his knee. For
a moment he struggled with his old aversion. Then the soft white fur
and the grace of the little body tempted him. Timidly he touched the
little animal’s head and back, and bent over it and smiled. The kitten
pleased him.

“What’ve you done with my child?” Karen had asked her mother. The
answer had been a rowdy laugh. If he knew that she had asked after her
child, perhaps he would look at her more kindly. But she could not tell
him; and the memory of the old woman’s laughter had left a dread.

For a while she held out her hand dumbly. Then she let it fall, and
folded back the covers and crept out of bed. She whimpered strangely.
Sitting on the edge of the bed opposite Christian, she had an icy
stare and went on whimpering. One could scarcely hear her words. “He
don’t touch a person’s hand,” she whispered. Barefoot, in her long
night-dress, with bowed back she crawled to the oven, crouched down
beside it, hid her head in her hands and howled.

With increasing astonishment Christian had observed her behaviour.
The kitten had snuggled into his hands and purred and thrust her rosy
little nozzle against his breast. This awakened a sense of pleasure
in him such as he had not felt for long, and he wished secretly that
he could be alone with the little beast and play with it. But Karen’s
doings horrified him. He got up, carrying the kitten with him, and went
to Karen and kneeled down beside her. He asked her what ailed her, and
begged her to return to bed. She paid no attention to his words, but
writhed there on the floor and howled.

And it was chaos that was howling there.


IX

Among the boon companions of Niels Heinrich Engelschall was Joachim
Heinzen, the son of the crippled machinist. The fellow was a simpleton.
His indiscriminate pursuit of every woman subjected him to malicious
practical jokes. Since, on account of his absurdity, no woman wanted
to be seen with him, he was gradually obsessed by a silent rage which
made him really dangerous, although his original nature had been kindly
enough.

Among other women, the one called Red Hetty had attracted him. He
followed her in the dark streets; in public houses he sat near her
and stared. She mocked at his attempts to become friendly with her.
Moreover, so long as she was the mistress of Niels Heinrich, he dared
to undertake nothing further, and his interest seemed gradually to
subside. When Niels Heinrich, however, had cast the woman off, Heinzen
began to pursue her again, but his efforts were fruitless.

But Niels Heinrich himself came to his aid, and promised to help him
for a certain sum. Joachim Heinzen hesitated to risk so much. At last
they agreed that half of the price was to be paid at once, the other
half later and in instalments. Red Hetty, badly frightened by Niels
Heinrich, became friendlier with Joachim; but after her breach with
her former lover she got drunk daily, and made fearful and disgusting
scenes. Joachim declared that Niels had cheated him, refused to pay the
instalments, and demanded the return of his original fifty marks. Thus
a quarrel arose.

Niels Heinrich did not fear the simpleton, and it would have been
easy for him to rid himself of the fellow. But since he had unbounded
influence over Joachim and had found him a useful tool on many
occasions, he did not want a definite breach, and sought ways and means
of soothing him. He flattered him by his attentions, permitted him to
be his neighbour in public places, and took his part in quarrels and
fights. Something loathsome and frightful was gathering gradually in
his brain. Dark plans employed his mind, though they had taken yet no
definite shape or form. He chose his creature, though he knew not yet
what for. But he did know that Joachim could be used for all things, no
matter how infamous, and had nevertheless a degree of inner innocence.
Perhaps a plan, with which his thoughts played only cynically and
indefinitely, gained form and certainty from the simpleton’s slavish
devotion. Perhaps it fired him, gave him courage, and stung his
imagination to enter the abyss of the unspeakable.

He assured Joachim that Red Hetty didn’t amount to much, that she was
a withered drab and a stinking carrion. He might have others, if he
would only open his eyes. There were some that made a fellow’s mouth
water; a count would be glad of ’em. In such and such places there
were some--ah, that was different. The poor fool asked where and who.
Then Niels Heinrich gave an evil chuckle, and said he was thinking of
a Jewess. You had to see her, that was all! Like a peeled egg. Firm on
her legs. Not too fat, not too lean. Eyes like the Irishwoman’s in the
pub. Hair like the tail of a race-horse. Ready to bite. Ah! “Hold on
now,” Joachim Heinzen answered, taken aback. “Hold on!”

It gave Niels Heinrich a bitter pleasure to tell the fellow of the
girl over and over again. He filled him with the image and goaded
his senses. He directed all the idiot’s desires upon a being he had
not even seen. But also he described her for his own benefit, and
heightened and stung his own appetites, and made himself impatient and
jeered at himself in order to test the possibility of their realization
by his rage over the apparently unattainable products of his fancy. He
took Joachim with him to Stolpische Street, and they lay in wait for
Ruth’s home-coming. Then he showed her to him, and they followed her up
the stairs. Ruth felt nervous and frightened.

It so happened that at this time a fellow student called her attention
to the curious healings accomplished by old Heinzen. When she went
there she did not know, of course, that it was Joachim Heinzen who had
followed her, nor did she recognize him when she saw him in the room.
But his stupid, steady glare disquieted her.

In great excitement Joachim announced to his patron that he had seen
the Jewess, whom he already regarded as his property, in his father’s
flat. “That’s rot,” said Niels Heinrich coldly. He had before this
jeered venomously at the cures old Heinzen performed. He repeated that
jeer now, and added that if the Jewess had gone to the old man’s,
there was no doubt but that she had done so because she had taken a
liking to Joachim. The fellow grinned. In the drinking den where they
spent many of their nights, Niels Heinrich had craftily arranged that
the prospective affair of Joachim and the Jewess should be frequently
discussed and commented. Joachim did not know that he and his affair
were a joke. He took Niels Heinrich aside, and asked how he could get
at the girl most quickly. Niels Heinrich looked at him mockingly, and
told him he had better put off all attempts for a while yet; this
was a matter in which one had to proceed cleverly; the Jewess was
distrustful, and was furthermore one of those new-fangled student
wenches. You couldn’t go at her with a club; you had to be elegant and
considerate. But the simpleton was not to be persuaded. He said he
wanted to go to her and invite her to a ball on the following Sunday.
Niels Heinrich laughed uproariously. “I guess you’re crazy,” he said.
“Your head must’ve gone addled.” He paled and laughed anew, and said:
“You got to wait and see. I’ll lay ten to one the girl will turn up at
your old man’s pretty soon. I’ll have some one watching, and you stay
home so you don’t miss her.”

He slapped Joachim’s shoulder. He stood there like a pole--lean, dry,
pointed. In the embankment on the road to Weissensee the wheels of an
express train thundered on the rails.


X

Ruth and Christian entered a dim, stuffy room. The door to the little
hall was open, as well as the door to the adjoining room. There were a
good many people in the flat. Careless of all these strangers, Mother
Heinzen sat at her table and pared potatoes. The table was covered with
innumerable things--files, boxes, ink-bottles, even a pair of shoes. In
the background, at a second table which was as narrow as a carpenter’s
bench, Joachim and an apprentice were making metal stoppers with a hand
machine. Old Heinzen leaned in a wicker chair. A shabby black cloth hid
the lower part of his body and concealed its mutilation. His lean and
almost rigid face, with its thick, inflamed lids, its yellowish beard,
and its sharp, straight nose, expressed no inner participation in what
went on around him.

A few whispering women stood nearest to him. A little beyond there
was a group consisting of a sergeant, a journeyman butcher with a
blood-stained apron and naked arms, a salvation army lass with blue
spectacles, and the porter of a business house in a fancy uniform.
Behind Christian and Ruth appeared a man whose head was swathed in
bandages, another who looked frightened as he leaned on his crutches,
and a woman whose face was a mass of repulsive sores. Other figures
emerged gradually into that narrow circle.

While no one dared yet to approach the miracle worker, a woman rushed
panting and moaning into the room. In her arms she carried a child
between three and four years old. The child’s face was like lead, its
eyes were convulsively turned outward, and its neck and limbs were
unnaturally contorted. The woman was trembling all over, and seemed not
to know where to turn, so Ruth took the child from her and carried it
to old Heinzen. The people willingly made way for her. On her face was
a radiance of sweet serviceableness.

Joachim Heinzen got up. The apprentice poured a mass of finished
stoppers into a basket filled with saw-dust, and shook the stoppers
down. Joachim, his arms akimbo, approached his father’s chair, and
devoured Ruth with his eyes. His mouth was open, his head craned
forward, his whole person quivered with excitement. Ruth held the child
out toward old Heinzen, and spoke words that could not be heard for the
rattle of the metal stoppers. Joachim made a threatening gesture toward
the apprentice, who stopped the noise.

Old Heinzen opened his eyes and raised his right arm. This was his
miraculous gesture, and a silence fell upon the room. Christian watched
the devotion, the utter loving-kindness with which Ruth held out the
epileptic child to the stricken man. Her grace pierced him, and he
asked himself with amazement: “Does she believe in it? Is it possible
to believe in such things?” But even as his amazement increased,
there seemed to arise in him the presentiment of something unknown
and incomprehensible; and as often before in moments of extraordinary
feeling, he had to fight down a secret desire to laugh.

Suddenly Heinzen dropped the raised arm. He seemed confused. He moved
his head and shoulders, and said wearily: “I can do nothing to-day.
There’s somebody here who takes my power from me. I can do nothing.”

His words made a deep impression, and all eyes sought the disturber.
They glided from one to another. Heads turned and pupils shifted.
Before a minute had passed the eyes of all the people in the room were
fixed on Christian. Even Mother Heinzen had stopped paring the potatoes
and had arisen and was staring at him.

Christian had heard Heinzen’s words. What did those glances demand of
him? What was their meaning? What did they desire? Were they angry? Was
there something in him or about him that affronted or disturbed them?
Yet they seemed timid and wondering rather than hostile. That old seal
of his silence, his equivocal little smile, hovered about his lips. He
looked up as though asking for help, and his eyes met Ruth’s; and in
her eyes he saw that radiant understanding, that silvery, spiritual
love that animated her wholly and at all times.

The mother of the child uttered a cry. “How do you mean--takes your
power? Pull yourself together, old man, for God’s sake!”

“I can’t say nothing different,” murmured Heinzen. “There’s somebody
here that takes my power away.”

“And has he got the power?” the Salvationist cried shrilly.

“I don’t know,” Heinzen answered, in an oppressed manner. “Maybe, but I
don’t know.”

Slowly Christian went up to Ruth, who was still holding the child in
her arms, and bent over and gazed at the apparently lifeless form.
At once the epileptic rigour relaxed, flecks of foam appeared on the
child’s lips, and it began to weep softly.

The emotion that passed through the room was like a great sigh.

But noises from without broke in upon the silence here. Laughter and
curses had been heard a while before. Now the sounds came nearer, and
Niels Heinrich and Red Hetty appeared in the doorway.

He tugged the woman into the room. She reeled drunkenly, waved her
arms, and laughed shrilly. Pushed forward by Niels Heinrich, she
stretched out her fingers for some support; but the people whom she
touched drew back in vexation. Niels Heinrich caught her by the
shoulders, and shoved her at Joachim Heinzen. He chuckled as he did
so, and the noise he made was like the clucking of a hen. Joachim was
scared, and gazed stupidly and angrily at the wild looking creature.
She wound her arms about his neck and clung to him and babbled
drunkenly. Her black, wide-brimmed hat, with its huge green feather,
slipped grotesquely to the back of her head. Joachim tried to shake her
off, fixing his half-crazed eyes on Ruth. But as the woman clung the
more tenaciously, he struck her a blow full in the breast, so that she
fell to the floor with a moan and lay there in an absurd posture.

People hurried to and fro protesting. A few bent over the drunken
woman, who at once began to hiccough and babble again. Others
threatened Joachim with their fists. Mother Heinzen tried to calm the
tumult, Ruth sought refuge near Christian and took his hand. Then an
uncanny thing happened. Joachim Heinzen grasped her arm, and pulled her
roughly toward him. Perhaps it was a weak-minded jealousy that impelled
him, or else a brutal and stupid attempt to convince her that he cared
nothing for Red Hetty and was guiltless of the incident. With glassy
eyes he stared at Ruth; a vicious grin was on his face. Ruth gave a
soft cry, held up her hand to shield herself, and struggled gently. Her
lids were lowered. Her attitude went to Christian’s heart. He went up
to the fellow, and said very quietly: “Let her go.” Joachim hesitated.
“Let her go,” Christian repeated, without raising his voice. Joachim
obeyed and snorted.

Niels Heinrich seemed to be immensely entertained by it all. He urged
those about him to watch what was going on, laughed his clucking laugh,
and sought to encourage the simpleton. “Go ahead, Joachim,” he cried.
“You got to take what you want!” But while he laughed and goaded
Joachim on, his brows remained knit, and the upper part of his face
seemed rigid with some horror. He had recently grown a little, pointed,
goat-like beard which had a reddish colour. When he spoke or laughed
it moved stiffly up and down, and gave his head the appearance of a
marionette’s.

When he saw that Christian had restrained Joachim’s impudent roughness,
he came and stood before him, and said in an insolent, knife-like
voice: “Mornin’. I should think you’d know me.”

“I do,” Christian answered courteously.

“An’ I said good mornin’ to you!” Niels Heinrich said, with an
unconcealed jeer. His little beard twitched. The horror seemed to
spread over his whole face.

“Good evening,” said Christian courteously.

Niels Heinrich gritted his teeth. “Mornin’!” he yelled, livid with
rage. All those present gave a start and became silent.

Christian looked at him quietly. Then he turned quite deliberately to
Ruth, and said: “Let us go, little Ruth.” With the bow of a man of the
world he let her precede him. He also bowed courteously to those about
him. He might have been leaving a drawing-room.

Niels Heinrich, bent far forward, stared after him. He clenched his
fist, and went through the pantomime of pulling a cork-screw out of a
bottle.


XI

“Were you frightened?” Christian asked, when they were in the street.

“A little,” Ruth answered. She smiled, but she was still trembling.

They did not turn homeward. They walked in the opposite direction and
passed through many streets. Christian walked swiftly, and Ruth had
difficulty in keeping up with him. A sharp wind blew, and her shabby
little cloak fluttered.

“Are you cold?” Christian asked. She said “No.” A cloud of yellow
leaves whirled up in front of them; and Christian strode on and on.

“The stars are coming out,” he said, and looked fleetingly at the sky.

They came to a wide, desolate street. A line of arc-lamps seemed to
stretch into infinity, but the houses looked empty.

They walked on and on.

“Say something,” Ruth begged. “Tell me something about yourself. Just
this once. Just to-day.”

“There’s little good to be told about myself,” he said into the wind.

“Whether it’s good or not, I’d like to know it.”

“But what?”

“Anything.”

“I must think. I have a poor memory for my own experiences.” But even
as he spoke there emerged the memory of a night which he had thought
quite faded. What had happened then seemed menacing now, and seemed in
some mysterious way related to Ruth; and the need of confession came
upon him like hunger.

“Don’t search in your mind,” said Ruth. “Tell what happens to occur to
you.”

He walked more slowly. Poor in words as he was, he strove first to
gather the bare facts in his mind.

Ruth smiled and urged him. “Just start. The first word is the hardest.”

“Yes, that is true,” he agreed.

“Did the thing you’re thinking of happen long ago?”

“You are right,” he said. “I am thinking of something definite. You
have clear perceptions.” He was surprised. “It’s four years ago. I
was motoring with two friends in the south of Italy.” He hesitated.
The words were so lame. But the lovely compulsion of Ruth’s glances
drew them from their hiding-places, and they gradually came forth more
willingly.

On a beautiful day of May he and his friends had reached the city of
Acquapendente in the Abruzzi. They had really intended to proceed to
Viterbo, but the little mountain town pleased his friends, and they
persuaded him to stay. He stopped in his story. “I seemed always to
want to race from one spot to another,” he said. His friends kept on
urging him, but when they stopped in front of the inn, it seemed so
dirty that he hated to think of passing the night there. At that moment
there came down the steps of the near-by church a girl of such majestic
loveliness as he had never seen before; and that vision determined him
to stay. The innkeeper, when he was asked who the girl was, pronounced
her name full of respect. She was the daughter of a stone-mason named
Pratti. Christian bade the innkeeper get ready a supper and invite
Angiolina Pratti to it. The innkeeper refused. Thereupon Christian
bade him invite the girl’s father, and this the man agreed to do. His
friends sought to dissuade Christian, telling him that the women of
this land were shy and proud, and that their favours were not easily
won. He would, at least, have to go about the business more delicately
than he was doing. Christian laughed at them. They reasoned and argued,
so that finally he grew stubborn, and declared to them that he would
bring about what they held to be quite impossible--that he would
accomplish it without artfulness or adroitness or exertion, but simply
through his knowledge of the character of these people.

The girl’s father came to wait upon the foreign gentlemen. He had white
hair and a white beard and a noble demeanour. Christian approached
and addressed him. He said that it would give him and his friends
pleasure if the Signorina Pratti would sup with them. Pratti wrinkled
his forehead and expressed his astonishment. He had not, he said,
the honour of the gentleman’s acquaintance. Christian looked sharply
into his eyes, and asked for how much money he would, that evening at
eight, conduct his daughter Angiolina naked into their room and to
their table. Pratti stepped back and gasped. His eyes rolled in his
head, and Christian’s friends were frightened. Christian said to the
old man: “We are perfectly decent. You may depend on our discretion.
We desire merely to admire the girl’s beauty.” With wildly raised arms
Pratti started to rush at him. But he was prepared for that, and said:
“Will five thousand suffice?” The Italian stopped. “Or ten thousand?”
And he took ten bank notes of a thousand lire each out of his wallet.
The Italian grew pale and tottered. “Twelve thousand?” Christian asked.
He saw that the sum represented an inconceivable treasure to the old
man; in a long life of toil he had never had so much. The perception
increased Christian’s madness, and he offered fifteen thousand. Pratti
opened his lips, and sighed: “Oh, Signore.” The sound should have
touched him, Christian said to Ruth. But nothing touched him in those
days; all that he cared for was to have his will. The man took the
money, and went away falteringly.

That evening the young men took their places at the charmingly arranged
table in some suspense. The innkeeper had brought forth old silver
vessels and cut-glass goblets. Roses were placed in vases of copper,
and thick candles had been lit. The room was like one in a castle.
Eight o’clock came, and then a quarter past eight. The conversation
lagged; they gazed at the door. Christian had commanded the innkeeper
not to appear until he was summoned, so that the promised discretion
should be observed. At last, at half-past eight, old Pratti appeared
carrying his daughter in his arms. He had wrapped her in a cloak. He
beckoned the young men to close the doors. When they had done so, he
pulled the cloak away and they beheld the naked body of the beautiful
girl. Her hands and feet were fettered. Her father placed her on the
empty chair beside Christian. Her eyes were closed; she was asleep. But
it was no natural sleep; she had been drugged, probably with the juice
of poppies. Pratti bowed and left.

The three friends looked at that lovely form, the gently inclined head,
the rosy face, the streaming hair. But their triumph and arrogant
delight had died within them. One went into the bed-room, fetched a
coverlet, and covered the girl with it; and Christian was grateful to
him for the action. Hastily they ate a few bites; the wine remained
untouched. Then they went down, paid their reckoning, summoned their
chauffeur, and drove through the night along the road to Rome. No
one spoke during the drive; none of them ever mentioned Angiolina
Pratti later. But Christian found it difficult to escape the picture
in his mind--the fettered, drugged girl alone in the room with the
roses and the yellow candle-light. But at last he forgot, for so many
other images crowded the old one out. “But just now,” he said, “as we
left the house, that image was as clear to me as it was that day in
Acquapendente. I had to keep thinking of it, I don’t know why.”

“How strange,” Ruth whispered.

They walked on and on.

“Where are we going?” Ruth asked.

Christian looked at her. “What is so strange? That I told you about it?
It really seemed superfluous, quite as though you knew it without being
told.”

“Yes,” she admitted shyly. “I often seem to stand within your soul as
within a flame.”

“It is brave of you to say a thing like that.” He disliked swelling
words, but this thing moved him.

“You must not be so ashamed,” she whispered.

He answered: “If I could talk like other people, much would be spared
me.”

“Spared you? Would you be a niggard of yourself? Then it would no
longer be you. That’s not the question. One should be a spendthrift of
oneself--give oneself without stint or measure.”

“Where have you learned to make such judgments, Ruth? To see and feel
and know, and to have the courage of your vision?”

“I’d like to tell you about something too,” said Ruth.

“Yes, tell me something about yourself.”

“About myself? I don’t think I can do that. But I will tell you about
some one to whom I felt very close. It was a sister; no bodily sister,
for I haven’t one. The reason I said ‘strange’ just now was because
this Angiolina Pratti seemed like a sister to me too. Suddenly there
seemed to be three sisters: Angiolina and I and the one I shall
tell you about. It is a rather sad story. At least, it is at first.
Afterwards it is no longer quite so sad. Oh, life is so wonderful and
so deeply moving and so rich and so full of power!”

“Ruth, little Ruth,” said Christian.

Then she told her story. “There was a little girl, a child. She lived
with her parents at Slonsk, far in the eastern part of the country.
Five years have gone since it all happened. Her father was very poor;
he was assistant bookkeeper in a cotton mill, but he was so poorly
paid that he could hardly scrape together the rent of their wretched
dwelling. His wife had been ailing for long. Sorrow over their failure
and suffering had robbed her of strength, and in the winter she died.
These people were the only Jews in Slonsk, and in order to bury the
body they had to take it to the nearest Jewish cemetery at Inowraztlaw.
Since no railroad connects the towns, they had to use a wagon. So at
seven o’clock in the morning--it was toward the end of December--the
wagon came, and the coffin with the mother’s body was lifted on it.
The father and the brother and the little girl followed on foot. The
girl was eleven years old and the boy eight and a half. Thick flakes
of snow fell, and soon the road had disappeared, and you could tell it
only from the line of trees on either hand.

“It was still dark when they started, and even when day came there was
only a murky twilight. The girl was unbearably sad, and her sadness
increased at every step. When day had fully come, a dim, misty day,
the crows flew thither from all directions. It may be that the body
in the coffin brought them. But the girl had never seen so many; they
seemed to pour from the sky. On great black wings they flew back and
forth, and croaked uncannily through the icy, murky silence. And the
girl’s sadness became so great that she wished to die. She lagged
behind a little, and neither her father nor her brother noticed it in
the snow-flurries, nor yet the man who led the horses. So she crossed
a field to a wood, and there she sat down and made up her mind to die.
Soon her senses were numbed.

“But an old peasant, who had been gathering wood, came from among
the trees, and when he saw her and perceived that she did not move
and was asleep, he first looked at her a while, and then he started
to strip her body of all she had, her cloak, her shoes, her dress,
her stockings, and even her shift; for the peasants are very poor
thereabouts. She could not resist. She felt what was happening only
as from the depth of a dream. So the peasant made a little bundle of
her things, and left her naked body there as dead and limped away. He
marched along for a while, and came upon the wagon with the coffin and
the two men and the boy. The wagon had stopped, for the child had been
missed. On the edge of the road a crucifix had been set up, and that
was the first thing that gave the peasant pause. It did not seem to him
to be chance that Christ was standing there beside the wagon with the
coffin. He confessed that later. Also he saw the hundreds of crows that
croaked wildly and hungrily, and he was frightened. Then he saw how
desperate the father was, and that he was preparing to turn back and
gazed in all directions and tried to halloo through the mist.

“The peasant’s conscience began to burn. He fell on his knees before
the cross and prayed. The father asked him whether he had seen the
child. He pointed and wanted to run away, and he did run across the
fields. But something within him forced him to run to the very spot
where he had robbed and abandoned the girl. He lifted her in his arms,
wrapped his coat about her, and held her to his breast. The father had
followed and received the child, and did not ask why she was naked
and bare. They rubbed her skin so long with snow till she was warm
and opened her eyes. Then the peasant kissed her forehead, and made
the sign of the cross over the Jewish child. The father rebuked him
for that, but the peasant said: ‘Forgive me, brother,’ and he kissed
his hand. From that time on no sadness of the old kind ever came to
the girl again. She had only a very faint recollection of the moment
when the peasant wrapped her in his coat and held her to his breast.
But I believe that she was born again in that moment, born better and
stronger than she had been before.”

“Ruth, little Ruth,” said Christian.

“And perhaps Angiolina, that other sister of mine, also awakened to a
happier life from that hour of dimness and of death.”

Christian did not answer. He felt as though a light were walking by his
side.

At a corner of that desolate street they came upon a very brilliant
show-window. They went up to it and stopped as by a common impulse. The
shop had long been closed, but in the window was draped a magnificent
coat of Russian sable, a symbol of wealth and warmth and adornment.
Christian turned to Ruth, and saw the threadbare little cloak in which
she shivered. And he saw that she was poor. Then it came into his mind
that he too was poor, poor like her, and irrevocably so. He smiled,
for the fact seemed significant to him, and he felt a joy that was
secret and almost ecstatic.


XII

Johanna Schöntag’s first visit to Voss passed off in a very commonplace
manner. Trying to let him forget that she was a young lady made her
more and more conventional. To hide her embarrassment, she was half
capricious and half critical in mood. It amused her that there was a
rocking-chair in the room. “It reminds one of one’s grandmother,” she
said, “and gives one an anachronistic and homelike feeling.” Then she
sat down in it and rocked, took candied fruits from her little beaded
bag and crushed them on her tongue, which gave her a comical and
pouting expression.

On the table there was a tea-urn, two cups, and plates with pastry.
Voss’s demeanour seemed to say that narrow means did not prevent one
from entertaining properly. It amused Johanna. She thought to herself:
“If he brings out a photograph album with pictures of himself as a
child, I shall giggle right into his face.” And at the same time her
heart throbbed with quite other fears.

Voss spoke of his loneliness. He alluded to experiences of his own
that had made him shy. There were people, he said, who seemed fated
to suffer shipwreck in all matters where their hearts were involved.
They had to grow calluses of the soul. He was busy doing that. He had
never had a friend, though the illusion of friendship often enough.
To realize the futility of some great longing was bitterer than to
discover the insufficiency of a human being.

Johanna’s secret fears grew as she heard him wax sentimental. She said:
“This rocking-chair is the nicest thing I’ve come across for long. It
gives me a queer, pleasant little sea-sickness. Are you sure the people
under you won’t believe that you’ve become a father and are rocking
your offspring to sleep?” She laughed and left the chair. Then she
drank tea and nibbled at a piece of pastry, and quite suddenly said
good-bye and left him.

Voss gritted his teeth. His hand was as empty as before. He took a
piece of soft cake, formed it into the rude image of a girl, and
pierced it with the pin that Christian had given him. The room still
held the faint aroma of a woman’s body and garments and clothes and
hair. He rocked the empty chair, and talked to an invisible person who
was leaning back in it and coquettishly withdrew from his glance. For a
while he worked. Then his work wearied him, and his thoughts were busy
laying snares.

All he did and thought showed the sincerity of his feeling of
loneliness. His soul exuded poisonous fumes.

He opened a drawer of his desk, and took out the letters of the unknown
lady who had signed herself F. He read them through, and then took pen
and paper and began to copy them. He copied them word for word, but
whenever Christian’s name occurred he substituted dots for it. There
were twenty-three of these letters, and when he had finished dawn was
rising.

He slept a few hours, and then wrote to Johanna as follows: “I propose
this riddle to you: Who is F. and who is the thief and robber who
took French leave with such a treasure of enthusiasm and devotion?
Perhaps it is only a product of my fancy or a by-product of my morbid
imagination. I leave you to guess. Has there been an attempt here to
substitute a magnificent invention for the unromantic sobriety of
real life, or did this rare and miraculous thing really form a part
of human experience? It seems to me that something in the modulation
and tone-colour, something subtle but unmistakable, points to the
latter conclusion. Where is the man who could invent such pain and such
delight? Who would have the courage to represent the life of the senses
as so blended of shamelessness and of a primal innocence? Compared to
such an one our most vaunted poets would be the merest tyros. I have,
of course, never admired poets inordinately. They falsify appearances,
and, in the last analysis, they are but rationalists in whose hands
our dreams become transparent and two-dimensional. There is a verbal
veraciousness which is as penetrating as the glow of living flesh. Here
is an example of it. It is a miracle to be adored, a thing of envy
to all hungry souls. It is life itself, and since it is life, where
are the living two that begot it? She, the marvellous author of the
letters, is probably dead--consumed in the glow of her own soul. Her
very shadow bears the stigmata of doom. But her ecstatic pen paints the
picture of him whom she loved. I know him, we both know him. He stands
at the gate of the penitents, and offers for old debts a payment that
no one wants. To love as she loved is like worship; to be so loved and
not to value it, to let its evidence rot in the dust of a library--that
is a sin which nothing can wipe out. If one whom God himself pampered
spews the food of angels out of his mouth, nothing but carrion remains
for the step-children of fate. And yet we know: not wholly hopeless is
the cry of the blood’s need. Come to me soon; I have much to ask you
and to say to you. I was like stone yesterday; the happiness of your
presence drugged me. I shall be waiting for you. Each day I shall be
at home at five o’clock and wait for you for three hours. Is there not
some compulsion in that? When would you like to see Wahnschaffe? I
shall tell him and arrange the meeting.”

Johanna felt the same consternation this time that she had felt
months before when Voss had written her in Christian’s stead. First
she thought he had perpetrated a hoax. But when she read the letters
she was convinced of their authenticity and deeply moved. Voss’s
indications left no doubt as to their origin; again he had stolen
another’s secret in order to make use of it. His motives seemed
inexplicable to her. But she promised herself not to see him again,
whatever happened. The very thought of him made her freeze. The morbid
and heated hatred of Christian which he always manifested made her
reconsider. At moments she nursed the flattering delusion that she
might be the means of saving Christian from a great danger. And yet,
somehow, the man himself exerted the stronger lure. There was a will
in him! A strange temptation--to feel the compulsion of an alien will!
Whither would it lead?

Thus when, against her determination and her better instinct, she
entered the house on Ansbacher Street once more, she said to herself:
“O Rumpelstiltzkin, I’m afraid you’re rushing into destruction. But run
on and be destroyed. Then, at least, something will have happened.”

She carried the letters back to him. She asked coldly what had been his
intention in sending them. She feigned not to hear his answer that his
letter had explained his intention. She refused to sit down. Voss tried
to find a subject of conversation; he walked up and down before her
like a sentinel. In her mind she passed caustic comments on him; she
observed the negligence of his clothes, and thought his way of swinging
on his heel and suddenly rubbing his hands absurd. Everything about
him seemed silly and comical to her. She mocked at him to herself: “A
schoolmaster who has gone a little crazy.”

He told her he had made up his mind to move to Zehlendorf. Out there he
had found a peaceful attic room in a villa. He felt the need of trees
and fields, at least of their odour. In the morning he would ride in to
attend lectures and in the afternoon return. Even if this plan could
not be carried out daily, yet he would have the consolation of knowing
that he had a refuge beyond this stony pandemonium which tasted of
maltreated minds and of ink. He would move in two weeks.

“All the better.” The words slipped out before Johanna was aware.

“What do you mean by that?” he asked, with a cattish look. Then he
laughed, and his laughter sounded like the clashing of shards. “Ah,”
he said, and stopped, “do you really think the distance will make any
difference? You will come to me, I assure you; and you will come not
only when I summon you, but of your own impulse. So please don’t cling
to a delusive hope.”

Johanna had no answer ready. His insolence shook her self-control.
Voss laughed again, and took no notice of the impression made by his
words. He spoke of the progress of his studies: he had worked for two
semesters, and was as far advanced as others at the end of six. The
professors were saying excellent things of him. He considered all
that part of medical knowledge that could be directly acquired mere
child’s play. No man of normal mind and decent industry should need
more than eighteen months to master it. After that, to be sure, the
paths divided. On one were artisans, dilettanti, mere professionals,
and charlatans; on the other were great brains and spirits, pioneers
and illustrious discoverers. At first surgery had attracted him, but
that attraction had been brief. It was the merest butchery. He would
refuse to depend wholly on knife and saw, and at all crucial moments
of practice to submit to the dictates of a professional diagnostician,
with nothing left him but whether the butcher would turn out to be an
executioner or not. What attracted him inordinately was psychiatry. In
it mystery was heaped on mystery. Unexplored and undiscovered countries
stretched out there--great epidemics of the soul, illnesses of the
sexes, deep-rooted maladies of whole nations, a ghostly chase between
heaven and earth, new proofs of psychical bonds that stretched from
millennium to millennium as well as from man to man, the discovery of
whose nature would make the whole structure of science totter.

Johanna was repelled. One couldn’t go much further in the way of
boasting. His voice, which constantly passed from falsetto to bass,
like a young bird thudding awkwardly between two walls, gave her a
physical pain. She murmured a polite formula of agreement, and gave him
her hand in farewell. Even this she hated to do.

“Stay!” he said commandingly.

She threw back her head and looked at him in astonishment.

Now he begged. “Do stay! You always leave in such a mood that the
minute you are outside I’m tempted to hang myself.”

Johanna changed colour and wrinkled her childlike forehead. “Will you
kindly tell me what you want of me?”

“That is a question of remarkably--shall we call it innocent frankness?
What I want would seem to be sufficiently clear. Or can you accuse
me of a lack of plain speaking? Am I a very deft and crafty wooer? I
should rather expect you to reprove me for my impetuousness; that would
be reasonable. But I cannot play at games; I have no skill in sinuous
approaches. I cannot symbolize my feelings through flowers, nor have I
learned to set springs of words or feign a bait upon the waters or make
sweetish speeches. If I could do these things I might be more certain
of reaching my goal. But I have no time; my time is limited, Fräulein
Johanna. My life is crystallizing to a catastrophic point. Its great
decision is at hand!”

“Your frankness leaves nothing to be desired,” Johanna replied, and
looked coolly and firmly into his eyes. She waited for a few seconds;
then she asked, with a forced smile, concealing both her dread and
her curiosity: “And why am I the arbiter in that great decision? What
qualities have attracted your attention toward me? To what virtue or
to what vice do I owe such an honour?” Awaiting his reply, she all but
closed her eyes; and that gave her face a melting charm. She knew the
danger of such coquettishness, but the abysses lured her.

But to Amadeus Voss she was exactly what she seemed to be. He gazed
ecstatically at her face, and asked: “May I be frank?”

“You frighten me. Can one be more so than you have already been?”

“You see--it is your race. It is, I do not deny it, the same race which
I have always.... Well, it’s speaking mildly to say that I’ve always
hated the Jews. Merely to scent a Jew was always to me like having
an explosive stuck into my nerves. An immemorial crime is symbolized
there, an ancient guilt; the Crucified One sighs across lands and ages
to my ear. My blood rebels against the noblest of your race. It may
be that I am the tool of an age-long lie; it may be that he who lacks
the love that makes a priest acquires the stupidity and intolerance
that mark the parson; it may be that our apparent enemies shall prove
at last to be our brothers, and that Cain and Abel will clasp hands on
Judgment Day. But it is part of my very being to nourish hatred when
the roots of my life under the earth beyond my reach are crippled by
the insolent growth of alien seedlings. And when one proposes to be my
comrade and my neighbour, and yet meets me with the reserve of an alien
soul--am I not to feel it and not to pay him back in the same coin?
That is the way I’ve always felt. I never before knew a Jewish woman;
and I cannot say that my feeling has undergone any essential change.
Had it done so, I should suffer less. Oh, you are quite right to
despise me on account of what I am saying; and, indeed, I am prepared
to hear your contempt often. That is a part of my suffering. The first
time I saw you I thought at once of Jephtha’s daughter. She was, you
remember, sacrificed by her father, because she happened to be the
first to welcome him on his return home; for he had made a vow, and
his daughter came to meet him with cymbals and with dancing. It is a
profound notion--that notion of sacrificing the first one who comes to
bid you welcome. And she must have been sweet and dainty--the daughter
of Jephtha. She is to-day--experienced in dreams; rash where it is a
matter of mere dreams; spoiled, incapable of any deed, submerging all
enthusiasm and initiative in an exquisite yearning. The long wealth
gathered by her ancestors has made her faint-hearted. She loves music
and all that flatters the senses--delicate textures and beautiful
words. She loves also the things that arouse and sting, but they must
neither burden nor bind her. She loves the shiver of fear and of
small intoxications; she loves to be tempted, to challenge fate, to
put her little hand into the tiger’s cage. But everything within her
is delicate and in transition toward something--blossoming or decay.
She is sensitive, without resistance, weary, and so full of subtle
knowledge and various gropings that each desire in her negates another.
Inbreeding has curdled her blood, and even when she laughs her face is
touched with pain. And one day her father Jephtha, Judge in Israel,
returns, home and sacrifices her. Oh, I am sure he went mad after that.”

Johanna’s face was as pale as death. “That, I suppose, was a lesson in
your admired science of psychiatry?” She forced herself to mockery.

Voss did not answer.

“Good-bye, you learned man.” She walked to the door.

Voss followed her. “When are you coming again?” he asked softly.

She shook her head.

“When are you coming again?”

“Don’t torment me.”

“Wahnschaffe will be here the day after to-morrow. Will you come?”

“I don’t know.”

“Johanna, will you come?” He stood before her with uplifted hands, and
the muscles of his cheeks and temples twitched.

“I don’t know.” She went out.

But he knew that she would come.


XIII

Between the acts of a dress rehearsal Lorm and Emanuel Herbst walked up
and down in the foyer, discussing Lorm’s rôle. “Hold yourself a little
more in reserve.” Herbst talked slightly through his nose. “And at
the climax of the second act I expected a somewhat stronger emphasis.
There’s nothing else to criticize.”

“Very well,” said Lorm drily. “I’ll stick on a little more
grease-paint.”

Many of the invited guests also walked through the curved passage way.
Admiring glances followed Lorm. A girl approached him determinedly.
She had evidently struggled with herself. She handed him a bunch of
carnations, and silently withdrew, frightened by her own temerity.

“How nice of you!” Lorm exclaimed with kindliness, and stuck his nose
into the flowers.

“Well, you old reveller, do the broken hearts taste as well as ever?”
Herbst asked mockingly. “One is served at breakfast, too, isn’t it? Or
more than one? It makes an old codger like me feel sad.”

“You can get too much of a good thing,” said Lorm. “The poor dears go
to excesses. Yes, early in the morning one will be trying to bribe the
house attendants. When my chauffeur appears they flutter about him.
Many of them know how I’ve planned my day and turn up at unexpected
places--in an art dealer’s shop, at my photographer’s studio. I’ve
been told of one poor girl who spent nights promenading in front of
the house. When I was on tour there was one who followed me from town
to town. And then there are all those unhappy letters. The amount
of feeling that goes to waste, the confessions that are made, the
intricate problems that are presented--you would be astonished. And
all make the same naïve presumptions. I shouldn’t care very greatly if
this whole business didn’t have its serious aspect. All these young
creatures put their capital into an undertaking doomed to failure. It’s
bound to revenge itself. Clever people say that it doesn’t matter what
the young are enthusiastic about, if only they’re enthusiastic about
something. It isn’t true. Decent young people shouldn’t rave about an
actor. Don’t misunderstand me. I don’t mean to belittle our profession;
it has its definite merits. I don’t want to display any false modesty
about myself either. I know precisely what I am. The point is that
those young people do not. They want me to be what I only represent.
That is the height of absurdity. No, decent young people shouldn’t
adore an actor who is only a caricature of a hero.”

“Well, well, well,” said Emanuel Herbst, in a tone of soothing
irony. “You’re too severe and too pessimistic. I know a few rather
authoritative persons who sincerely assign to you quite a high position
among mortals. I’ll not mention immortals in deference to your mood.
And in your really lucid moments you’re proud of your position, which
is quite as it should be. What attitude does your wife take to your
attacks of hypochondria? Doesn’t she scold you?”

“It seems to me,” Lorm said impassively, “that Judith has arrived on
the other shore of her disillusion. In this dispute she would hardly
take your side. My convictions have fallen on fertile ground in her
case.”

Emanuel Herbst rocked his head from side to side and protruded his
nether lip. Lorm’s tone made him anxious. “How is she anyhow?” he
asked. “I haven’t seen her for a long time. I heard she was ill.”

“It’s hard to say how she is,” Lorm answered. “Ill? No, she wasn’t ill,
although she did spend a great deal of time in bed. There are a few
middle-class women who’ve formed a kind of court about her. They give
her all their time, and she’s trained them marvellously. She says she’s
losing her slenderness, so she got a fashionable physician to prescribe
a hunger cure. She follows the directions religiously. But my house is
in splendid condition. Tip-top. Why shouldn’t it be? It’s cleaned to
the last corner twice a week. The cuisine is excellent, and I’ve got
some rather nice things in my cellar. You must come and try them.”

“All right, old man, you can count on me,” said Emanuel Herbst. But his
anxiety for his friend had grown with each word that Lorm had uttered.
He knew that coldness which hid the most quivering sensitiveness, that
princely smoothness beneath which great wounds were bleeding, that
indeterminate element which was half spiritual malady, half an ascetic
impulse. He was afraid of the destruction wrought by a worm in a noble
fruit.

The signal sounded. A new act began. From the stage that voice of steel
exerted its compelling resonance once more.


XIV

Johanna did come.

She had waited until it was quite late, in order to avoid waiting for
Christian alone with Voss. When, after, all, she found only Voss, she
could not conceal her contempt. Her vexation made her face look old and
peaked.

The weather was cold and wet. She sat down near the oven and put her
hands against the tiles. She did not take off her coat. It was an
ample, fur-trimmed garment with large buttons. She looked in it like
a thin and hiding child. Nor did she raise her veil, which extended
rather tautly from her wide-brimmed hat to her chin and accentuated the
whiteness of her skin.

“You lied to me,” she said harshly. “It was mere bait. You knew he
wouldn’t be here.”

Voss answered: “What you have just said relegates me pretty clearly
to a mere means to an end. What do you expect of a meeting with
him anyhow? What is it to serve? Is it to revive memories or give
the opportunity for an explanation? No, I know you’re not fond of
explanations. You like tension, provided your way of escape is ready
for you. Very clever. I am to be at once the opportunity and the way of
escape. Very clever. But why don’t you simply go to him? Because, of
course, you don’t want to assume the psychical obligation implied in
such a step. It might look as though you meant something; you are not
sure how it would be interpreted. Your cowardice is almost funny. When
it’s convenient, you’re a sensitive plant; when it’s not, you’re quite
capable of putting your heel on some defenceless neck.”

“This is intolerable,” Johanna cried, and arose. “Don’t you know that
my being here compromises me more, especially in my own eyes, than
anything else I could do?”

Voss was frightened. “Calm yourself,” he said, and touched her arm.
Recoiling from his touch she sank back into her chair. “Calm yourself,”
Voss repeated. “He promised definitely to be here; but he has many
errands nowadays and has to meet many people and is constantly on the
way from one place to another.”

Johanna tormented herself. She was an experienced expert at it. She was
glad when things went ill with her, when her hopes failed, when she was
insulted or misunderstood. She was glad when the silk stocking into
which she slipped her foot tore, when ink dropped on her paper, when
she missed a train or found something for which she had paid generously
prove worthless. It was a bitter, mischievous gladness, such as one
feels at the absurd downfall of a hated rival.

It was this feeling that made her smile now. “I’m a charming creature,
am I not?” she said, with a bizarre look and gesture.

Voss was disconcerted.

“Tell me about him,” she said, half-defiantly, half-resignedly, and
again pressed her hands against the tiles.

Amadeus looked upon her hands, which were bluish with cold. “You are
cold,” he murmured. “You are always cold.”

“Yes, I’m always cold. There’s not enough sunshine for me.”

“People say that foundlings never get really warm; but you are no
foundling. I imagine, on the contrary, that your childhood was a hotbed
of carefulness. Undoubtedly the rooms were overheated, and hot-water
bottles were put into your bed at night, and tonics were prescribed.
Yet your soul froze all the more as the attempt was made to reach
it through material things. You are no foundling in the body; your
bourgeois descent is clear. But your soul is probably a foundling soul.
There are such souls. They flutter yearningly up and down in space
between heaven and hell, and their fate depends on whether an angel
or a demon assigns them their earthly tabernacle. Most of them get
into the wrong bodies. They are so anxious for a mortal form that they
usually fall into the hands of a demon to whom they are tributary all
their lives. Such are the foundling souls.”

“Fantastic nonsense!” Johanna said. “You had better tell me something
about him.”

“About him? As I told you before, he is concerned in many different
things. The woman Karen is ill, and will probably not get better. It
is her rightful reward; vice demands the payment of its debt. You can
find the sword foretold for such in Scripture. Well, he nurses her;
he watches with her at night. Then there is a Jewish girl who lives
in the house. He goes about with her to all sorts of people--a kind
of suburban saint. Only he doesn’t preach; preaching is not among his
gifts. He is dumb, and that is a blessing. I have never sat so near to
a woman,” he went on in precisely the same tone, so as to prevent her
interrupting him, “never at least to one who makes me feel that her
very existence is a good. And one is so damnably in need of something
pure, so filled with terrible longing for a human eye--to know none
other regards you as she does. Almighty God, to lose for once the curse
of my isolation! What is it that I ask? It is so little! Only not to
sicken of my rage and famish of my thirst; once to lay my head into
a woman’s lap and feel nothing but the beloved night; and when the
silence falls, to feel a hand in my hair and hear a word, a breath, and
so to be redeemed!” His voice had grown softer and softer, and at last
sank to a whisper.

“Don’t ... don’t ... don’t,” Johanna implored him, almost as softly.
“Tell me about him,” she went on hastily. “Does he really live in
complete poverty? One hears so many things. Last week I was invited
by some people, and the company talked of nothing else. Impudent and
stupid as these parvenus of yesterday always are, they fairly outdid
themselves. They joked about him and pitied his family, or even
suggested that the whole thing was an imposture. My gorge rose. But I
ask you this one thing: Why haven’t I heard from you a single cordial
word about him? Why nothing but venom and slander? You must know him.
It is unthinkable that you really entertain the opinion of him by which
you try to add to your self-importance in my eyes, and no doubt in
the eyes of others. I assure you that there isn’t the remotest chance
of our really becoming friends, unless you’re candid with me on this
point.”

For a long time Voss was silent. First he passed his handkerchief
across his damp forehead. Then, bending far forward, he leaned his
chin upon his folded hands, and looked upward through his glasses as
though he were listening. “Friendship,” he murmured in a sarcastic
tone. “Friendship. I call that pouring water into the wine before the
grapes have gone to the winepress.” After a pause he spoke again. “I
am not called to be his judge. At the beginning of our acquaintance
it was given me to behold him with astonishment upon his pedestal. I
kneeled in the mud and lifted my eyes as to a demigod. Then I kindled
a little fire, and there was considerable smoke. But I would be a liar
to assert that he did not stir me to the innermost soul. At times he
so mastered my evil and common instincts that when I was left alone I
cast myself down and wept. But love surrounded him and hate surrounded
me. Wherever he appeared love burst into bloom; whatever I touched
turned upon me in hatred. Light and beauty and open hearts were about
him; blackness and humiliation and blocked paths were my portion. All
good spirits guarded him; I was fighting Satan, and out of my darkness
crying to God, who cast me off. Ay, cast me off and rejected me, and
set a mark of shame upon me, and pursued me ever more cruelly, as my
self-humiliation deepened and my penitence grew tenser and my roots
emerged more energetically from the earth. Then it came to pass that
he recognized a brother in me. We passed an unforgettable night, and
unforgettable words were exchanged between us. But love remained about
him, and about me hate. He took my flame from me, and carried it to
men; and love was about him, and about me was hate. He made a beggar
of me, and gave me hundreds of thousands; and love was about him, and
about me was hate. Do you think me so dull that I cannot measure his
deeds or their heavy weight and cost? The consciousness of them steals
into my sleep, and makes it terrible as an open wound, so that I lie as
among stinging nettles without heaven or aspiration. Who would be so
accursed a traitor to himself that he would neither hear nor see the
truth when it roars like a flame of fire? But how about that brother
in the dust? The contrast was easier to bear while he dwelt amid the
splendours of the world. Now he goes and renounces, lives amid want
and stench, nurses a woman of the streets and mingles with outcasts;
and what is the result? Love grows about him like a mountain. It is
necessary to have experienced and to have seen it. He comes into rooms
out there, and all glances cling to him and touch him tenderly; and
each creature seems fairer and better to itself while he is there. Is
it magic? But that mountain of love crushes me where I lie.”

Again he dried his forehead. Johanna observed him attentively; at last
an insight into his nature dawned in her.

“It is they who take the last step who are the chosen,” Amadeus Voss
continued. “Those like myself stop at the step before the last, and
that is our purgatory. Perhaps Judas Iscariot could have done what the
Master did, but the Master preceded him, and that doomed him to crime.
He was alone. That is the solution of his mystery: he was alone. Just
now, before you came, I was reading in a book the story of the marriage
of Saint Francis to the Lady Poverty. Do you know it? ‘Woe to him who
is alone,’ it says there. ‘When he falls, he has no one to lift him
up.’”

The book lay on the table. He took it up, and said: “Saint Francis had
left the city, and met two old men. He asked them whether they could
tell him the abode of Lady Poverty. Let me read you what the two old
men answered.”

He read aloud: “We have been here for a long time, and we have often
seen her passing along this road. Sometimes she was accompanied by
many, and often she returned alone without any companions, naked,
devoid of dress and adornment, and surrounded only by a little cloud.
And she wept very bitterly, and said: ‘The sons of my mother have
fought against me.’ And we made answer: ‘Have patience, for those who
are good love thee.’ And now we say to thee: Climb that high mountain
among the holy hills which God has given her as a dwelling-place
because He loves it more than all the dwelling-places of Jacob. The
giants cannot approach its paths nor the eagles reach its peak. If
thou wouldst go to her, strip off thy costly garments, and lay down
every burden and every occasion of sin. For if thou art not stripped
of these things, thou wilt never rise to her who dwells upon so great
a height. But since she is kind of heart, they who love her see her
without trouble, and they who seek her find her with ease. Think of
her, brother, for they who yield themselves to her are safe. But take
with thee faithful companions, with whom thou mayest take counsel when
thou climbest the mountain, and who may be thy helpers. For woe to him
who is alone. When he falls he has no one to lift him up.”

His manner of reading tormented Johanna. There was a fanaticism in it
from which her soul, attuned to semitones, shrank.

“Woe to him who is alone,” said Voss. He kneeled down before Johanna.
All his limbs trembled. “Johanna,” he implored her, “give me your hand,
only your hand, and have pity on me.”

Her will failed her. More in consternation than obedience, she gave him
her hand, which he kissed with a devouring passion. What he did seemed
blasphemous and desperate after his words and his reading; but she
dared not withdraw her hand.

Her watchful ear caught a noise. “Some one is coming,” she whispered
faintly. Voss arose. There was a knock at the door, and Christian
entered.

He greeted them in a friendly way. His calm contrasted almost
resonantly with Amadeus’s wild distraction, for Voss could not
control himself wholly. While Christian sat down at the table with
the lamplight full upon his face, and looked now at Johanna, now at
Voss, the latter walked excitedly up and down, and said: “We have been
talking about Saint Francis, Fräulein Johanna and I.”

Christian looked his surprise.

“I know nothing of him,” he said. “All I remember is that once in
Paris, at Eva Sorel’s, some verses about him were read. Every one was
delighted, but I didn’t like the poem. I have forgotten why, but I
recall that Eva was very angry.” He smiled. “Why did you two talk about
Saint Francis?”

“We were talking of his poverty,” replied Voss, “and of his marriage to
the Lady Poverty, as the legend has it. And we agreed that such things
must not be translated into actual life, for the result would be
falsehood and misunderstanding....”

“We agreed about nothing,” Johanna interrupted him drily. “I am no
support for any one’s opinions.”

“Never mind,” said Voss, somewhat depressed. “It is a vision, a vision
born of the sufferings of religious souls. That poverty, that sacred
poverty is unthinkable except upon a Christian foundation. Whoever
would dare to attempt it, and to turn backward the overwhelming stream
of life in a distorted world, amid distorted conditions, where poverty
means dirt and crime and degradation--such an one would only create
evil and challenge humanity itself.”

“That may be correct,” said Christian. “But one must do what one
considers right.”

“It’s cheap enough to take refuge in the purely personal when general
questions are discussed,” Voss said rancorously.

Johanna rose to say good-bye, and Christian prepared himself to follow
her, since it was on her account that he had come. Voss said he would
walk with them as far as Nollendorf Square. There he left them.

“It is hard for us to talk,” said Christian. “There is much for which I
should ask you to forgive me, dear Johanna.”

“Oh,” said Johanna, “it doesn’t matter about me. I’ve conquered that.
Unless I probe too deeply, even the pain is gone.”

“And how do you live?”

“As best I can.”

“You don’t mind my calling you Johanna still, do you? Won’t you come to
see me some day? I’m usually at home in the evening. Then we could sit
together and talk.”

“Yes, I’ll come,” said Johanna, who felt her own embarrassment yielding
before Christian’s frank and simple tone.

While she was walking beside him and hearing and answering his direct
and simple questions, all that had happened in the past seemed a
matter of course, and the present seemed harmonious enough. But when
she was alone again she was as vexed with herself as ever; the nearest
goal seemed as irrational as the farthest, and the world and life shut
in by dreariness.

Two days later she went to Christian’s dwelling. The wife of the
night watchman Gisevius ushered her into Christian’s room. Shivering
and oppressed by the room, in which she could not imagine him, she
waited for over an hour. Frau Gisevius advised her to look in at Karen
Engelschall’s or the Hofmanns’ flat. To this she could not make up her
mind. “I’ll come again,” she said.

When she stepped out into the street she saw Amadeus Voss. He greeted
her without words, and his expression seemed to take it for granted
that they had agreed to meet here. He walked on at her side.

“I love you, Johanna,” he said.

She did not answer, nor turn her eyes toward him. She walked more
swiftly, then more slowly, then more swiftly again.

“I love you, Johanna,” said Amadeus Voss, and his teeth rattled.


XV

On the alabaster mantelshelf candles were burning in the silver
Renaissance candlesticks. The more salient light of the burning logs
reached only far enough to envelop the figures of Eva and of Cornelius
Ermelang in its glow. It did not penetrate as far as the porphyry
columns or the gold of the ceiling. A dim, red flicker danced in the
tall mirrors, and the purple damask curtains before the huge windows,
which shut in the room more solemnly than the great doors, absorbed the
remnants of light without reflection.

The tea-gown of white lace which the dancer wore--experts declared each
square inch of it to have the value of a provincial governor’s annual
pay--was vivid as a fantastic pastel on the side turned to the fire.

“You have been very kind to me,” said Eva. “After you had been here
so many times in vain, I was afraid you would leave without having
seen me. But Susan probably told you how my days are spent. Men and
happenings whirl through them so that I find it hard to retain a
consciousness of my own self. Thus friends become estranged, and the
faces about me change and I hardly notice it. A mad life!”

“Yet you summoned me in spite of that,” Ermelang whispered, “and I have
the happiness of being with you at last. Now I have attained everything
that my stay in Russia promised. How shall I thank you? I have only
my poor words.” He looked at her with emotion, with a kind of ecstasy
in his watery blue eyes. He had a habit of repeating the formula
concerning his poor words; but despite the artifices of his speech,
his feeling was genuine. Indeed, there was always a trifle too much
feeling, too much soulfulness in his speech. Sometimes the impression
arose that he was in reality not quite so deeply stirred, and that, if
necessary, he could well limit his emotional expansion.

“What would one not do to please a poet?” Eva said with a courteous
gesture. “It is pure selfishness too. I would have the image of me made
perpetual in your mind. Both ancient and modern tyrants assure us that
the only man whom they strove to please is the poet.”

Ermelang said: “A being like you exists in so elemental a fashion that
any image is as negligible in comparison as the shadow of a thing when
the sun is at its zenith.”

“You are subtle. Yet images persist. I have so great a faith in your
vision that I should like you to tell me whether I am really so changed
as those friends assert who knew me in my Parisian days. I laugh at
them; but in my laughter there is a little rebellion of my vanity
and a little fear of withering and fading. Don’t say anything; a
contradiction would be trivial. Tell me, above all, how you came to be
travelling in Russia, and what you have seen and heard and experienced.”

“I have experienced very little. The total impression has been so
unforgettable that details have faded into insignificance. Various
difficulties made Paris unpleasant to me, and the Princess Valuyeff
offered me a refuge on her estate near Petrograd. Now I must return to
the West--to Europe, as the Russians mockingly say. And they are right.
For I must leave my spiritual home-land, and people who were close to
me, although I did not know them, and a loneliness full of melody and
presage, and return to senseless noise and confusion and isolation. I
have spoken to Tolstoi and to Pobiedonostzev; I have been to the fair
at Nijni-Novgorod, and been driven across the steppe in a troika. And
about all--the people and the landscape--there is a breath of innocence
and of the times to come, of mystery and of power.”

Eva had not listened very attentively. The hymns to Russia, intoned by
wayfaring literary men and observers, began seriously to bore her. She
made a faintly wry mouth. “Yes,” she said, “it’s a world all its own,”
and held out her lovely hands toward the warmth of the fire.

It seemed to Ermelang that she had never, in the old days, let some one
to whom she was talking thus drift out of the circle of her mind. He
felt that his words had had no friendly reception. He became diffident
and silent. Guardedly he observed her with his inner eye, which was
truly austere. He saw the change of which she had spoken, and recorded
the image as she had demanded.

The oval of her face had acquired a line hardened as by the will.
Nothing was left of goodness in it, little of serenity. An almost harsh
determination was about her mouth. There were losses, too. Shadows lay
on her temples and under her lids. Her body still betrayed her lordship
over it, precisely in its flowing ease, its expansion and repose,
such as one sees in wildcats. Ermelang had heard that she toiled
unceasingly, spending six to seven hours a day in practice, as in the
years of her apprenticeship. The result was evident in the satiation
with rhythm and grace which her limbs and joints showed and her perfect
control of them.

Yet nothing gracious, nothing of freedom came from her. Ermelang
thought of the rumours that accused her of an unquenchable lust after
power, of dangerous political plotting, fatal conspiracies, and a
definite influence upon certain secret treaties that threatened to
disquiet the nations, and of not being guiltless of journalistic
campaigns that in their blended brutality and subtlety menaced the
peace of Europe. It had seemed as though great coal deposits in the
depth of the earth were on fire; but the men above still lived and
breathed without suspicion.

Those who distrusted her declared her to be a secret agent of Germany,
yet she enjoyed the friendship of French and British diplomatists. Her
defenders asserted that she was used without her knowledge to cover
the plans and guile of the Grand Duke Cyril. Those who believed in her
wholly declared that she really crossed his plans and only feigned
to be his tool. The nobility disliked her; the court feared her; the
common people, goaded by priests and sectaries, saw in her the embodied
misfortune of their country. At a rebellion in Ivanova she had been
publicly proclaimed a witch, and her name had been pronounced accursed
with solemn rites. Not later than the day before, a deputation of
peasants from Mohilev, whom he had met in the fish market, had told him
that they had seen the Tsar at Tsarskoye Selo, and in their complaints
concerning the famine in their province had, in their stubborn
superstition, pointed out the wicked splendour of the foreign dancer’s
life. It had become proverbial among them. The Tsar, they said, had
been unable to give an answer, and had gazed at the floor.

All these things were incontrovertible parts of her life and fate. He
looked upon her lovely hands, rosy in the glow of the flames, and felt
a dread for her.

“Is it true,” he asked, with a shy smile, “that you entered the
forbidden fortress thrice in succession?”

“It is true. Has it been taken amiss?”

“It has certainly aroused amazement. No stranger has ever before
crossed that threshold, nor any Russian unless he entered as a
prisoner. No one seems able to fathom your impulse. Many suppose that
you merely wanted to see Dmitri Sheltov, who fired at the Grand Duke.
Tell me your motive; I should like to have a reply to the gossips.”

“They need no reply,” Eva said. “I do not fear them, and need no
defence. I don’t know why I went. Perhaps I did want to see Sheltov.
He had insulted me; he even took the trouble to publish a broadside
against me. Five of his friends were sent to Siberia for that--boys of
sixteen and seventeen. The mother of one of the boys wrote me a letter
imploring me to save him. I tried but failed. Perhaps I really wanted
to see Dmitri Sheltov. They say that he has vowed to kill Ivan Becker.”

“Sheltov is one of the purest characters in the world,” Ermelang said
very softly. “To force a confession from him, they beat him with whips.”

Eva was silent.

“With whips,” Ermelang repeated. “This man! And men still dare to laugh
and speak, and the sun to shine.”

“Perhaps I wanted to see a man writhing under the blows of the
knout,” Eva said. “Perhaps it meant much to me as a stimulus. I must
be nourished somehow, and the uncommon is my nourishment. A strange
twitching, an original posture in crouching--such things satisfy my
imagination. But as a matter of fact”--her voice grew sombre, and she
stared fixedly at a spot on the wall--“I did not see him at all. But
I saw others who have spent ten, twelve, fifteen years in dark cells
of stone. Once they moved about in the great world and busied their
minds with noble things; now they cower in their rags, and blink at
the light of a little lantern. They have forgotten how to look, to
walk, to speak. An odour of decomposition was about them, and all their
gestures were full of a gentle madness. But it was not for their sake
either that I went. I went for the sake of the imprisoned women, who,
on account of an intellectual conviction, have been torn from love
and life and motherhood and devotion, and condemned to death by slow
torture. Many of them had never been condemned by any tribunal. They
had merely been forgotten--simply forgotten; and if their friends were
to demand a trial, the same fate would threaten them. I saw one who
had been brought in when she was a girl; now she was an aged woman and
near her death. I saw Natalie Elkan, who was violated by a colonel of
gendarmes at Kiev, and killed the monster with his own sword. I saw
Sophie Fleming, who put out her own eyes with a piece of steel wire,
because they had hanged her brother in her presence. Do you know what
she said when I entered her cell? She lifted her blind face, and said:
‘That’s the way a lady smells.’ Ah, that taught me something concerning
women. I put my arms about her and kissed her, and whispered in her
ear, asking whether I should smuggle some poison to her; but she
refused.”

Eva arose and walked up and down. “Yes,” she said, “and still men speak
and laugh, and still the sun shines. This room is filled with precious
things. Lackeys stand on the stairs. Fifty feet from here is the bed
of state in which I sleep. It is all mine. What I touch is mine, what
I glance at is mine. They would give me the round earth itself if they
had it to give and I asked it. And I would cast it like a billiard-ball
into a noisome puddle, so that it might no longer defile the home of
stars with its filth and its torments. I am so full of hate! I no
longer know where to hide it or how to be redeemed from it! I no longer
believe in anything--neither in art, nor in poets, nor in myself. I
only hate and destroy. I am a lost soul!”

Ermelang folded his hands. “Wonderful as you are, you should remember
all you have given and to how many.”

Eva stood still. “I am a lost soul. I feel it.”

“Why lost? You are playing a sad game with yourself.”

She shook her head and whispered the verses of the _Inferno_:

    “O Simon mago, o miseri seguaci,
    Che le cose di Dio, che di bontate
    Deono essere spose, e voi rapaci
    Per oro e per argento adulterate.”[1]

[1]

    “O Simon Magus, O forlorn disciples.
    Ye who the things of God, which ought to be
    The brides of holiness, rapaciously
    For silver and for gold do prostitute.”


Thoughtfully Ermelang added:

    “Fatto v’avete Dio d’oro e d’argento;
    E che altro è da voi all’idolatre,
    Se non ch’egli uno, e voi n’orate cento?”[2]

[2]

    “Ye have made yourselves a god of gold and silver;
    And from the idolater how differ ye,
    Save that he one, and ye a hundred worship?”


“What is that I hear?” Eva asked, and listened. Raucous and angry
voices were heard from the street, and yells and hisses. Ermelang
listened too. Then he went to the window, pushed the draperies aside,
and looked out.

On the snow-covered street in front of the palace fifty or sixty mujiks
had assembled. One could clearly distinguish their sheepskin caps
and their long coats. They stood there silently and gazed up at the
windows. They had attracted a great crowd of people, men and women, and
these gesticulated, full of hatred, and seemed to urge the mujiks on.

“I believe those are the Mohilev peasants,” Ermelang said nervously. “I
saw them march through the city yesterday.”

Eva joined him for a moment at the window, and glanced out; then she
returned to the middle of the room. Her smile was contemptuous. At
that moment Susan Rappard came in, badly frightened. “There are people
downstairs. Pierre went out to ask them what they wanted. They want to
talk to you; they beg humbly to be admitted to your presence. What are
we to answer such riffraff? I’ve telephoned police headquarters. Good
heavens, what a country, what an abominable country!”

Eva lowered her eyes. “They are very poor people, Susan,” she said.
“Give them money. Give them all the money that is in the house.”

“Nonsense!” Susan cried, horrified. “Then the next time they’ll break
down the door and rob us.”

“Do as I tell you,” Eva replied. “Go to M. Labourdemont and tell him
to let you have all available cash. Then go out and take it to them.
No, you had better send some one who can speak to them, and let him
say that I have gone to bed and cannot receive them. And telephone the
police at once and assure them that we have no need of protection. Do
you understand?”

“Yes,” said Susan and went out.

The crowd had increased, the noise grew, and drunken men yelled. Only
the peasants remained silent. The oldest of them had come to the edge
of the sidewalk. A little white lump of snow lay on his cap, and to his
beard clung snow and ice. Pierre, the doorkeeper, in his livery set
with silver tresses, was facing him arrogantly. The old peasant bowed
low while the lackey spoke.

Eva turned to Ermelang. “Good-bye, dear friend. I am tired. Guard this
hour in your memory, but forget it when you speak of me to others. The
innermost things are revealed to but one. Good night.”

When Ermelang reached the door of the palace, he saw a troop of mounted
police appear at the other end of the street. The crowd melted away
with an agility that showed long experience. It took but a minute.
Only the peasants remained. Ermelang did not know whether money had
been given them as Eva had commanded. He did not care to witness the
play of crude force that was sure to occur on the arrival of the armed
men.


XVI

Ruth hurried home. Every Sunday afternoon her father was accustomed to
spend a few hours with her. She was surprised not to find him in the
flat. A letter lay on the table addressed: “To my children.”

The letter read: “Dear daughter and dear son: I must leave you, and
only Almighty God knows when I shall see you again. I have hesitated,
and I have fought against my decision, but it is made at last. I am
no longer equal to the struggle of existence under the circumstances
which obtain. To get ahead in Berlin a man needs iron fists and an iron
forehead. I am no longer young enough to push all obstacles brutally
out of the way, so utter destitution threatens us. Instead of being
your protector and provider, I am faced by the terrible possibility
of becoming a burden to you, Ruth, and your exertions are even now
superhuman. I have often been attracted by the thought of putting an
end to my life; but my religion as well as my concern for my children’s
memory of me has kept me alive. I have found a friend, a fellow Jew,
who has persuaded me to emigrate to America. He is advancing the money
for the voyage, and is hopeful of our success. Perhaps fate will relent
to me at last. Perhaps my terrible sacrifice in leaving you two in
uncertainty and want will move it to pity. I see no other way of saving
myself from certain destruction. Only because I know your strength of
soul, dear Ruth, only because I have the firm faith that some kind
angel watches over you, do I venture upon this difficult and bitter
step. I must not and dare not think. You are so young, both of you, and
without protection or friends or kinsmen. Perhaps God will forgive me
and protect you. I could bear no farewell but this. If I have anything
good to report I shall write. Then you, too, must let me hear. I am
inclosing fifty marks for your immediate needs; I cannot spare more.
The rent for November is paid. Six marks and fifty pfennigs are due
to the shoemaker Rösicke. With all my heart I embrace you both. Your
unhappy Father.”

Ruth wept.

She had been sitting still for a whole hour, when she heard a knocking
at the door. She thought it was Michael. She was a little afraid of his
coming, and in her need of a confidant she hoped deeply that it was
Christian Wahnschaffe.

It was neither. She opened the door, and saw a ragged girl accompanied
by a dog, a butcher’s dog, big as a calf, with a horribly smooth,
gleaming, black and white skin.

Ruth kept her hand on the door-knob while she asked the girl, who might
have been anything from twelve to twenty, what she wanted. The dog had
an evil glare.

The girl quietly handed her a piece of paper. It was greasy and covered
with the writing of some illiterate. Ruth was frightened, and thought:
“All bad news comes in writing to-day.” She had not yet read the
writing on the paper, but she felt that it boded some evil.

For a moment she looked out through the hall window that framed a group
of black chimneys. The uncanny dog growled.

The writing on the paper was difficult to decipher. She read: “You must
plese come rite away to somebody what is terrible bad of. He has took
poisen it is killing him and he has got to tel you something before he
dis. He is in the back room of Adeles Rest a wine room Prenzlaur Alley
112 in the yard to the left. Plese come rite away with the girl and god
wil reward you. Plese for gods sake do come.”

“What is the matter? What can I do?” Ruth whispered.

The girl shrugged her shoulders. As though she were dumb, she pointed
to the piece of paper.

She was full of foreboding and of an inner warning, full of pain over
the letter and the flight of her father, and full of horror of the
butcher’s dog. She was undecided, looked at the paper, and stammered:
“I don’t know.... I ought to wait for Michael.... Who is it.... He
should have given his name.”

The girl shrugged her shoulders.

It seemed to Ruth that it would be wrong to disregard this cry for
help. The bloodshot eyes of the dog were fixed upon her. Never had she
seen an animal that seemed so naked. She put her hand over her forehead
and tried to gather her troubled thoughts. She went back into the room
and looked about. It seemed very lonely and bare. She slipped into her
little coat and put on her hat. A faint smile gleamed for a moment on
her face, as though she were glad to have come to a decision. She ran
her eyes over the writing once more. “Plese for gods sake do come.”
One’s duty seemed quite clear.

For a little she held her father’s letter uncertainly in her hand.
Then she folded it again, and laid it on the table beside her slightly
disordered books and writing utensils. She closed the books that were
open, and made a little pile of them. The dog had noiselessly followed
her into the room. It followed her as she left. On the door there hung
by a string a little slate and a slate pencil. Ruth wrote: “I’ll be
back soon. Have gone to Prenzlauer Alley. Wait for me. I must talk to
you about something important.” She locked the door and hid the key
under the door-mat of straw.

The strange girl preserved her sleepy indifference.

On the stairs Ruth bethought herself, and knocked at Karen’s door.
If Christian were there, she could say a few words to him; but no
one opened. She thought that Karen was asleep, and did not ring. As
she descended the stairs behind the girl and the naked dog the new
responsibilities and problems of her life came into her mind. But in
Ruth’s young and intrepid heart, confusions grew clear and difficult
things lost their terror.

In the lower hall she hesitated for a last time. She wanted to stop
at Gisevius’s to see if Christian were there. But two old women were
reviling each other loudly and filthily in the yard, and she went on.

It was raining. It was Sunday afternoon, a time of ghastly dreariness
in Stolpische Street. There was quiet under the grey November sky, save
for a hum from the public houses. The pale street-lamps flickered in
the twilight.

“Let us go, then,” Ruth said to the girl.

The naked dog trotted between them on the wet pavement.


XVII

Crammon had written as follows to the Countess Brainitz: “Since I
have pledged my word, of course I shall come. But I beg you to have
the kindness to prepare Letitia in some appropriate way. As the fatal
moment approaches I feel more and more uncomfortable. It is a very
difficult act of expiation that you demand of me. I would rather make
a pilgrimage to Mount Ararat and become a hermit there for a few years
and seek for the remains of Noah’s ark. I grant you that I have always
enjoyed the delights that came to me without scruple; but it does not
seem to me that I have deserved this. It is too much.”

The countess replied that she would do her utmost to mitigate the
painfulness of the meeting. She had no objection to the dear child’s
weeping on her bosom, before facing a father who admitted his
fatherhood with so many hesitations and fears. “And so, Herr von
Crammon,” she wrote at the end of her letter, “we are expecting you.
Letitia has returned from Paris more enchanting than ever. All the
world is at her feet. I trust you will not be an exception.”

“The devil take her!” Crammon growled, as he packed his bags.

When he arrived at the countess’s country-house, which was called the
Villa Ophelia, he was told that the ladies had gone to the theatre.
He was taken to the room that had been prepared for him. He washed,
dressed for dinner, strolled back to the drawing-room, stuck his hands
deep into his pockets like a shivering tramp, and dropped morosely
into an easy chair. He heard the rain plash, and from another room
the crying of an infant. “Aha,” he thought, in his vexation, “that is
my grandchild, one of the twins. How do I know that some misguided
creature won’t put it on my knee, and ask me to admire and pet and
even kiss it? Who, I say, will protect me from a bourgeois idyl of
that sort? You might expect anything of a woman like the countess.
These sentimental actresses who refuse to grow old are capable of
anything. Is there anything more annoying in the world than a baby? It
is neither a human being nor an animal; it smells of cow-udders and
scented powder, and makes an insufferable and repulsive noise. It pokes
its limbs into the faces of older persons; and if there are two of
them, and all these horrors assail one doubly, one is apt to be quite
defenceless, and may fairly inquire: ‘What have you, Bernard Crammon,
whose interest in the propagation of the race has always been strictly
negative--what have you to do with such things?’”

Crammon ended his reflections with a smile of self-mockery. At that
moment he heard cheerful voices, and Letitia and the countess entered.

He arose with exquisite chivalry. He was most friendly and most
polished.

He did not conceal his astonishment over Letitia’s appearance. His
Austrian delight in feminine charm and his impulse to do homage to it
scattered the fog of his egotistical vexation. Either, he thought,
his memory was playing him false, or else Letitia had undergone a
marvellous development since the days at Wahnschaffe Castle. Crude
young girls had never, to be sure, attracted him. The women whom he
admired and courted had to be rich in knowledge and responsible, for
that eased his own responsibility.

After the first greetings the countess spoke. “Dear people,” she said,
with her North German readiness to meet all occasions, “I must leave
you for half an hour now. A theatre is a grimy place. I must wash my
hands. Everything about it is grimy--the seats, the spectators, the
actors, and the play. It always gives me a yearning for soap and water.
You can use the time to chat a bit. Afterwards we’ll have supper.”

She rustled out, not without having cast a severe glance at Crammon.

Crammon asked thoughtfully: “I wonder why she called this building the
Villa Ophelia. There are many inexplicable things in life. This is one
of them.”

Letitia laughed. She regarded him with a mixture of irony and shyness.
But as she stood before him in her frock of soft, pale yellow silk, her
neck and bosom radiating an ivory shimmer, Crammon found it difficult
to sustain his self-pity. Letitia approached him, and said archly
yet with feeling: “So you are my papa. Who would have thought it? It
must have been quite unpleasant for you to have an old, forgotten sin
suddenly transformed into a great girl.”

Crammon chuckled, although a shadow still lay on his face. He took
her hand into both of his and pressed it warmly. “I see that we
understand each other,” he said, “and that consoles me. What I feared
was an outburst and tears and the emotional display that is considered
fitting. It is so nice of you to be sensible. But let us sacrifice
something to the ceremonial tradition of the emotions. I shall imprint
a paternal kiss upon your brow.”

Letitia inclined her head, and he kissed her. She said: “We share a
delightful secret now. How shall I call you in company--Uncle, or Uncle
Crammon, or Uncle Bernard, or simply Bernard?”

“Simply Bernard, I’m sure,” Crammon replied. “I need not remind you,
of course, that you are legally the daughter of the late Herr von
Febronius and of his late wife. Our situation demands of us both the
most delicate tactfulness.”

“Certainly,” Letitia agreed, and sat down. “But just fancy the dangers
that lurk in this world. Suppose I hadn’t known anything and had fallen
in love with you. How horrible! And I must tell you at once that I
don’t seem to revere you a bit. My feeling is rather sisterly, and I’m
sure that I like you very, very much. Will you be satisfied with that,
or is it terribly unfilial?”

“It quite suffices,” said Crammon. “I can’t indeed impress on you too
strongly the wisdom of emotional frugality. Most people carry their
feelings about the way the Ashanti women do their glass beads. They
rattle them in public, and never realize what very ordinary stuff they
are. But that is by the way. For our relations we must have a very
special programme. This is important in order to ward off the intrusion
of outsiders. I am--it goes without saying--at your service at any time
and in any way. You may rely wholly upon my friendship, upon my ... let
us use the odious word--paternal friendship.”

Letitia was immensely amused at his grave and anxious zeal to gain what
easements the situation permitted. She was quite worthy of him in the
capacity for a certain hypocrisy. Beneath her charming expression and
her innocent appearance of pliability, she hid a good deal of mockery
and not a little self-will. She answered: “There’s no reason why we
should limit each other’s freedom. We shall not stand in each other’s
way, nor become unduly indebted to each other. Each has the right to
assume the other’s confidence, and thus to preserve his freedom of
action. I hope that that suits you.”

“You are a very determined little person, and I took you to be
foolishly enthusiastic and fanciful. Did the cattle drivers in the land
of fire sharpen your wits? Yes, it suits me; it suits me admirably.”

“There is so much ahead of me,” Letitia continued, and her eyes glowed
with desires and dreams, “I hardly know how I shall get through it
all--people, countries, cities, works of art. I’ve lost so much time
and I’m nearly twenty-one. Auntie wants me to stay with her, but that’s
impossible. I’m expected in Munich on the first of December and in
Meran on the tenth. In Paris it was divine. The people were perfectly
charming to me. Every one wanted me at once.”

“I quite believe it, quite,” said Crammon, and rubbed his chin. “But
tell me, how did that adventure with the vicomte end that the countess
told me about?”

“Oh, did she tell you about it?” Letitia blushed. “That wasn’t very
discreet.” For a moment her face showed an expression of sorrow and of
embarrassment. But unhappy experiences, even when they made their way
into her consciousness, could not really darken it. In a moment her
eyes were again full of laughter. All dark memories had fled. “Take me
on a motor drive to-morrow, won’t you, Bernard,” she urged him, and
stretched out her hands impulsively. “And you must invite the little
Baron Rehmer who lives in the Grand Hotel. He’s Stanislaus Rehmer, the
Polish sculptor. He’s going to model me and teach me Polish. He’s a
charming person.”

Crammon interrupted her: “Explain one thing to me! Tell me what is
happening in the Argentine. Hasn’t that blue-skinned bandit in whom
you once saw the essence of all manly virtues taken any steps against
you? You don’t imagine, do you, that he will simply stand by while you
take French leave with his double offspring? As for me, I wouldn’t have
shared the same board with him, far less the same bed. But that was
not your opinion, and the law doesn’t consider fluctuations of taste.”

“He’s brought a suit for divorce against me, and I’ve entered a
countersuit,” Letitia said. “I’ve seen mountains of documents. The
children are mine, since he forced me to flight by his extreme cruelty.
I’m not worried about it a bit.”

“Does he pay you an income?”

“Not a penny so far.”

“Then how do you live? You’re obviously not retrenching. Where does the
money come from? Who pays for all these luxuries? Or is it all a sham
with a background of debts?”

Letitia shrugged her shoulders. “I hardly know,” she answered, with
some embarrassment. “Sometimes I have money and sometimes I haven’t
any. Poor auntie sold a few old Dutch pictures that she had. One can’t
spend one’s life reckoning like a shopkeeper. Why do you talk of such
horrid things?” There was such sincere pain and reproachfulness in her
voice that Crammon felt like a sinner. He looked aside. Held by her
charm, he lost the courage to burden her farther with coarse realities.
And now, too, the countess appeared in the room. She had put on gloves
of gleaming white, and her face glowed like freshly scrubbed porcelain.
In her arms she carried Puck, the little Pekingese, who had grown old
and slept much.

“My dears, supper is served,” she cried, with the slightly stagy
cheeriness of her youth.


XVIII

Karen believed that, in his own mind, Christian expected her to pay
some attention to her child. She had secretly written to her mother,
but no answer had come.

Christian had never mentioned the child. He did not expect to find any
softening in Karen. Her behaviour gave no sign of any.

But brooding in her bed she wondered both what Christian expected of
her and what had become of her child. Occasionally a glassy clinking
could be heard. It came from the pearls. She would reach for them
to assure herself of their presence. When she felt them, a smile of
mysterious well-being appeared on her face.

For three days Christian had not been out of his clothes. He fell
asleep in a corner of the sofa. Since morning a formless disquietude
had possessed him.

Isolde Schirmacher, noisily bringing in Karen’s soup, wakened him. He
put the chairs in their places, cleared the table of his books, put the
checked cover on it, and opened the window. “It’s Sunday,” he said.

“I don’t want soup,” Karen grumbled.

“And I went and made it for you extry,” Isolde whined, “and a pork
fricassee and all. You never want nothing.”

“Eat the stuff yourself,” Karen said spitefully.

Isolde carried the soup out again.

“Can’t you close the window?” Karen whined. “Why do you always have to
open it? A person can freeze to death.”

Christian closed the window.

“I’d like to know why she carried the soup out again,” Karen said after
a while. “That’d suit her, to gorge herself on what’s meant for me. I’m
hungry.”

Christian went to the kitchen and brought in the soup. He sat down
beside her bed, and held the plate in both hands while she laboriously
ate the soup. “It’s hot,” she moaned, and pressed her head against the
pillows. “Open the window so’s I can get a bit of air.”

He opened the window. Karen looked at him with a dull wonder in her
eyes. His patience was unfathomable to her. She wanted to get him to
the point of scolding and showing her her place.

During the night she would make twenty demands and then reverse them
with embittered impatience. His kindliness remained uniform. It
enraged her; she wanted to scream. She cried out to him: “What kind of
a man are you, for God’s sake?” She shook her fists.

Christian did not know what to answer.

At two o’clock Dr. Voltolini arrived. The clinical assistant who had
examined Karen at Ruth’s request had no time to make regular visits,
so Ruth had suggested that Voltolini, whom she knew, be permitted to
continue the treatment.

Karen refused to answer nearly all his questions. Her hatred of
physicians dated from her experiences on the streets.

“I hardly know what attitude to take,” Dr. Voltolini said to Christian,
who accompanied him to the stairs. “There’s an incomprehensible
stubbornness in her. If I didn’t want to accommodate you, I would have
given up the case long ago.” He had been deeply charmed by Christian,
and often observed him tensely. Christian did not notice this.

He reproached Karen for her behaviour.

“Never mind,” she said curtly. “These doctors are swindlers and
thieves. They speculate on people’s foolishness. I don’t want him to
lay his hand on me. I don’t want him to listen to my heart so I can
smell his bald head, or tap me all over and look like an executioner. I
don’t need him if I’m going to live, and less if I’ve got to die.”

Christian did not answer.

Karen crouched in her bed. She suffered from pain to-day. A saw seemed
to be drawn up and down between her ribs. She went on: “I’d like to
know why you bother to study medicine. Tell me that. I’ve never asked
you anything, but I’d like to know. What attracts you about being a
saw-bones? What good will you get out of it?”

Christian was surprised at her insistent tone and at the glitter in her
eyes. He tried to tell her, arguing clumsily. He talked to her as to
an equal, with respect and courtesy. She did not wholly understand the
sense of his words, but she thrust her head far forward, and listened
breathlessly.

Christian said that it was not the study itself that had attracted
him, but the constant contact with human beings into which it brought
you. Then, too, there was the natural temptation to choose a study the
length of which could be shortened by bits of knowledge that he already
had. When he first determined to take it up, he had also thought of
its practical usefulness to him. That thought he had now abandoned. He
had believed that he might earn his livelihood by practising medicine;
but he had been forced to the conclusion that he was morally incapable
of earning money by any means. He had reached this conclusion not
long since. He had gone to visit the student Jacoby and found him
out. Just then a child of the landlady had fallen from a ladder and
become unconscious. He had carried the child into the room, rubbed it
with alcohol, listened to its heart, and stayed with it a while. When
the child had quite recovered and he himself had been ready to go,
the mother had pressed a two-mark piece into his hand. He had had the
impulse to laugh into the woman’s face. He hadn’t been able to realize
the cause of his shame, but the sense of it had been so strong as to
make him dizzy. And that incident had taught him the impossibility of
his taking money for services.

Even while he was speaking, it came to him that this was the first time
he had ever talked to Karen about himself. It seemed quite easy to do
so, because of the solemn attention with which she listened and which
changed her whole expression. It seemed to rejuvenate him. A sense of
well-being surged through him, a peculiar joy that seemed to affect his
very skin. He had never known a joy like that. It was a new feeling.

And so he continued more freely--quite frankly and without reserve.
Science, he told her, was rather indifferent to him in itself. He
valued it as a means to an end. He didn’t know whither it would lead
him. The future had grown less rather than more clear to him recently.
At first, as he had told her, he thought that he might enter a
profession and practise it like most young men. In that hope he had
been disappointed. Nevertheless he knew that he was fundamentally
on the right track. It was a time of preparation for him, and every
day was enriching him. He got a great deal closer to people now, and
saw them without pretence and falseness. In a hospital dormitory, in
the waiting-room of a clinic, in the operating room, in the presence
of hundreds of sufferers--in such scenes all hypocrisy died; there
truth gripped one, and one understood what one had never understood
before, and one could read the open book of life. Tubercular children,
scrofulous children, large-eyed children beholding death--whoever had
not seen that had not yet truly lived. And he knew whence they came and
whither they went and what they said to one another, these fathers and
mothers and strange crowds, and how each human creature was supremely
interesting and important to itself. No horror frightened him any more,
no wound, no terrible operative incision; he could see such things
quite coldly now; he had even thought of volunteering for service in
the lepers’ colony in East Prussia. But his urge was toward deeper and
ever deeper abysses of life. He was never satisfied. He wanted to steep
himself in humanity. There were always new horrors behind the old,
other torment beyond any he had seen; and unless he could absorb all
that into himself, he had no peace. Later he hoped to find still other
ways. He was only practising upon sick bodies; later he would sink
himself into sick souls. But it was only when he had unveiled something
secret and hidden that his heart felt free and light.

Resting her arms on the edge of the bed and bending over far,
Karen watched him with avid wonder. She understood and yet did not
understand. At times she caught the drift, at times the sense of the
words themselves. She nodded and brooded, contorted her mouth and
laughed silently and a little wildly; she held her breath, and had a
dim vision of him at last, of this noble and strange and beautiful
being who had been utterly mysterious to her to this very hour. She
saw him as he was, and it seemed to her as though she were in the
midst of a flaming fire. It made her desperate that she had to be so
silent, that she was so like stone within, that she had no words at her
command, not one, that she could not even say: “Come to me, brother.”
For he was of flesh like her own; and that made her feel alive. She
felt gratitude as she had before felt despair and weariness, disgrace
and hatred. Her gratitude was like a flame cleansing her wilderness,
and it was also a great urge and a woeful joy, and at last again
despair. For she felt that she was dumb.

Christian left in strange haste. Karen called in Isolde Schirmacher,
and told the girl she was free for the evening. She got up and dressed
slowly and painfully. She could hardly stand, and the room whirled
around with her. The table seemed to cling to the ceiling and the oven
to be upside down. But at each step she trod more firmly. She hid the
pearls in her bosom. She faltered down the stairs, and strange colours
flickered before her eyes. But she wanted to do something for him. That
thought drove her onward. She wanted to drag herself to a cab and drive
to her mother and ask: “Where is the child? Where did you take it?” And
if the old woman was impudent, she meant to clutch her and strangle her
till she told the truth.

To do something for him! To prove to him that there was a Karen whom he
did not know.

She crept along the walls of the houses.

Christian was just coming back when a policeman and a working man,
followed by an idle crowd, half led, half carried her home. He was
confounded. She was white as chalk. They laid her on the bed. Since
Isolde was not there, Christian knocked at the door of the Hofmann flat
to ask Ruth to help him with Karen. But he caught sight of the little
slate, and read the message that Ruth had left for her brother.

The chaotic unrest that he had felt all day rose more powerfully within
his soul.


XIX

And now things had gone so far with Johanna that she had given herself
to him whom she despised. At last she had the valid proof of her own
feebleness of soul. She needed no longer to fear an inner voice that
would defend her, nor any hope that might counsel her to guard herself.
It was superfluous now to spare her body, and no longer necessary to
keep up the little self-deceptions that bolstered up her brittle pride.
She was unmasked in her own eyes, and, in a sense so different from the
ordinary moral one, dishonoured ... dishonoured for all time and all
eternity ... branded.... She had become what she had always suspected
herself capable of becoming. Things were settled.

From the moment that he had waited for her in the street that day,
Amadeus Voss had not left her side. From time to time he had repeated
with mad monotony: “I love you, Johanna.” She had made no reply. With
compressed lips and lowered eyes she had walked on and on, for more
than an hour. The fear of human glances and human presences had kept
her from fleeing by tram. Furthermore it was he who chose their path
by a silent command. At last he had stopped in front of a little
coffee-house. He neither asked her nor invited her in. He took it for
granted that she would follow, and she did.

In a dim corner they sat facing each other. He took out a pencil
and drew mystic symbols on the marble top of the table. This
oppressive state of silence had lasted nearly half an hour. At last
he had spoken: “To utter the word ‘love’ is to become guilty of an
enormous triviality. It has been flattened out and savours of cheap
fiction. Speak it and you become secondhand. The feeling is unique,
incomparable, strange, and wondrous--an unheard-of adventure, a dream
of dreams. The word is a base sound taken from a tattered reader. But
how shall one communicate with another when the feeling strangles and
shakes you, and your days are the days of a madman? I came to the age
of twenty-six without knowing this magic and this wonder. No hand was
stretched out toward me, no eye sought me out, and so I looked with
hatred upon all who were in the grip of what seemed to be a blasphemous
passion. Among the playmates of my childhood little erotic friendships
were common. Every boy had his little sweetheart with whom he flirted
instinctively and yet innocently. I excluded myself from all that and
hated. On Sunday afternoon they would stroll out beyond the village. I
would follow some couple, and if the boy and girl sat down somewhere to
chat, I would observe them from some ambush with rage and bitterness.
You have a keen enough insight to realize how I felt then and later
and until this very day. Longing--yes, well, that’s another of those
pale, drained concepts. Occasionally I stretched out my hand in my
confusion and my cowardly desire, and trembled when a woman’s sleeve
brushed mine. I became the fool of one who sought to trap me, and I
let the accursed dancer poison my blood. Sometimes I flung myself into
the gutter, and became defiled merely to silence the pitiless voice of
nature, which is a heritage of the Evil One and the work of Satan.”

She had not raised her eyes from the table, and the hieroglyphs covered
half of its top. “I won’t make any promises in the name of my so-called
love,” he continued, and his bowed face became a mask of pain. “I don’t
know whither it will lead either me or her who elects to be mine. To be
mine--that has a sound of horror, hasn’t it? All I can say is that that
woman will contribute to my salvation and redeem me from torment. You
may reply: ‘What have I to do with your salvation or with the torments
of a lost soul?’ Very well. Let us not bring that in. But consider
whether in all the world there is another man whom you can win
wholly, utterly, body and soul? Every step and every breath of yours
is infinitely precious to me; there is an equal life and loveliness to
me in the lashes of your eyes and the hem of your garment. I am within
your very body, and throb in the pulsing of your heart. There is a fear
that one feels of one’s own heart-beats; and there is one that is felt
of another’s. Shall I use more words? These are enough. All words are
unholy, and creep on the fringe of experience.”

The woman in Johanna had succumbed. A terrible curiosity had enslaved
her. Because all that she was and did seemed unnatural and distorted
to her, and because she was weary and sore, she let herself glide into
those desperately outstretched arms.

She seemed to fall into a depth where heat and glow corroded what they
touched. Shattering ecstasy and crushing weariness alternated. Scenes
pallid and terrible flitted by as on the screen of a cinematograph, and
the hours raced to their hideous death.

She wrote to her sister in Bucharest: “You’re so very near the Orient,
and I’ve always been told that it is full of mighty wizards. Couldn’t
you, please, use your well-tried charms to get the better of one of
them, and steal from him some magic formula by virtue of which one can
lose the consciousness of one’s self? Mine, you see, is quite ragged
and tattered. And if I could exchange it for a nice, new, fashionable
one, I’d be helped so much! I could marry a nice Jewish manufacturer
and have babies and eat chocolates and flirt with the _jeunesse
dorée_ and realize similar ideals. I beseech you, Clarisse, find me a
wizard--young or old, it doesn’t matter. But I must have a wizard to be
saved.”


XX

At eight o’clock in the evening Christian knocked at Ruth’s door again.
No one answered. He was surprised.

He knew that the key was put under the door-mat when no one was at
home. He raised the mat and saw the key. Then he went back to Karen’s
rooms.

She seemed to be sleeping. Her face was like a piece of chalk. Her
strawy hair, like a flaming helmet, contrasted in ghastly fashion with
that pallor. After she had lain rigid for a while, she had undressed
herself and crept back into bed.

Christian listened at the wall again and again, trying to catch some
voice, some sign of life from the Hofmann flat. Silence. When two hours
had passed, he took a lighted candle and stepped out into the hall. The
key was still under the mat.

He thought he heard a sound of lamentation in the air. He did not think
he had the right to unlock the door and enter the flat. And yet, after
he had stood there for some time in indecision, he slipped the key into
the keyhole and opened the door.

A breath of melancholy came from the empty room. He put the candle
on the table and caught sight of Hofmann’s letter of farewell. He
hesitated to read it. He thought he heard steps and stopped to listen.
The feeling that the letter would explain Ruth’s absence finally
decided him to read it.

The letter seemed to him to remove all doubt. She had probably thought
her father still in the city, and set out to find him and dissuade him
from his plan. The acquaintance with whom she had hoped to find him
probably lived in Prenzlauer Alley, and Michael, when he had read her
message, had probably hurried on to the same place.

Although this reasoning seemed plausible enough, his imagination was
unsatisfied. He looked questioningly at the furniture and the walls,
and touched with tenderness the books on the table that Ruth had so
recently had in her hands. He left the room, locked the door, hid the
key under the mat, and returned to Karen’s rooms.

He blew out the light and lay down on the sofa. These nights of brief
and light slumber were exhausting him. His cheeks were thin, his
profile peaked, his lids inflamed, and his brain morbidly tense.

The house, sunk into the treacherous immobility of its nights, appeared
to him in the guise of a monstrous skeleton, consisting of countless
walls and beds and doors steeped in malodorous darkness. Yet he loved
it--loved the shabby stairs, the weather-beaten walls and posts, the
fires in its many hearths that he had seen in passing, the emaciated
woman who, in some room, scolded her wailing babe to sleep. He loved
the manifold disconsolateness of these tangled lives; he loved the
withered, sooty little flowerpots by the court windows, the yellow
apples on the shelves, the scraps of paper in the halls, the very
refuse that dishevelled women carried in troughs into the street.

But still his inner vision clung to the door-mat of straw and to the
key under it, to Hofmann’s letter, the books and papers on the table,
the little cotton frock on a nail, the loaf of bread on the side table.
And from all these things there emerged in his consciousness the figure
of Ruth, as though it were rising from the elements of which it was
made.

He remembered accompanying her to one of the great shops, where she
bought a pair of cheap gloves. With the crowd they had drifted through
the show-rooms and he recalled the very still delight upon her face
with which she had regarded the mountains of snowy lingerie and of
brilliantly hued silks--the laces and hats and girdles and costumes and
all things that enchant and lure a young girl. But she had been content
with that strange, still delight that seemed to say: how well it is
that such things are! She had had no desire, no reaching out of her
own, only a pleasure in the lovely qualities of things that were.

And thus too, without desire and without reaching out, she passed among
men, and perceived the festive glitter of the great shops, the radiant
wealth of palaces, and the fever of pleasure-seeking that throbbed in
the streets when the great city strove to forget its toil. With that
same gesture and that still content, she withdrew herself from sharp
allurements and the anodynes of a thousand temptations, from all that
transcended true measure and her own power; she threw the mantle of
her youth over the world and stood in its midst, deeply moved, and yet
aloof.

He had been present one day when she was arguing with the student
Lamprecht, whose ideas were those of a demagogue. She had a charming
lightness of speech, although her opinions were decided enough. Action
and sacrifice had been mentioned, and Ruth said that she could not see
the difference, that often they were closely akin or even identical.
And finally she said: “It is the mind alone that conquers obstacles,
and in it action and sacrifice are one.” When her opponent replied that
the mind must somehow communicate itself to the world and that this
was, in itself, action, she had replied with burning cheeks: “Must one
really proclaim and communicate the mind to the world? Then it ceases
to be itself. The service of the heart is better than the service of
lips or hands.”

Although Christian had listened with the superior smile of one who
never engages in argument, he had seen then that this voice had become
necessary to his very life, and also this radiant eye and this glowing
heart, and this vibrant soul that was so profoundly experienced and yet
so incomparably young. She gave him to himself. She was his sister and
his friend. He was revealed to himself through her pure humanity. And
he could find no sleep, for her shadow appeared to him constantly and
yet did not find the courage to address him. Now and then he started
suddenly and his heart beat quickly. Once he beheld her in bodily form,
and seemed to hear an imploring whisper; and a cold shudder ran over
him. He arose and lit the candle again. Karen moaned.

He stepped up to her bed. “Water,” she murmured.

He brought her water, and while she drank he bent affectionately over
her. Her eyes were large and looked at him with a great sadness. There
were tears in them.


XXI

Amadeus Voss lived in Zehlendorf, near the race track, in the gabled
attic of a new house. He had a view of meadows stretching toward a rim
of pine-woods. On the green plain projected a huge advertising sign
with gigantic letters: Zehlendorf-Grunewald Development Company, Ltd.

“They put that up within the last week so as to keep my soul within
proper bounds,” Voss said. “It’s a clever memento, isn’t it? I’m
told the company plans to build a church here. Magnificent! In the
neighbourhood there is also a bell-foundry.”

Johanna sat at the opposite window, through which the sunlight that
she sought shone in. Her little face had grown thin. Her beautifully
curved mouth with its sweet sadness lost its charm on account of her
homely nose. “You might get employment as a lay reader,” she said
impudently, and dangled her legs like a schoolgirl. “Or do you think
it’s a Protestant business? Of course, every one is Protestant here.
Why don’t you convert the unbelievers? You let your most solid talents
go to waste.”

Voss made a grimace. With dragging steps he went through the large
studio-like room. “To your kind of free thought all faith is an object
of barter,” he said bitterly. “Why do you mock even at yourself? See to
it lest the light that is in you be not darkness! That is the monition
of the Gospel. But what does that word ‘Gospel’ mean to you? A cultured
phrase, or something to buy and sell.”

Johanna, supporting her head on her hand, whispered inaudibly, “No one
knows how it came that Rumpelstilzkin is my name.” Aloud she said: “I’m
getting a bad report, I see. I’m resuming my seat, teacher. I know
that my laziness is obvious even from your exalted seat.”

Amadeus stopped in front of her. “Have you never believed? Has the
inscrutable never touched your heart? Have you never trembled before
Him? Have you no reverence? What kind of a world do you come from?”

She answered with biting sarcasm. “We spent our days dancing around
the golden calf--all of us, great-grandmother, grandmother, mother and
child. Fancy that! It’s dizzying.”

Impervious to the mockery through which she expressed the fragile charm
of her clever mind, Voss fixed on her a look of sombre passion. “Do you
at least believe in me?” he asked, and grasped her shoulders.

She resisted and withdrew herself. She thrust her hands against his
chest and bent back her head. “I believe in nothing, nothing.” Her
whole body throbbed and shook. “Not in myself nor you nor God nor
anything. You are quite right. I don’t.” Her brows contracted with
pain. Yet she melted, as always, before his glow. It was her ultimate
of earth and life, her last anodyne, her weakness yearning for
destruction. Her lips grew soft and her lids closed.

With savage strength Amadeus lifted her in his arms. “Neither in
yourself nor God nor me,” he murmured. “But in him! Or perhaps you do
not believe in him either? Tell me!”

She opened her eyes again. “In whom?” she asked astonished.

“In him!” His utterance was tormented. She understood him, and with an
infinitely sinuous movement glided from his arms.

“What do you want of me?” she asked, and rearranged her abundant brown
hair with nervous gestures.

“I want to know,” he answered, “to know at last. I cannot bear this
any longer. What happened between you two? How do you explain the
intimate tone of your letter to him, and your questions whether he had
already forgotten you, whether you dared even ask? No doubt you played
the well-known game--the dangerous, lecherous game of moths in the
lamplight. I am not so stupid as not to have guessed that. But how far
did you venture toward the lamp--as far as the chimney or as far as the
flame? And when he left you, what demands had you the right to make?
What was he to you? What is he?”

It was the first time that Voss had spoken out. The question had been
strangling him. He had set little traps for Johanna and searched her
expression, resented her evasions and yet respected her delicacy. And
all that had heightened his impatience and suspicion. The fingers of
one hand clenched under his chin, he stood there lean and rocking
strangely to and fro.

Johanna said nothing. A smile, half mocking, half of suffering, hovered
about her lips. She wished that she were far away.

Voss gritted his teeth and went on: “Don’t think it’s jealousy. And if
it is--perhaps there is no other word--yet I do not mean what you were
taught to think it in the poisoned gardens in which you grew up. Why
have you not been frank with me? Am I not worthy of so much? Did you
not feel my dumb beseeching? I need not tell you what is at stake. If
you did not suspect it, you would not fear to speak. From my childhood
on I have lived in outer servitude and inner obedience. I have been
taught the lofty and sacred ideal of chastity of our faith. Only
despair over the unreachable farness of that ideal plunged me into the
sinks of the earth’s iniquity. And so I place on innocence and spotless
purity quite another value than the sleek little gentlemen, the trained
animals, of your world. I who stand before you am sin and the sense
of sin, with all its misery and uncleanness; and you can save me by a
word. I have confessed to you all the cries of my own breast. Have I
not said enough? Yet even what I have said seems shameless beside the
vanity of your reserve. Can I do nothing but sting your senses, you
heathen girl, and never reach your vitals or your soul? Confess, or I
will tear the truth from you with red-hot pincers. Shall I have waited
and renounced, to be fed on the leavings of another’s satiety? Did
you live with him? Speak! Did he cheat me of your purity--he who has
cheated me of everything? Speak!”

Johanna, aflame with indignation, took her hat and coat and left him.
He did not move. Scarcely had she closed the door behind her, scarcely
did he hear the sound of her retreating steps, when he raced after
her. With equal speed he returned for his hat. When she was leaving
the house he was beside her. “Hear me,” he stammered. “Don’t judge
me harshly.” She quickened her pace to escape him. He would not fall
behind. “My words were rough, Johanna, even brutal. But they were
inspired by the very humbleness of love.” She turned into the street
to the railway station. He blocked her path; he threatened to use
force if she persisted. Passers-by turned and looked at them. To avoid
a public scandal she had to go back with him. “At least,” she pleaded,
“let us not return to the house. I can’t stay in the room. We can talk
while we are out. But don’t come so near. People are laughing at us.”

“People, people! The world is full of people. They know nothing of us
nor we of them. Say that you forgive me, and I’ll be as calm as though
I had come from a card party.” He was pale to his forehead.

They walked in the wet, snowy air and over the soaking earth. The
street ran into a field-path. Above the setting sun the sky was full of
shredded clouds--red, yellow, green, blue. An express train thundered
past them. Electric signals trilled. It was tiring to walk over the
slippery leaves, but the damp wind cooled their faces.

Amadeus wore himself out in explanations. In the defence of himself,
the rejected and humiliated one, the tormented member of a caste and
race of the rejected and humiliated, he found expressions of such power
that they oppressed Johanna and bent her will. He spoke of his love
for her, of this terrible storm in his blood, from which he had hoped
purification and strength and liberation, but which was wasting and
crushing him instead. And so his doubt of her was like a doubt of God.
If a youth doubts God the world breaks down and sinks into pure agony.
And such was his case in the nights in which he panted for alleviation,
and the darkness became an abyss filled with a thousand purple tongues
of flame.

And like a blinded man turning in a circle, he began again to ask his
question, first carefully and slyly, then impetuously and with passion.
He pointed out incriminating details and circumstances that poisoned
his imagination. He appealed to her pity, her sense of honesty, to
some not wholly buried spark of piety within her. And again he painted
the state of his soul, besought her with uplifted hands, then became
silent, and with his sombre eyes looked helplessly about.

Johanna had been astonished from the beginning that the nature of her
brief contact with Christian, which shone to her from the past like
a bit of dawn, had not been obvious to him. If he had understood and
taken what had happened as a matter of course, she would probably have
admitted it quite naïvely. But his savagery and his avidity aroused her
defiance and her fear more and more. Every new attack of his made her
feel more unapproachable, and she suddenly felt that she had a secret
to guard from him, a deep and proud secret, which no assurances and no
persecutions would make her yield up. It was a possession that all good
spirits bade her keep, that she should never give up to him who would
regard it as a shameful thing and into whose unblessed power she had
fallen. So she built defences, and was ready to fight and to lie, to
endure all that was ugly and repulsive, reproof and degradation.

And these, indeed, she came to endure. All his obsessions concentrated
themselves on this one point. His glances searched and his words
probed her; behind every tenderness and every touch there lurked a
question. If she evaded him, he became enraged. If she soothed him,
he cast himself down and kissed her feet. She took pity on him, and
for the space of a few ecstatic hours deceived him with the liberally
invented details of a platonic relationship. He seemed to believe her
and begged her forgiveness, promising more gentleness and silence and
consideration. But hardly had a day passed before the old mischief
sprang up anew. His eye was sharpened as by acid. Christian Wahnschaffe
was the enemy, the thief, the adversary. What happened at such and
such a time? What did she say to him on such an occasion? What had he
answered? Whence had he come? Whither was he going? Did he ask her to
yield herself? Did she kiss him? Once? Many times? Had she desired his
kisses? When was she ever alone with him? How did the room look? What
sort of a dress had she worn? It was hopeless. It was like a drill that
turns and eats into wood. Johanna repulsed him violently; she jeered
and sighed and hid her face. She wept and she laughed, but she did not
yield by the breadth of a hair.

Next came utter exhaustion. She was often so worn out that she lay
on a sofa all day, pale and still. She let her relatives take her to
theatres, concerts, picture galleries. With dull eyes and freezing
indifference she endured these demands. The sympathy of people was a
burden to her. What could they do to soften her cruel self-contempt?
This killing contempt she transformed into a weapon, the two-edged
sword of her wit, and this she turned against her own breast. Her
sayings became famous in large circles of society. She described how
she had once been bathing by a lake and how a sudden gust of wind had
blown away her bath-chair. “And there,” she closed, “I stood as naked
as God had created me in His wrath.”

Her aversion from him who was her lover rose to such a point that a
cold fever shook her if she thought of him, that she secretly mocked
his gestures, his tones, his clerical speech, his voracious glance. She
made appointments with him which she did not keep. He sent telegrams
and special delivery letters and messengers. He lay in wait at her door
and questioned the servants until, beside herself, she went to him, and
in her indignation said icy and unspeakably cruel things. Then he would
become humble and rueful, and sincerely so. And the terror of losing
her would wring words from him that were mad and diabolical.

She wasted away. She scarcely ate and slept. Again and again she
determined to make an end of everything and leave the city. But
there was the element of perverse desire. Her over-refined body,
her over-subtle soul, her morbidly sensitive organism melted into a
yearning for the cruel, for mysterious voluptuousness, for slavery and
degradation, for every extremity of suffering and delight.

One evening she was crouching, half dressed, in a chair. Her long
hair flowed beautifully over her slender shoulders. She held her head
between her hands and looked like a disconsolate little harlequin, very
pale and still. Amadeus Voss sat at the table with folded arms, and
stared into the lamp. This isolation of two beings, without friends or
dignity or happiness, seemed to Johanna like the inexorable fate of
galley-slaves tied to the same oar. Suddenly she arose and gathered up
her hair with a graceful gesture, and said with a scurrilous dryness:
“Come in, ladies and gentlemen. This is the great modern show. The
latest, up to the minute. Sensation guaranteed. Magnificent suspense
interest. Revelation of all the secrets of modern woman and modern man.
Gorgeous finale. Don’t miss it!”

She went up to the mirror, gazed at her image as though she did not
know it, and made a comical bow.

Amadeus lowered his head in silence.


XXII

The poor imbecile Heinzen said he heard a whispering; always in his
ears. He shook like a leaf and his face was green.

Niels Heinrich kicked him under the table.

Whenever the door was opened the laughter and the screeching of women
leapt out into the fog. Also one could see the building lots at the
edge of which this drinking shanty had been erected. A new quarter
was springing up here. Beams and scaffoldings and cranes presented
a confusion like a forest struck by a tornado. Walled foundations,
pits, construction huts, trenches, bridges, hills of bricks and sand,
carts--everything was dimly lit by the arc-lamps, which seemed to be
hidden in grey wadding.

When the door was closed one was in a cave.

There was a whispering in his ears, Joachim Heinzen insisted. Without
understanding he listened to the filthy witticisms with which an old
stone-mason regaled the company. Niels Heinrich threw a dark glance
at Joachim and forbade the publican to fill his glass. The fellow, he
said, was crazy enough now.

Gradually the room grew empty. One o’clock was approaching. Three
steady topers still stood by the bar. The nightwatchman had just looked
in on his rounds and drunk a nip of kümmel. The innkeeper regarded his
late guests morosely, sat down, and nodded.

Niels Heinrich said to the simpleton that he would give him five talers
to clear out. “If you don’t fade away you’ll catch hell, my boy,” he
said. His reddish beard rose and fell. About his neck he had wound a
yellow shawl so many times that his head seemed to be resting on a
cushion. His sallow, freckled face seemed a mere mass of bone.

Joachim’s limbs trembled. Outside the women of the streets were passing
by, and their laughter sounded like the clatter of crockery. “Five
talers,” said the imbecile and grinned. “That’s all right.” But he
was still trembling. He had trembled just so the whole day, and the
day before, and the day before that. “I’d like to buy a black-haired
wench,” he murmured.

“For money you can see the very devil dance,” Niels Heinrich replied.

Now even those at the bar got ready to leave. “Closing time,
gentlemen,” the innkeeper called out. He repeated his warning three
times. A clock rattled.

“I’ll get what I want,” said the simpleton. “I want one like a
merry-go-round. Merry. Around and around.”

“All right, boy! Go ahead! But don’t you let no balloon run you down,”
Niels Heinrich jeered, and stared at his own fingers as though they had
spoken to him. “Go ahead!”

“And I want one like a parrot,” said the simpleton, “all dressed up and
fine.” And in a broken voice he sang a stave of a vulgar song.

Niels Heinrich’s silence was grim.

“And I want one that’s like what a lady is, elegant and handsome,”
Joachim continued, and emptied the lees in his glass. “That’s what!
Give me the five talers. Give ’em to me.” But suddenly he shuddered,
his eyes seemed to protrude from their hollows, and he uttered a sound
that had a strange and horrible kinship with a whine.

Niels Heinrich arose, and jerked his companion upward by the collar.
He threw the money to pay his reckoning on the table, and pulled
the simpleton out into the street. He grasped his arm, and drew the
reeling, horribly whimpering creature along with him. He did not speak.
He had pulled his blue cap over his eyes. His face was full of brooding
thoughts. He paid no attention to snow or mud.

The fog swallowed up the two figures.


XXIII

David Hofmann had written a last message of farewell to his children
from Bremerhaven. The postman had stuck the card halfway under the
door, and Christian read it.

So Ruth could not be with her father. Here was a certainty that
terrified him. Where was she then? And where was Michael?

He informed the house agent of the disappearance of the two, and the
police were notified.

Christian knew the names of some of the families where she had given
lessons. He visited these people, but no one could give him a hint.
He went to the institutions that she had attended and to friends with
whom she had associated. Everywhere there was the same surprise and
helplessness. He was sent on wild errands and to other people. Some one
would think he or she had last seen Ruth at such a place. The track
was always lost. He would follow chance traces from morning until
night, but they always faded from sight. In his anxiety and his anxious
inquiries he finally found himself going in a futile circle.

He had entrusted Isolde Schirmacher and the widow Spindler with the
care of Karen.

At the end of the fifth day he came home wearily. Botho Thüngen and
the student Lamprecht had helped him in his search. It had all been in
vain. If a faint hope arose, it was extinguished the next moment.

And where was Michael?

Christian climbed the stairs. The gas jet in the hall hissed. Near the
balustrade cowered the white kitten and mewed. Christian bent over and
gathered it up in his hands. It began to purr with infinite content,
and snuggled against his coat. He stroked the silken fur, and a sense
of the animal’s well-being passed into his nerves.

By agreement with the agent he had taken the key of the Hofmann flat
into his keeping. He was to deliver it up next morning to a police
detective who would come to investigate.

He unlocked the door and entered the dark room. The air was stuffy.
Every breath of Ruth’s presence had faded. Ruth, little Ruth! As his
emotion gathered in him, the darkness ceased to be unnatural and
disturbing.

He sat down beside the table. The dim light that came in from the
hall fell on the books and papers of his little friend. He got up and
closed the door. Only now was he able to summon up the image of Ruth
as vividly as he had been able to do during the first night after her
disappearance. Not only did she emerge from the darkness as she had
done then; she even spoke to him.

She fixed on him her exquisitely laughing eyes, and in a tone whose
seriousness belied that expression utterly, she said: “No, never,
nevermore.”

What did the words mean? What was their significance?

The fog gathered more thickly against the window panes. The kitten
snuggled deeper into his arms. Its white fur shimmered indistinctly in
the darkness. This breathing, living creature, warm and affectionate,
prevented him from yielding to a grief that threatened to drag him into
unknown depths.

Suddenly he had a vision. A landscape appeared before him. There
was a path bordered by tall poplars in autumnal foliage, a path of
mud, of black morass. On either side of it the heath stretched to
infinity. There were the black, triangular silhouettes of a few huts,
with windows red from the hearth-fires within. Here and there were
puddles of dirty, yellow water, which reflected the grey sky and in
which tree-trunks rotted. Over the whole scene was a whitish twilight,
and in the distance emerged the rude form of a shepherd; and in that
distance was a mass of egg-shaped bodies, half of wool, half of slime,
that jostled one another. It was the herd of sheep. With gloom and
difficulty they crept along the muddy path to a farmstead--a few
mossy roofs of straw and turf amid the poplars. There was the dark
sheepfold. Its open door showed a cavernous blackness; but through
chinks in the back wall of the sheepfold flickered faint glints of the
twilight. The caravan of wool and slime disappeared in the cavern. The
shepherd and a woman with a lantern closed the door.

How was it that the invisible-visible presence of Ruth evoked this
landscape in his soul? He had never, so far as he knew, seen such a
landscape. How did it happen that this landscape exhaled something
calming and shattering at once, yearning and fear--that it had power
over him as scarcely any human fate or form or face? And how did it
come to pass that Ruth’s “no, never, nevermore,” seemed the mysterious
meaning of this landscape, the symbol of this vision?

Ruth, little Ruth!

Grief and sadness entered into Christian’s very marrow.


XXIV

Crammon had determined to stay only one week at the Villa Ophelia.
In the first place he did not like to prolong the family idyl beyond
decent and appropriate limits. In the second place his programme, which
he was not in the habit of changing except for catastrophes, demanded
his departure for England. But the one week merged into a second, and
the second into a third. At the end of the third week he was still
unable to come to a decision.

He was rancorous against his surroundings and against himself, and
as whimsical as a woman. He blamed himself, accused himself of
senile indecision, and was full of bitter dissatisfaction with the
slovenliness of the countess’s establishment. The cuisine was, in his
view, too greasy, and threatened to upset his sensitive digestion; the
servants were not properly respectful, because their wages were too
often in arrears. The constant stream of guests was generally lacking
in nothing so much as in distinction. There were second-rate musicians
and poets and painters, and women of the same calibre. Furthermore
there were aristocrats of doubtful reputation. In brief, a gathering of
parasites, the thriftless, the unprofitable.

Among them Crammon had the appearance of a relic of an exalted and
hieratic age.

One day the two nephews of the countess, Ottomar and Reinhold
Stojenthin, appeared. They had succeeded in getting leave of absence
for two months. Leave of absence from what? Crammon inquired with
raised brows. They wanted to accompany Letitia to Munich. “They are
splendid chaps, Herr von Crammon,” said the countess. “Do take them
under your protection.” Crammon was vexed. “I’ve always lived in
perfect dread of some one’s discovering my hidden talent for the rôle
of a governess. The achievement was reserved for you, countess.”

His relations to Puck, the Pekingese, were strained. The little animal
enraged him inexplicably. Whenever he saw it his eyes grew round and
his face scarlet with anger. Perhaps it was the dog’s deep tawny coat;
perhaps it was its sleepiness; perhaps he suspected it of maliciously
feigning a delicate state of health so that it could sprawl on silken
couches and have tidbits stuck into its mouth. The anxious care that
Letitia gave the creature annoyed him. Once the little dog had gotten
up from the carpet and, wheezing asthmatically, had slipped out through
the door. “Where is Puck?” Letitia asked after a while from the depth
of her armchair. Puck wasn’t to be seen. “Do whistle to him, Bernard,”
she begged in her flute-like voice. “You can do that yourself,” said
Crammon quite rudely. Letitia, calmly pathetic, dreamily preoccupied,
said: “Please do it for me. I can’t whistle when I’m excited.”

So Crammon whistled to the hateful beast.

Still, a decision had to be arrived at. “Are you going to Munich with
me?” the siren Letitia cooed, and laughed at his anger. To her aunt
she said: “He’s still raging, but he’ll go with us in the end.”

Crammon nursed an ethical intention. He would influence Letitia to her
own advantage. He could open her eyes to the dangerous downward slope
of the path which she pursued with such unfortunate cheerfulness.
She could be helped and supported and given a timely warning. Her
extravagance could be checked, and her complete lack of judgment could
be corrected. She was utterly inexperienced and thoughtless. She
believed every liar, and gave her confidence to every chatterer. She
was enthusiastic over any charlatan, held all flattery to be sincere,
and provided every fool who paid court to her with a halo of wisdom and
of pain. She needed to be brought to reason.

Crammon was quite right. Yet a mere smile of Letitia would silence
him. She blunted the point of the most pertinent maxims and of the
soundest moralizing by holding her head a little on one side, looking
at him soulfully and saying in a sweetly and archly penitential tone:
“You see, dear Bernard, I’m made this way. What’s the use of trying to
be different? Would you want me to be different? If I were, I’d only
have other faults. Do let me be as I am.” And she would slip one hand
through his arm, and with the other tickle his almost double chin. And
he would hold still and sigh.

The following persons started on the journey to Munich: Letitia, her
personal maid, the nurse Eleutheria, the twins, the countess, Fräulein
Stöhr, Ottomar and Reinhold, Crammon, the Pole Stanislaus Rehmer. Also
the following animals: Puck, the Pekingese, a bullfinch in one cage and
a tame squirrel in another. The luggage consisted of fourteen large
trunks, sixteen hand-bags, seven hat-boxes, one perambulator, three
luncheon baskets, and innumerable smaller packages wrapped in paper,
leather, or sack-cloth, not to mention coats, umbrellas, sticks, and
flowers. In the train the countess wrung her hands, Puck barked and
whined pathetically, Letitia made a long list of things that had been
forgotten at the last moment, the maid quarreled with the conductor,
the twins screamed, Eleutheria offended the other passengers by baring
her voluminous breasts, Fräulein Stöhr had her devout and patient
heavenward glance, Ottomar and Reinhold debated some literary matter,
the Pole spent his time gazing at Letitia, Crammon sat in sombre mood
with legs crossed and twiddled his thumbs.

With the exception of the Stojenthin brothers, who went to a more
modest hostelry, the whole company took rooms in the Hotel Continental.
The bill which was presented to the countess at the end of each day was
rarely for less than three hundred marks. “Stöhr,” she said, “we must
find new sources of help. The child suspects nothing, of course. It
would break her heart if she had an inkling of my pecuniary anxieties.”
Fräulein Stöhr, without abandoning her air of virtue, succeeded in
implying her doubt of that.

A lawyer of the highest reputation was entrusted with the suit against
the Gunderams. The representative of the defendants had been instructed
to refuse all demands. There were endless conferences, during which
the countess flamed with noble indignation, while Letitia exhibited an
elegiac amazement, as though these things did not concern her and had
faded from her memory. Her statements as to what she had said and done,
concerning agreements and events, were never twice the same. When these
contradictions were brought to her attention, she answered, ashamed and
dreamy and angry at once: “You’re frightfully pedantic. How am I to
remember it all? I suppose things were as you’ve said they were in your
documents. What are the documents for?”

The old litigation concerning the forest of Heiligenkreuz was also to
be accelerated. The countess’s hopes in this matter were justified in
no respect. Nevertheless she felt that she was a wealthy landowner,
and sought capitalists to finance her on the security of this dusty
and hopeless claim. She failed, yet her faith was unshaken. She even
prevailed upon herself to enter places that she considered unhygienic,
and chaffer with persons who were not immaculate. “Don’t worry, my
angel,” she said to Letitia. “Everything will turn out well. By Easter
we shall be rolling in money.”

Letitia did not, indeed, worry. She enjoyed herself and was radiant.
Every day was so full of delight and pleasure that it seemed rank
ingratitude to think of the morrow except under the same aspect. Life
clung to her as pliantly and adorningly as a charming frock. Since her
inner life was unshadowed and all men smiled upon her, she believed
the world at large to be in a lasting condition of content. Rumours of
pain and misfortune, she thought, must somewhere have their ground in
reality. But by the time that a knowledge of them reached her, they
were transformed into the likeness of beauty and legend.

She read the books of poets, listened to music, danced at balls,
chatted and walked, and everything was to her a mirror of her
loveliness and a free, playful activity. She was quite free, for
she never felt the impulse toward restraint. She had time for every
one, for the moment was her master. And so she was most disarmingly
unpunctual, and so innocent in her faithlessness that those whom she
betrayed always ended by consoling her. Her affairs were quickly going
from bad to worse. She knew nothing of it. She created an unparalleled
confusion among men, but she was quite unconscious of it. Whoever
spoke to her of love received love. She was sorry for them. Why not
share one’s overflowing wealth? Six or eight passionate wooers could
always simultaneously boast of weighty evidences of her favour. If any
one reproached her, she was astonished and not seldom on the verge of
tears, like some one whose pure intentions had been incomprehensibly
misunderstood.

One of the twins fell ill, and a physician was summoned. He delayed
coming, and she sent for another. Next morning she had forgotten
both, and sent for a third, simply because his name in the telephone
directory had pleased her. The consequence was confusion. It happened
too that she would fall in love with one of the physicians for a few
hours. Then the confusion was heightened.

She accepted three separate invitations for Christmas week, and
promised to go at the same time to Meran, Salzburg, and Baireuth. When
the time came she had forgotten all three, and went nowhere.

Her maid was discovered to be a thief. A dozen girls presented
themselves for the vacant position. She took a liking to the last, and
forgot that she had already taken a liking to the first and had hired
her.

She was invited to luncheon and appeared at tea. A sum had been scraped
up to pay pressing bills. She loaned it to Rehmer, who was poor as a
church mouse and needed new clothes. The confusion grew and grew.

But it did not touch her. Her mood was exalted and festive, her gait
a little careless, her head charmingly bent a little to one side. Her
soft, deer-like eyes were full of expectation and delight and just a
shade of cunning.

Crammon could not possibly approve this state of affairs. It was a
topsyturvy world, in which all rules were trodden under foot. A very
dainty, very pretty foot, no doubt, but the result was enough to
frighten any one. He growled his complaints like Burbero in Goldoni’s
play. He said things would come to a bad end. He had never known such
slovenliness in all things not to come to a bad end. His horror was
that of a bourgeois who sees his pet virtues outraged. Fascinated and
frightened by the spectacle of Letitia’s gambols on the edge of an
abyss, he denied his own past, forgot his follies, his adventures, his
freebooting days, his greed and varied lusts, and the remnants of them
that accompanied him even now. He forgot all that. He complained.

One evening he was dining alone with the countess. Letitia had gone to
a concert. The countess had something on her heart, and his suspicions
were vigilant. Her ways were mild and she served him the best of
everything. She spoke of the change of domicile that had been planned,
and said that she and Letitia had not yet been able to agree whether
it were better to spend the coming months in Wiesbaden or Berlin. She
asked Crammon’s advice. He begged her to permit him not to interfere
in the controversy. He had other plans of his own, and no desire to
witness a noisy débâcle.

At that the countess began to lament her pecuniary embarrassment and
complain of the impatience of her creditors. For the dear child’s
sake she had determined to ask him for a considerable loan. She would
give him any security he desired, provided her name and person and
reputation did not suffice. Nothing, of course, could greatly mitigate
the painfulness of having to make such a request. Yet the sense of
asking the father of her darling did console her for her suffering.

Her red round cheeks did, in fact, become a shade less rosy, and in her
forget-me-not blue eyes shimmered a tear or two.

Crammon laid down his knife and fork. “You misjudge me, countess,”
he said with the melancholy of a Tartuffe. “You misjudge me gravely.
Never in my life have I loaned out money--neither at interest nor
out of friendship. Nothing could move me to change my principle. You
probably fancy me well off. That is a most astonishing error, countess.
I may give that impression, but you must not draw false inferences.
I have had the art of thrift and frugality, that is all. I have been
careful in the choice of my associates--men as well as women. If
ever I had two invitations, one from the East and one from the West,
and the Eastern invitation was issued by an unquestionably wealthier
source, my decision was immediate and unhesitating. Thus I was guarded
from scruples and regrets. All that I call my own is a little farm in
Moravia that yields a most modest revenue--a little grain, a little
fruit, and an old ramshackle house in Vienna with a few sticks of
worm-eaten furniture, which is guarded for me by two rare pearls of the
female sex. No one, countess, I assure you, has ever before made the
quaint mistake of asking me for money. No one.”

Sadly the countess leaned her head upon her hand.

“But my conscience would forbid my acquiescence in this case even had I
the ability,” Crammon continued morosely. “I would never forgive myself
for having been the banker of the follies that are perpetrated here,
or the financier of mad extravagance. No, no, countess. Let us talk of
more cheerful things.”

He was still up when, at midnight, he heard a tapping at his door.
Letitia entered. She sat down beside him, and said to him with a
wide-eyed gentle look: “It wasn’t nice of you, Bernard, to treat auntie
so cruelly. Neither you nor I can let a thing like that go. Are you
stingy? For heaven’s sake, Bernard, don’t tell me that you’re stingy!
Look me in the eyes, and tell me if such a thing is possible. My dear,
I’d have to disown you!”

She laughed and put her arms about his neck, pulled his hair and kissed
the tip of his nose, and was, in a word, so arch and so irresistible
that Crammon’s cast-iron principles were fatally shattered. He revoked
his refusal and promised to pay Letitia’s debts.

Once again the breath and speech of a woman had power over him. But
it was late, and the sweetness was shot with pain. For he was no more
the robber but the victim. Ah, it was time to practise modesty and
renunciation. No longer did one bite into a juicy pear. No longer did
one eat; one was eaten.

Letitia determined to go to Berlin. After some vain refusals, Crammon
consented to accompany her.


XXV

In spite of the warmth of the room Johanna sat wrapped in her cloak.

Amadeus Voss told her a story: “I know of a holy priest who lived in
France in the seventeenth century and whose name was Louis Gaufridy.
In those days the people still believed in magic and witchcraft, and
that was well, since it served as an antidote to godless desires.
To-day a few chosen spirits believe in magic again, and thus exorcize
the evil spirit which is called science. Louis Gaufridy was considered
the most devout man of his age. Not even his enemies denied that. In a
convent which he served as father confessor, there was a nun who was
called Madeleine de la Palud. This woman’s imagination had embraced the
Saviour under the aspect of the flesh, and the chronicles say that she
had fed her evil desires upon His picture. This fact was written in
her troubled looks, and the priest Gaufridy saw the truth and desired
to liberate her through the grace of confession. But the demons sealed
her lips and hardened her heart. They took possession of her, and the
devils Asmodeus and Leviathan spoke through her. She who had hitherto
been chaste had unchaste hallucinations, and accused the priest of
having bewitched and misused her. Gaufridy was arrested and examined
under torture and confronted with Madeleine. He swore by God and all
His saints that he was being falsely accused. But the nun, misled by
her hallucinations, swore that he was the prince of magicians, that he
had misused her during confession, and had poisoned her soul. Before
the judges the priest implored Madeleine to give up her delusion and
confess the truth; but she was incapable of truth. Beside herself, she
cried out that he had pledged himself to the devil in his own blood
and that he had forced her to do the same. Thereupon he was cruelly
tortured once more, and publicly burned on the Dominican’s Square at
Aix.”

Johanna smiled a tormented smile.

“That is the story of Madeleine de la Palud,” said Voss, “the profound
story concerning the heavenly and the earthly Eros and the Fata Morgana
of the senses. Who was the guilty one? Madeleine, who had blasphemed
and defiled the image of the Saviour with fleshly desires, or Gaufridy,
who had plunged her into a consciousness of sin by creating in her
the division between spirit and flesh? For that he had to suffer, as
every one has to suffer. But what I feel, and what our sources indeed
hint at, is that he was seized by a mysterious and terrible love for
Madeleine de la Palud even when she was thrusting him into the torture
chamber, and that this love mitigated for him even the horrors of his
fiery death. In every human breast love arises but once and for but
one being. All else is misunderstanding, and a sterile attempt to
resuscitate what is dead. It leads to falsehood and to torture.”

Johanna smiled a tormented smile.

“I walked with a harlot yesterday,” Voss said suddenly, and stared into
space.

Johanna did not stir.

“It is an old horror that draws me toward harlots,” he said in a
hollow voice. “Sometimes when I walked the streets penniless, sick
with longing, utterly deserted, I gazed after them and envied the men
who could go with them. It is an old feeling and springs from a deep
source. I cannot get rid of it, least of all now that I err in the
darkness and the ground is melting under my feet.”

“You talk and talk,” said Johanna, and arose. “If I had learned to
speak I could tell you what you ... do!”

“I suffer in the flesh,” he answered, and his glance burned her.

Twice she walked up and down the room. She hated her own tread, her
own perceptions, and her own thoughts. She had so deep a longing for
some human touch, some friendly, handsome, kindly word, that she
would not admit even to herself how far it might lead her. She only
had a dim vision of herself sitting in that rear room in Stolpische
Street, waiting for Christian many hours, whole nights, it mattered
not how long, but just to wait and to be there at his coming, to smile
with her lips though her heart were weeping--she knew that condition
so well--without explanation or confessions or complaints, as is the
custom among well-bred people who settle their inner difficulties in
silence and alone. Just to be there and nothing else, in order that the
temperature of her heart might rise by a few degrees.

But to plan or undertake or hope for anything from any source was so
criminal, it seemed, and so stupid. An empty thing--like a hungry bird
picking at painted grains of wheat.

“You told me the other day that you weren’t able to pay your rent.
Permit me to help you out.” She spoke in her frugal, pointed way, and
with an angular gesture placed some money on the table. “Do not speak.
Just this once, please do not speak.”

He looked at her devouringly, and laughed with a jeer.

She stood very cold and still. He kissed her.

She endured it like one to whose throat a knife is put.


XXVI

When she arrived in Stolpische Street it was seven o’clock in the
evening. Christian was not at home, and she waited.

She lit the lamp, sat down beside the table, and did not move. After
a while, since the chill of the unheated room penetrated through her
cloak and even her frock, she got up and walked up and down. Sometimes
she lightly touched the objects on the table--a notebook, or a dusty
ink-well. She let down the shades, and saw the silly pictures with
which they were adorned.

As on that other occasion she heard the house. It was full of rumours
and whispers, and oppressed her fatefully.

Swift, violent knocks at the door resounded. She started and then
hastened to open it. A boy stood before her. His condition made her
shudder. His clothes were spattered over and over with mud. Here and
there, about his knees and on his chest, the mud had caked and formed
a thick crust. His head was bare. His coal-black hair, which was also
muddy, hung down. His face had an utter bleached whiteness, such as
Johanna had never seen upon a human face. No drop of blood seemed left
beneath his skin.

Limping a little, he passed by Johanna and entered the room. His
movements were mechanical and trance-like. The volitional impulse
always far antedated the action it produced.

“I am Michael Hofmann,” he said, and his teeth chattered.

Johanna did not know him and had not heard of him. She thought she must
be dealing with a madman. In her fear she did not leave the door. She
expected him to attack her at any moment, and listened for some chance
step in the hall or yard. She wanted to flee, but she was afraid to
move. When the boy came into the circle of the lamplight, a sigh which
ended in a broken cry escaped her, so terrible was the expression in
his eyes.

He stopped, and looked about him. He was obviously seeking Christian
Wahnschaffe; but in the act of gazing he forgot to look, and his glance
became a stare. He grasped the back of a chair. Exhaustion seemed to
overtake him. When he was about to sit down, he reeled and half-whirled
about, and would have fallen but for the support of the back of the
chair. Now Johanna saw clearly that he was neither mad nor drunk. He
was a human being who had been robbed of strength and speech and almost
vision and consciousness by an experience of the supremest horror. Not
only his shaking limbs, not only the whiteness of his face betrayed the
fact, but the atmosphere that surrounded him.

Gently she closed the door. Hesitatingly she approached the chair upon
which he seemed now wedged fast. She dared to ask no question. Gnawing
her lip, she suppressed a feeling that welled up hotly within her. She
felt herself shrink and become thin and shadowy. She seemed suddenly to
have lost the very right to breathe.

Every passing second heightened her unspeakable consternation. Her
limbs trembled. She sat down on the other side of the room. The lad
had his back turned to her, and she observed that his body began to
twitch. She saw it by the creases in his coat and his arms, which were
hanging down. It was like an endless convulsion. The helplessness which
she felt in the face of this unknown tragedy caused her an almost
physical pain, and inspired her with self-disgust and self-contempt.
Her soul seemed steeped in blackness, shredded and crushed. While she
suffered so, a desire came over her, a defiant and struggling desire,
as for something ultimate to lay hold upon in life. It was the desire
to see how Christian would take the terrible thing in which he was,
to all appearances, implicated. Would he let it slide from him with
his old elegant smoothness? Would he let it be shattered against that
impenetrability against which all her life and fate had been shattered?
Or would he be that other who was frank and changed and had wrought
a miracle upon himself and upon all others except herself--who was
incapable of faith out of shame and despair and desolation and an inner
hurt? But if he was that other and changed man, if he approved himself
in this supreme instance, then she need torment herself so cruelly no
more. For in that case, what did her little sorrows matter? Then she
must be humble, and wait for her summons, though she did not know what
it would be.

And she waited, stretching out her slim throat like a thirsty deer.


XXVII

That “no, never, nevermore,” had driven Christian about without another
thought. On this day he forgot that Karen was sick unto death.

As he was coming home that night it was raining. Nevertheless there
were groups of people in front of the houses. Some uncommon event had
brought them out of their rooms.

He had had no umbrella, and was wet to the skin. In the doorway, too,
stood people who lived in the house. They whispered excitedly. When
they saw him they became silent, stepped aside, and let him pass.

Their faces frightened him. He looked at them. They were silent. Terror
fell on his chest like a lump of ice.

He went on. He was about to go up to Karen’s flat, but reconsidered and
went toward the court. He wanted to be alone in his room for a while.
Several people followed him. Among them was the wife of Gisevius and
her son, a young man whose behaviour was marked by the well-defined
class-consciousness of the organized worker.

Christian did not even observe that the window of his room was lit.
He walked close to the wall; he was so wet. Opening the door, he
saw Johanna and the boy. He did not at once recognize Michael, who
sat turned aside. He nodded to Johanna in surprise. The tense and
glittering look which she turned upon him made him start. He reached
the table and recognized Michael Hofmann. He grew pale, and had to hold
on to the table’s edge.

The door was still open, and in the dim light of the hall were crowded
the five or six people who had followed him. It was not insolence that
brought them to the threshold. They had been disquieted by rumours, and
thought that he could give them some information.

Christian put his hand in the lad’s shoulder, and asked: “Where have
you been, Michael? Where have you come from?”

The boy continued rigid and silent.

“Where is Ruth?” Christian asked, as by a supreme effort.

Michael arose. His eyes were unnaturally wide open. With both arms he
made a large, obscure gesture. Horror shook him so that a gurgling
sound which arose in his throat was throttled before it reached his
lips. Suddenly he swayed and reeled and fell like a log. He lay on the
floor.

Christian kneeled down and put his arms about him. He lifted him a
little, and gathered the muddy, trembling boy close to him. He bent
down his face, and learned an unheard-of thing from the beseeching,
horror-stricken glance that sought him as from fathomless depths.
Passionately he pressed Michael’s body against his own, which was so
wet but no longer aware of its wetness. He pressed the boy to his
heart, as though he would open to him his breast as a shelter, and
the boy, too, clung to Christian with all his might. The convulsive
rigidity relaxed, and from that unbelievably emaciated body there broke
forth a sobbing like the moan of a wind of doom.

The boy knew. No one could be so shattered but one who knew.

Then Christian kissed the stony, dirty, tear-stained face.

Johanna saw it, and the timid people at the door saw it also.



INQUISITION


I

Edgar Lorm was accustomed to taking his meals without Judith, so he was
not surprised at her absence to-day and sat down alone.

The meal was served: a lobster, breast of veal with salad and three
kinds of vegetables, a pheasant with compote, a large boule de Berlin,
pineapple and cheese. He drank two glasses of red Bordeaux and a pint
of champagne.

He ate this excessively rich meal daily with the appetite of a giant
and the philosophical delight of a gourmet. As he was lighting his
heavy Havana cigar over his coffee, he heard Judith’s voice. She burst
in, perturbed to the utmost.

“What has happened, dear child?” he asked.

“Something frightful,” she gasped, and sank into a chair.

Lorm arose. “But what has happened, my dear?”

She panted. “I haven’t been feeling at all well for several days. I got
the doctor to look me over, and he says I’m pregnant.”

A sudden light came into Lorm’s eyes. “I don’t think that’s such a
terrible misfortune.” He had difficulty in concealing his surprised
delight. “On the contrary, I think it’s a blessed thing. I hardly dared
hope for it. Indeed, my dear wife, I don’t know what I wouldn’t give to
have it true.”

Judith’s eyes glittered as she replied: “It shall never be--never,
never! I shall not remind you of our agreement; I shall not lay the
blame on you if this terrible thing has really happened. I can’t
believe it yet. It would make me feel bewitched. But you are mistaken
if you count on any yielding on my part, any womanly weakness, or
any awakening of certain so-called instincts. Never, never! My body
shall remain as it is--mine, all mine. I won’t have it lacerated and I
won’t share it. It’s the only thing I still call my own. I won’t have
a strange creature take possession of it, and I refuse to age by nine
years in nine months. And I don’t want some mocking image of you or
me to appear. Never, never! The horror of it! Be careful! If you take
delight in something I detest so, the horror will extend itself to you!”

Lorm stretched himself a little, and regarded her with amazement. There
was nothing for him to say.

She went into her bedroom and locked the door. Lorm gave orders that
no visitors were to be admitted. Then he went into the library, and
spent the time until eight reading a treatise on the motions of the
fixed stars. But often he raised his eyes from the book, for he was
preoccupied not so much with the secrets of the heavens as with very
mundane and very depressing things. He got up and went to the door of
Judith’s room. He listened and knocked, but Judith did not answer.
At the end of half an hour he returned and knocked again. She knew
his humble way of seeking admission, but she did not answer. The door
remained locked.

At the end of each half hour, which he spent in reading about the
stars, he returned to the door and knocked. He called her name. He
begged her to have some confidence in him and hear what he had to say.
He spoke in muffled tones, so as not to arouse the attention of the
servants. He asked her not to blame him for his premature delight. He
saw his error and deplored it. Only let her listen to him. He promised
her gifts--an antique candlestick, a set of Dresden china, a frock made
by Worth. In vain. She did not answer.

Three days passed. An oppressive atmosphere rested on the household.
Lorm slunk through the rooms like an intimidated guest. He humiliated
himself so far as to send Judith a letter by the housekeeper, who took
in her meals and who alone had access to her. At night he returned to
the door again and again, placed his lips against it, and implored her.
There was no stirring of anger in him, no impulse to clench his fist
and break down the door. Judith knew that. She was beating her fish.

She knew that she could go any length.

This man had been the idol of a whole nation. He had been spoiled by
fame, by the friendship of distinguished people, by the kindness of
fate and all the amenities of life. His very whims had been feared;
a frown of his had swept all opposition aside. Now he not only
endured the maltreatment of this woman whom he had married after
long solitariness and hesitation; he accepted insult and humiliation
like the just rewards of some guilt. Weary of fame, appreciation,
friendship, success, and domination, he seemed to lust after
mortification, the reversal of all things, and the very voluptuousness
of pain.

Quite late on the third evening he was summoned to the telephone by
Wolfgang Wahnschaffe. The breach between Wolfgang and Judith that had
followed his first visit forbade his visiting the house.

He begged Lorm for an interview on neutral ground. The occasion,
he said, was most pressing. Lorm asked for details. The bitter and
excited answer was that the question concerned Christian. Some common
proceeding against him, some decision and plan, some protective
measures were absolutely necessary. The family must be saved from both
danger and inconceivable disgrace.

At this point Lorm interrupted him. “I feel rather sure that my wife
will prove quite unapproachable in the matter. And what could I do more
than the merest stranger?” Urged anew, he finally promised to meet
Wolfgang at luncheon in a restaurant on Potsdamer Street.

He had scarcely hung up the receiver when Judith entered. She had on
a négligée of dark-green velvet trimmed with fur. The garment had a
long train. Her hair was carefully dressed, a cheerful smile was on her
lips, and she stretched out both hands to Lorm.

He was happy, and took her hands and kissed them.

She put her arms about his neck and her lips close to his ear:
“Everything is all right. The doctor is a donkey. I did you wrong.
Everything is nice now, so be nice!”

“If only you are satisfied,” said Lorm, “nothing else matters.”

She nestled closer to him, and coaxed with eyes and mouth and hands:
“How about the antique candlestick, darling, and the frock by Worth?
Are you going to get them for me? And am I not to have my set of
Dresden china?”

Lorm laughed. “Since you admit that you wronged me, the price of
reconciliation is a trifle high,” he mocked. “But don’t worry. You
shall have everything.”

He breathed a kiss upon her forehead. That disembodied tenderness was
the symbol of the ultimate paralysis of his energy before her and men
and the world. And from day to day this paralysis grew more noticeable,
and bore all the physical symptoms of an affection of the heart.


II

An identical account in all newspapers gave the first public
notification that a murder had been committed:

 “At six o’clock yesterday a foreman and a workman from Brenner’s
 factory found the headless body of a girl in a shed on Bornholmer
 Street. The body was held by ropes in an unnatural position, and
 was so tightly wedged in among beams, boards, ladders, barrows, and
 refuse, that the police officers who were immediately summoned had
 the greatest difficulty in disentangling their gruesome find. The
 news spread rapidly through the neighbourhood, and a rumour that
 increased in definiteness pointed to the body of the murdered girl
 as that of the sixteen-year-old Ruth Hofmann residing in Stolpische
 Street. A notification of her disappearance had been lodged at police
 headquarters several days ago. The theory that it was she who was the
 victim of a murder of unparalleled bestiality became a certainty some
 hours later. A mason’s wife found in the mortar-pit of a building
 lot on Bellermann Street the severed head, which proved to belong to
 the body and was identified by several inhabitants of the house on
 Stolpische Street as that of Ruth Hofmann. Except for stockings and
 shoes, the body was entirely naked, and its mutilations indicated
 felonious assault. There is at present no trace of the murderer.
 But the investigations are being present with all possible care and
 energy, and it is warmly to be desired that the inhuman brute may soon
 be turned over to the ministers of justice.”


III

In the little rear room he had now been sleeping for fourteen hours.
The widow Engelschall determined to go to him.

She passed through the half-dark passage-way in which the supplies were
stored. Hams and smoked sausages dangled from the ceiling. On the floor
stood kegs with sardines, herrings, and pickled gherkins. There were
shelves filled with glasses of preserved fruit. The place smelled like
a shop.

She stopped, took a little gherkin out of an open keg, and swallowed it
without chewing.

The bell of the front-door rang. A sluttish creature, broom in hand,
became visible at the end of the passage, and called out to the widow
Engelschall that Isolde Schirmacher had come with an important message.
“Let her wait,” the widow Engelschall growled. Softly she went into the
small room in which Niels Heinrich was sleeping.

He lay on a mattress. A bluish flannel coverlet was over him. His
hairy chest was bare; his naked feet protruded. The room was so small
that not even a chest of drawers could have been squeezed in. Heaps
of malodorous, soiled linen lay in the corners. Tools were scattered
about the floor--a plane, a hammer, a saw. Old newspapers increased the
litter, and on nails in the wall hung dirty clothes, ties, and a couple
of overcoats. On the walls red splotches showed where bedbugs had been
killed. On the table stood a candlestick with a piece of candle, an
empty beer bottle, and a half empty whiskey bottle.

He lay on his back. The muscles of his face had snapped under an
inhuman tension. Between his reddish eyebrows vibrated three dark
furrows. His skin was the tint of cheese. On his neck and forehead were
beads of sweat. His lids looked like two black holes. The slim, red
little beard on his chin moved as he breathed--moved like a separate
and living thing, a watchful, hairy insect.

He snored loudly. A bubble of saliva rose now and then from the
horrible opening of his lips that showed his decayed teeth.

The widow Engelschall had had plans which had seemed easy to execute
outside. Now she dared do nothing. Last night she had stood above him
as she stood now. He had begun to murmur in his sleep, and she had
hurried out in terror.

It buzzed in her head: What had he done with the two thousand marks
which he had embezzled from the builder? She distrusted his assertion
that he had spent it all on the cashier of the Metropolitan Moving
Picture Theatre. To make up a part of the money and prevent his
arrest, she had had to pawn all her linen, two chests of drawers, the
furnishings of her waiting-room, and also to mortgage a life insurance
policy. Her letter to Privy Councillor Wahnschaffe had not even been
answered.

She didn’t believe that he had wasted so much good money on that slut.
He must have a few hundreds lying about somewhere. The thought gave
her no rest. It was dangerous to let him notice her suspicion; but she
could risk entering the room while he slept, burrowing in his clothes,
and slipping her hand under his pillow.

But she stood perfectly still. In his presence she was always prepared
for the unexpected. If he but opened his mouth, she trembled within. If
people came to speak of him, she grew cold all over. If she stopped to
think, she knew that it had always been so.

When the village schoolmaster had caught the ten-year-old boy in
disgusting practices with a girl of eight, he had said: “He’ll end on
the gallows.” When he was an apprentice, he had quarrelled over wages
with his employer and threatened to strike him. The man had said:
“He’ll end on the gallows.” When he had stolen a silver chain from the
desk of the minister’s wife at Friesoythe, and his mother had gone to
return it, the lady had said: “He’ll end on the gallows.”

The memories came thick and fast. He had beaten his first mistress, fat
Lola who lived in Köpnicker Street, with barbarous cruelty, because
at a dance in Halensee she had winked at a postal clerk. When the
girl had writhed whining on the floor, and shrieked out in her pain:
“There ain’t such another devil in the world!” the widow Engelschall
had appealed to the enraged fellow’s conscience, and had said to him:
“Go easy, my boy, go easy;” but her advice had been futile. When his
second mistress was pregnant, he forced her to go for treatment to an
evil woman with whom he was also intimate, and the girl died of the
operation. He jeered at the swinish dullness of women who couldn’t
do the least things right--couldn’t bear and couldn’t kill a brat
properly. No one, fortunately, had heard this remark but the widow
Engelschall. Again she had besought him: “Boy, go it a bit easier, do!”

At bottom she admired his qualities. You couldn’t fool with him. He
knew how to take care of himself; he could get around anybody. If only
he hadn’t always vented his childish rage on harmless things. The
expense of it! If the fire didn’t burn properly, he’d tear the oven
door from its hinges; if his watch was fast or slow, he’d sling it on
the floor so that it was smashed; if meat was not done to his liking,
he broke plates with his knife; if a cravat balked in the tying,
he’d tear it to shreds, and often his shirt too. Then he laughed his
goat-like laugh, and one had to pretend to share his amusement. If he
noticed that one was annoyed, he became rabid, spared nothing, and
destroyed whatever he could reach.

She wondered what he lived on in ordinary times, when he had had no
special piece of good luck. For he seemed always in the midst of
plenty, with pockets full of money, and no hesitation to spend and
treat. Sometimes he worked--four days a week or five. And he could
always get work. He knew his trade, and accomplished in one day more
than other workmen did in three. But usually he extended blue Monday
until Saturday, and passed his time in unspeakable dives with rogues
and loose women.

The widow Engelschall knew a good deal about him. But there was a
great deal that she did not know. His ways were mysterious. To ask
him and to receive an answer was to be none the wiser. He was always
planning something, brewing something. All this commanded the widow
Engelschall’s profound respect. He was flesh of her flesh and spirit
of her spirit. Yet her anxiety was great; and recently the cards had
foretold evil with great pertinacity.

And so she hesitated, full of fear. The palish, yellow skull on the
coarse, fustian pillow paralysed her. The slack flesh of her fat neck
drooped and shook, as she finally bent and reached down after his coat
and waistcoat, which were lying under the chair. She turned away a
little so as to conceal her motions. Suddenly she felt a hand on her
shoulder and shrieked.

Niels Heinrich had risen noiselessly. He stood there in his shirt, and
pierced her with the yellowish flare of his glance. “What’re you doing
there, you old slut?” he asked with calm rage. She let the garments
fall and retreated toward the door trembling. He stretched forth his
arm: “Out!”

His appearance was fear-inspiring. Words died on her lips. With reeling
steps she went out.

Isolde Schirmacher was still waiting in the hall. She began to weep
when she gave her message: the widow Engelschall was to come to
Stolpische Street without delay. Karen was very sick, was dying.

The widow Engelschall seemed incredulous. “Dying? Ah, it ain’t so easy
to die. Give her my love, and say I’m coming. I’ll be there in an hour.”


IV

A further account appeared in the papers:

 “The mystery which surrounds the murder of young Ruth Hofmann is
 beginning to clear up. The public will be glad to learn that the
 efforts of the police have brought about the apprehension of her
 probable slayer. The latter is Joachim Heinzen of Czernikauer Street,
 twenty years old, of evil reputation and apparently of not altogether
 responsible mind. Even before the discovery of the crime his behaviour
 attracted attention. Within the last few days the evidence against him
 has increased to the extent of justifying his arrest. When the police
 frankly accused him of the crime, he first broke down, but immediately
 thereafter resisted arrest with the utmost violence. Lodged in jail,
 he made a full and comprehensive confession. When asked to sign the
 protocol, however, he retracted his entire statement, and denied his
 guilt with extreme stubbornness. In his demeanour brutish stupidity
 alternated with remorse and terror. There can hardly be any doubt
 but that he is the criminal. The first formal examination by the
 investigating judge entrusted with the case will take place to-day.
 All the inhabitants of the house in Stolpische Street have been
 examined, among them a personality whose presence in that locality
 throws a curious side-light on a widely discussed affair, in which
 one of the most respected families among our captains of industry is
 involved.”


V

The hint in the last sentence caused endless talk. The name, which had
considerately been left unmentioned, passed from mouth to mouth, no one
knew how. The rumour reached Wolfgang Wahnschaffe. Colleagues asked
him with cool amazement what his brother had to do with the murder of
a Jewish girl in the slums. Even the chief of his Chancellery in the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs summoned him, and questioned him with an
expression that made him blanch with shame.

He wrote to his father: “I am in the position of a peaceful pedestrian
who is in constant danger of a madman attacking him from behind. You
are aware, dear father, that in the career I have chosen an unblemished
repute is the first requisite. If my reputation and my name are to be
constantly at the public mercy of an insane eccentric, who unhappily
bears that name only to stain it, the time has come to use every means,
no matter how drastic, to protect oneself. We have had patience. I was
for far too long a flickering little flame beside the dazzling but, as
is clear now, quite deceptive radiance of Christian. Now that my whole
life’s happiness is at stake, as well as the honour of myself and my
house, it would be the merest weakness on my part if I were to regard
passively all that is happening and still likely to happen. This is
likewise the opinion of my friends and of every right thinking person.
Some energetic action is necessary if I am to sustain myself in the
station which I have achieved, not to mention any other unpleasantness
in which we may become involved. Until I hear from you, I shall try
to get in touch with Judith, and take counsel with her. Although she
ceased from all association with myself, in the most insulting manner
and for reasons still dark to me, I believe that she will realize the
seriousness of the situation.”

The Privy Councillor received this letter immediately on the heels of a
conference with a delegation of strikers. It was some time before the
pained amazement it automatically aroused in him really penetrated his
consciousness. In any other circumstances the letter’s unfilial, almost
impudent tone would have angered him. To-day he gave it no further
thought. Swiftly he wrote a telegram in cipher to Girke and Graurock.

The reply which came by special delivery reached him the next evening
at his house in Würzburg. Willibald Girke wrote:

“My dear Privy Councillor:--Although it is some time since we have had
the pleasure of working under direct orders from you, yet in the hope
of renewed relations between us, we have been forward-looking enough
to continue our investigations, and to keep up to date in all matters
concerning Herr Christian Wahnschaffe at our own risk and expense.
Thanks to this efficient farsightedness which we have made our rule, we
are able to answer your question with the celerity and precision which
the situation calls for.

“We proceed at once to the root of the matter, the murder of the young
Jewess. We can give you the consoling assurance that there is no other
connection between your son and the foul crime in question than through
the warm and much discussed friendship which your son entertained
for the murdered girl. Hence he is implicated as a witness, and as
such will have to appear in court in due time. This painful necessity
is unhappily unavoidable. Who touches pitch is defiled. His close
association with proletarians necessarily involved him in such matters
and in a knowledge of their affairs. It has been proved and admitted
that he once visited the dwelling of the murderer Heinzen. He did so in
the company of Ruth Hofmann, and on that occasion a scandalous scene
is said to have taken place which was provoked by Niels Heinrich, the
brother of Karen Engelschall. This Niels Heinrich is a close friend
of Joachim Heinzen, has been kept under close surveillance by the
police and examined, and his evidence is said to have been very serious
for the accused. It is this connection with Engelschall, casual and
innocent as it may be, that will be held against your son, and its
disagreeable results cannot yet be absolutely estimated.

“Ruth Hofmann was seen almost daily in your son’s society. Her father’s
flat was immediately opposite Karen Engelschall’s, a circumstance
which facilitated their friendship. A new party has already moved in,
a certain Stübbe with his wife and three children. This Stübbe is a
drunkard of the most degraded sort. He is noisy every evening, and
treats his family with such cruelty that your son has already found it
necessary to interfere on several occasions. We touch upon this fact to
illustrate the ease with which, in these dwelling-places, comradeships
are established and annoyances incurred. The former tenant, David
Hofmann, was indeed peaceful and well-behaved. But he must have been
in the utmost difficulties, since he left for America only a few days
before the murder. Although telegrams were sent after him at once, he
has not been heard from. It is supposed that, for reasons of his own,
he emigrated under an assumed name, since the passenger lists of all
ships that have sailed within the past two weeks have been searched for
his own name in vain. It is possible, moreover, that he sailed from a
Dutch or British port. The authorities are investigating.

“Ruth’s young brother had also disappeared for six days, and did not
show up until the very evening on which the murder was discovered, when
he was found in your son’s room. He has remained there ever since.
His state of mind is inexplicable. No urging, neither requests nor
commands, could extract from him the slightest hint as to where he had
passed the crucial days between Sunday and Thursday. As his silence
is prolonged, it assumes a more and more mysterious aspect, and every
effort is made to break it in the belief that it may be connected with
the murder and may conceal important bits of evidence.

“It has not failed to be observed that your son not only gives
no assistance to those who desire to question young Hofmann, but
frustrates their purpose whenever he can. Since he is absent from his
room during the greater part of the day, a certain Fräulein Schöntag
has undertaken to watch over the boy. Recently, however, the necessity
for such constant watchfulness seems to have decreased. In the absence
of Fräulein Schöntag the boy Hofmann is now often left alone for hours,
and only the wife of Gisevius occasionally looks in to see that he is
still safely there. Nevertheless a plain clothes detective is keeping
the house under close and constant observation.

“From all this it is obvious that, in assuming the care of this
enfeebled boy, your son has taken upon himself a new burden, which, in
view of his other responsibilities and restricted pecuniary means, will
be not a little difficult to bear. We take the liberty of making this
observation, in spite of the fact that a real understanding of your
son’s intentions and purposes is still lacking to us as to every one.

“This concludes our report. In the hope that our thoroughness and
exactness corresponds to your hopes and wishes, and in the expectation
of such further directions as you may be pleased to give us, We beg to
remain, Most respectfully yours, Girke and Graurock. Per W. Girke.”

Albrecht Wahnschaffe wandered through the rooms of the old house,
followed by the dog Freya. To avoid the most crushing of his thoughts,
he summoned up the face of the workingman who had been the spokesman
of yesterday’s deputation. He recalled with great exactness the brutal
features--the protruding chin, the thin lips, the black moustache
brushed upward, the cold, sharp glance, the determined expression. And
in this face he saw no longer the visage of this particular man who had
come to him on this particular and accidental errand, but of a whole
world, mysterious, inevitable, terrible, full of menace and coldness
and determination.

The energy and circumspection which he had shown in his conference
with the delegates seemed to him monstrously futile. The power of no
individual would avail in the conflict with that world.

He did not want to think--not of the letter of the private detective
agency, nor of its horrible revelations, which seemed dim and turbid
scenes of an immeasurably alien life, and yet the life of his son whom
he had loved and whom he still loved. Ah, no, he did not want to think
of the innumerable lowly and ugly and horrible events which whirled
past his mind in a ghostly panorama--the rooms, the courts, the houses
full of groaning, wretched bodies. To prevent himself from thinking of
these, he turned the pages of a book, hunted through a drawer filled
with old letters, and wandered tirelessly from room to room, followed
by the dog Freya.

Fleeing from these images, he encountered others that concerned the
realm of his work, in which the hopes of all his life were rooted and
had ripened, in which the very wheels of his existence had been set in
motion. He saw the great shops desolate, the furnaces extinguished,
the trip-hammers still, and from a thousand doors and windows arms in
gestures of command stretched out toward him who had thought himself
the master of them all. It was not the first time that a strike had
interfered with the intricate organization of the works. But it was the
first time that the feeling came to him that struggle was useless and
the end imminent.

And the question rose to his lips: “Why have you done this to me?”
And this question he addressed to Christian, as though Christian were
guilty of the demands of those who had once been willing slaves, of the
empty halls, the extinguished furnaces, the silent hammers--guilty,
somehow, because of his presence in those rooms amid harlots and
murderers, mad and sick men, and in all those haunts of human vermin.
Rage quivered up in him, one of those rare attacks that all but robbed
him of consciousness. His eyes seemed filled with blood; he sought
a sacrifice and a creature to make atonement, and observed the dog
gnawing at a rug. He took a bamboo stick, and beat the animal so that
it whined piteously--beat it for minutes, until his arm fell exhausted.

Calm came, and he felt remorse and shame. But the core of his anger
remained in his heart, and he carried it about with him like a hidden
poison. The gnawing and burning did not cease, and he knew that it
would not cease until he had had a reckoning with Christian, until
Christian had given some accounting of himself as man to man, son to
father, criminal to judge.

The rage corroded his soul. Yet what was the way out? How could he
reach Christian? How summon him to an accounting? No active step but
would betray his dignity. Was he doomed merely to wait? For weeks and
months? The silent rage gnawed at his very life.


VI

Johanna’s absence made Amadeus Voss more and more anxious. Using
the methods of a spy, he had discovered that she had left the house
of her relatives quite suddenly. On the day after her last visit
to Zehlendorf, she had come home silent and sorrowful. Her absence
had caused worry, since every one was now thinking of murders and
mysterious disappearances. She had refused to tell where she had passed
the night, and had simply declared that she was going away altogether.
She had resisted all questions and arguments in silence and had quickly
packed her possessions. Then a motor car, which she had ordered, had
appeared, and with formal words of thanks she had said good-bye. She
had told her cousin, with whom she was more intimate than with the
rest, that she needed a period of concentration and loneliness, and
was moving into a furnished room. She begged that no one try to seek
her out. It would be useless and only drive her farther. Indeed, she
had threatened more desperate things if she were not left in peace.
Nevertheless her frightened kinsmen had followed her track, and had
discovered that she had rented a room in Kommandanten Street. But since
she was lodging with a respectable woman and seemed guilty of nothing
exciting or dangerous, her desire was finally respected, and all vain
speculation as to her incomprehensible action abandoned.

These details had been recounted to Voss by a maid whom he had bribed
with five marks. With tense face and inflamed heart he went home to
consider what he should do. He found a letter from Johanna, who wrote:
“I do not know how things will be between us in the future. At this
moment I am incapable of any decision. I am not in the least interested
either in myself or in my fate, and I have weighty reason for that
feeling. Don’t seek me out. I am in Stolpische Street almost all day
long, but don’t seek me out if you have any interest in me or if you
want me to have the least interest in you in the future. I don’t want
to see you; I can’t bear to listen to you at present. The experience I
have had has been too dreadful and too unexpected. You would find me
changed in a way that you would not like at all. Johanna.”

Pale with rage, he immediately rode into the city as far as the station
on Schönhauser Avenue. When he reached Stolpische Street it was nine
o’clock in the evening. Frau Gisevius told him that Fräulein Schöntag
had left half an hour ago. He looked into Christian’s room, and saw an
unknown boy sitting at the table. He drew the woman aside, and asked
her who it was. She was amazed that he didn’t know, and told him that
it was the brother of the murdered girl. She added that Wahnschaffe was
quite unlike himself since the tragedy. He walked about like a lost
soul. If you talked to him he either didn’t answer at all or answered
at random. He didn’t touch his breakfast which she brought him every
morning. Often he would stand for half an hour on the same spot with
lowered head. She was afraid he was losing his mind. A couple of days
ago she had met him in Rhinower Street, and there, in bright daylight,
he had been talking out loud to himself so that the passers-by had
laughed. Yesterday he had left without a hat, and her little girl had
run after him with it. He had stared at the child for a while as if he
didn’t understand. Shortly after that he had returned home with several
of his friends. Suddenly she had heard him cry out and had rushed into
his room. She had found him on his knees before the others, sobbing
like a little child. Then he had struck the floor in his despair and
had cried out that this thing could not be and dared not be true, that
it wasn’t possible and he couldn’t endure it. Fräulein Schöntag had
been there too. But she had been silent and so had the others. They had
just sat there and trembled. This attack had been caused by some young
men imprudently telling him that this was the day set for the official
examination and autopsy of Ruth’s body. He had wanted to hasten to the
court. They had restrained him with difficulty, and finally had to
assure him that he would be too late, that everything would be over.
All night long he had walked up and down in his room, while Michael had
been lying on the leather sofa. The two hadn’t exchanged one word all
night. She had slipped out of her room and listened repeatedly--not a
syllable. At five o’clock in the morning Fräulein Schöntag had come;
at seven Lamprecht and another student. They had persuaded him to go
out to Treptow with them to spend the day. He had neither consented
nor refused, and they had just dragged him along. Friends of Ruth
Hofmann had come too and staid till noon--a woman and a young man. They
sometimes came in the evening too, after Fräulein Schöntag had gone,
so that Michael need not be alone. No one knew what was going to be
done with the boy. His condition hadn’t changed in the least. He hadn’t
even undressed, and if Fräulein Schöntag hadn’t known just how to get
around him, he would not even have let anybody brush the mud from his
clothes or wash his hands and face. Sometimes a red-haired gentleman
would come to see the boy. She had heard that he was a baron and a
friend of Wahnschaffe. This gentleman had brought a chessboard day
before yesterday, because some one had said that Michael knew how to
play chess and had often played with his sister. But when the chessmen
had been set up, Michael had only shuddered and had not touched them.
The board was still there on the table. Herr Voss could go and see for
himself.

The woman would have gossipped on and on. But Voss left her with a
silent nod. He had grown thoughtful. What he had heard of Christian
had made him thoughtful. Careless of his direction, he turned toward
Exerzier Square. He brooded and doubted. His imagination refused to
see Christian as the woman had pictured him. It seemed an absolute
contradiction of the possible, a mockery of all experience. Grief, such
grief--and Christian? Despair, such despair--and Christian? The world
was rocking on its foundations. Some mystery must be behind it all.
Under the pressure of huge forces the very elements may change their
character, but it was inconceivable to him that blood should issue from
a stone, or a heart be born where none had been.

Forced back against his will, he returned to Stolpische Street.
Suddenly he saw Johanna immediately in front of him. He called out to
her; she stopped and nodded, and showed no surprise. But his hasty,
whispered questions left her silent. Her face was of a transparent
pallor. At the door of the house she stopped and considered. Then she
walked back into the court to the window of Christian’s room. She
wanted to look in, but a hanging had been drawn. She hurried into the
hall, rang the bell, and exchanged some words with Frau Gisevius. Then
she came back. “I must go upstairs,” she said, “I must see how Karen
is.” She did not indicate that Voss was to wait. He waited with all the
more determination. From the dwellings about he heard music, laughter,
the crying of children, the dull whirr of a sewing-machine. At last
Johanna came back and returned to the street at his side. She said in
a helpless tone: “The poor woman will hardly outlive the night, and
Christian isn’t at home. What is to be done?”

He did not answer.

“You must understand what is happening to me,” Johanna said, softly and
insistently.

“I understand nothing,” Voss replied dully. “Nothing--except that I
suffer, suffer beyond endurance.”

Johanna said harshly: “You don’t count.”

They were near the Humboldt Grove. It was cold, but Johanna sat down
on a bench. She seemed wearied; exertions hurt her delicate body like
wounds. Shyly Voss took her hand, and asked: “What is it, then?”

“Don’t,” she breathed, and withdrew her hand. After a long silence she
said: “People always thought him insensitive. Some even said that that
was the reason for his success with all who came near him. It was
a nice theory. I myself never believed it. Most theories are wrong;
why should this one have been right? There is so much vain talk about
people; it is all painful and futile, both when it asserts and when it
denies. His society wasn’t, I grant you, spiritually edifying. If one
was deeply moved by something, one somehow, instinctively, hid it from
him and felt a sense of embarrassment. And now--this! You can’t imagine
it. And how am I to describe it? All the time, that first evening while
he was taking care of Michael, he hadn’t yet been told anything. At
nine or half-past he went up to Karen’s, intending to come back in an
hour, but he came earlier. There were people loitering in the yard, and
they told him. Then he came into the room, quite softly. He came in
and....” She took out a handkerchief, pressed it to her eyes, and wept
very gently.

Voss let her cry for a little while. Then he asked very tensely: “He
came in and----? And what?”

Johanna kept her eyes covered, and went on: “You had the feeling: This
is the end for him, the end of all content, of smiles and laughter--the
end. In fifteen minutes his face had aged by twenty years. I looked
at it for just a moment; then my courage failed me. You may think it
fantastic, but I tell you the whole room was one pain, the air was pain
and so was the light. It’s the truth. Everything hurt; everything one
thought or saw hurt. But he was absolutely silent, and his expression
was like that of one who was straining his eyes to read some illegible
script. And that was the most painful thing of all.”

She fell silent and Voss did not break this silence. Enviously and
rancorously he reflected: “We shall have to convince ourselves
that blood can issue from a stone; we must see and hear and test.”
Deliberately he fortified his will to doubt. The explanations which
he gave in his own mind were of an unworthy character. Not to provoke
Johanna he feigned to share her faith; and yet there was something
about her story that stirred his vitals and made him afraid.

Johanna needed some support. She froze in her new freedom; she
distrusted her strength to bear it. With a touch of dread and longing
she wondered that no one dragged her back by force into the comfort of
a sheltered, care-free, secure life.

She was not sorry to have Amadeus walking at her side. Ah, it was
inconsistent and weak and faithless to one’s own self, but there was
such a horror in being alone. Yet her gesture of farewell seemed
utterly final when they reached the house in Kommandanten Street where
she lived. Amadeus Voss, suspecting her weakness and her melancholy,
accompanied her to the dark stairs, and there grasped her with such
violence as though he meant to devour her. She merely sighed.

At that moment an irresistible desire for motherhood welled up in her.
She did not care through whose agency, nor whether his kiss inspired
disgust or delight. She wanted to become a mother--to give birth
to something, to create something, not to be so empty and cold and
alone, but to cling to something and seem more worthy to herself and
indispensable to another being. Had not this very man who held her like
a beast of prey spoken of the yearning of the shadow for its body?
Suddenly she understood that saying.

Sombre and searching and strong was the look she gave him when they
stepped out upon the street again. Then she went with him.


VII

Karen was still alive in the morning. Death had a hard struggle with
her. Late at night she had once more fought herself free of its
embrace; now she lay there, exhausted by the effort. Her arms, her
hands, her breasts were covered with sores filled with pus. Many had
broken open.

Three women rustled through the room--Isolde Schirmacher, the widow
Spindler, and the wife of a bookbinder who lived in the rear. They
whispered, fetched things back and forth, waited for the physician and
for the end.

Karen heard their whispers and their tread with hatred. She could not
speak; she could scarcely make herself understood; but she could still
hate. She heard the screeching and rumbling in the flat that had been
the Hofmanns’ and was now the Stübbes’. The drunkard’s rising in the
morning was as baleful to his wife and children as his going to bed at
night. All the misery that he caused penetrated the wall, and aroused
in Karen memories of equal horrors in dim and distant years.

Yet for her there was really but one pain and one misery--Christian’s
absence. For days he had paid her only short visits; during the last
twenty-four hours, none at all. Dimly she knew of the murder of the
Jewish girl, and dimly felt that Christian was changed since then; but
she felt so terribly desolate without him that she tried not to think
of that. His absence was like a fire in which her still living body was
turned to cinders. It cried out at her. In the midst of the moaning of
her agony she admonished herself to be patient, raised her head and
peered, let it drop back upon the pillows, and choked in the extremity
of her woe.

The door opened and she gave a start. It was Dr. Voltolini, and her
face contorted itself.

There was little that the physician could do. The complications that
had appeared and had affected the lungs destroyed every vestige of
hope. Nothing was left to do but ease her pain by increasing the doses
of morphine. “And, why save such a life,” Dr. Voltolini was forced to
reflect, as he saw the terrible aspect of the woman still fighting
death, “a life so complete and superfluous and unclean?”

It was the third occasion on which he had not found Christian here, yet
he felt the old need of some familiar talk with him. He himself was a
reserved man. To initiate a stranger into the secrets of his fate had
been to him, heretofore, an unfamiliar temptation. But in Christian’s
presence that temptation assailed him strongly and he suffered from
it; and this was especially true since he had witnessed an apparently
meaningless scene.

A journeyman of her father of whom she was fond had given Isolde
Schirmacher a ring with an imitation ruby. Near the kitchen door she
had shown Christian the ring in her delight. Dr. Voltolini was just
coming out of the sick room. She took the ring from her finger, let the
worthless stone sparkle in the light, and asked Christian whether it
wasn’t wonderful. And Christian had smiled in his peculiar way and had
answered: “Yes, it is very beautiful.” The widow Spindler, who stood in
the kitchen door, had laughed a loud laugh. But an expression of such
gratitude had irradiated the girl’s face that, for a moment, it had
seemed almost lovely.

On the stairs the widow Engelschall met Dr. Voltolini. She stopped
him and asked him his opinion of Karen’s condition. He shrugged his
shoulders and told her there was no hope. It was a question of hours.

The widow Engelschall had long had her suspicions of Karen. Whenever
she entered the room Karen grew restless, avoided her glance, and
pulled the covers up to her chin. The widow knew what it was to have
a bad conscience. She scented a mystery and determined to fathom it.
There was no time to lose. If she hesitated now she might be too
late and regret it forever after. Undoubtedly the secret was that
Wahnschaffe had given her money, which, according to an old habit,
she kept concealed about her person in an old stocking or chemise or
even sewn up in the mattress. All the money that man had couldn’t have
just vanished. He had probably put aside a few dozen thousand-mark
notes or some securities. And who else should have them but Karen?
If one put two and two together, considered his craziness and her
behaviour, the matter seemed pretty clear, and the thing to do now was
to prevent mischief. For if she didn’t happen to be present at the
moment of Karen’s death, all sorts of people would be about, and the
treasure would slip into the pocket of God knows who. You couldn’t read
the theft in the thief’s face. These were the things that presented
themselves very strongly to the widow Engelschall on her way to
Stolpische Street.

Karen had her own presentiment regarding her mother’s thoughts. As
her illness progressed her fear for the pearls rose and rose. They no
longer seemed safe upon her body. She might lose consciousness and
people might handle her and discover them. These fears disturbed her
sleep. She often awakened with a start, stared wildly, and smothered
a scream in her throat. She had accustomed herself to keep her hands
under the covers, and her grasp of the pearls became mechanically
convulsive whenever her senses sank into sleep or swoon. A frightful
nightmare which she had, presented to her all the possibilities of
danger. People came. Whoever wanted to, simply stepped into her room.
She couldn’t prevent it; she could not get up and latch the door. She
guarded herself most carefully from the doctor. She trembled before his
eye, and the very pores of her body seemed to cling from below to the
coverlet lest he turn it suddenly back.

She let the pearls wander about--now under her pillow, now under the
sheet, sometimes upon her naked breast where they touched the open
wounds. Becoming aware of this contact, she addressed herself with the
cruel mockery of sombre pain: “What’s left of you? What are you now? A
leprous carrion--ruined and done for and disgusted with yourself.”

Gradually she had become indifferent to the pecuniary value of the
pearls, even though, during a sleepless night, in answer to her
ceaseless questions, Christian had given her an insight into it which
surpassed her wildest guesses. The figures were mere empty numbers
to her. She shuddered, shook her head, and let the matter slide. The
jewels had quite another effect on her now, and this increased in power
as the old glamour of their mere value faded. At first the pearls had
been a symbol and a lamentation over her fate; their lustre glimmered
to her from that other shore of life from which no breath or message
had ever before floated to her. But now they no longer stirred her to
envy and wrath as they had once done, but only to regret over that all
of life which she had wasted and flung aside. And she had wasted her
life and flung it aside, because she had known nothing of beauty or
loveliness or joy or adornment or, she could truly say, of earth and
heaven. She could not re-live her ruined life; there was no other, and
this one was gone.

But it seemed to her, as she lay there and brooded and let her flesh
disintegrate, as though her lost earth and lost heaven were given back
to her in every single pearl and in the whole string. Everything was
in the pearls--the children she had conceived and born and lost in
hatred, the poverty-stricken, all but unfulfilled dreams, the longing
she had faintly felt for some human being, the wizened love, the jaded
light, the petty hopes, the small delight. Everything crystallized in
the pearls and became a soul. All that she had missed and gambled or
thrown away or never reached, all that had been darkened for her or
driven from her by want and sorrow--all this became a soul. And to this
soul she was immeasurably devoted as she lay there and brooded and
let her flesh disintegrate. For this soul was the soul of Christian.
His soul was in the rope of pearls. It was this that she grasped and
clung to, and wanted to possess even in her grave. Her blue eyes,
under the narrow forehead and the strawy dishevelled hair, had the
fetish-worshipper’s glow.


VIII

The widow Engelschall’s first concern was to get the women out of
Karen’s room. To succeed she had to make her command abundantly clear.
She hissed at the Schirmacher girl: “Would you mind taking your
snub-nose out of this here place?” Isolde went, but she felt sure that
the old woman had evil intentions.

When the widow Engelschall approached the bed, she saw that there
was but just time for her to use the last glimmer of her daughter’s
consciousness. If she had miscalculated--well, no harm was done, and
she would be the first one, at all events, to have access to the dead
woman’s body. Only there must be no shilly-shallying.

She began to talk. She sat down on a chair, bent far over toward
Karen, and spoke in a raised voice so that no word should escape the
dying woman. She said that she had meant to bring along some pastry,
but the pastry-cook’s shop had been closed. In the evening, however,
she intended to boil a chicken in rice or make a Styrian pudding with
apple-sauce. That refreshed the stomach and improved the digestion.
Sick people needed strengthening food, and one mustn’t be stingy with
them. Stinginess, she declared, had never been a fault of hers, anyhow.
No one could say that. And she had always been ready to do the right
thing by her children. It had been toil and trouble enough, and she
hadn’t counted on gratitude. You didn’t get that in this world anyhow,
no more from your children than from Tom, Dick, or Harry.

Beset by death as she was, Karen heard only the tone of this
hypocritical speech. She moved her arms. An instinct told her that her
mother wanted something; a last effort at reflection told her what that
was, and a last impulse warned her not to betray herself. She forced
herself to lie still and not to let an eyelid quiver. But the widow
Engelschall knew that she was on the right track. She herself, she
continued, had never striven after riches. If ever a little superfluity
had come to her, she had shared it with others. You couldn’t take
anything into the grave with you anyhow, and though you clung to what
you had like iron, it didn’t do you no good in the end. So it was
more sensible and nobler too to give it up, and live to share the
pleasure of the people you gave it to, and listen to their praises.
Didn’t Karen remember, she asked, how when that old hag of a Kränich
woman had died and eighty-seven pieces of gold had been found in her
straw-mattress--didn’t she remember how, amid the joy, people had
railed at the stingy beast? No one had shed a tear over her. They had
consigned her to hell where she belonged.

Having said this, the widow Engelschall stretched out her hand, and
with apparent carelessness began to feel about the pillow. The rope
of pearls lay under it. She had not yet reached it; but Karen thought
she had grasped it, and with feeble hands fought off the hands of her
mother. Breathing stertorously, she raised herself a little, and threw
herself across the pillow. The widow Engelschall murmured: “Aha, there
we have it!” She was sure now. Swiftly she thrust her hand farther
and pulled out an end of the rope of pearls. She uttered a dull cry.
Her fat face oozed sweat and turned crimson, for she recognized at
once the fabulous value of what she held. Her eyes started from their
sockets, saliva dripped from her mouth. She grasped what she held more
and more firmly, as Karen rested the whole weight of her body upon
the pillow, stretched out her hands, dug her nails into her mother’s
wrists, and whined a long, piteous whine. But in spite of her ghastly
display of strength she succumbed in that unequal struggle. Already
the widow Engelschall, uttering a low howl, had torn the pearls from
their hiding-place; she was about to flee from Karen’s inarticulate
screeching and blind rage and fierce moans and chattering teeth, when
the door opened and Christian entered.

The women in the hall had noticed that something strange and fearful
was taking place in Karen’s room. The struggle between mother and
daughter had not lasted long enough to give them a chance to make a
decision or fight down their fear of the old woman. But they received
Christian with frightened faces and pointed toward the door. They
wanted to follow him into the room; but since he paid no attention to
them and closed the door behind him, they remained where they were and
listened. But they heard no sound.

Christian approached Karen’s bed. He had taken in what was happening.
Silently he took the pearls from the old woman’s hands. Wrought up
and inflamed by greed as she was, she did not dare make a gesture of
resistance. On his face there was an expression which beat down her
boiling rage at his interference. It was a strange expression--a lordly
mournfulness was in it, a proud absorption, a smile that was remote, a
something estranged and penetrating and inviolable. He laid the pearls
upon Karen’s breast, and took both of her hands into his. She looked up
to him--relieved, redeemed. Her body quivered in convulsions, but was
eased as he held her hands. Freezing and icy under the touch of death,
she thrust herself nearer to him, babbling, moaning, trembling in every
limb, and with a hot moisture in her eyes. And he did not recoil. He
did not feel any repulsion at the malodorousness of the dripping sores.
That smile still on his face, he embraced her and gave her a last
warmth against his breast, as though she were a little bird whom the
storm had blown hither. At last she lay very quiet, without motion or
sound.

And thus she died in his arms.


IX

Broken by his wild dissipations, Felix Imhof had to halt at last. His
strength was at an end.

He summoned physicians, and with a smile begged for the truth. The last
whom he consulted, a famous specialist, bade him be prepared for the
worst, since his spinal marrow was affected. “Tubercular?” Imhof asked
objectively. “Yes, exactly,” was the answer.

“All right, old boy! Fifth act, last scene,” he said to himself. Since
fever ensued, and exhaustion alternated with violent pain, he took to
his bed, had the windows darkened and the mirrors covered, and stared
into space through the long hours with the expression of a frightened
child.

He had never been able to get along without people. As far back as
his memory went, his life had been as crowded as a fair. He had been
hail-fellow-well-met with every one; they had all clung to him, and he
had taken great pains to mean something to them all and to meet their
wishes. And who was left to him now? No one. Whom did he desire? No
one. Who would mourn for him? No man and no woman.

“I wonder what they’ll say about me when I’m gone?” he kept wondering.
“Oh, yes, Imhof, they’ll say, don’t you recall him? Good fellow,
pleasant companion, nothing slack about him, always in good spirits,
always on the lookout for something new--a little touched, maybe. You
must remember him. Why, he looked so and so and so. He talked like an
Italian priest, wasted his money like an idiot, and drank like a fish.”

And in spite of such reminders many would not remember, but shrug their
shoulders and begin to talk about something else.

He had neither father nor mother, sister nor brother, no relative and,
in reality, no friends. His very birth was obscure. Its mystery would
never be unveiled now. Perhaps he came of the dregs of mankind, perhaps
of noble blood. But this mystery had, so far as he was concerned,
neither romance nor charm. Only fate, for the sake of clearness,
had stamped his being thus as that of a solitary, alienated, and
self-dependent creature.

He had neither root nor connection nor bond. He was himself; nothing
else. A personality fashioned by its moment in time--unique and
complete in itself.

There was not even a servant who was faithful to him through personal
devotion or through attachment to his house. No soul belonged to
him--only things for which he had paid.

He had given much unselfish devotion to artists and works of art.
A beautiful poem, an excellent picture had given his mind the
elasticity and his mood the serenity which had compensated him for
all the weariness and flatness of his environment. But seeking now to
recall the impressions that had seemed unforgettable to him, he faced
emptiness. The bubbling spring was choked with stone and sand. Did art,
which he had loved so truly, sustain the spirit no better than some
fleeting roadside adventure? What did it lack?

From the wreck of his fortune a few treasures had remained--a painting
by Mantegna, the Three Kings from the East, an early Greek statue of
Dionysos, a statue by Rodin, and a still-life by Von Gogh. He had these
exquisite things and several others brought into his room, and sought
to lose himself in the contemplation of them. But the old happy ecstasy
would not return. The colours seemed dull and the marble without warmth
or life. What had passed from these things? What change had come over
them?

On the table beside his bed stood an hour-glass. He watched the reddish
sand, fluid and swift as water, flicker through an eye from the upper
bulb into the lower. It took twelve minutes. Leaning on his arms he
watched it and reversed the bulbs whenever the upper one was empty. And
again his eyes had the expression of a frightened child’s.

One day, as he was watching the running of the sand in the hour-glass,
he said aloud to himself: “Death? What’s the meaning of that? It’s
nonsense.”

It was an absurd word and idea, and he could not grasp it or penetrate
it. Scarcely had he begun to gain the slightest conception of dying
when he found that that very conception started from the idea of life.
One had always been in space and was to leave it now. Yet wherever
one passed to, there must be space also. And one could not think the
concept space without also thinking oneself. Well, then....

A shiver passed over him. Then he smiled avidly. He thought of the
delights that had been his--the fullness and wealth of pleasure and
expectation, of ecstasy and triumph; of the feasts and revels and
journeys and enterprises and games; of all the merry, multicoloured,
changeful conflict. How delightful it had been to rise in the morning
with one’s straight limbs; how delightful that wheels whirred and
newsboys shrilled and bells clanged and dogs barked; and how exquisite
it had been when a young woman, ready for love, loosened her hair and
dropped her garments and her white flesh gleamed like the flesh of
a fruit. Ah, and the pleasant comrades and the splendid horses, and
the homecomings at night, just a little drunk. In the hall one longed
for the first step of the stairs; it seemed so comfortable, logical,
inviting. Upstairs the windows were open, and in one of them was a
bunch of flowers. At all times and in all places one felt: “I am here,
in the midst of it, lord of the foam and music of life. I command and
life obeys, and there will be a to-morrow and a day after to-morrow,
and endless days, like slender trees along an avenue.” And at such
moments he had felt tender toward himself and flattered by his own
breath, and had fed on air and light and clouds and men and songs. And
everything had been goodly to his taste--even the ugly things and the
rain and the very puddles in the street. For he was alive ... alive....

He reversed the hour-glass and fell back among the pillows. His eyes
became aware of a small, grey spider that crept up the purple silk of
the wall-hangings. It frightened him. Suddenly the thought struck him:
“It is possible, even likely, that the spider will still exist when
I am gone.” This reflection frightened him beyond expression, and he
watched the spider’s slow progress with breathless suspense.

“Is it conceivable,” he thought, “that the horrible and trivial spider
will be in a world from which I am gone? It is maddening. I have
never believed in it and cannot believe in it--in unconsciousness and
darkness, and the damp and the earth and the worms. And the spider is
to live and I am not? Not I who filled all space with my being and my
vitality? Is there any philosophy or religion or conviction that is not
smashed to bits against this one fact? Supposing there were someone who
had the power to let me go on living as a street-sweeper, a beggar, a
jail-bird, despised, deformed, absurd, impotent. It almost seems to
me that I would accept life even at that price. Good God, where do
such thoughts lead one? What shameful ideas are these for a man who
has always insisted on cleanliness and honour! Have I ever slunk away
before an affront or failed to uphold my dignity? And yet I know that
I would choose life at any price. The pains of the soul? Much I care
about them! I would welcome grief, disappointment, bitterness, hatred,
and loss--so I could but live ... but live....”

An hour later Weikhardt was announced. Imhof considered whether he
should see him. He had denied himself to all callers during the past
few days, but he could not make up his mind to refuse to see the
painter, whom he had always liked uncommonly well.

“Is it Eliphaz, Bildad, or Zophar who comes to comfort Job?” he
addressed Weikhardt. “You remember the incident, don’t you? ‘They
lifted up their eyes afar off, and knew him not, they lifted up their
voice and wept; and they rent every one his mantle, and sprinkled dust
upon their heads toward heaven.’”

Weikhardt smiled. But when his eyes had become accustomed to the
semi-darkness of the room and he saw the emaciated face, his mocking
impulse fled.

For a while their talk was superficial. Weikhardt told about his
marriage, his work, his vain efforts after economic security, and
finally gossipped a little. Imhof listened with wavering attention.
Suddenly he asked with apparent equanimity: “How is that marvellous
female salamander?”

“What salamander? Whom do you mean?”

“Whom should I mean? Sybil, of course! Wasn’t it the maddest and
wildest thing that the trivial word of a soulless creature should
have brought swift decision into the slow process of my fate? Was it
Providence? Was it so written in the stars?”

“I don’t understand,” Weikhardt murmured.

“Don’t you? Didn’t you know that the horrible little wooden fay called
me a ‘nigger,’ and that I revenged myself in my characteristic way
by playing a trump that lost me the whole game? I went and sought
the company to which her icy scorn had sent me. I slept with a Negro
woman to shame the white girl and break her vanity, at least in my
imagination. Wasn’t it sublime? And you didn’t know it?”

“I knew of nothing,” Weikhardt murmured in astonishment. A long silence
followed.

Imhof continued in a changed voice. “The things that followed weren’t
so different from former experiences. But the central nerve was sick
and the source of life poisoned. Sometimes I’m tempted to hasten the
disgustingly slow execution by a clean bullet. It’s too undignified to
have death glide about you as an overfed cat circles around a trapped
mouse. Or else one could do the Sardanapalus act--light fireworks and
burn the house down, and make one’s exit with a grandiose gesture.”

“It would be cheap and meretricious,” Weikhardt said, “you’d never
forgive another for it.”

“I’m not capable of it in reality. I cling desperately to the
depressing rag of life that’s left. Ah, to live at all--what that
means!” He bit into his pillow, and moaned: “I don’t want to die! I
don’t want to die! I don’t want to die!”

Weikhardt arose to approach the bed. But Imhof beckoned him
passionately away. “Thus do I expiate,” he moaned. “Thus is the great
devourer being devoured. Thus Time hurls me from its bosom. Look upon
me writhing here and crying for pardon, and go out and tell the others
about it. Give them my love! And give my love to all dear boys and
girls! Good-bye, my friend, good-bye!”

Weikhardt took his leave without a word.


X

Karen’s body had been given back to the earth. Many of the people from
the house had accompanied it to the grave. Christian thought he had
also observed Johanna and Voss.

On the way home Dr. Voltolini walked beside him. For a while they did
not speak. Then Christian with the perception of something unpleasant
at his back, suddenly turned around. Ten paces behind he saw Niels
Heinrich Engelschall. As Christian stopped, the other stopped too, and
pretended to look at a shop window.

In the cemetery Christian had escaped from the friends who had
accompanied him. Now, too, he would have preferred loneliness; but he
did not want to wound the physician.

Continuing a conversation which they had started before the funeral,
Dr. Voltolini said: “Stübbe ought to be separated from his family and
placed in an institution. At any time delirium tremens might break out
and he might kill the whole crowd. And even as it is, the poor woman
can’t endure his cruelty much longer. She’s at the end of her strength.”

“I’ve interfered several times during the past few days,” Christian
answered softly. “Other neighbours helped too. A man like that is worse
than a wolf. The children stand around and tremble.”

“And it’s so difficult,” said Dr. Voltolini, “to get the authorities
to take any preventive measures. The law is unreasonably severe. Once
a misfortune has taken place, it enters more mercilessly than is
necessary; but it can never be moved to prevent anything.”

Again Christian turned around. Niels Heinrich was still following.
Again he stopped, looked about him indifferently, and spat on the
sidewalk.

“It is never a question of what one knows or desires, but always of
what one does,” Christian said, walking on again.

“And even what one has done, though it be inspired by the purest
motives and the strictest sense of duty, is spattered with mud, and one
must suffer for it as for a crime,” Dr. Voltolini said bitterly.

“Has that been your experience?” Christian asked, with apparently
conventional sympathy, but with his aware and listening glance.

“I don’t like to talk about it,” Dr. Voltolini said, with a saddened
mien. “I haven’t done so to any one here so far. You’re the first and
only one who have made me want to talk. I felt that way so soon as I
had met you. It isn’t as though you could advise or help me; it’s far
too late for either. My misfortune has done its worst and has receded
into the past. But constant silence gnaws at me, and I can escape a
period of paralysis if I can tell you the story of what happened to me.”

Christian shook his head very slightly in his astonishment. Many people
had already said similar words to him, and he did not understand their
motive.

Dr. Voltolini continued: “Until two years ago I practised at Riedberg,
near Freiwaldau, in Austrian Silesia. The town is several miles
from the frontier of Prussia. Quite near it medicinal springs were
discovered. It became a health resort of increasing popularity, and
I and my family gradually attained a modest prosperity. But in the
beginning of the summer of 1905 it happened that the wife of a cottager
was attacked by typhoid fever, and I, according to my sworn duty,
reported the case to the health authorities. Several citizens wanted to
prevent my action. Even the commission on sanitation, whose chairman
was mayor of the town, raised objections, and represented to me how the
guests would be scared away for a long time and the town get a bad
name. I told them I was acting in the interests of every one and could
not be deterred by merely material considerations. First they besought
and finally threatened me, but I remained firm.

“The first consequence was that a regiment, which had been ordered to
Riedberg, and whose being stationed there would have been profitable
to the town, was sent elsewhere. The panic that had been feared among
the guests in the hotels did break out, and most of them fled. And
now a wretched stream of abuse was poured out over me, and every one
raged against me in the filthiest terms. The men did not respond to my
greeting on the street. The butcher and baker and dairyman refused to
sell their goods to my wife. Daily I received anonymous letters; you
can imagine their character. My windows were smashed; no one came to my
consultation hours, no patient dared to summon me. The fees that people
owed me were not paid, and suspicions and slanders arose, ranging from
silly talk to the vilest insinuations.

“Finally I was discharged from my office of district physician. I
appealed to the National Medical Association, which in its turn
appealed to the highest authorities. The town council and the sanitary
commission were both dissolved by the governor of the province, the
mayor was removed from office, my own dismissal revoked, and an escort
of gendarmes despatched to the town to protect me and mine from
violence. The trouble was that my situation was as bad as ever. The
government could protect me from bodily hurt, but it could neither give
me back my practice nor force my old patients to pay what they owed
me. I was ruined. In the course of five months I brought twenty-one
suits of slander and won every case. But I was more discouraged each
time. It became clear that I could not stay at Riedberg. But where
was I to go--a country doctor without private means, with a wife and
children and, a feeble, aged mother to support? How was I to silence
the slanderers, wash off the stain, and heal the inner hurt? I had no
friend there who could lend me support; from the consolations of my
wife there came to me only the voice of her own despair.

“I broke down completely. For eleven months I lay in a hospital. With
unexampled energy my wife was busy during this period founding a new
home for us and finding a new field of activity for me. I received
permission to practise in Germany, and began life anew. Although I had
lost faith both in my own powers and in mankind, my soul gradually
grew calm again. Our circumstances are the most modest; but in this
great city it is possible to be alone and to prevent the interference
of strangers. For a long time I could practise my profession only if I
forgot that my patients were human. I had to regard them as mechanisms
that were to be repaired. Their pain and sorrow I passed over, and I
hated to notice either. Do you understand that? Do you understand my
coldness and contempt?”

“After all your experiences I can well understand it,” Christian
answered. “But I believe your standpoint is no longer the same. Am I
right? It seems to me that a change has taken place in you.”

“Yes, a change has taken place,” Dr. Voltolini admitted. “And it
began----” He stopped and cast an unobtrusive glance at his companion.
After a pause he said timidly: “Why did you smile that day when the
Schirmacher girl showed you her ring? Do you remember? You may, of
course, reply: it was natural to smile, for the stone which delighted
her so was quite worthless, and yet to disillusion her would have been
cruel. And yet your smile didn’t express that. It expressed something
else.”

Christian said: “I really don’t remember precisely. I do remember the
ring and the girl’s pleasure in it, but I can’t tell you to-day just
why I smiled. It would have been better, by the way, if the girl had
been less happy. A few days later she lost the ring, and the poor thing
cried for hours. It would have been better if I had said to her:
‘Neither the ring nor the stone is worth anything.’ I should have told
her to throw it away. On such occasions it is almost always better to
say to people, ‘Throw it away.’ Perhaps I smiled because that is what I
wanted to say and didn’t have the courage.”

“That’s how it looked,” Dr. Voltolini said quickly and with a touch of
excitement. “That’s the impression I had.”

“Why speak of it?” Christian said.

They had reached the house on Stolpische Street. Niels Heinrich, who
had followed them, disappeared among the vehicles on the street.

Dr. Voltolini looked at the pavement, and said with embarrassment
and hesitation: “You could do a great deal for me in the sense you
suggested, if I might call on you every now and then. It sounds strange
and like a confession of weakness, coming from a man of my years to one
of yours. I can’t justify my request, but I know I should be helped.
I would get on and be more reconciled to my fate and work harder at
the re-establishment of my life.” His eyes were turned tensely to
Christian’s face.

Christian lowered his head, and after some reflection answered: “Your
request is very flattering. I should be glad to serve you; I hope I
may. But in order not to put you off with empty phrases, I should tell
you that I shall be deeply preoccupied in the immediate future--not
only inwardly, I am always that, but outwardly too. I am confronted
with a difficult task--a terribly difficult task.”

Struck by Christian’s terrible seriousness Dr. Voltolini said: “I don’t
mean to be inquisitive. But may I ask what that task is?”

“To find the man who murdered Ruth Hofmann.”

“How?” The physician was utterly astonished. “But I thought that the
... murderer had been arrested.”

Christian shook his head. “It is not the right man,” he said, softly
but with assurance. “I saw him. I saw him when he appeared before the
investigating judge. I knew him before the crime too. He is not the
murderer.”

“That sounds strange,” said Dr. Voltolini. “Is that merely your
personal opinion, or do the authorities also----?”

“It’s not an opinion,” Christian said meditatively. “Perhaps it’s
more, perhaps it’s less--quite as one chooses. I don’t know what the
authorities suspect. Undoubtedly they consider Joachim Heinzen the
murderer. He has confessed, but I consider his confession false.”

“Did you express that opinion before the judge?”

“No. How could I have done that? I haven’t even a legitimate suspicion.
Only I know that the man who is now held is not the murderer.”

“But how do you expect to find the real criminal, if you haven’t even a
suspicion?”

“I don’t know, but I must do it.”

“You ... you must? What does that mean?”

Christian did not answer. He raised his eyes and held out a friendly
hand to Dr. Voltolini. “And so, if you should come and not find me,
don’t be angry at me. We shall meet again.”

The doctor clasped his hand firmly and silently.

Christian went into the house and up to Karen’s rooms. Fifteen minutes
later Niels Heinrich mounted the same stairs.


XI

A fleck of sunlight trembled on the opposite wall of the courtyard. Its
reflection lighted up the mirror over the leather sofa. A feeble fire
was burning in the oven. Before going to the funeral Johanna Schöntag
had thrown in a few small shovelfuls of coal. The fire crackled a
little, but the room was growing cold.

Michael Hofmann sat in front of the chessboard. The student Lamprecht
had set him a problem, and Michael stared at the board and the
chessmen. Occasionally his thoughts converged in a will to find a
solution, then they went wandering again. He had now succeeded in
turning his mind toward outward things sufficiently to remember the
chessmen and their positions. Even in the darkness of the night, during
which he slept but rarely, he saw the figures of the two kings.

The fleck of sunshine sank lower on the wall, and the snow on the
pavement glittered. Michael looked out through the window, and the
gleaming of the snow caused his eyes to move. The whiteness--why did
it torment him? He wanted to wipe it out or blow it away or cover it.
Whiteness was a lie.

He got up and walked through the room. The glitter of the sunlight came
insolently from the whiteness, and the room was filled with its lying
shimmer. He hated it.

He stopped and listened and his eyelids twitched. Something floated
before his mind, knocked at its door--not so much a forgotten thing as
one suppressed and throttled. From his trousers pocket he drew forth a
round, tightly-rolled, blackish brown object. He looked at it and began
to shudder. For a moment his eyes had the same brooding look as when
he regarded the chessmen. Then his fingers grew restless, and, growing
paler and paler, he sought to unroll the object in his hand. It was a
cloth, a handkerchief. Once it had been white; now it was drenched in
blood.

It had been white, but now it was black with blood; and the blood had
congealed so that the cloth had the toughness of leather and was hard
to unfold. At last the surface appeared, and in one corner of it the
embroidered initials, R. H.

“Whiteness is evil and redness is evil,” Michael whispered to himself,
with the look of a beaten dog. He was struggling with a temptation,
hunting for a way out, and all his being spoke of despair. He looked
about him, hurried to the oven, opened the little iron door, and threw
in the blood-drenched handkerchief. When the swift flame flared up he
sighed with relief, and stood still and quivering.


XII

No one was in the rooms. The bed in which Karen had died had been taken
away.

Christian walked up and down for a while. Then he sat down beside the
table and rested his head on his hand. He thought: “Ruth has summoned
Karen, as she will summon many more. What is the world without Ruth?
For Ruth was the kernel and the soul of all things. And what is it that
happened to Ruth, what really happened? Something unspeakably horrible,
immeasurably depraved, but also impenetrably mysterious. To fathom it,
one must subordinate every other feeling and occupation, all delight,
all pain, all plans, and even eating and sleeping and seeing.”

He reflected over the confusion that Karen’s death had created within
him. There was so much empty space about him since she was gone.
The empty space cried out after her and was not to be silenced. No
mournfulness arose that was not reluctant. Her existence had been as
violent and garish as a burning mountain. The earth had swallowed the
mountain, and in its place stretched a great waste.

Steps resounded, the door opened, and Niels Heinrich came in.

He nodded contemptuously toward the table at which Christian sat. He
had pushed his bowler hat far back and kept it on his head. He looked
about like some one examining quarters that had been advertised to be
let. He walked into the second room, came back, stood impudently in
front of Christian, and made a grimace.

“What do you want?” Christian asked.

He had come for Karen’s things, Niels Heinrich announced. The widow
had sent him. He always called his mother that. His falsetto voice
penetrated to every corner of the room. Everything of Karen’s would
have to be handed over to him, he said, and counted and taken away.

Very calmly Christian said: “I shall not hinder you. Do as you please.”

Niels Heinrich whistled softly through his teeth. He turned around and
saw Karen’s wooden box standing in a corner. He pulled it into the
middle of the room. It was locked. First he struck it with his fist,
then with his heel. Christian said it was not necessary to use force;
Isolde Schirmacher had the key. Rudely Niels Heinrich swung around, and
asked whether the pearls were in it. As Christian was silent in his
surprise, the other added with growing irritation that the widow had
told him a long story about a rope of pearls the size of pigeon’s eggs.
He wanted to know who’d inherit those? Undoubtedly they’d belonged to
Karen, had been given to her, in fact. Who’d inherit them, he’d like to
know! Surely the family who were the rightful heirs. He hoped there’d
be no damned nonsense on that point.

“You are mistaken,” Christian said coldly. “The pearls did not belong
to Karen. They belong to my mother, and I am bound by a promise to
return them. At the first opportunity I shall send them to Frankfort.”

Niels Heinrich stood quite still for a while, and a green rage seethed
in his eyes. “Is that so?” he said finally. The gentleman wanted to
liquidate the firm now, did he? First take a poor, stupid wench and
trick her out and make a fool of her year in and year out, and then,
when she was gone, not even put up something decent for her mourning
family. Well, the gentleman needn’t think he’d get off so cheaply as
long as he, Niels Heinrich, was on deck. And if the gentleman didn’t
come across with a good pile of shekels, he’d live to see something
that’d surprise him; he’d find out, so sure’s his name was Niels
Heinrich Engelschall. He laughed a short harsh laugh and spread out his
legs.

“I know who you are, and I’m not afraid of you,” said Christian, with
an almost cheerful expression.

Niels Heinrich was taken aback. His glance, which had grown unsteady,
fell upon Christian’s delicate, narrow, cultivated hands. Suddenly he
looked at his own hands, holding them out and spreading the fingers
apart. This gesture interested Christian immensely, though he could not
account for the source of his interest. The whole man fascinated him
suddenly from a point of view which he had never before assumed; and it
was solely due to this curious gesture. Niels Heinrich observed this
and was startled anew.

Was that all, he asked, that the gentleman had to say? His mood was
menacing now. The gentleman could speak fine High German, he went on,
that was sure. But if necessary, he, Niels Heinrich, could do as much.
Why not? But if a man was a man of family, and especially of a family
where they breed millions the way common folks breed rabbits--well, it
was shabby to try to sneak off like a cheat in an inn. He wasn’t going
to insist on the pearls, although he didn’t like to decide how much of
a pretence and a hypocrisy this story of lending them was. No gentleman
would do such things. But some compensation--he did demand that, he’d
insist on it, he owed that to his own honour; and his late sister, if
the truth were known, would have expected that much.

Again he regarded his hands.

Christian looked at him attentively, and replied: “You are mistaken in
this too. I have no money at my disposal. My liberty of action, so far
as money is concerned, is more restricted than your own, more so than
that of any one who earns his bread by his own work.” He interrupted
himself as he observed Niels Heinrich’s incredulously jeering smile.
The spiritual vulgarity in that smile was overwhelming.

He could take no stock in those stories, Niels Heinrich answered; no,
not if he was to be hanged, drawn, and quartered. If the gentleman
would tell him what was behind it all, maybe he’d believe it. To do
a thing like that a man must have bran in his head. If the gentleman
would tell him the real facts, maybe he’d be able to see light.
He’d gladly believe that there was something behind it all. Nobody
could tell, of course, what sort of things the gentleman had on his
conscience; so his Papa and Mama wouldn’t budge with the brass, and
he told elegant stories. But one might make things pretty lively for
the gentleman. There were a good many people, not only in Stolpische
Street but elsewhere, who didn’t think the gentleman’s love affair with
the murdered Jewess all straight and aboveboard. He, Niels Heinrich,
knew a thing or two; other people knew other things, the gentleman
himself knew a damned lot more than he showed, and he’d have to own
up if things got serious. All one’d have to do was to give a hint to
the right people, and the gentleman would find himself more clearly
described in the newspapers than he had so far. His name’d be coupled
with the name of that bloodhound Joachim Heinzen. Then the fat would
be in the fire, or, to use the gentleman’s manner of speech, he’d be
irretrievably compromised.

In Christian’s expression there did not appear the faintest trace of
indignation or disgust. He sat there with lowered eyes, as though
reflecting how he could answer most pertinently and objectively. Then
he said: “Your hidden threats frighten me no more than your open ones.
I do not care in the least where my name is mentioned or under what
circumstances, whether it be spoken or written or printed. No one’s
opinion or attitude has any influence on me, not even theirs who were
once closest to me. So that is the third error which you have made.
There is no basis in reality to anything you have said, least of all
in your references to my friendship with Ruth Hofmann. No one knows
anything about it, and I have spoken to no one; nor did Ruth do so, I
am sure. By what right do you pass a judgment on it, and so shameful a
one too? You have no suspicion how infinitely far from the truth it is.
And yet it surprises me that you expect it to be effective, that you
expect so false and empty an accusation to wound or frighten me. But
won’t you sit down? You’re standing there in such a hostile attitude.
There’s no occasion for enmity between us; I meant to tell you that
long ago. If there’s anything concerning your late sister or myself
that you want to know, I shall be glad to inform you. In return, I’d
like to ask you to answer me a few questions too. Do sit down.” He
pointed courteously to a chair.

These words, with their calm and their courtesy, amazed Niels Heinrich
to the utmost. He had been prepared for tempestuous anger, a proud and
irate repulse, for the customary counter-threat that veiled attempts at
blackmail are wont to receive, for consternation, possibly for fear.
But he was not prepared for this courtesy. It was so fundamentally
different from anything that he had met with among men, that his
eyes stared in stupid astonishment for a while, as though they saw
an irresponsible moron whose behaviour was half absurd and half
suspicious. He grasped the chair and sat down on it--half-crouching,
ready for an attack or any mischief.

“The gentleman talks like a lawyer,” he jeered. “You could make a
success at the bar. What do you want to ask me anyhow? Fire away! Don’t
you have no fear. And seeing as how you talk so educated, I can polish
my rough snout too. I ain’t without education myself. I don’t have to
take nothing from no one. I even had a spell at a gymnasium once. The
widow had ambitions in her day.”

Suddenly his mockery sounded pained and forced. He bit on the iron of
his chain.

“You mentioned Joachim Heinzen a moment ago,” Christian said. “You
called him a bloodhound. Is that your real opinion of him? You and he
were very constant companions, and you must have a fairly accurate
knowledge of his character. Do you really think he was capable of
having committed the murder? Please consider your answer carefully for
a moment; a great deal depends on it. Why do you look at me like that?
What is it?” Involuntarily Christian arose, for the look that Niels
Heinrich fixed on him was literally frightful.

Niels Heinrich arose at the same moment and almost shrieked. Why ask
him such fool questions? What in hell did he mean by ’em? A cardboard
box lay on the table; he picked it up and hurled it down on the floor.
Becoming aware of the imprudence of his outburst and regretting it, he
laughed his goat-like laugh. Then stealthily, with colourless, furtive
eyes he went on. Why shouldn’t Heinzen be capable of the crime? He said
he’d done it and he ought to know. How did the gentleman come to stick
his nose into such affairs? Maybe he was a police spy or something?
He tried to steady his lightless, furtive eyes in vain. But the slack
muscles of his face began to grow taut again as he continued: “I know
the feller. Sure, I know him. But you never know what any one is
capable of till he does it. I didn’t have no notion that he carried
about a plan like that. The devil must’ve gotten into him; he must’ve
swallowed poison. But I told him often enough: ‘You ain’t going to come
to no good end.’” He stuck his fists in his trousers pockets, took a
few steps, and leaned boastfully against the oven.

Christian approached him. “It is my impression that Heinzen lies,” he
said calmly. “He lied to the judge, he lied to himself. He doesn’t
realize the nature of what he says or does or accuses himself of. Don’t
you share the opinion that his mind is wholly confused? Assuredly
he is but the tool of some one else. Some frightful pressure must
have been exerted on him, and under its weight he made statements so
incriminating that he became hopelessly enmeshed. Unless a miracle
happens or the real criminal is discovered, he is lost.”

Niels Heinrich’s neck seemed thin as a stalk. His Adam’s apple slid
strangely up and down. His skin was white; only his ears were red as
raw beef. “Would you be so kind as to tell me, my dear fellow, in what
way this whole matter concerns you?” he asked, in his brittle falsetto
and with an unexpected abandonment of his gutter jargon, of which he
retained only the sharp, staccato rhythm. “What conclusions are you
trying to draw? What are you aiming at? And how the devil does it all
concern me? Perhaps you’ll have the kindness to explain.”

“It concerns you,” Christian answered, breathing deeply, “because
you associated constantly with Joachim Heinzen, and so you ought
to be in a position to give me a hint. You must have some definite
thoughts of your own on the matter; in one way or another it must
touch you. It is my unalterable conviction that Heinzen is not and
cannot be the murderer, but I am equally convinced that he has acted
under the influence of the real culprit, so the latter must be among
those with whom Heinzen associated. Now I cannot imagine that this
individual failed to concentrate upon himself the attention of all
his acquaintances, for he must be a man who is essentially different
from the others. It only confirms my opinion of him that he has so far
escaped the arm of justice. But he must be known; a man who was capable
of that deed could not be overlooked. And that is why I turn to you. If
you had not come to me, I would have gone to you.”

Niels Heinrich grinned. “Awf’ly good of you,” he said, with contorted
lips. “I’d’ve been tickled to death.” Oppression and rending excitement
betrayed themselves in his convulsively raised brows. He tried to
control himself, and yet stammered as he continued: “Is that so? So
that’s your conviction--unalterable conviction, eh? And where do you
get that conviction, I’d like to ask, eh? Why shouldn’t he have killed
her, seeing as how he confessed in court? Why not, eh? Nobody made
him say it. This is all dam’ nonsense; you just simply dreamed this
business or you was drunk. What made you think of it?”

“I shall tell you that,” said Christian, with an expression that had
grown more meditative from minute to minute. “A human being like this
Joachim Heinzen was not capable of killing Ruth. Think what it means
to kill a human being. And when that human being is Ruth! Oh, no, it’s
quite out of the question. The poor fellow is actually weak-minded.
Many believe him guilty for that very reason; but no weak-minded
man could have killed Ruth. Even if we suppose that he obeyed his
animal instincts utterly, and that in his bestial rage he lost all
self-control and all human semblance, yet he could never have gone
to the ultimate length, to murder. Not this lad; it is out of the
question. I have looked at his hands--at his hands and at his eyes. It
is out of the question.”

He paused. Niels Heinrich leaned against the oven, holding his hands
carefully between his back and the tiles.

Christian continued, in a voice that was gentle and yet extraordinarily
clear and penetrating: “It is out of the question, because he does
not possess the necessary qualifications for the deed. I have tried
to sink myself as profoundly as possible into his psychical life. I
have succeeded in excluding from my consciousness all other thoughts
and images, in order to arrive at a vision of his character as well
as of the rôle which he played in connection with the crime. And when
I have imagined him in his most bestial unrestraint, in all the rage
of his lechery, I am still convinced that at the last moment he would
have succumbed to Ruth. If Ruth had looked at him as he raised his arm,
being what he is and as I know him, he would have weakened. He would
have fallen whimpering on his knees, and rather killed himself than
done her any hurt. And if she had inspired him with but one spark of
thought or feeling, she would have won him over entirely. You may reply
that these are mere hypotheses and suppositions; but that is not the
case when one considers what Ruth was. Did you know her? Had you ever
met her?”

This innocent and harmless question brought a ghastly pallor into
the face of Niels Heinrich. He murmured something, and shrugged his
shoulders.

“You may also make this objection: the same pressure which drove
him to his confession may also have driven him to the deed itself.
What will not a human being do in the darkness of mania, especially
one so degraded and brutal and spiritually infirm. I consider his
confessions quite valueless; it is clear that he has been influenced
and commanded to make them. He contradicts himself constantly, and
denies to-day what he affirmed yesterday. He sticks only to the one
point of his guilt. But in this stubborn self-accusation there is more
than mere persistence; there is despair and utter horror. And these are
not manifested as they would be by a guilty soul in the torments of
conscience, but as they would be manifested by a child who has spent a
long night in a dark room, where monstrous and ghastly horrors shook
the very foundations of its soul. His conscience should have been eased
by confession, but the contrary is true. How is that to be explained?

“Furthermore, he is supposed to have lured Ruth to a hidden place.
Certainly it must have been obscure and hidden, for the deed was not
done in woods or lonely fields. But in spite of the most rigid search,
no such spot has been discovered, and at no hearing has it been
possible to persuade Heinzen to point it out. He is being questioned
on this point continually, but he is resolutely silent or answers
nonsense. Two explanations have been proposed. One is that he desires
to save an accomplice who might be tracked from the scene of the
crime. The other is that he suffers from one of those disturbances
or even complete interruptions of the memory, such as are familiar
to psychiatrists in their study of abnormal types. I accept neither
the one explanation nor the other. It is my opinion that he doesn’t
know the place. He was not perhaps even present when the murder was
committed. It is possible that he was drugged or drunk, and awakened
from his stupor only to see the body. And it is possible that the sight
of the body produced in him a fearful self-deception, or that he was
tricked and driven into believing himself the murderer....”

Niels Heinrich advanced a single step. His jaw shook. He felt as though
a rain of burning stones were falling on him. A dark astonishment
and horror were revealed in his face. He wanted to be silent, to
jeer, to go; he wanted to seem cold and unconscious of any knowledge
or understanding. For danger was upon him, the ultimate danger of
vengeance, of the sword, the rope, the axe. He saw them all. Yet he
was not capable of self-control; something within was stronger than
he. “Man alive....” The words came clucking from his throat on fire.
“Man alive....” Then came a wild terror of increasing the danger by his
behaviour. He couldn’t stand that; it was too much for his nerves. What
had that man to do with it? And again he fell silent before Christian’s
slightly blinking glance, and became tense with staring and waiting.
He’d have to watch this man now; the business was getting bad; it was
necessary now to guard his life. God, what wouldn’t that accursed mouth
utter?

Christian walked to the window and returned. He walked around the table
and returned. He had become aware of the stirring in Niels Heinrich;
and he had the impression of having witnessed the bursting of some
taut vessel and felt the flick of flying slime. But this impression
was not tangible at once. Only he had the curious feeling of having
received a confirmation of thoughts and visions of which he was himself
still faintly doubtful; and these he wanted to develop and fortify.
He said: “To lure Ruth to the spot where she was killed needed a
certain cunning. Careful preparations were necessary, and guarded
plans; and these were skilfully made, as their success illustrates.
But all witnesses who know Heinzen agree that he is incapable of such
activities. He is described as so stupid that he cannot remember names
or numbers; and then it is assumed that he could have committed the
murder with the brutal, merciless violence of a degraded debauchee.
The experts in criminology assert that precisely this mixture of the
cunning and the brutal is characteristic of such types and such crimes.
That may be true; but it proves nothing in this case, which was not so
simple. Ruth went another path from that to Joachim Heinzen.”

“Another, eh? What one, eh? Well, well,” Niels Heinrich croaked. “Ain’t
it enough to give you a belly-ache? Ain’t it enough to----” He took
his hat, which he had hung up at the beginning of the conversation,
put it on at a dashing angle, and prepared to go. But Christian knew
that Niels Heinrich would not go, and followed him with a passionately
inquiring glance. He was terribly moved.

Niels Heinrich got as far as the door. There he turned around, and
with a peering, repressed look drew from his pocket, with apparent
indifference, a little revolver. He held it in one hand. With the other
hand he played, still indifferently and as though to amuse himself,
with the trigger and the barrel.

Christian paid no attention to this perfidious gesture. He scarcely
saw it. He stood in the middle of the room, and, in the irresistible
excitement which had mastered him, pressed his right hand over his
eyes. He said: “Perhaps I only dreamed that she determined of her own
free will to die. Oh, it was murder, none the less. But she consented
to it. And those last hours of hers! They must have been unheard
of--verging on the ultimate which no feeling can reach. Step by step!
And then at last she begged for the end. Perhaps I have only dreamed
it, but it seems to me as though I had seen....”

He stopped, for a sharp, whip-like report resounded. A shot had been
fired. One of the chairs beside the table trembled; the bullet was
buried in its leg. But it had also grazed the back of Niels Heinrich’s
hand, and from the wound, which was like a cut, the blood trickled. He
cursed and shook himself.

“You’ve hurt yourself,” Christian said, sympathetically, and went up
to him. Yet both were listening--like accomplices. The entrance of
another seemed equally undesirable to both. Although the detonation
had been moderate, it had been heard in the adjoining flats. One heard
doors opening and questioning, scolding, frightened voices. After a few
minutes the silence fell again. The people in the house were used to
sudden alarms, and quickly quieted down.

Niels Heinrich wrapped his rather soiled handkerchief about his wounded
hand. But Christian hurried into the next room, and returned with a
jug of water and a clean cloth. He washed the wound and bandaged it
expertly. He did so with a tenderness and care that made Niels Heinrich
regard him with tensely wrinkled forehead and sombre shyness. He had
never seen any one, no man at least, act thus. He was passive. He was
contemptuous, yet could not hold his contempt. He could not but let
Christian finish.

“It might have had dangerous consequences,” Christian murmured.

Niels Heinrich did not answer, and so there ensued a long and rather
strange silence.

Niels Heinrich became aware of the terrible meaning of this silence,
and words came from him raspingly: “Well, what’s wanted?”

Christian leaned with both hands upon the back of the chair, and looked
at Niels Heinrich. He was pale, and struggled for expression. “It would
be important to determine where Michael was hidden in the time during
which he was gone,” he began. He spoke differently now--more gropingly
and searchingly, quiveringly and uncertainly, as though, during his
very speaking, he were constantly addressing questions to himself. “It
would be extremely important. Michael is Ruth’s brother. Perhaps you
have heard that for six days he could not be found anywhere. Whenever
the commissary of police or the investigating judge try to question
him, he has an attack of hysterics. So they have determined to let him
be for a while, merely keeping a strict watch over him; but he will
not move from the room, and utters no sound. The medical experts shake
their heads and are at a loss. And everything depends on his being
persuaded to speak at last. Surely it would throw some light on the
mystery. But much would be gained if only we discovered where he was
hidden.”

Niels Heinrich stared in dark consternation. This man grew more and
more terrible. The thought of flight quivered in his eyes. “How d’you
expect me to know?” he grunted. “What the bloody hell do I care? How
should I know? I told you before--what the----” He lapsed back into his
Berlinese jargon, as though it were a refuge.

“I merely thought that rumours might have come your way, that perhaps
people who live near the Heinzens noticed or heard something. Do you
recall any such thing?”

The question was so earnest, so full of monition and almost of
beseeching, that Niels Heinrich, instead of yielding to an impulse of
anger, listened, listened to that voice, and had the appearance of one
who was bound in fetters. And gradually he really recalled a rumour
of that kind which had come to him. There was among his acquaintances
a woman of the streets called Molly Gutkind. On account of her plump
body and white skin she was known as the Little Maggot. She was quite
young, barely seventeen. A few days ago he had been told that the
Little Maggot had given shelter to a boy for quite a while, that
she had carefully hidden him from everyone, and that, since then, a
complete change had come over her. Before that, she had been cheerful
and careless; now she was melancholy, and haunted the streets no more.

He had been told this as he was told all the news of the lower world,
but he had paid no attention to the anecdote, and it had slipped from
his memory. Now it emerged in his mind and fitted the case in question.
An instinct told him that it fitted; but that very perception increased
his feeling of defencelessness before this man who seemed now to be
gazing into him and tearing from him things silent and hidden and even
forgotten. He must follow up the rumour, and very secretively get
to the bottom of it and test it. In order to say something and tear
himself away at last, he murmured that he’d see what could be done, but
the gentleman mustn’t count on him, because spying was not his kind
of business. He dragged himself shiftily to the door with a wavering,
withered expression. He rubbed his moist fingers together and lit a
cigarette, shivered in the coolness that met him from the outer hall,
and turned up the collar of his yellow overcoat.

Christian courteously accompanied him to the door, and said softly: “I
hope to see you soon. I shall expect you.”

On the landing of the second storey Niels Heinrich stopped and laughed
his goat-like laugh senselessly into the void.


XIII

Prince Wiguniewski wrote to Cornelius Ermelang at Vaucluse in the South
of France:

“In your Petrarchan solitude you seem to have lost all touch with the
world, since you inquire so insistently after our diva. I thought you
were still in Paris and that you had seen Eva Sorel. For she returned
from there only a few weeks ago--returned like a general after a
victorious campaign of three weeks, full of fame and booty. Didn’t you
learn from the newspapers at least of the feverish enthusiasm which she
has recently created in international society?

“In your inquiry there is an undertone of anxiety. I understand the
reason for it, even though you are reserved on that point. Brief as
your visit to her during your stay in Petrograd may have been, your
eyes, which are so practised in reading the souls of men, must have
perceived the change that has come over her. I hesitate to call that
change one that should cause us anxiety, for doubtless it conforms
somehow to the law of her being. Yet to behold it means pain to us who
witnessed her beginnings and her rise--to those ten or twelve people
in Europe, the fairest experience of whose youth was her sweetness and
radiance and starry freedom from earth’s heaviness. She was timeless;
she was at each moment that very moment’s gift. I need not describe to
you what she was; you knew her. But is it for us to quarrel or mourn
because a given development does not correspond to our expectations?
However we may strive and cry, that which has become and now is
unquestionably holds the wiser and the deeper sense of life. We always
want too much, and so end by seeing and understanding too little. We
need more humility.

“It is a fact that she employs and stirs public opinion in our country
as scarcely any other human being does. Every one knows at all times
who is in her favour and who has fallen from grace. The luxury that
surrounds her generates the wildest fables, and does, indeed, surpass
anything ever known. Her monthly income runs into the hundreds of
thousands, and her fortune is estimated at between twenty and thirty
millions of rubles. Twice a week she receives a carload of flowers from
the Riviera, and twice from the Crimea.

“Concerning the castle which she is building at Yalta on the sea,
details are told that remind one of the Arabian Nights. It is to be
finished in a month, and magnificent festivities are planned for the
house-warming. I am among the guests invited. Every one is talking
about this castle. The park is said to cover an area of five square
miles. Only by a most extravagant expenditure of money and labour could
the whole thing have been completed within a year. I am told that the
central building has a tower from which one has a magnificent view of
the sea, and that this tower is a copy of the tower of the Signoria at
Florence. A gilded spiral staircase with a balustrade of costly enamel
leads upward within, and each window affords a carefully selected view
of the southern landscape. To adorn the walls of one of her great
rooms she desired the remaining paintings which the British had still
left in El Hira, the celebrated ruin in the Arabian desert. To obtain
them, extensive commercial and diplomatic negotiations were necessary.
Further large sums were spent and difficulties surmounted to fit out an
expedition which was in the desert for three months and has but just
returned. Its task was as dangerous as it was romantic, and seven of
its members lost their lives. When Eva was told of this, she seemed to
be frightened and to regret the boldness of her desires. But then she
saw the pictures, and was so entranced that her smile seemed almost to
express a satisfaction at the sacrifices they had cost.

“There is no exaggeration in this account. Such is her nature now.
Those inconceivably beautiful hands treat the world as though it were
possessed by slaves and meant and destined for her alone. I myself
beheld her one day crouching before the paintings of a strange, far
age, and I was shaken by the expression with which she regarded
the gestures of those archaic figures. It was an expression of
estrangedness and cruelty.

“It is quite by chance that I drifted to the subject of the ancient
paintings and how they were procured. But I see now that I could have
chosen no shorter path to the kernel of what I should like to tell you.
The events of the past few days actually start from that incident.
Few men, of course, can raise the veil that hides these events to-day
and will probably always hide them. Any one who has not, like myself,
gained some insight through a series of lucky accidents, is simply
groping in the dark. I must beg you, too, to observe the strictest
secrecy. This letter, which is being sent with especial precautions
and which a courier of the embassy is taking across the frontier, may
serve as a document entrusted to your care. By its help a later age
will be able to track the genesis of certain happenings to their most
distant roots.

“Scarcely had the paintings of El Hira arrived, than reclamations
on the ground of violated property rights were made by France.
The arrangements with England were asserted to have omitted all
consideration of the legal rights of a Parisian stock-company, and the
French government overwhelmed our ministry with notes and protests. The
leader of the expedition, a courageous and witty scholar named Andrei
Gabrilovitch Yaminsky, was accused of open robbery. The whole matter
was unpleasant and the consternation great, and the noise intimidated
even the old foxes of diplomacy. They feared that they had committed a
bad blunder, and thus promenaded into the trap set for them. Since this
affair, amusingly enough, actually threatened to darken the political
sky, the important thing, above all, was to keep it from the knowledge
of the Grand Duke Cyril, who holds the threads of foreign affairs in
his hands like a spider in the midst of its web, and who feels the
gentlest vibration. All efforts were directed to this end. Terror of
the Grand Duke’s rage created the most grotesque situations in the
responsible ministerial offices.

“The minister in person went to Eva Sorel. She declared proudly that
she would assume full responsibility and guard everyone concerned
from unpleasant consequences. But there were grave doubts as to that.
Similar cases were recalled, in which later on a malicious punishment
had, after all, been the portion of the subordinates. So Eva was
earnestly begged to give up the mural paintings. She resisted steadily,
asserted her right to them, and grew defiant. When the officials were
foolish enough to have Andrei Yaminsky, to whom she had taken a great
liking, arrested, she threatened to inform the Grand Duke, who happened
to be staying at Tsarskoye Selo. Thus terror rose to its utmost height.
And now the original instigators of the whole intrigue held their fit
time to have come. Suddenly there was calm and the storm had passed.
But what had been the hidden and ultimate occasion of it all?

“The initiated whispered of an unholy bargain; but their knowledge, it
seems to me, reaches no farther than mine. I sit near enough to the
loom to see the shuttles flying to and fro. But I can assert that it
is weaving an evil web. In what age have not the arts of a courtesan
served to drag nations into slaughter? Perhaps you think the twentieth
century too advanced for cabals in the style of Mazarin? I am not so
sure of it. And perhaps you also think that the great catastrophes and
revolutions use the wills and the actions of trivial mortals only in
appearance, and that both accusation and guilt lose their validity when
we become aware of the impersonal march of fate? But we do not grasp
that march. We are human and we must judge, even as we must suffer,
just because we must suffer.

“The unholy bargain involved in this instance concerns the building of
fortresses on our Polish and Volhynian frontiers. For unknown reasons
the Grand Duke opposed this plan until now. But during the past few
days there has been talk of a new government loan. Well, there is one
human being and only one capable of having inclined his rigid will
toward this project. Why say more? One shudders at the thought of a
connection between mural paintings five thousand years old and the
springs of modern diplomatic trickery; between the bought complaisance
of that incomparable body, that true adornment of the world, and the
erection of fortress walls and casemates. The comedy rends one’s heart.

“But that is not all my story. Connected with these events is the death
of Andrei Gabrilovitch Yaminsky. I have indicated the fact that Eva
was markedly attracted toward him. The courage and energy he had shown
in that expedition to the desert, his mind, and not least of all his
physical advantages dazzled her. She distinguished him in every way.
Since she admits the existence of no barriers and gives her impulses
complete expression in action, she did not hesitate in this instance,
and Yaminsky was granted a happiness of which he had not dared to
dream, and which seems to have robbed him of all moral equilibrium.
It filled him to overflowing; it crazed him. Among his friends one
evening, over the wine, of course, he began to chatter and boasted of
his conquest. He realized his frightful error too late. What would have
been contemptible weakness in any instance was sheer crime here. Too
late he besought his witnesses to forget his words, to be silent, to
consider him a liar and a boaster. Nor did it help him to seek them
out singly and persuade them to secrecy. The rumour was started. A
discreet and suspected affair would not have caused more than silent or
whispered curiosity. The thing openly acknowledged became a topic of
general talk. Punishment did not delay long, and Fyodor Szilaghin was
the executioner.

“It is not easy to define the rôle which Szilaghin plays in Eva’s
present life. Now he seems to be her warder, now her seducer. No one
knows whether he desires to please and win her, or whether he is but
the servant and Argus of his sombre lord and friend. I believe that
Eva herself is in the dark on this point. His enigmatic character, his
masterly subtlety and impenetrable faithlessness seemed to me like
the visible symbols of the darkening and disquietude of Eva’s soul.
There is no doubt that he acted with her knowledge and consent when he
undertook to punish Yaminsky. But I dare not decide whether they ever
actually spoke of the matter, whether it was done at his or her demand,
whether her disappointment made her yield to him or her anger made her
revengeful for herself, whether he acted in defence of her honour or
that of his master. At all events, the punishment was accomplished.

“The deed itself is hidden in mystery and twilight, and is described
with rather repulsive details. Last Wednesday evening Yaminsky was
dining with friends in a side room at Cubat’s on the great Morskaia.
Shortly before midnight the door was torn open, and four young men,
muffled in furs to their eyes, made their way in. Three of them
surrounded Yaminsky, and one turned out the lights. Immediately a
shot resounded, and before Yaminsky’s friends had recovered from their
amazement, the strangers were gone. Yaminsky lay on the floor, soaking
in his blood. Szilaghin was definitely recognized as one of the four.

“The boldest stroke came later. In the tumult that arose among the
guests of the restaurant, the body of the murdered man had been
forgotten. People called for the police and ran and shoved and asked
questions. In the meantime a cab stopped at the door. Two men made
their way through the crowd to where the dead man lay, and carried him
past the staring bystanders into the cab. No one prevented them. The
cab raced down the Nevski to the Palace Bridge and stopped. The two
dragged the body to the shore, and flung it down among the ice floes of
the wintry Neva.

“That same evening I was at Eva’s, together with Caille, Lord Elmster,
and some Russian artists. She was entrancing, and of a sparkling
gaiety that made one feel loth to lose a breath of it. I no longer
remember how the conversation happened to turn to sidereal phenomena
and solar systems. For a while in the usual light way, the question
was considered whether other planets might not be inhabited by men or
man-like beings. And Eva said: ‘I have read, and wise men have told
me, that Saturn has ten moons and also a ring of glowing fire that
surrounds the great star with purple and violet flame. The planet
itself, I am told, is still composed of red-hot lava. But on the ten
moons there might be life and creatures like ourselves. Imagine the
night in those regions--the dark glow of the great mother star, the
purple rainbow forever spanning the whole firmament, and the ten
moons circling beside and above one another, so near perhaps that
those beings can speak and communicate from world to world. What
possibilities! What visions of happiness and beauty!’ Such, or nearly
such were her words. One of us replied that it was quite as easy to
conceive of moon at war with moon, even as here land wars with land,
despite the glory of the heavens, and that experience made us fear
that nowhere in the universe would the wonders of a sky save restless
creatures like ourselves from robbery and violence. But she said: ‘Do
not destroy my faith; leave me my Saturnian Paradise.’

“And she knew, she could not but have known, that in that very hour
Yaminsky, whom she had loved, was dying an ugly and a murderous death.

“It is difficult to have humility.”


XIV

Christian shared his meals with Michael, and cared for him in brotherly
fashion. At night he spread a couch for him with his own hands. He knew
how to accustom the boy to his presence; his gift of unobtrusiveness
stood him in good stead. In his presence Michael lost the convulsive
rigour which not even Johanna’s affectionate considerateness had been
able to break. At times he would follow Christian with his eyes. “Why
do you look at me?” Christian asked. The boy was silent.

“I should like to know what you are thinking,” Christian said.

The boy was silent. Again and again he followed Christian with his
eyes, and seemed torn between two feelings.

On a certain evening he spoke for the first time. “What will happen to
me?” he whispered, in a scarcely audible voice.

“You should have a little confidence in me,” Christian said, winningly.

Michael stared in front of him. “I am afraid,” he said at last.

“What are you afraid of?”

“Of everything. Of everything in the world. Of people and animals and
darkness and light and of myself.”

“Have you felt that way long?”

“You think it is only since.... No. It has always been so. The fear
is in my body like my lungs or my brain. When I was a child I lay
abed at night trembling with fear. I was afraid if I heard a noise.
I was afraid of the house and the wall and the window. I was afraid
of a dream which I had not yet dreamed. I thought: ‘Now I shall hear
a scream,’ or: ‘Now there will be a fire.’ If father was out in the
country I thought: ‘He will never come back; there are many who never
come back; why should he?’ If he was at home I thought: ‘He has had a
dreadful experience, but no one must know it.’ But it was worse when
Ruth was away. I never hated any one as I hated Ruth in those days, and
it was only because she was away so much. It was my fear.”

“And you went about with that fear in your heart and spoke of it to no
one?”

“To whom could I have spoken? It all seemed so stupid. I would have
been laughed at.”

“But as you grew older the fear must have left?”

“On the contrary.” Michael shook his head and looked undecided. He
seemed to waver. Should he say more? “On the contrary,” he repeated.
“Such fear grows up with one. Thoughts have no power over it. If once
you have it, all that you dread comes true. One should know less; to
know less is to suffer less fear.”

“I don’t understand that,” said Christian, although the boy’s words
moved him. “The fear of childhood--that I understand. But it passes
with childhood.”

Again Michael shook his head.

“Explain it to me,” Christian continued. “You probably see danger
everywhere, and fear illnesses and misfortunes and meetings with
people.”

“No,” Michael answered swiftly, and wrinkled his forehead. “It’s not
so simple. That happens too, but it can’t harm one much. It isn’t
reality. Reality is like a deep well; a deep, black, bottomless hole.
Reality is.... Wait a moment: Suppose I take up the chessboard.
Suddenly it’s not a chessboard at all. It’s something strange. I know
what it is, but I can’t remember. Its name gives me no clue to what
it is. But the name causes me to be satisfied for a while. Do you
understand?”

“Not at all. It’s quite incomprehensible.”

“Well, yes,” Michael said, morosely. “I suppose it is foolishness.”

“Couldn’t you take some other example?”

“Another? Wait a moment. It’s so hard for me to find the right
expressions. Wait.... A couple of weeks ago father had gone to
Fürstenwalde. He went one evening, and he was to be back the next
morning. I was alone at home. Ruth was with friends, in Schmargendorf,
I think. She had told me she would be home late, and as it grew later I
grew more and more restless. Not because I feared that something might
have happened to Ruth; I didn’t even think of that. It was the empty
room and the evening and the flight of time. Time runs on so, with such
terrible swiftness and with such terrible relentlessness. It runs like
water in which one must drown. If Ruth had come, there would have been
a barrier to that awful flowing; time would have had to start anew. But
Ruth did not come. There was a clock on the wall of that room. You must
have seen it often--a round clock with a blue dial and a pendulum of
brass. It ticked and ticked, and its ticking was like hammer blows. At
last I went and held the pendulum, and the ticking stopped. Then the
fear stopped too, and I could go to sleep. Time was no more, and my
fear was no more.”

“It is very strange,” Christian murmured.

“Years ago, when we were taught to be religious, it was better. One
could pray. Of course, the prayers too were pure fear, but they eased
one.”

“I am surprised,” said Christian, “that you never confided in your
sister.”

Michael gave a start. Then he answered very shyly, and so softly that
Christian had to move his chair nearer to hear at all. “My sister ...
no, that was impossible. Ruth had so much to bear as it was; but it
would have been impossible anyhow. Among Jews, brothers and sisters
are not as close as among Christians; I mean Jews who don’t live among
Christians. We’re from the country, you know, and so we were farther
removed from other people than here. A brother can’t confide in his
sister. From the very beginning the sister is a woman; you feel that,
even when she’s a little girl. And the whole misery comes from just
that....”

“How is that? What particular misery?” Christian asked, in a whisper.

“It is frightfully hard to tell,” Michael continued, dreamily. “I don’t
believe I can express it; it might sound so ugly. But it goes on and
on, and one detail arises from another. Brother and sister--it sound so
innocent. But each of the two has a body and a soul. The soul is clean,
but the body is unclean. Sister--she is sacred. But it’s a woman, too,
that one sees. Day and night it steals into your brooding--woman ...
woman. And woman is terror, because woman is the body, and the body is
fear. Without the body one could understand the world; without woman
one could understand God. And until one understands God, the fear is
upon one. Always the nearness of that other body that you are forced to
think about. Where we lived last we all had to sleep in one room. Every
evening I hid my head under the covering and held my thoughts in check.
Don’t misunderstand me, please! It wasn’t anything ugly; my thoughts
weren’t ugly thoughts. But there was that terrible, nameless fear....
Oh, how can I explain it? The fear of.... No, I can’t put it into
words. There was Ruth, so tender and delicate. Everything about her
was in direct contradiction to the idea of woman; and yet I trembled
with aversion because she was one. Man as he is made and as he shows
himself--ah, those are two different things. I must tell you about a
dream I had--not once, but twenty times, always alike. I dreamed that a
fire had broken out, and that Ruth and I had to flee quite naked down
the stairs and out of the house. Ruth had to drag me along by force,
or I would have rushed back right into the fire, so terrible was my
shame. And I thought: ‘Ruth, that isn’t you, that mustn’t be you.’ I
didn’t, in that dream, ever see her, but I knew and felt that she was
naked. And she--she acted quite naturally and even smiled. ‘Dear God,’
I thought, ‘how can she smile?’ And then by day I didn’t dare look at
her, and every kind glance of hers reminded me of my sin. But why do
I tell you all that--why? It makes me feel so defiled, so unspeakably
defiled.”

“No, Michael, go on,” Christian said, gently and calmly. “Don’t be
afraid. Tell me everything. I shall understand, or, at all events, I
shall do my best to understand.”

Michael looked searchingly up at Christian. His precocious features
were furrowed with spiritual pain. “I sought a woman whom I might
approach,” he began, after a pause. “It seemed to me that I had soiled
Ruth in my mind, and that I must cleanse that soilure. I was guilty
before her, and must be liberated from that guilt.”

“It was a fatal delusion in which you were caught,” Christian said.
“You weren’t guilty. You had painfully constructed that guilt.” He
waited, but Michael said nothing. “Guilty,” Christian repeated, as
though he were weighing the word in his hand. “Guilty....” His face
expressed absolute doubt.

“Guilty or not,” the boy persisted, “it was as I have told you. If I
feel a sense of guilt, who can redeem me from it? One can only do that
oneself.”

“Believe me,” said Christian, “it is a delusion.”

“But they were all Ruth,” Michael continued, and his voice was full of
dread. “They were all Ruth--the most depraved and degraded. I had so
much reverence for them, and at the same time I felt a great disgust.
The unclean thing always grew more powerful in my thoughts. While I
sought and sought, my life became one pain. I cursed my blood. Whatever
I touched became slimy and unclean.”

“You should have confessed to Ruth, just to her, she was the best
refuge you had,” said Christian.

“I couldn’t,” Michael assured him. “I couldn’t. Rather I should have
done, I don’t know what.... I couldn’t.”

For a while he lost himself in brooding. Then he spoke quickly and
hastily. “On the Saturday before the Sunday on which Ruth was at home
for the last time, father sent me to the coal-dealer to pay the bill in
person. There was no one in the shop, so I went into the room behind
the shop, and there lay the coal-dealer with a woman in his arms. They
did not notice me, and I fled; I don’t remember how I got out, but
until evening I ran about senselessly in the streets. The terror had
never been so great. Next afternoon--it was that very Sunday--between
four and five I was walking on Lichener Street. Suddenly, a rainstorm
came up, and a girl took me under her umbrella. It was Molly Gutkind.
I saw at once the sort of girl she was. She asked me to come home with
her. I didn’t answer, but she kept on walking beside me. She said if I
didn’t want to come now, she’d wait for me that evening, that she lived
on Prenzlauer Alley, opposite the gas-tank near the freight station,
over a public house called ‘Adele’s Rest.’ She took my hand and coaxed
me: ‘You come, little boy, you look so sad. I like your dark eyes;
you’re an innocent little creature.’ When I reached home I saw what
Ruth had written on the slate. Prenzlauer Alley--how strange that was!
It might so easily have been some other neighbourhood. It was very
strange. I felt desolate, and sat down on the stairs. Then I went up
to the room and read father’s letter, and it seemed to me as though
I had known everything beforehand. I felt so lonely that I went down
again, and walked and walked until I stood in front of that house in
Prenzlauer Alley.”

“And so, of course, you went up to the girl’s room?” Christian asked,
with a strangely cheerful expression that hid his suspense.

Michael nodded. He said he had hesitated a long time. In the
public-house he had heard the playing of a harmonica. It was an
exceedingly dirty house standing back from the street, an old house
with splotches of moisture on the wall and a wooden fence, and a pile
of bricks and refuse in front of it. At the door a dog had stood. “I
didn’t dare go past that dog,” said Michael, and mechanically folded
his hands. “He was so big and stared at me so treacherously. But Molly
Gutkind had seen me from the window (the house has only two storeys);
she beckoned to me, and the dog trotted out into the street. I went
into the house, and there was Molly on the stairs. She laughed and drew
me into her room. She served me with food, ham sandwiches and pastry.
To-day, she said, she’d be my hostess; next time I’d have to be her
host. She said she knew I was a Jew and she was glad; she always liked
Jews. If I’d be just a little bit nice to her, I’d never regret it. It
was all so peculiar. What was I to her? What could I be to her? I said
I’d go now, but she wouldn’t let me, and said I must stay with her. And
then...!”

“My dear boy,” Christian said, softly.

The tender words made the boy shudder all the more. He was silent for
many minutes. When he spoke again his voice sounded changed. He said
dully: “Three times I begged her to blow out the lamp, and at last she
did so. But something happened to the girl that I hadn’t expected. She
said she wouldn’t sin against me; she saw that she was a bad girl, and
I must forgive her. As she said this she wept, and she added that she
longed for her home with all her heart, and had a horror of her present
life. I seemed to be stricken dumb, but I was sorry for her with all
my heart. My body trembled and my teeth chattered, and I let her speak
and lament. When I saw that she had fallen asleep, I thought about
myself as deeply and severely as I could. It was dark and silent; I
heard nothing but the breathing of the girl. No guests were left in the
public-house below. It was uncannily silent; and with every moment’s
silence my old fear grew within me. Every moment it seemed to me that
that terrible silence must be broken. I watched the very seconds pass.
And suddenly I heard a cry. A sudden cry. How shall I describe it? It
came from deep, deep below, from under the earth, from behind walls. It
was not very loud or shrill, but it was a cry to make the heart stop
beating. It was like a ray, do you understand, a hot, thin, piercing
ray. I can compare it to nothing else. I thought--Ruth! My single
thought was--Ruth! Do you understand that? It was as though some one
had plunged an icy blade into my back. O God, it was terrible!”

“And what did you do?” asked Christian, white as the wall.

And Michael stammered that he had lain there and lain there, and
listened and listened.

“Is it possible that you didn’t jump up and rush out? That you
didn’t----? Is it possible?”

How could he have believed, Michael said, that it was really Ruth? The
thought had shot into his brain only like a little, flickering flame of
terror. He stared wide-eyed into nothingness, and suddenly sobbed. “And
now listen,” he said, and reached for Christian’s hand, “listen!”

And this is what he told. His face was veiled, tear-stained, pale as
death. He hadn’t been able to forget that cry. He didn’t know how much
time had passed, when finally he arose from the girl’s side. He had
left the room on tiptoe. The darkness had been solid; outside he had
seen and heard nothing. He had stood on the stairs for perhaps fifteen
minutes. Then he had heard steps, steps and gasps as of some one
carrying a heavy burden. He hadn’t moved. Then he had seen a light, the
beam of a bull’s-eye lantern; and he had seen a man, not his face, only
his back. This man had carried a large bale on his back and a bundle in
his hand. The man’s feet had been bare, and the feet had been red--with
blood. He had gone in front of the house and set down the bale; then he
had gone back into the cellar and come back with another man. He had
shoved this man in front of him as one shoves a keg. One could tell
that from the sound, but nothing could be seen, because the lantern had
now been darkened. The second man had uttered sounds as though he had
a gag in his mouth. Then they had gone away, after closing the door of
the house, and all had been silent again. “I had been at the head of
the stairs the whole time,” Michael said, and took a deep breath.

Christian said nothing. He seemed turned to stone.

“It was very quiet and I went down,” Michael continued his account.
“Something drew me on. I groped my way to the cellar stairs step by
step. There I stood a long time. Dawn was rising; I could see it from
the narrow window above the door. I stood at the head of the cellar
stairs. Steps of stone lead downwards. I saw first one, then two, then
three, then four. The lighter it grew, the more steps I saw, but the
light could not get beyond the sixth step.”

It was harder and harder for him to speak. Sweat stood on his forehead.
He leaned back and seemed about to fall over. Christian supported him.
He got up and bent over the boy. In his attitude and gesture there was
something wonderfully winning. Everything depended now on discovering
the last, most fearful truth. His whole being concentrated itself in
his will, and the boy yielded to this silent power. What he confessed
now sounded at first confused and dim as the story of ghostly visions
or the dreams of fever. One could hardly tell from the words what
was reality and what the compulsive imaginings of fear. One grisly
fact stood out--the finding of the blood-soaked handkerchief. Thrice
Christian asked whether he had found it on the stairs or in the cellar.
Each time the boy’s answer was different. He quivered like a rope in
the wind when Christian begged him to be exact and to think carefully.
He said he didn’t remember. Yes, he did, too; it had, been down below.
He described a partition, wooden railings, and a small, barred cellar
window, through which the yellowish pale light of morning had now
come in. But he hadn’t really been master of his senses, and couldn’t
remember whether he had really entered the room. And at that he gave a
loud sob.

Christian stood beside him, laying both hands on the boy’s shoulders.
The boy quivered as though an electric current were passing through
him. “I beseech you,” said Christian, “Michael, I beseech you!” and
he felt his own strength ebbing. Then Michael whispered that he had
recognized Ruth’s initials on the handkerchief at once. But from
that moment his brain seemed to have been hacked to pieces, and he
begged Christian to plague him no more. He wouldn’t go on; he’d rather
drop down dead. But Christian grasped the boy’s wrists. And Michael
whispered: the house had betrayed the fact to him that something
nameless had happened to Ruth, and the air had roared it to him. The
walls seemed to have piled themselves on him and he had had a vision
of everything, everything, and had whined and moaned and lacerated
his neck with his own nails. “Here and here and here,” he sobbed and
pointed to his neck, which was indeed covered with the scars of recent
scratches. Then he had run to the door of the house and rattled the
knob, and then back again and had counted the cellar steps, just out of
sheer despair. Then he had run up the stairs, and suddenly, at a door,
he had seen a man; in the twilight he had seen a fat man with a white
apron and a white cap, such as are worn by bakers, and a kerchief
around his neck with stiff, white, protruding ends. The man had stood
on the threshold, white and fat and sleepy. He might have been a shadow
or an apparition. But he had said in a low, sleepy, surly voice: “Now
they’ve gone and killed her, lad.” After that he had vanished, simply
vanished; and he, Michael, had rushed breathlessly into Molly Gutkind’s
room. She had waked up, and he had lain down on the bed and besought
her with all the passion of his stricken soul to be silent and to keep
him hidden, even if he were to fall ill, to tell no one but to keep
him there and be silent. Why he had asked that, why it had seemed so
necessary to him that the girl should say nothing--even now he didn’t
understand that. But he felt just the same this minute, and he would
be utterly devoted to Christian all his life if he, too, would never
betray what he had just confessed to him.

“Will you? Will you?” he asked, solemnly, and with a dark glow in his
tormented eyes.

“I shall keep silent,” Christian replied.

“Then perhaps I can go on living,” the boy said.

Christian looked at him, and their eyes met in a strange harmony and
understanding.

“And how long did you stay with the girl after that?” Christian asked.

“I don’t know. But one morning she said she couldn’t keep me any longer
and I’d have to go. All the previous time my consciousness hadn’t
been clear. I must have talked as in delirium. The girl did all she
could for me; my condition went to her heart. She sat at the bedside
for hours and held my hands. After I left her I wandered about in the
suburbs and in the woods, I don’t know where. At last I came here. I
don’t know why I came to you, except that it seemed as though Ruth were
sending me to you. You seemed to be the only human being that existed
for me in all the world. But what am I to do now? What is going to
happen?”

Christian reflected for several seconds before he answered with a
strange smile: “We must wait for him.”

“For him? For whom?”

“For him.”

And again their eyes met.

It was late at night, but they did not think of sleeping.


XV

In addition to the room which his mother gave him, Niels Heinrich had
another lodging at a tinsmith’s in Rheinsberger Street on the fourth
floor. On the day after his conversation with Christian he moved away
from there. He did it because too many people knew that he lodged
here. Also he couldn’t sleep there any more. He slept half an hour,
at most; then he lay awake smoking cigarettes, tossing from side to
side. From time to time he laughed a dry, rattling laugh, whenever the
recollection of something which that man Wahnschaffe had said became
particularly vivid.

Who was that man, anyhow? You could think till your brain cracked. That
man!

Curiosity was like a conflagration in Niels Heinrich.

He took a room in Demminer Street with a grocer named Kahle. The room
was immediately over the shop. The big sign saying “Eggs, Butter,
Cheese” almost covered the low window; consequently there was little
light in that hole. In addition the flooring and the walls were so
thin that one could hear the ringing of the shop bell, the talk of
the customers, and all other sounds. There he lay again and smoked
cigarettes and thought of that man.

That man and he--there was no place in the world for them both. That
was the upshot of his reflections.

Kahle demanded his rent money in advance. Niels Heinrich said that
that demand offended his honour; he always paid on the last of the
month. Kahle answered that that might be so, but that it was his
custom to get rent in advance. Kahle’s wife--lean as a nail and with
tall hair-dressing--screamed and became vulgar at once. Niels Heinrich
contented himself with a few dry insults and promised to pay on the
third.

He tried to work in a factory. But hammer and drill seemed to offer
a conscious resistance to him; the wheels and flying belts seemed to
whirl through his body, and the regular working-hours to smother him.
After the noon-rest it was found that one of the machines was out of
order. A screw was loose, and only the vigilance of the machinist
had prevented a disaster. He declared to both the foreman and the
engineer that the trouble was due to the deliberate act of a rogue; but
investigation proved fruitless.

He had been ruined, so far as work was concerned, Niels Heinrich
said to himself; and since he needed money he went to the widow. She
said that all her available money consisted of sixteen marks. She
offered him six. It wasn’t enough. “Boy, you look a sight!” she cried,
frightened. He told her roughly not to put on airs, and added that she
certainly couldn’t expect him to be satisfied with a few dirty pennies.
She whined and explained that business was wretchedly slack; it hardly
paid to tell people’s fortunes any more. She seemed to have nothing but
ill-luck and to have lost her skill. Niels Heinrich answered darkly
that he’d go to the colonies; he’d sail next week, and then she’d be
rid of him. The widow was moved, and produced three small gold coins.

One he gave to Kahle.

Then he went to Griebenow’s gin shop, next to a dancing hall, finally
to a notorious dive in a cellar.

He was a changed man--everybody said that, and he stared at them in an
evil way. Nothing had any savour to him. Everything was disjointed; the
world seemed to be coming apart. His fingers itched to jerk the lamps
from their hooks. If he saw two people whispering together, it made him
feel like raving; he wanted to pick up a chair, and bring it crashing
down on their skulls. A woman made advances to him; he caught her so
roughly by the neck that she screamed with terror. Her sweetheart
called him to account, and drew his knife; the eyes of both blazed with
hatred. The keeper of the dive, and several others in whose interest
it was to have the peace kept, effected a partial reconciliation.
The fellow’s mien was still menacing, but Niels Heinrich laughed his
goat-like laugh. What could that fellow do to him? What could any of
them do to him? Swine! All men, all--swine! What did they matter?

But there were four little words that he couldn’t get away from. “I
shall expect you.” And these words sounded into the jabbering and
slavering of the curs about him. “I shall expect you.” And how that man
had stood up in front of him! Niels Heinrich drew in his lips with his
teeth; and his own flesh disgusted him.

“‘I shall expect you.’ All right, old boy! You can go on expecting till
you’re blue in the face.

“‘I shall expect you.’ Aw, can’t a man get no rest? Keep still or I’ll
knock your teeth down your throat.

“‘I shall expect you.’ Yes, and you’ll meet me some day--in hell.

“‘I shall expect you.’”

New witnesses had appeared. In both Wisbyer and Stolpische Streets
there were people who had last seen Ruth Hofmann in the company of a
girl and of a huge butcher’s dog. All suspicious houses in Prenzlauer
Alley had been searched. There were dives in plenty, but the place
called “Adele’s Rest” attracted particular attention. In it was found a
dog like the one described--a masterless dog, to be sure. Some said the
dog had belonged to a Negro who worked in a circus; others that it had
come from the stock-yards.

In the cellar traces of the murder were discovered. A worm-eaten board
found behind a partition was black with blood. When the deed was
done it must have rested on two wooden frames that still remained
in the cellar. When the masterless dog was taken into the cellar, he
howled. Between fifteen and twenty persons, including the innkeeper,
the barmaid, frequenters of the inn, and dwellers in the house, were
subjected to rigorous cross-questioning. Among the latter Molly Gutkind
appeared highly suspicious by reason of her confused answers and
perturbed demeanour. She was arrested and held as a witness.

Niels Heinrich had been to see her the night before. His private
inquiries had confirmed the rumours that had previously come to him.
It was undoubtedly she who had given refuge to the unknown boy. He
determined to put on the thumbscrews. He was an expert at that.

His general impression was that she could hardly become a source of
direct danger to him, but that she had gained a general notion of what
must have happened. And when he recalled what Wahnschaffe had told
him concerning Ruth’s brother, the connection was quite clear. If
only he could have laid his hands on the boy, he would have seen to
it that the latter didn’t wag his damned tongue for a while at least.
It was the rottenest luck that took just him to the Little Maggot’s
house. Now he’d have to make the wench harmless some way. Although he
couldn’t extract three coherent words from her, and though she trembled
like a straw beneath his gaze, yet she betrayed the knowledge she had
gained from the boy’s delirious talk and had completed from what had
transpired later. She wept copiously and confessed that she hadn’t left
the house since then in her terror of meeting any one. Niels Heinrich
told her icily that if she had any interest in her own life and didn’t
want to ruin the boy into the bargain, she’d better not behave as much
like a fool and an idiot as she had toward him. He knew a certain
person who, if he got wind of her chatter, would wring her neck in
five minutes. She’d better take the train and fade away quickly. Where
was her home--in Pasewalk or Itzehoe? And if she didn’t fade away in
double-quick time, he’d help her along! At that she sobbed and said she
couldn’t go home. Her father had threatened to kill her; her mother had
cursed her for the disgrace she had brought on them. He said if he came
back to-morrow and still found her here, she’d have to dance to a less
agreeable tune.

Next day she was arrested. On the day following Niels Heinrich was told
that the Little Maggot, unwatched by her fellow-prisoners, had hanged
herself by night on the window-bars of her cell.

He gave an appreciative nod.

But security in this one direction meant little to him. The net was
being drawn tighter. There was whispering everywhere. Furtive glances
followed him. Often he swung around wildly as though he would grasp
some pursuer. Money was harder and harder to get. All that Karen had
left brought him scarcely fifty talers. And everything that had once
given him pleasure now filled him with loathing. It wasn’t an evil
conscience; that conception was wholly unknown to him. It was contempt
of life. He could hardly force himself to get up in the morning. The
day was like melting, rancid cheese. Now and then he thought of flight.
He was clever enough; he could make a fool of spies and detectives
without much exertion. He’d find a place where they wouldn’t follow; he
had planned it all out: first he’d leave on foot, then take a train,
next a ship--if necessary as a stowaway in the coal-bunkers. It had
been done before and done successfully. But what was the use? First of
all he’d have to clear things up between himself and--that man! First
he’d have to find out what that man knew and make him eat humble-pie.
He couldn’t have that danger at his back. The man expected him. Very
well. He’d go.

Though this reasoning may but have disguised an impulse stronger than
hatred and sinister curiosity, the impulse itself was of driving and
compelling force. He set out on that errand several times. At first
he would be calm and determined, but whenever he saw the street and
the house he would turn back. His restlessness turned into choking
rage, until at last the suspense became insufferable. It was Friday;
he delayed one more day. On Saturday he delayed until evening; then he
went. He wandered about the house for a little, loitered in the doorway
and in the yard. Then he saw a light in Christian’s room and entered.


XVI

Letitia with the countess and her whole train moved into a
magnificently furnished apartment on Prince Bismarck Street near the
Reichstag. Crammon took rooms in the Hotel de Rome. He didn’t like the
modern Berlin hotels, with their deceptive veneer of luxury. He didn’t,
indeed, like the city, and his stay in it gave him a daily sense of
discomfort. Even when he strolled Unter den Linden or in the Tiergarten
he was an image of joylessness. The collar of his fur-coat was turned
up, and of his face nothing was visible but his morose eyes and his
small but rather ignobly shaped nose.

The solitary walks increased his hypochondria more and more.

“Child, you are ruining me,” he said to Letitia one Sunday morning, as
she outlined to him her programme for the week’s diversions.

She looked at him in astonishment. “But auntie gets twenty thousand a
year from the head of the house of Brainitz,” she cried. “You’ve heard
her say so herself.”

“I’ve heard,” Crammon replied. “But I’ve seen nothing. Money is
something that one has to see in order to have faith in it.”

“Oh, what a prosaic person you are!” Letitia said. “Do you think auntie
is lying?”

“Not exactly. But her personal relations to arithmetic may be called
rather idealistic. From her point of view a cipher more or less matters
no more than a pea more or less in a bag of peas. But a cipher is
something gigantic, my dear, something demonic. It is the great belly
of the world; it is mightier than the brains of an Aristotle or the
armies of an empire. Reverence it, I beseech you.”

“How wise you are, how wise,” Letitia said, sadly. “By the way,” she
added in a livelier tone, “auntie is ill. She has heart trouble. The
doctor saw her and wrote her a prescription; a new remedy that he’s
going to try on her--a mixture of bromine and calcium.”

“Why precisely bromine and calcium?” Crammon asked irritably.

“Oh, well, bromine is calming and calcium is stimulating,” Letitia
chattered, quite at random, hesitated, stopped, and broke into her
charming laughter. Crammon, like a school-teacher, tried for a while
to preserve his dignity, but finally joined in her laughter. He threw
himself into a deep armchair, drew up a little table on which was a
bowl of fruit and little golden knives, and began to peel an apple.
Letitia, sitting opposite him with a closed book in her hand, watched
him with delicate and cunning attention. His graceful gestures pleased
her. The contrast he afforded between plumpness and grace of movement
always delighted her.

“I am told that you’re flirting with Count Egon Rochlitz,” Crammon
said, while he ate his apple with massive zest. “I should like to sound
a warning. The man is a notorious and indiscriminate Don Juan; all he
requires is hips and a bosom. Furthermore, he is up to the eyes in
debt; the only hope of his creditors is that he makes a rich marriage.
Finally, he is a widower and the father of three small girls. Now you
are informed.”

“It’s awfully nice and kind of you to tell me,” Letitia replied.
“But if I like the man, why should your moral scruples keep me from
continuing to like him? Nearly all men chase after women; all men
have debts; very few have three little daughters, and I think that’s
charming. He is clever, cultivated, and distinguished, and has the
nicest voice. A man who has an agreeable voice can’t be quite bad. But
I’m not proposing to marry him. Surely you’re not such a bad, stubborn
old stepfather that you think I mean to marry every man who ... who,
well, who has an agreeable voice? Or are you afraid, you wicked miser,
that I’ll try to extract a dowry from you? I’m sure that’s the cause of
your very bad humour. Come, Bernard, confess! Isn’t it so?”

Smiling she stood in front of him with a jesting motion of command. She
touched his forehead with the index-finger of one hand; the other she
raised half threateningly, half solemnly.

Crammon said: “Child, you are once more omitting the respect due me.
Consider my whitening locks, my years and experience. Be humble and
learn of me, and don’t mock at your venerable progenitor. My humour?
Well, it isn’t the best in the world, I admit. Ah, it was better once.
You seem not to know that somewhere in this city, far beyond our
haunts, in its slums and morasses, there lives one who was dear to me
above all men--Christian Wahnschaffe. You too, in some hoary antiquity,
threw out your line after him. Do you remember? Ah, how long ago that
is! That would have been a catch. And I, ass that I was, opposed that
charming, little intrigue. Perhaps everything might have turned out
differently. But complaint is futile. Everything is over between us.
There is no path for me to where he is; and yet my soul is driven and
goaded toward him, and while I sit here in decent comfort, I feel as
though I were committing a scoundrelly action.”

Letitia had opened her eyes very wide while he spoke. It was the first
time since the days at Wahnschaffe Castle that any one had spoken to
her of Christian. His image arose, and she felt within her breast the
faint beating of the wings of dread. There was a sweetness in that
feeling and a poignancy.... One had to be as capable of forgetting as
she was, in order to be able to recapture for a moment, in the deep
chiming of a memoried hour, the keen emotion of a long ago.

She questioned him. At first he answered reluctantly, sentence by
sentence; then, urged on by her impatience, his narrative flowed
on. The utter astonishment of Letitia flattered him; he painted his
picture in violent colours. Her delicate face mirrored the fleeting
emotions of her soul. In her responsive imagination and vibrant heart
everything assumed concreteness and immediate vividness. She needed no
interpretations; they were all within her. She gazed into that unknown
darkness full of presage and full of understanding. In truth, it all
seemed familiar to her, familiar like a poem, as though she had lived
with Christian all that time, and she knew more than Crammon could tell
her, infinitely more, for she grasped the whole, its idea and form, its
fatefulness and pain. She glowed and cried: “I must go to him.” But
picturing that meeting, she grew frightened, and imagined a rapt look
she would use, and Crammon’s lack of intensity annoyed her, and his
whine of complaint seemed senseless to her.

“I always felt,” she said, with gleaming eyes, “that there was a hidden
power in him. Whenever I had wicked little thoughts and he looked at
me, I grew ashamed. He could read thoughts even then, but he did not
know it.”

“I have heard you say cleverer things than you are doing now,” Crammon
said, mockingly. But her enthusiasm moved him, and there welled up in
him a jealousy of all the men who stretched out their hands after her.

“I shall go to him,” she said, smiling, “and ease my heart in his
presence.”

“You were wiser in those days when you played at ball in that
beautiful room while the lightning flashed,” Crammon murmured, lost in
memories. “Has madness overtaken you, little girl, that you would act
the part of a Magdalene?”

“I’d like, just once, to live for a month in utter loneliness,” Letitia
said, yearningly.

“And then?”

“Then perhaps I should understand the world. Ah, everything is so
mysterious and so sad.”

“Youth! Youth! Thy words are fume and folly!” Crammon sighed, and
reached for a second apple.

At this point the dressmaker arrived with a new evening gown for
Letitia. She withdrew to her room, and after a little while she
reappeared, excited by her frock, and demanding that Crammon admire
her, since she felt worthy of admiration. Yet a patina of melancholy
shimmered on her, and even while she imagined the admiring looks that
would soon be fixed on her--for Crammon’s did not suffice her--she
dreamed with a sense of luxury of renunciation and of turning from the
world.

And while she went to her aunt to collect the tribute of that lady’s
noisier admiration, she still dreamed of renunciation and of turning
from the world.

A bunch of roses was brought her. But even while she gave herself up
to their beauty and fragrance with a characteristic completeness, she
grew pale and thought of Christian’s hard and sombre life; and she
determined to go to him. Only that night there was a ball at the house
of Prince Radziwill.

There she met Wolfgang Wahnschaffe, but avoided him with an instinctive
timidity. She was a great success. Her nature and fate had reached a
peak of life and exercised an assured magic from which, in innocent
cunning, she wrung all possible advantages.

On the way home in the motor she asked Crammon: “Tell me, Bernard,
doesn’t Judith live in Berlin too? Do you ever hear from her? Is she
happy with her actor? Why don’t we call on her?”

“No one will prevent you from calling on her,” answered Crammon. The
snow was falling thickly. “She lives in Matthäikirch Street. I cannot
tell you whether she is happy; it doesn’t interest me. One would have
a lot to do if one insisted on finding out whether the women who drag
our friends to the nuptial couch discover the game to have been worth
the candle or not. One thing is certain--Lorm is no longer what he was,
the incomparable and unique. I once called him the last prince in a
world doomed to hopeless vulgarization. That is all over. He is going
downhill, and therefore I avoid him. There is nothing sadder on earth
than a man who deteriorates and an artist who loses himself. And it is
the woman’s fault. Ah, yes, you may laugh--it is her fault.”

“How cruel you are, and how malevolent,” said Letitia, and sleepily
leaned her cheek against his shoulder.

She determined to visit Judith. It seemed to her like a preparation for
that other and more difficult visit, which she might thus delay for a
little while, and to which her courage was not yet equal. It lured her
when she thought of it as an adventure; but a voice within her told her
that she must not let it be one.


XVII

Every time Christian saw Johanna Schöntag she seemed more emaciated and
more worn. Beneath his observant glance she smiled, and that glance was
meant to deceive him. She thought herself well hidden under her wit and
her little harlequin-like grimaces.

She usually appeared toward evening to sit with Michael for an hour or
two. She felt it to be her duty. She pretended to be utterly frivolous;
yet when she had assumed a task she was pedantically faithful in its
execution. On the day when she observed that the boy’s improvement
had reached a point which made her service unnecessary, so vivid a
look betokening her sense of futility stole into her face that Michael
gazed at her and conceived a definite idea of her character. Checked
though it still was by his old terror of human beings, gratitude for
her sacrifices shone in his eyes. She began to employ his thoughts;
her ways were so alien and yet so familiar. He could not rise to the
point of frank communication, but when she rose to go he begged her
to stay a little longer. Then the habitual silence fell between them,
and Johanna, not really reading, let her tormented eyes glide over the
page of some French or English novel that she had brought with her. But
this time he put a question to her, and after a while another, and then
another; and thus arose conversations in which they sought and explored
each other. Johanna was by turns superior or mocking or motherly or
elusive. She had weapons and veils in plenty. What he said was didactic
or shy, or sudden and heated. Her sayings were often double-edged, and
confused him; then she would laugh her sharp laughter, and he would be
disillusioned and hurt.

He asked her to tell him whence she came, who she was, what she was
doing, and she told him of her girlhood and her parents’ house. To him
who was familiar with poverty alone it sounded like a fairy-tale. He
said: “You are beautiful,” and she really seemed so to him, and his
naïve homage made her blush and gave her a little inner courage. But
her hands, he added, were not the hands of a rich girl. She seemed
surprised, and answered with an expression of self-hatred that her
hands, like a cripple’s hump or the devil’s splay foot, were the symbol
of what she really was.

Michael shook his head; but he now understood her poor, chilled soul
with its infinite yearning and its infinite disappointment. When he
asked her what was her aim in life and what her occupation, she looked
at him with disturbed surprise. What aim or occupation was there for a
creature like herself? On another occasion, driven by the desire for
self-torment, she revealed to him the complete emptiness of her life.
It was a bad joke that fate was playing on her, a medicine one had to
swallow in order to be healed; and healing was where life is not.

She chatted in this strain, but told him not to be bitter. It wasn’t
worth while; the world was too trivial, grey, and wretched. “If only
there weren’t so many people in it,” she sighed, and wrinkled her
forehead in her comic way. Yet she was ashamed before the lad too,
and became conscious of the fact that her words were blasphemous. Her
feeling was a torment to herself, and she did not perceive that it
communicated warmth to another. Timidly she tried to measure the young
lad’s power of comprehension by his terrible experience, of which she
knew no details, or by the sombre earnestness of his mind that made him
seem maturer than his years. And she sank even lower in her own esteem
when she saw him thoughtful and moved.

But precisely the secret wound of her weakness, which she revealed
to him, and the lacerating conflict which she carried on with
herself--these brought an awakening to him and stirred his will to
life. He said: “You should have known Ruth.” A strange shadow and yet
a living contradiction of Ruth came to him from Johanna. He said again
and again: “You should have known Ruth.” To her question why, he had
no answer but a sudden radiance in his glance in which Ruth seemed
hitherto but to have slumbered. But now her image was a flame of fire
that guided him.

Johanna said to Christian: “I don’t believe your protégé needs me any
longer. You certainly don’t. So I’m superfluous, and had better get out
of the way.”

“I want very much to talk to you,” said Christian. “I have wanted
to beg you for long to talk to me. Will you come at the same hour
to-morrow, or shall I come to you? I shall be glad to do whatever you
like.”

She grew pale, and said she would come.


XVIII

She arrived at five o’clock. The darkness had fallen. They went into
Karen’s old rooms, since Michael was in Christian’s. To the latter’s
surprise the boy had suddenly expressed the desire for instruction
and for a teacher to-day. He had also asked how his life was to be
arranged in future, where he had better go and to whom, and from whom
he might hope for help, since he was unwilling to be a burden to
Christian any longer. His words and demeanour showed a determination
which he had never yet displayed. Christian had not been able to answer
his questions satisfactorily at once. The change caused him, first of
all, astonishment; and while he preceded Johanna to light the lamp, he
reflected on the difficult decision ahead.

The door to the room in which Karen had died was locked. A feeble fire
of wood that Isolde Schirmacher had lit at Christian’s bidding burned
in the oven. She came in now, put on another log, and tripped out again.

Johanna sat on the sofa and looked about her expectantly. She trembled
at the thought of the first word she would hear and the first she would
speak. She had not taken off her cloak. Her neck and chin were buried
in its collar of fur.

“It’s a little uncanny here,” she said softly at last, since
Christian’s silence was so prolonged.

Christian sat down beside and took her hand. “You look so full of
suffering, Johanna,” he said. “What is the cause of your suffering?
Would it ease you to speak out? Tell me about it. You will reply that I
cannot help you. And that is true; one can never really help another.
Yet once you communicate yourself to a friend, the troubles within no
longer rot in dull stagnation. Don’t you think so?”

“You come to me so late,” Johanna whispered, with a shudder, and drew
up her shoulders, “so very, very late.”

“Too late?”

“Too late.”

Christian reflected sadly for a little. He grasped her hand more
firmly, and asked timidly: “Does he torment you? What is there between
him and you?”

She started and stared at him, and then collapsed again. She smiled
morbidly and said: “I’d be grateful to anyone who took an axe and
killed me. It’s all I’m worth.”

“Why, Johanna?”

“Because I threw myself away to roll in filth where it’s thickest and
most horrible,” she cried out, in a cutting voice that was full of
lamentation too, while her lips quivered, and she looked up.

“You see both yourself and others falsely,” said Christian. “Everything
within you is distorted. All that you say torments you, and all that
you hide chokes you. Have a little pity on yourself.”

“On myself?” She laughed a mirthless laugh. “On a thing like myself?
It would be waste. Nothing is needed but the axe, the axe.” Her words
changed to a wild sob. Then came an icy silence.

“What did you do, Johanna, to make you so desperate? Or what was done
to you?”

“You come too late. Oh, if you had asked me before, just asked, just
once. It is too late. There was too much empty time. The time was the
ruin of me. I’ve wasted my heart.”

“Tell me how.”

“Once there was one who opened the dark and heavy portal just a tiny
bit. Then I thought: it will be beautiful now. But he slammed the
door shut in my face. And the crash--I still feel it in my bones. It
was rash and foolish in me. I should not have had that glimpse of the
lovely things beyond the gate.”

“You are right, Johanna; I deserve it. But tell me how it is with you
now? Why are you so torn and perturbed?”

She did not answer for a while. Then she said: “Do you know the old
fairy-tale of the goose-girl who creeps into the iron oven to complain
of her woe? ‘O Falada, as thou hangest, O Princess, as thou goest, if
thy mother knew of thy fate, the heart in her bosom would be broken.’
I haven’t taken a vow of silence, and I haven’t a burning oven for
refuge, but I can’t look at anyone or let him look at me. Go over by
the window and take your eyes from me, and I’ll tell you of my woes.”

With serious promptness Christian obeyed. He sat down by the window and
looked out.

With a high, almost singing voice Johanna began. “You know that I got
caught in the snares of that man who was once your friend. You see
there was too much time in the world and the time was too empty. He
acted as though he would die if he didn’t have me. He put me to sleep
with his words and broke my will, my little rudimentary will, and took
me as one takes a lost thing by the roadside that no one wants or
claims. And when he had me in his grip the misery began. Day and night
he tortured me with questions, day and night, as though I’d been his
thing from my mother’s womb. No peace was left in me, and I was like
one blinded by his own shame. And one day I ran away and came here, and
it was just the day on which Michael came in after the terrible thing
had happened to him, and of course you had no eyes for me and I--I saw
more clearly than before how low I had fallen and what I had made of my
life.”

She stared down emptily for a moment; then she shut her eyes and
continued. There had been an evening on which she had felt so desolate
and deserted that she had envied each paving stone because it lay
beside another. And so she had suddenly, with all the strength of all
the yearning in her, wished for a child. She couldn’t explain just
how it had come over her--that insane yearning after a child, after
something of flesh and blood that she might love. Just as that day
in Christian’s room she had turned his behaviour into an envious
experiment and test, and had wondered in suspense how he would take
and withstand the utter misery of Michael; so, on that other day, she
had put her own life to the test, and had made everything dependent
on whether she would have a child or not. And when Amadeus had come,
she had thrown herself at him--coldly and calculatingly. She wondered
whether such things often happened in the world or had, indeed, ever
happened before. But as time passed it became clear that her wish was
not to be fulfilled and she was not even capable of what any woman of
the people can accomplish. She wasn’t good enough for even that.

But in the meantime fate had played its direst trick on her. She had
begun to love the man. It could not have come about differently, for he
seemed so like herself--so full of envy, so avoided of men, so enmeshed
and helpless within. The likeness in his soul had conquered her. To
be sure, she could not tell whether it was really love, or something
strange and terrible that is written of in no book and has no name. But
if it was love to cling to some last contact while waiting for the end,
to be extinguished and set on fire again, so that between fire and fire
no breath was one’s own, and one wore an alien face and spoke alien
words; if it was love to be ashamed and remorseful and flee from one’s
own consciousness and drag oneself about in terror of the senses and
of the spirit and own no thing on earth, no friend or sister or flower
or dream--if such were love, well, it had been hers. But it hadn’t
lasted long. Amadeus had shown signs of coldness and satiety. He had
been paralysed. When he had devoured everything within her that could
be devoured, he had been tired and had given her to understand that she
was in the way. A cold horror had struck her, and she had gone. But the
horror was still in her heart and everything in her was old and cold.
She could never forget the man’s coarse face in that last hour--his
scorn and satisfaction. Now she could neither laugh nor cry any more;
she was ashamed. She would like to lie down very gently and wait for
death. She was so frightfully tired, and disgust of life filled her to
the brim.

She stopped, and Christian did not move. Long minutes passed. Then
Johanna arose and went over to him. Without stirring she gazed with him
out into the darkness, and then laid a ghostly hand upon his shoulder.
“If my mother knew of my fate, the heart in her bosom would be broken,”
she whispered.

He understood that touch, which sought a refuge, and her silent
beseeching. Resting his chin upon his hand, he said: “O men, men, what
are these things you do!”

“We despair,” she answered, drily, and with sardonic lips.

Christian arose, took her head between his two hands, and said: “You
must be on your guard, Johanna, against yourself.”

“The devil has fetched me,” she answered; but at the same moment she
became aware of the power of his touch. She became pale and reeled and
pulled herself together. She looked into his eyes, first waveringly,
then firmly. She tried to smile, and her smile was full of pain. Then
it became less full of herself, and lastly, after a deep breath, showed
a shimmer of joy.

He took his hands away. He wanted to say something more, but he felt
the insufficiency and poverty of all words.

She went from him with lowered head. But on her lips there was still
that smile of many meanings which she had won.


XIX

It happened that Christian, sleeping in the rooms upstairs, was
awakened by the piercing cries of the Stübbe children. He slipped into
his clothes and went over.

On the table stood a smoking kerosene lamp; next to it lay a baby
huddled in greasy rags. From a sack of straw two children had risen up.
They were clad in ragged shirts, and, clinging despairingly to each
other, uttered their shrieks of terror. A fourth child, a boy of five,
indescribably ragged and neglected, bent over a heap of broken plates
and glasses. He hid his face in his hands and howled. The fifth child,
a girl of eight or nine, stood by her mother, who lay quite still
on the floor, and lifted her thin, beseeching arms and folded hands
toward the monster who was her father, and who struck the woman blow
after vicious blow in the beastliness of his rage. He used the leg of
a chair, and under the mad fury of his blows terrible wounds appeared
on the body of the woman, who uttered no sound. Only now and then
she twitched. Her face was of a greyish blue. The bodice and the red
petticoat she wore were shredded, and from every rent dripped her blood.

Stübbe’s madness increased with every blow. In his eyes there was a
ghastly glitter; slime and foam flecked his beard; his hair stood on
end and was stiff with sweat, and his swollen face was a dark violet
hue. Sounds, half laughter, half gurgling, then again moans and curses
and stertorous breathing and whistling came from his gullet. One blow
fell on the beseeching child. She dropped on her face and moaned.

Christian grasped the man. With both hands he strangled him; with
tenfold strength he fought him down. He felt an unspeakable horror of
the flesh his fingers touched; in his horror it seemed to him that the
wretched room became a conical vault in the emptiness of which he and
this beast swayed to and fro. He smelt the whiskey fumes that rose
from the beast’s open gullet, and his horror assumed odour and savour
and burned his eyes. And as he struggled on--the claws of the man, who
despite his drunkenness had a bear’s strength, against his throat, that
belly against his, those knees close to his own--this moment seemed to
stretch and stretch to an hour, a month, a year, and fate seemed to
force him into a fatal hole. All nearness seemed to become closer and
turn into touch. Man, the world, the sky--all were upon him, close as
his own skin. And this became the meaning of it to him--deeper, deeper,
closer, closer into the horrible and menacing.

A thin, little voice sounded: “Please don’t hurt father! Please, please
don’t.” It was the voice of the little girl. She got up and approached
Christian and clung to his arm.

Stübbe, gasping for air, collapsed. Christian stood there, pale as
death. He smelt and felt that there was blood on him. People came in;
the noise had roused them from their beds. A woman took the little
children and sought to soothe them. One man kneeled by the murdered
woman; another went for water. There were some who cried out and were
excited; others looked on calmly. After a while a policeman appeared.
Stübbe lay in a corner and snored; the lamp still smoked and stank. A
second policeman drifted in, and took counsel with the first whether
Stübbe was to be left here till morning or removed at once.

Christian still stood there, pale as death. Suddenly every eye was
turned upon him. A dull silence fell on the room. One of the policemen
cleared his throat. The child looked up at him breathlessly. It had a
colourless, stern old face. Its unnaturally large, blue-rimmed eyes
were filled with the immeasurable misery of the life it had lived.
Christian’s look seemed to charm the child. The little figure seemed to
grow and twine itself about that look like a sapling, and to lose its
cold and suffering and sickness and fear.

Christian recognized the heroic soul of the little creature, its
innocence and guiltlessness and rich, undying heart.

“Come with me, I have a bed for you,” he said to the child, and led it
past the people and out of the room.

The little girl went with him willingly. In his room he touched her and
raised her up. He could hardly believe such delicate limbs and joints
capable of motion. So soon as she lay on his bed and was covered she
fell into deep slumber.

He sat beside her and gazed into the colourless, stern, old face.


XX

And again, while he sat there, a landscape seemed to be about him.

On either side of a marshy path bare trees were standing, and their
limbs protruded confusedly and crookedly into the air. The light was
dim, as though it were a very early autumn morning. Heavy clouds hung
down, mirroring their ragged masses in pools and puddles. Here and
there were structures of brick, all half finished. One had no roof and
another no windows. Everywhere were mortar-pits full of white mortar,
and tools lay on the ground--trowels and spirit-levels and shovels
and spades; also barrows and beams. No human being was in sight. The
loneliness was damp and mouldy and ugly, and seemed to be waiting for
man. All objects shared that tense and menacing mood of expectancy--the
thin light falling from the ragged clouds, the marshy fluid in the
ruts, the trees which were like dead, gigantic insects thrown on their
backs, the unfinished brick structures, the mortar-pits and tools.

The only living creature was a crow sitting by the roadside, and
observing Christian with a spiteful glance. Each time he approached
the bird, it fluttered silently up and settled down a little distance
ahead on a bare tree; and there it waited until he approached again.
In the round eyes that glimmered brown as polished beans, there was a
devilish jeering, and Christian grew tired of the pursuit. The moisture
penetrated his garments, the mud filled his shoes, which stuck in the
ooze at every step; the uncanny twilight obliterated all outlines,
and deceived him in regard to the distances of objects. Exhausted,
he leaned against a low tree-trunk, and waited in his turn. The
crow hopped and flew, now farther, now nearer; it seemed vexed at
his waiting and finally alighted on the roadside, and the polished
bean-like eyes lost their treacherous expression and were slowly
extinguished.

A prophetic shiver passed through space. The breath of the landscape
was Ruth’s name; it strained to proclaim her fate.

And Christian waited.


XXI

Niels Heinrich hesitated a few minutes before he entered the room.

It happened to be empty, so that he was alone for a little while. In
this short time he succeeded in getting possession of the string of
pearls.

When Niels Heinrich arrived, Christian was just about to accompany the
student Lamprecht for a walk. He desired to engage him as Michael’s
teacher, and he could not speak quite openly to him in the boy’s
presence. He was startled and found it difficult to control himself. To
leave at this moment seemed hazardous. Niels Heinrich, who was moody
and irresponsible, might not await his return, nor was it advisable to
leave him alone with Michael. On the other hand, Christian had waited
with electrically charged nerves for this important interview. He had
waited from day to day, and he desired to gather his inner forces
and subdue the excitement which Niels Heinrich’s silent entering had
caused him. That would take time, and his indecision and embarrassment
increased while he addressed Niels Heinrich courteously and asked
him to be seated. At that moment the door opened again, and Johanna
Schöntag came in. Christian received her eagerly, and in over-hasty
words begged her to stay with Michael until his return; then he would
go to the other flat with Herr Engelschall, with whom he had matters to
discuss. Johanna was surprised at his impetuousness, and also looked in
surprise at Niels Heinrich. Her expression showed very clearly that she
didn’t know who the man was, and so Christian was obliged to introduce
the two to each other. That seemed to him so absurd a proceeding that
he only murmured the names hesitantly. Niels Heinrich grinned; and when
Christian begged to be excused for a little while, he shrugged his
shoulders.

The echo of Christian’s and Lamprecht’s steps had hardly died away in
the courtyard when Johanna turned to Michael and said: “I was coming
in to ask you to go with me to the Memorial Church in Charlottenburg.
Cantatas of Bach will be sung. Do come; you have probably never heard
anything like it. This gentleman will be so kind as to tell Herr
Wahnschaffe where we have gone.” She looked at Niels Heinrich, but
lowered her eyes at once. He gave her a feeling of profound discomfort.
She had felt that discomfort the moment she had entered, and after
Christian had gone, it had become so violent that she had made her
proposal to Michael solely in order to avoid this hateful presence
at any cost. She had had a vague intention earlier of attending the
concert, but had dropped it again. The thought of taking the boy along
had occurred to her but now.

“Charlottenburg, Memorial Church--all right, I’ll tell him,” Niels
Heinrich said, and crossed his legs. He had been gazing at Michael
uninterruptedly, and his gaze had been growing more and more sombre.

Michael had been conscious of a feeling quite akin to Johanna’s, but
he endured bravely the yellow heat of those eyes. His fingers played
nervously with a piece of paper on the table; his mind was seeking a
hint, an image, a lost thread; he nodded at Johanna without looking at
her, and followed her silently when she touched his arm. She had taken
his hat and coat from the hook, and so they went.

Issuing from the house they saw Christian at the nearest corner,
standing with Lamprecht under a lantern. Hastily they walked in the
opposite direction.

Niels Heinrich got up. He lit a cigarette, and strode up and down with
clicking steps. He stopped in front of a chest of drawers and tried
each drawer. He did that mechanically, without curiosity and without
definite expectation. The chest had a little top made of small, carved
columns; this, too, contained a drawer. He pulled it open, and started
violently as though he had been stung. Before his eyes lay a heap of
enormous pearls.

Christian had almost forgotten them in the unlocked little drawer.
Several days after Karen’s death Botho von Thüngen had told him that
he was going to Frankfort. Members of his family were gathering there
and a conference was to be held. Christian thought of taking advantage
of this opportunity to send the pearls to his mother. A dreamy memory
of their high value made him hesitate to entrust them to the mails.
Thüngen had declared himself most willing to undertake the commission;
but he never went to Frankfort. His relatives cast him off mercilessly;
they were trying to get the courts to declare him irresponsible; their
hue and cry robbed him of all repose, of every home, of all work. He
was stripped of all means, and he had not been able to hold the woman
whom he had married. She had fallen into deeper degradation than that
from which he had sought to save her. In this utter distress of his,
Christian had become his sole refuge and support.

Thus, in his anxiety over his friend, Christian had scarcely thought of
the pearls for days. Though he had that faint memory of their value, no
authentic impulse bade him secure them more carefully than in that open
drawer, where Niels Heinrich’s furtive instinct had discovered them.

A long, slow, astonished whistle; a quivering of the emaciated cheeks;
a look of hunger and one of criminal determination. Then a hesitation,
as though even this marvellous treasure were of no import any more;
and then again a burning in his eyes. The pearls promised unheard-of
delights. And then again disgust: what for? He must fight out his
conflict with this man. Behind him was a ravenous pack: witnesses,
spies, hints, accomplices, and also the dog, the cellar, the blood, the
body, the head, the Little Maggot hanged by the cord of her petticoat.
And face to face with him was this man. We’ll see; we’ll measure our
strength.

He reflected for some moments; then he flung out both hands, and the
pearls were in his possession. There was a soft clinking, a gathering
up, a shoving, and they disappeared in his trousers pocket. The pocket
stuck out, but his coat hid the fact. If the man looked into the drawer
and raised an alarm, why, one could fling the stuff back at him.

When Christian returned, Niels Heinrich was sitting on a chair and
smoking.


XXII

“Forgive me,” said Christian. “It was an urgent appointment....” He
interrupted himself, as he observed that Niels Heinrich was in the room
alone.

“The young lady wants you to know that she took the boy and went to
Charlottenburg to go to church,” Niels Heinrich said.

Christian was amazed. He answered: “So much the better. That leaves us
undisturbed, and we can stay here.”

“That’s right. We’re undisturbed.” Next came a pause, and they looked
at each other. Christian went to the threshold of the little bedroom
to make sure that no one was within, then to the door that led to the
hall. He turned the key.

“Why do you lock the door?” Niels Heinrich asked, with raised brows.

“It is necessary,” said Christian, “because all the people who come to
see me are accustomed to finding the door open.”

“Then maybe you’d better blow out the lamp too,” Niels Heinrich jeered;
“that’d be the sensible thing to do, eh? Dark’s a good place for
secrets. And we’re going to fish for secrets, eh?”

Christian sat down on a chair at the opposite end of the table. He
purposely disregarded the other’s cynical remark; but his silence and
his tense expression aroused Niels Heinrich’s rage. Challengingly he
leaned back in his chair and spat elaborately on the floor. They sat
facing each other as though neither dared lose sight of the other for
a second. Yet Christian continued to show his obliging and friendly
attitude. Only a quivering of the muscles of his forehead and the
peering intensity of his gaze revealed something of what was passing
within him.

“Have you discovered anything new?” he finally asked, in his courteous
way.

Niels Heinrich lit another cigarette. “Aw, something,” he said, and
went on to tell that he had in the meantime discovered the woman who
had hidden the Jew boy. It had been Molly Gutkind, known as the Little
Maggot, and living at “Adele’s Rest.” He had followed the matter up and
got the girl to confess. But on that very day, as the devil would have
it, persons had come from the court and questioned her. The poor fool
had probably talked more than was good for her. Anyhow, she’d fallen
under suspicion and had been put in jail. There she’d evidently lost
what little brains she ever had and had hanged herself. She was dead
as a door-nail. That’s what he wanted to report, since the gentleman
seemed to be interested. Now the gentleman knew, and had an idea of
his, Niels Heinrich’s, willingness to oblige.

He blew clouds of smoke, and twirled his little beard with the fingers
of his left hand.

“I knew that,” said Christian. “I knew where Michael had been; he
confessed it himself. The girl’s death was reported to me this morning.
Nevertheless I thank you for the trouble you have taken.”

No trouble at all; didn’t amount to nothing. He was still at the
gentleman’s service. It seemed to him that the gentleman was given to
detective work. Maybe he meant to take it up professionally later.
Maybe the gentleman knew something more? He, Niels Heinrich, was quite
willing to be questioned. This was his expansive day. If there was
anything the gentleman wanted to know he was not to hesitate but fire
away.

He blinked and stared watchfully at Christian’s lips.

Christian reflected and lowered his eyes. “Since you’re so willing
to give information,” he answered softly, “tell me why you removed
the screw from the machine at Pohl and Pacheke’s works? You must
remember....”

Niels Heinrich’s mouth opened like a trap. The stark horror simply
caused his lower jaw to drop.

“You are surprised that I know of the incident,” Christian continued.
He did not want the other to think that he would try to make him pliant
by dealing in mysteries and surprises. “But it’s quite natural that I
should. The son of Gisevius is a foreman at Pohl and Pacheke’s. He told
me that you worked there for two days and that the accident happened on
one of them. He didn’t connect the two acts at all; he simply happened
to relate both to me. He had no suspicion; it was clear to no one
but myself that you must have done it. I can’t tell you the reason,
but I had an unmistakable vision of you fumbling at the machine and
loosening the screw. I was forced to think of it constantly and to see
it constantly. If I am wrong, you must forgive me.”

“Don’t understand....” The words came heavy with fear and in gasps from
Niels Heinrich’s lips. “Don’t understand that....”

“I had the feeling that the machine seemed to you a living and
organized being and therefore an enemy, and aroused in you a desire to
murder. Yes, quite clearly and irrefutably, I got the feeling of murder
from you. Am I mistaken?”

Niels Heinrich uttered no sound. He could not move. Roots seemed to
grow from the floor and entwine themselves about the chair on which he
sat, to creep about his legs, and hold him in an iron grip.

Christian arose. “All that is useless,” he said, taking a deep breath.

“What? What is useless?” Niels Heinrich murmured. “What? What then?”
The blood in his body grew chill.

His arms pressed to his side, his hands joining below, Christian stood
there, and whispered: “Speak! Tell me!”

What was he to speak of? What was he to tell? The neck of Niels
Heinrich was like an emptied tube, slack and quivering.

Their eyes met. Words died. The air roared.

Suddenly Christian blew out the lamp. The sudden darkness was like
the thud of an explosion. “You were right,” he said. “The light would
betray us to any passerby. Now we are quite secure, from any outside
thing, at all events. What happens here now concerns no one but
ourselves. You can do as you choose. You can draw your revolver as you
did the other day and fire. I am prepared for that. And since I shall
not move from where I sit, you cannot fail to hit me. But perhaps you
will wait until you have told me what is to be told and what I must
know.”

Silence.

“You murdered Ruth.”

Silence.

“It was you who lured her into that house and into that cellar, and
killed her there.”

Silence.

“And you made an accomplice of that poor simpleton, Joachim Heinzen,
and by a well-devised plan filled him so full of fear and anguish that
he deemed himself alone to be the murderer, and did not venture even to
utter your name. How did that come about?”

Silence.

“And how did it come about that Ruth found no mercy in your soul? Ruth!
Of all creatures! And that the knife ... that the knife in your hand
obeyed you ... and that thereafter you could go and speak and drink,
and decide on actions and go from one house to another. With that image
and with that deed within you? How is that possible?”

Silence.

Christian’s voice had nothing of its old coolness and reserve. It was
hoarse and passionate and naked. “What did you want of her? What was
your ultimate desire? Why did Ruth have to die? Why? What could she
give you by her death? What did you gain through murdering her?”

Suddenly Niels Heinrich’s voice uttered a scream and a roar: “Her
virginity, man!”

And now it was Christian’s turn to be silent.


XXIII

Neither could see the other in the darkness. The heavy shades at the
window created a blackness so impenetrable that not even the outlines
of things were visible. Neither could see the movements of the
other, but they had the sharpest awareness of each other, a horrible
and physical awareness, as though they were chained and imprisoned
together, forehead to forehead, breath to breath. They lacked no light,
for they needed none.

The darkness gave Niels Heinrich a sense of freedom. It gave him an
impulse of defiance and boastfulness and shameless self-revealment. It
was chaos, massive and terrible. He did not refuse its demand that he
should give an accounting of himself. It split and shattered his inward
being, and liberated speech. He dared not jeer; he dropped all defences.

The darkness was a maw that spewed forth his deed. He could himself
now hear what had happened. Many things seemed new to him as they were
uttered. The thought that yonder a man was listening and dragging
your vitals out as though you were a dead animal--there was a certain
strange stimulation in the thought. He would turn his mind inside out;
then at least that man would trouble him no more. There was time enough
later to take proper precautions.

As he was saying, then, it was her virginity. There wasn’t no use
denying that. Every one knew how a boy like him grew up, with what sort
of creatures. Sometimes they were one kind, sometimes another--red
or black, sentimental or jolly, a little better, a little lower, but
sluttish creatures all. Well, not exactly prostitutes, but mighty near
it; on the edge of it--elegant or dirty, fifteen or thirty, every one
had a rotten spot. And even if they hadn’t exactly the rotten spot
yet, they’d turn rotten under one’s very hands. And what you got, you
couldn’t have faith in, and once you had your claws in ’em, it was all
over. So that’s the way life went--Male on Monday and Lottie on Tuesday
and Trine on Wednesday; but the difference wasn’t as much as you could
put on the tip of a knife. Finally, of course, you got to be like an
animal that feeds on everything--wheat and tares, clover and thistles.
If it burns--all right; if it tastes good--all right.

Virgins? Sure, you met virgins too. But it was all shoddy and pawed
over and second-hand. They’d talk of not staying out late and being
afraid of the landlady, and of marrying and buying furniture; and
on the third Sunday you had ’em as well trained as poodle dogs. And
anyhow, you never knew who’d stirred your soup before you. It was all
doubtful, and you had no proper belief in it. Even if sometimes you met
a better sort, it wasn’t never the best. They’d be coy and kittenish,
and there was no naturalness and no honesty. First you had to lie to
’em and make ’em tame, and then when they got scared about being in
trouble, they chilled and disgusted you so, you’d like to kill them.

Sailors who had been on long voyages had told him that they got so
sick of the salt-meat and the pickled meat that when they landed and
happened to meet a lamb or a rabbit, they felt as if they could tear
the living animal limb from limb and devour the warm, fresh flesh.
That’s what could happen to a man with women; that’s what had happened
to him when he’d seen the Jewess. The sight of her had gone through and
through him. It had pierced him as a red-hot iron will slide through
ice. It had whirled him around; all his life he hadn’t had no such
sensation--as if the lightning had struck him or he’d been bewitched or
had drunk a gallon of alcohol. From that moment he had had a twitching
in his fingers as though velvet was passing over them; he had felt
a terrible avidity to touch something that moves and trembles and
is warm, an avidity for the terror of those eyes and her wonderful
struggles, as the depth of her soul made moan, and she wept and begged.
How she walked in her inviolateness and pride, as in a haze! One wanted
to lie down and have her step on one’s chest, and look up at her as at
a slender column. Jesus and all the Saints! That had done for him and
been the end of him! He knew he’d have to have her, if it cost him his
eternal weal, which nobody gives a damn for anyhow.

He knew from the start, of course, that a being like that wasn’t for
the like of him. She was like the sacrament that no one could touch
but the priest. He had known that; but there was more to it than that
from the start. From the start it had been a matter of life and death.
There’d been no doubt about that in him at any time: she’d have to die
for him--him! He had lain in wait for her, and she had fled like a
deer. It had made him laugh. “You’ll come into my net,” he had said,
and had fixed his eyes and thoughts on her day and night, so that she
didn’t know no more what to do. She had appeared to him in vision, yes,
appeared to him whenever he’d commanded her, and begged him to let her
off. And he’d told her that was impossible, that she must come to him,
that her body and blood must become his, and that he must make an end
of her. Unless he did, there wasn’t no peace on earth for him nor for
her either.

So he had thought out his plan. He had persuaded the besotted fool that
he was crazy about the Jewess and that she was gone on him too. That
had made him quite crazy and he hadn’t had an idea left in his skull,
and had been soft as mush and had taken every trick and swindle as
reality. So they had taken counsel and worked out their plan. They had
sent the Jewess a note and had hired out the wench who carried it right
afterward to an old acquaintance in Pankow. In the note they’d written
to the Jewess that some one wanted her on his bed of death and that his
salvation depended on her coming. Sure enough, she had come. The idiot
had led her into the cellar. It had been dark there. They had locked
the cellar door. Then he had persuaded the idiot to go behind the
partition and had given him a bottle of rum, and told him if he so much
as made a sound he might as well order his coffin, but if he’d wait,
the affair with the Jewess would be fixed up for him. Thereupon he
himself had returned to the cellar, and there the Jewess had stood....

He interrupted himself, and felt how the whole being of his invisible
neighbour had become a breathless listening, a rapt absorption of every
syllable he spoke. It gave him but a scant satisfaction, yet it urged
him on. And as he burrowed in his mind and represented what he found
there, the events assumed an unnatural size and seemed steeped in an
atmosphere fiery-red and violet. He did not so much speak of them as
let them speak to him, and thus build themselves up in a guise in which
he had never yet seen them. And as he continued, his voice changed. It
took on a sharper edge and became hollower, and betrayed for the first
time a stirring within, a wildly gathering primordial pain.

She had stood there, he went on, and that had removed his last doubt.

“How?” Christian’s voice came, scarcely audible, out of the blackness.
“How?”

He said he couldn’t describe it. She had looked about with a proud
astonishment and yet a twitching of fear about her mouth. She had
asked where the person was who had sent for her. On the moon, he had
answered. Then what was wanted of her? Why was the iron door locked?
Good reasons! Couldn’t she be told the reasons? What a voice she had
had, like a little silver bell ringing in her throat. The ear drank it
in like a wonderful liquor. There weren’t many reasons, he had said;
there was just one. She didn’t understand. He’d try to make it plain.
She had said she couldn’t think. Then he had taken her by the arm and
put his arm about her shoulder and her neck. She had cried out and
begun to tremble, run into a corner, and put out her hands to guard
herself. The candle-light had fallen straight into her face, which had
been like a white rose in the light of a flame. He had rushed toward
her, and she had taken refuge behind the table. She had cried for
mercy. He had laughed, laughed, utterly beside himself at the little
silver bell in her throat. What a woman! God, what a woman! A child
still, pure in every fibre, and a woman. It pierced him; it went into
his marrow. A man couldn’t let such a woman escape him if his next hour
were to be spent in hell-fire.

He had soothed her a bit and made pretty speeches and said she should
listen to him. She had been willing, and he had spoken. The table with
the candle had been between them--he in front of it, she behind it
against the wall. He had said there was a terrible necessity; no way
out--not for her and not for him. He was like one damned, and she must
redeem him. He was panting for her and withering away for her--for
her body and soul, blood and breath, and it had been predetermined
thus since the world began. He must be close to her and within her, or
the whole world would go mad and life burst with poison. He must have
her, whether she was willing or not, through kindness or force. God
couldn’t help her. There was a law that compelled them both, and the
hour had come. She might better yield herself, and give him the heaven
he was bound to have.

Thereupon she had whispered with a rigid expression: “No, never,
nevermore.”

He had gazed at her a long time.

From time to time, with a moist glance upward, she had whispered: “No,
never, nevermore.”

He had warned her to put away all hope. If she resisted, it would only
be the more fearful. And he had laid the knife on the table.

Christian moaned in his supreme pain as he heard this.

Niels Heinrich continued with his fatalistic outer calm. Ruth had tried
to make him relent. He would never forget her words, but he could not
repeat them. She had spoken feverishly, with glowing eyes, her hair
falling over her cheeks; she had lifted her hands in beseeching and
leaned across the table, and in her sweet, bell-like voice had spoken
of people who needed her, of work and duty, of difficult tasks ahead,
and also of the pleasant things in the world. And she had asked him
whether nothing in the world was pleasant to him, whether his own life
meant nothing to him at all, and he was willing to take up the burden
of this crime before man and God. This is what she had said, only her
words had been finer and firmer and exacter. At that a rancorous rage
had flamed up in his brain, and he had roared at her to stop her crazy
jabbering, damned Jewess that she was, and listen to him, listen to
what he had to say in reply.

In silence and with a drawn expression, she had listened. Crime, he had
said, crime and such talk--there wasn’t no sense in that; he didn’t
know what it meant. It had all been thought out by the people who pay
the soldiers and the courts to do their bidding, but who, if it served
their purposes, committed the same crimes in the name of the State or
the Church or Progress or Liberty. If a man was strong enough and
cunning enough, he didn’t give a damn for all their laws. Laws were for
fools and cowards. If the individual has got to submit to force, he’s
got the right to use force too. If he was willing to risk the vengeance
and punishment of society, he had a right to satisfy his desires. The
only question was whether he was willing to take up the burden of
crime, and couldn’t be made to stop by the hocus-pocus invented by
teachers and parsons. If he, Niels Heinrich, could work his will, there
wouldn’t be one stone left standing on another, all rules would be
wiped out, all order destroyed, all cities blown up sky-high, all wells
choked, all bridges broken, all books burned, all roads torn up, and
destruction would be preached, and war--war of each against all, all
against each, all against all. Mankind wasn’t worthy of nothing better.

He could truthfully say that because he had studied people and had
seen through them. He had seen nothing but liars and thieves, wretched
fools, misers, and the meanly ambitious. He had seen the dogs cringe
and creep when they wanted to rise, cringe before those above, snap
at those below. He knew the rich with their full bellies and their
rotten phrases, and the poor with their contemptible patience. He knew
the bribe-takers and the stiff-necked ones, the braggarts and the
slinkers, the thieves and forgers, ladies’ men and cowards, the harlots
and their procurers, the respectable women with their hypocrisy and
envy, their pretence and masquerade and play-acting; he knew it all,
and it couldn’t impress him no more. And there were no real things in
the world except stench and misery and avarice and greed and treachery
and malevolence and lust. The world was a loathsome thing and had to
be destroyed. And any one who had come to see that, must take the
last step, the very last, to the place where despair and contempt are
self-throttled, where you could go no further, where you heard the
Angel of the Last Day beating at the dull walls of the flesh, whither
neither the light penetrated nor the darkness, but where one was alone
with one’s rage and could feel oneself utterly, and heighten that self
and take something sacred and smash it into bits. That was it, that! To
take something holy, something pure, and become master of it and grind
it to the earth and stamp it out.

Christian had never heard anything more dreadful. He gazed into a
broken universe. Even in its pale representation, the fury of hatred
burst forth like seething lava, and turned the blossoms of the earth to
ashes. Horror had reached its supreme point. The fate of the immemorial
race of man was sealed. And yet--the fact that this man had come
hither, had had the impulse to reveal himself, that he sat there in the
darkness and writhed and spoke of monstrous things and plunged into the
great deeps that he had opened--in this very fact Christian perceived a
shimmer of most mysterious hope, and a first faint ray of dawn upon a
hitherto unknown, uncertain path.

Niels Heinrich continued. Slowly the Jewess had understood and looked
at him with her great child’s eyes. She had put a question to him,
but he couldn’t remember what it was. Then she had said that she saw
there was no hope for her, and that it was her fate to be his victim.
He had answered that her insight did credit to her understanding. Then
she asked whether he knew that he was destroying himself; and he had
said that he believed in no expiation, and the rest was his business.
Anyhow, there had been enough talk; time was pressing, and the end
must come. She had asked what she should do, and this question had
confounded him, and he had had no answer to it. She had repeated the
question, and he had said that the candle was burning down. Then she
had asked him whether he could give her the assurance of death. Yes, he
could give her that. Wouldn’t he let her die before he attacked her?
No. She had grasped the knife, but he had wrung it from her. The touch
of her hand had driven him utterly mad. The walls seemed to crunch
and the house to thunder. She had begged him to let her die by her own
will. He could not do that, he had answered; he must get to her living
heart or there was no help for him.

She begged him to grant her a little quarter of an hour; then she would
be ready to die. To this he had consented, and gone out and looked
after the idiot, who had lain there helpless and drunk as a swine. That
had pleased him; now he could put the fellow to what uses he would.
This had been proved later when he had dragged him into the cellar; and
the swine still thought he could be gotten out of jail if only to the
last gasp he didn’t mention the name of Niels Heinrich.

When he had returned to the Jewess, he had found her leaning against
the wall with closed eyes. Her face had been very pale, but she had
smiled from time to time. He had asked her why she was smiling and
she had not answered, but looked at him most strangely, as though she
were trying to remember something. He had gone to her behind the table
and she had not stirred, and so he had grasped her shoulders. She had
lifted her hands, and then he had seen that, while he was outside,
she had severed the veins of both her wrists, and the thick blood was
dripping down. She must have done it with a shard of glass that stuck
between the bricks of the wall. He had been swept into a storm of
madness, as though some one were upon him to rob him of her, and he had
caught her by the hair and hurled her on the floor.

And she had uttered one cry, one single, long cry. That cry he still
heard, always ... always....

She had become his. He felt no remorse; he would feel none. But that
cry--he heard it always and forever.

Silence came upon him. The stillness in that dark chamber was so great
that it seemed to gather in the corners and threaten to burst the walls
asunder.


XXIV

More than half an hour had passed in this complete stillness when
Christian arose to light the lamp. The base and the chimney tinkled
in his trembling hands. He feared the very functioning of his
senses--sight, hearing, smell. Every perception was like a wound in
consciousness and dripped like poison into the core of life. Slowly the
turbid outlines reformed an image of reality.

Both from within and from without everything drove and pressed toward a
decision.

Convulsively bent over, leaning back in the chair, he saw that man
whose face had no colour for which there is a name. The eyes were
closed, the mouth half-open. The decayed teeth and the limp droop of
the beard gave him an expression of bestiality. The sharp-fingered
hands with the blue, swollen veins stirred like reptiles. The forehead
was covered all over with sweat. Like drops from the cover of an
overheated vessel filled with liquid, thus the sweat oozed out and
stood in thick beads on that forehead.

His aspect was so frightful that Christian took his handkerchief, and
with a careful gesture wiped that forehead and those temples. And as he
did so he felt his own brow become moist. He hesitated to use the same
cloth for himself. But at that moment Niels Heinrich opened his eyes
and looked at him--sombre, deep, cold. He conquered his aversion, and
wiped his own brow with the same cloth.

There came a knocking at the door. Niels Heinrich started as though a
heavy blow had struck him, and stared wildly with pale and empty eyes.

Christian opened the door. It was Michael and Johanna who were
returning.

Reeling, Niels Heinrich sought his cap with his eyes. Christian gave it
to him with all his impenetrable courtesy of demeanour, and prepared
himself to accompany Niels Heinrich. The latter had an expression of
dullness and of being utterly puzzled. Then he pulled up his shoulders
and, followed by Christian, walked first falteringly, then with
increasing firmness, toward the threshold.


XXV

The interview with Wolfgang Wahnschaffe made a thoroughly unpleasant
impression on Lorm. He had the vexatious feeling that this well-bred
young gentleman harboured the very naïve opinion that in the presence
of a mere actor he could exhibit his complete ruthlessness and brutal
self-seeking. Because what did an actor matter? One need take no
trouble and could magnificently show one’s cards.

On that very evening Lorm felt the approaching symptoms of serious
illness. He was laconic; what he said was brief and sharp.

It was proposed to him to take part in a conspiracy. The plan was to
imprison Christian in a sanatorium by the unanimous decision of the
family.

“I can quite imagine what you mean by a sanatorium,” said Lorm, “but
what do you gain by it?”

“A clear road,” was the answer, “the immediate setting aside of his
troublesome rights and claims as the firstborn. The shame and disgrace
that he spreads pass all belief.”

He explained that certain individuals, including physicians, were
willing to serve as witnesses and to co-operate. Yet actual internment
was an extreme measure. If it should fail or the parental consent to
carry it out should be unobtainable, there was another plan which was
being prepared with equal care. The ground would be dug away from under
his feet; he must be brought to leave the city and, preferably, the
country. It was possible to have Christian boycotted at the university,
though he rarely appeared there now. Another promising plan was to
prejudice against him the people of the quarter where he lived; a
beginning in that direction had already been made. But there wasn’t
much time; the evil was infectious, and the shameful rumours grew
more troublesome daily. It would not do to wait until the murder case
with its fatal publicity came to trial; he must be made to disappear
before that. There would be good prospects in Judith going to him in a
friendly way and persuading him with sisterly kindness to disappear and
not compel his relatives to use the force which the law would readily
place in their hands. If Judith failed and he refused, everything must
be done to send their father on the same errand. He had written to his
father; if no decisive measures were taken within a week, he would
telegraph. Furthermore, friends had gone to the Privy Councillor to
plead for swift action.

There Wolfgang sat, pale with rage, balked in his mean worldliness.

“So far as Judith is concerned, she’s unapproachable in the matter,”
Lorm said coldly. “I’ll speak to her once more, but I fear it will
be useless. I myself would consider it desirable for her to go to
Christian, though my reasons are not yours; but Judith cannot be
persuaded. The fate of others, even of her own brother, are mere
phantoms to her. A year ago she was still capable of refusing
passionately any participation in such a plan; to-day she has probably
simply forgotten Christian. She plays and dreams her life away. I am
sorry that I do not know Christian myself. But people have come to seek
me out for so many years that I have lost the impulse and ability to go
to them. I must resign myself to that, though it is an evil, no doubt.”

Wolfgang was surprised at these words and grew quite icy. He asked Lorm
whether Judith would receive him, Wolfgang, pleasantly. Lorm thought
that she would. Therewith the interview came to an end. They shook
hands with conventional indifference.

Lorm did not dare tell Judith of his meeting with Wolfgang. He was
afraid of her questions, of her feeling his sympathy with Christian,
of clouding the puppet-show of her life. Yet she was gradually draining
all the light out of his own existence. Her niggardliness in the
household became so extreme that the servants complained of hunger. The
baker and the butcher could obtain settlement of their bills only when
they threatened to bring suit. Judith intercepted the dunning letters
they addressed to Lorm. She sorted the mail every morning. He knew it;
one of the maids, whom she had discharged after an ugly quarrel, had
flung the information at him. He did not reproach Judith. She began
to cut down the expenses for his personal needs too, and he had to
eke out his diet in restaurants and wine-rooms. But the sums that she
wasted for frocks, coats, hats, and antiquities increased to the point
of madness. She bought old cases and chests which she promptly sent
to the attic; Chinese vases, Renaissance embroideries, ivory boxes,
cut-glass goblets, candelabra of chased metal work. Her purchases were
without discrimination, and served only the whim of the moment. The
things stood or lay about as in a shop; they served neither use nor
adornment. Now and then she had a generous impulse, and presented some
object to one of the women who flattered her and whose society had
therefore become indispensable to her. Afterwards she would regret her
generosity, and abuse its recipient as though a trick had been played
on her. In spite of the great number of things about her, she would
observe the absence or displacement of any object at once, accuse
every one who had entered the room of theft, and know no rest until
the lost thing had been found. In her dressing-room there hung dozens
of garments and hats and shawls that had never touched her body except
when she had tried them on on the day of their purchase. It satisfied
her to possess them. They might go out of fashion or be full of moths;
to possess them was enough.

Lorm knew this, but he bore her no resentment. He made no objection;
he let her do as she desired. He did not or would not see the obvious
consequences of his boundless acquiescence--her degeneration and
degradation and heartlessness. She was to him still the woman who had
sacrificed everything in order to enter his lonely and joyless life.
He had condemned his achingly modest soul to permanent gratitude, and
had no conviction of any right of protest. He who had thrust so many
from him, and had been cold toward so many, and had contemned so much
genuine and active love, whose gentlest gesture had not only commanded
but entranced thousands of watchers and listeners, this same man
endured humiliation and neglect as though to expiate his sins, and was
silent and steadfast in undeviating fidelity.

During this period his colleagues in the theatre trembled at his
outbursts of irritability; even Emanuel Herbst’s philosophical calm had
little power over him. He went to fill engagements in Breslau, Leipzig,
and Stuttgart. He impressed people more profoundly than any actor had
done for decades. One felt in him the turning-point of an epoch and
the ultimate perfect moment of an artist. The public, wrought upon by
his spirit to the height of rare perceptions, had a presentiment of
the finality of his appearances, and was shaken in the passion of its
applause as by the tragic, scarlet glow of a sunset that betokens doom.

He returned home, and took to his bed. After a thorough examination
his physician’s face grew serious. He demanded a trained nurse. Judith
was at a concert; the housekeeper promised to report to her mistress.
When Judith returned, she sat down at his bedside. She was astonished
and pouted a little, and talked to Lorm as though he were a parrot who
refuses to chatter his accustomed words. It was the housekeeper who
received the trained nurse.

“Well, Puggie dear,” Judith said next morning, “aren’t you well yet?
Shall I have them cook you a little soup? I suppose the Suabians gave
you too many goodies?”

“Puggie” smiled, reached for his wife’s hand, and kissed it.

Judith withdrew her hand in terror. “Oh, you wicked boy,” she cried,
“you mustn’t do that! Do you want to infect your sweetheart? Think of
it! Puggie mustn’t do that till we know what ails him and that it isn’t
dangerous. Understand that?”

Letitia had announced her visit for that afternoon. She came,
accompanied by Crammon. Judith’s cordial reception was largely the
result of consuming curiosity. The two women, who had not seen each
other since their girlhood, regarded each other. Where have you been
stranded? And you? Thus their eyes asked, while their lips flowed with
flattery. Crammon seemed to curdle of his own sourness.

Fifteen minutes later the maid appeared and announced that Count
Rochlitz’s chauffeur was at the door. The count was waiting in the car.
“Ask him to come up,” Letitia commanded. “You don’t mind, do you?” She
turned to Judith. “An old friend of mine.”

The count obeyed and came up. He was charming and told racing anecdotes.

At the end of another fifteen minutes came the Countess Brainitz with
Ottomar and Reinhold. It had been agreed that they were to call for
Letitia. They all filled Judith’s drawing-room, and there was a hubbub
of talk.

Crammon said to Ottomar, whom his condescension at times permitted
to learn his opinions and feelings: “Once when I was in Tunis I was
awakened by violent voices in the morning. I thought the native
population had risen in revolt and rushed from my bed. But there were
only two elderly, dark-brown ladies carrying on a friendly conversation
under my window. It is characteristic of women to produce a maximum of
din with a minimum of motive. They are constantly saving the Capitol.
I am inclined to believe that the Romans, a nation of braggarts and
sabre-rattlers, infused a rather ungallant implication into the
pleasant fable of the geese. Usually their judgment of female nature
was blithely sophomoric. As proof I adduce the story of Tarquin and
Lucretia. Monstrous nonsense, penny-dreadful stuff! In my parental
house we had a calendar on which the story was related in verse and
bodied forth in pictures. This cataract of chastity gave me an utterly
perverse notion of certain fundamental facts of human nature. It took
years to penetrate the character of the deception.”

Ottomar said: “I grant you what you say of all women except of Letitia.
Observe how she moves, how she carries her head. She is an exquisite
exception. Her presence makes every occasion festive; she is the symbol
of lovely moments. She will never age, and all her actions are actions
in a dream. They have no consequences, they have no objective reality,
and she expects them to have neither.”

“Very deep and very finely observed,” said Crammon, with a sigh. “But
heaven guard you from trying to establish a practical household with
such a fairy creature.”

“One shouldn’t, one mustn’t,” the young man replied, with conviction.

Crammon arose, and went over to Judith. “Isn’t Edgar at home, Frau
Lorm?” he asked. “Can one get to him? We have not seen each other for
long.”

“Edgar is ill,” Judith answered, with a frown, as though she had reason
to feel affronted by the fact.

A silence fell on the room. All felt a sense of discomfort. And Crammon
saw, as in a new and sudden vision, Judith’s projecting cheek-bones,
her skin injured by cosmetics, her morbidly compressed mouth with its
lines of bitterness, her fluttering glance, and her restless hands.
There was something of decay in her and about her, something that
came of over-intensity and the fever of gambling, of a slackening and
rotting of tissues. Her cheerfulness arose from rancour, her vivacity
was that of a marionette with creaking joints.

Letitia had forgotten to mention Christian. Not until they reached the
street did she recall the purpose of her visit. She reproached Crammon
for not having reminded her. “It doesn’t matter,” Crammon said. “I’m
going back to-morrow and you can come with me. I want to see Lorm. I
have a presentiment of evil; misfortune is brewing.”

“O Bernard,” Letitia said, plaintively, “you croak enough to make the
sun lose its brightness and roses their fragrance.”

“No. Only I happen to know that a change is coming over the face of the
earth; and you poor, lost souls do not see it,” answered Crammon, with
forefinger admonishingly raised.

And he departed and went to Borchardt, where he intended to dine
exquisitely. Each time he dined there, he called it the murderer’s last
meal.


XXVI

When Michael left the church at Johanna’s side he felt profoundly
stirred by the experience of the past hour.

They rode as far as Schönhauser Avenue, and from there on they went on
foot. The flurries of snow and the drifts on the ground made walking
doubly difficult for the limping boy.

During their long ride he had been silent, although his face showed
the pathetic eagerness of his thoughts and feelings. He had but
recently learned to express himself; formerly he had had to choke
everything down. And since he had learned to speak out he seized every
opportunity. His words were fresh, and his gestures expressive and
extreme. His tone belied his youth. With shrill accents he deadened
attacks of timidity. Afraid of not being taken as seriously as seemed
to befit him and his confusions and insights and experiences, he would
often defend daring assertions stubbornly, while his own conviction
of their truth was already wavering. On the way out he had repeatedly
begun to talk of Christian. His soul was filled by Christian. His
worship, half timid, half full of wild enthusiasm, expressed itself in
various ways. His mind had lacked an ideal and the spiritual centres
and intoxications of youth; now he gave himself up to these the more
gladly. Yet, in conformity to his brooding nature, he tricked out
Christian’s simpleness in various mysteries and problems, and on this
point Johanna could not set him right. She evaded his remarks. The boy
seemed to her too impetuous, too absolute, too eager. He affronted
the modesty of her feelings; he was too fond of rending veils. Yet he
fascinated her, and kept her in a state of restlessness and gentle
pain; and she needed both. She could fancy that she was protecting him,
and through this duty she was better protected against herself.

He said it hadn’t been the music that had overwhelmed him. Music of
that kind was an expression through difficult forms, and one should
not, it seemed to him, let pleasure in the sounds deceive one in regard
to one’s ignorance. One must know and learn.

“What was it then? What did impress you?” Johanna asked. But her
question showed only a superficial curiosity. The way and the day had
wearied her beyond the desire of speech.

“It was the church,” said Michael. “It was the song in praise of
Christ. It was the devout multitude.” He stopped, and his head fell. In
his childhood and until quite recently, he told her in his hoarse and
slightly broken boyish voice, he had not been able to think of Jesus
Christ without hatred. A religiously brought up Jewish child out in the
country, who had suffered the jeers and abuse of Gentiles, felt that
hatred in his very bones. To such a child Christ was the enemy who had
deserted and traduced his people, the renegade and source of all that
people’s suffering. “I remember how I used to slink past all churches,”
Michael said; “I remember with what fear and rage. Ruth never felt so.
Ruth had no sense for the reality of bitter things; to her everything
was sweet and clear. She left the vulgar far below her. It ate into me,
and I had no one to talk to.”

But one evening, a few days before her disappearance, Ruth without his
asking her and without any preliminary speech, but simply as though she
wanted to get closer to him and release him from his oppressed state,
had read him a passage from the Gospel of the Christians. It was the
passage in which the risen Lord asks Peter: “Lovest than me more than
these? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee. He
said unto him, Feed my lambs. He saith to him again the second time,
Simon, lovest thou me? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord; thou knowest that
I love thee. He saith unto him, Feed my sheep. He saith unto him the
third time, Lovest thou me? Peter was grieved that he said unto him the
third time, Lovest thou me? And he said unto him, Lord, thou knowest
all things; thou knowest that I love thee. Jesus saith unto him, Feed
my sheep.” And later on he said: “Follow me.”

He told how he had torn the book from his sister’s hand and had turned
its pages and had not desired to be led astray by it. But one sentence
had held his attention, and he had dwelt upon it. It was this: “And
he needed not to have knowledge of a man, for he knew what was in
man.” At that the hatred of Christ had vanished from his soul. Yet
he had not been able to believe in him or to turn to him. He didn’t
mean in the way of piety and prayer; he meant the idea which gave men
assurance and help to their minds. He had grasped that to-day, during
the soaring song, and as he watched the thousand eyes that seemed first
extinguished and then lit by a solemn flame. “Lovest thou me, Simon?”
He had grasped that utterly, and also the saying: “Follow me.” And
his consciousness of being a Jew and having been cast out had been
transformed from pain and shame into wealth and pride through the
assurance of a certain service and a peculiar power. “It was wonderful,
wonderful,” he assured her. “I don’t quite understand it yet. I am like
a lamp that has been lit.”

Johanna was frightened at the outburst of a passion so strange and
incomprehensible to her.

“Feed my sheep,” Michael almost sang the words out into the snow. “Feed
my sheep.”

“It is an awakening,” Johanna thought, with faint horror and envy. “He
has been awakened.”

The boy’s impassioned attachment to Christian became ever clearer to
her. When they waited at the locked door in Stolpische Street and
Christian came out with Niels Heinrich and passed the two without
noticing them, without glance or greeting, and went off with that
shaking, shuffling, distorted creature, Michael limped behind him for
a few paces, stared into the dark yard filled with the whirl of snow,
and then returned to Johanna and said beseechingly: “He mustn’t go with
that man. Do run after him and call him back. He mustn’t, for God’s
sake, go with him.”

Johanna, although she was herself perturbed, soothed the overwrought
boy. She remained for half an hour, forced herself to a natural
cheerfulness, chatted pleasantly as she made tea and laid the cloth for
a cold supper. Then she went home. At eight o’clock the next morning
Michael rang the bell at her dwelling. She had scarcely finished
dressing. She met him in the hall. He was pale, sleepless, struggling
for words. “Wahnschaffe hasn’t come home yet,” he murmured. “What shall
we do?”

Fighting down her first consternation, Johanna smiled. She took
Michael’s hand and said: “Don’t be afraid. Nothing will happen to him.”

“Are you so sure of that?”

“Quite sure!”

“Why are you?”

“I don’t know. But it would never occur to me to be afraid for him.
That would be a sheer waste of emotional energy.”

Her calm and assurance impressed Michael; yet he asked her to come
with him and stay with him if she could. After a moment’s reflection
she consented. On the way back they entered a bookshop and bought the
volumes that Lamprecht had suggested. Christian had given Michael money
for the purchase. He wanted to begin his studies alone and at once,
but he could not collect his thoughts. He sat at the table, turned the
leaves of books, arranged paper, lifted his head and listened, pressed
his hands together or jumped up and walked to and fro in the room,
looked out into the yard, gazed searchingly at Johanna, who was working
at a piece of embroidery and sat shivering and worn in a corner of the
sofa, gnawing at her lip with her small white teeth.

Thus that day passed and another night, and yet Christian did not
return. The impatience and anxiety of the boy became unrestrainable.
“We must bestir ourselves,” he said. “It is stupid to sit here and
wait.” Johanna, who was also beginning to grow anxious, prepared to go
either to Botho von Thüngen or to Dr. Voltolini. While she was putting
on her hat Lamprecht came in. When he had been told of the situation he
said: “You’re doing Wahnschaffe no favour by raising an alarm. If he
doesn’t come, it is for reasons of his own. Your fear is childish and
unworthy of him. We’d better start at something useful, my boy.”

His firmer intellect shared in an even higher degree Johanna’s
instinctive assurance. Michael submitted once more, and for two hours
he was an obedient pupil. Toward noon, when Johanna and Lamprecht had
left, a teamster presented himself with an unpaid bill. He said he
hadn’t received payment yet for the horses furnished for the funeral
of the late Fräulein Engelschall. Michael assured the man that he
would receive his money on the morrow, since Wahnschaffe had of course
merely forgotten the matter. The man grumbled and went out; but in
the yard he was joined by several other people, and Michael heard
the sound of hostile talk and of Christian’s name. He went into the
hall and to the outer door. The venomous words and references in the
vilest jargon drove the blood into his cheeks. He felt at once that
the feeling against Christian had been deliberately instigated by some
one. A red-haired fellow, a painter who lived on the fourth floor,
was especially scurrilous. He called the attention of the others to
Michael; a coarse remark was made; the crowd roared. When the courage
of his indignation drove Michael out into the yard, he was met by
menacing glances.

“What have you to say against Wahnschaffe?” he asked in a loud voice,
yet with an instinctive shrinking of his body.

Again they roared. Laughing, the red-haired fellow turned up his
sleeves. A woman at a window above reached into the room and poured a
pailful of dirty water into the yard. The water spattered Michael, and
there was thunderous laughter. The teamster Scholz put his hands to
his hips, and discoursed of idlers who set fleas into the ears of the
working-people with dam’ fool talk and hypocrisy. And suddenly other
words hissed into Michael’s face: “Get out o’ here, Jew!” He became
pale, and touched the wall behind him with his hands.

At that moment Botho von Thüngen and Johanna came in through the
doorway. They stopped and silently regarded the group of people in
the snow and also Michael. They understood. Johanna drew Michael into
the house. He gave a breathless report; he was so ardent, so nobly
indignant, that his features took on a kind of beauty.

After a while someone knocked at the door, and Amadeus Voss entered.
His courtesy was exaggerated, but he seemed in no wise astonished to
find Johanna here, nor did it seem to annoy him. He said he wanted to
talk to Christian Wahnschaffe. Thüngen replied that no one knew when
Christian would return or whether he would return on that day at all.

Voss said drily that he had time and could wait.

Johanna felt paralysed. She could not will to go away. All she wanted
to avoid was any demonstration, any scene. Like an animal that slinks
to a hiding-place, she cowered in the corner of the sofa, and gnawed
her lip with her little teeth.

Suddenly the thought flashed into her mind--“death, death, that’s the
only thing.”


XXVII

The festivities were over; the guests had departed; Eva and Susan
remained alone in the castle.

The fullness of spring had come thus early to that southern coast.
The festivals had been festivals of spring amid a tropical wealth of
flowers and in that heroic landscape. The flight from the winter of the
North had been so swift that no dignity could withstand its effects. It
had intoxicated every soul. They had given themselves up to the mere
delight of breathing, to the astonishment of the senses. Some had felt
like carousers and gluttons merely, others like liberated prisoners,
and all had been conscious of the brevity of their respite; and this
consciousness breathed a breath of melancholy over all delight.

The atmosphere still echoed the thrill of impassioned words and the
tread and laughter of women; the sounds had not yet quite died away,
and in the night the darkness of the silent park still yearned for the
glow of lights which the stars above could not cause it to forget.

But they were all gone.

The Grand Duke had accepted the invitation of an Austrian Archduke
to shoot on his estates. In April Eva was to meet him in Vienna and
accompany him to Florence. She had asked none of her friends to stay
longer, no woman, no artist, and no paladin. It had become a very
hunger of her soul to be alone once more. She had not been alone for
four years.

She felt even Susan to be in the way. When the woman crept about her
in foolish anxiety, she sent her out of the room. She desired not to
be addressed nor to be beheld; she wanted to escape into a crystalline
structure of loneliness. She had built it, and wanted the full
experience of it; and suddenly she became aware of the fact that it
estranged her from herself. Something had happened to make the blood of
her heart cool and sick.

She could not read nor write letters nor consider plans. No hour seemed
to grow out of another living hour. All day she walked alone by the
sea or sat amid flowers in the garden. The greater part of the night
she lay on an open terrace, in front of which the sky hung down like a
curtain of dark-blue velvet. Often the dawn had arisen before she went
to bed. She had a sensation within herself as of loosened organization
and rhythms dissolved. At times she felt a sting of dread. Noon glowed
on her like steel; evening was a gate into the unknown.

She had forbidden all messages. Letters that laid claim to any urgency
were answered by Susan or Monsieur Labourdemont. Yet casting a chance
and inattentive look at the letter of a friend she saw something about
Ivan Becker. What she read took possession of her mind. It was like a
presage and a touch of danger. When she lay at night on her terrace,
there was a pallid flashing behind the azure curtain of the sky, and
the silence breathed treachery.

At the head of fifteen thousand workingmen, all loyal to the Tsar, Ivan
Becker had appeared in front of the Winter Palace, in order to effect a
direct explanation and reconciliation between the Tsar and his people.
Regiments of Cossacks had surrounded the peaceful demonstration, and
it had ended in a shambles. Again the people had gathered, and Ivan
Becker on a tribunal had stretched out his arms to heaven and cursed
the Tsar. He was a fugitive in the land, hiding in monasteries and
in peasants’ huts. Next the mutineers of the “Panteleymon” and the
“Potemkin” sent him a message, bidding him join them. The crews of the
two dreadnoughts had refused obedience to their officers in the harbour
of Sebastopol. They had murdered their captains and other officers,
and cast their bodies into the sea or into the ships’ fires. They had
taken possession of the ships, elected their own officers, and had
steamed out to sea. It was not known whether Ivan Becker had followed
the summons of the mutineers; all trace of him had been lost. But many
people asserted with assurance that he had sought security from the
pursuit of the political police on board of the rebellious ships, and
had acquired a remarkable influence over the savage seamen.

It was his third appearance in the midst of revolt and blood.

Rumours were brought and spread by gardeners, fishermen, and peasants.
It was said that the mutineers had turned pirates, that they captured
merchantmen and bombarded cities. During many nights rockets flared
up in the sky, and the thunder of artillery was heard. Wherever they
needed not to fear the attack of superior forces, it was said, they
landed and looted towns and villages, killed all who resisted, and
filled the province far inland with terror.

Eva was warned. She was warned by the elder of a village that lay
on the confines of her park; she was warned by messengers sent by
the naval commander at Nicolayev, who informed her that the mutinous
sailors planned to attack all imperial estates in the Crimea,
especially those of the Grand Duke; she was finally warned by an
anonymous telegram from Moscow.

She did not heed these warnings. She had a feeling that she should
not and must not fear this thing of all others--not this menace of
degradation and ugliness. So she remained; but her stay was one long
waiting. A conviction of a thing ineluctable had come over her. It
proceeded not from the mutineers or their reign of crime, but from her
own mind and from the profound logic of things.

One evening she mounted the golden stairs to the tower. Gazing from
the platform across the dark tree-tops and over land and sea, she saw
along the northern horizon a seam of scarlet. Wrapped in a filmy veil,
she thoughtfully watched the spreading of that glow without anxiety or
curiosity as to its cause. She had a penetrant feeling of the presence
of fate, and bowed to it in fatalistic resignation.

Susan was waiting in the room with the Arabic frescoes. Walking up and
down with the stride of a dervish, she fought against her darkening
fears. The flame was burning low. How was it with Lucas Anselmo? Her
deep awareness of him, her sense of living for him, had not grown
feebler during these years of radiance and fulfilment. The dancer who
was his work, into whom he had breathed the breath of life and art, had
been to her, now as before, the assurance of his being and the message
of his soul. And what was happening now? Darkness was creeping on; the
shadow-creature of his making drooped in its lovely motions. Was the
hand that had formed and commanded it stricken and cold? Had that lofty
spirit grown weary, and lost the strength to project itself afar? Had
the end come?

Eva entered. She was startled by Susan’s appearance, and sat down on a
couch, at whose head stood glowing hortensias that were renewed each
morning. The sea wind had chilled her. The eyes in their carven hollows
were stern. “What do you want?” she asked.

“I think we ought to leave,” Susan answered. “It is foolish to delay.
The small military escort that is on the way from Yalta could not
protect us if the castle were to be attacked.”

“What are you afraid of?” Eva asked again. “Of men?”

“Yes, I am afraid of men; and it is a very reasonable fear. Use your
imagination, and think of their bodies and voices. We ought to leave.”

“It is foolish to be afraid of men,” Eva insisted, leaning her arm on
the pillows and her head upon her hand.

Susan said: “But you too are afraid. Or what is it? What is happening
to you? Is it fear? What are you afraid of?”

“Afraid ... yes, I am afraid,” Eva murmured. “Of what? I don’t know. Of
shadows and dreams. Something has gone from me; my guardian deity has
fled. That makes me afraid.”

Susan trembled at these confirmatory words. “Shall we order our boxes
packed?” she asked humbly.

Overhearing her question Eva continued: “Fear grows from guilt. Look
you, I wander about here, and am guilty. I open my garment because it
binds me, and feel my guilt. I stretch out my hand after one of those
blue blossoms, and know my guilt. I think and think, and brood and
brood, and cannot fathom the reason. The innermost, ultimate reason--I
cannot find it.”

“Guilt?” Susan stammered in her consternation. “Guilty? You? Child,
what are you saying? You are ill! Dearest, sweetest, you are ill!” She
kneeled at Eva’s feet, embraced her delicate body, and looked up at
her with swimming eyes. “Let us flee, dear heart, let us flee to our
friends. I knew this land would kill you. Yesterday’s wilderness which
your enchantment transformed into an unreal paradise still guards the
old malevolence of its remote and accursed earth. Arise and smile, dear
one. I shall sit down at the piano and play Schumann, whom you love.
I shall bring you a mirror, that you may behold yourself and see how
beautiful you still are. Who that is so beautiful can be guilty?”

Sadly Eva shook her head. “Beauty?” she asked. “Beauty? You would cheat
me of my deep perceptions with your talk of beauty. I know nothing of
beauty. If it be indeed a real thing, it is without blessing. No, do
not speak of beauty. I have reached out after too much in too short
a time, robbed too much, used too much, wasted too much--men and
souls and given pledges. I could not hold it all nor bear it. All my
wishes were fulfilled. The more measureless they became, the swifter
was the fulfilment. I had fame and love and wealth and power, the
service of slaves and adoration--everything, everything! So much that
I could burrow in it as in a heap of precious stories. I desired to
rise--from what depths you know, and wings were given me. I desired
to break obstacles; they melted at my glance. I wanted to devote
myself to a great cause, and its servants had faith in me before I had
begun to master its meaning. They proclaimed it in my name while I
still needed to be taught it. All things came too soon and too fully.
Millions sacrifice what is dearest to them, tremblingly and devoutly,
not to be swept away from the cliff to which they are clinging; I was
like Aladdin, to whom the genii bow the knee before his command is
uttered. And I thrust from me and misprized the only one whose heart
ever resisted me--though he himself knew not why. Every step has been
a step toward guilt, every yearning has been guilt, and every stirring
of gratitude. Every hour of delight has been guilt, every enjoyment an
impoverishment, and every rise a fall.”

“Blasphemer,” Susan murmured. “Pride and satiety cause you to sin
against yourself and your fate.”

“How you torment me,” Eva answered. “How all of you torment me--men and
women. How sterile I become through you. How your voices torture me,
and your eyes and words and thoughts. You lie so frivolously; you would
not listen, and truth is hateful to you. Who are you? Who are you,
Susan? You have a name; but I do not know you. You are another self;
and you torment me out of that other selfhood. Go! Have I asked you to
be with me? I want to enter my own soul, and you would keep me without?
I tell you I shall stay, though they burn the house down over my head.”

She spoke these words with a repressed passionateness, and arose. She
withdrew herself from her sobbing companion and entered her bedchamber.

An hour later Susan burst in, pale and with dishevelled hair. She
called out to her mistress, who was still awake and meditating by the
light of a shaded lamp: “They are upon us. They are approaching the
castle! Labourdemont has telephoned to Yalta. We are advised to flee
at once. During the past fifteen minutes the wires have been cut.
I’ve just left the garage; the motor will drive up in twenty minutes.
Quickly, quickly, while there is still time.”

Calmly Eva said: “There is no occasion for alarm or outcry; control
yourself. Experience in similar cases seems to show that flight only
goads the people on to plundering and destruction. If they have the
temerity to enter here, I shall face their leaders and deal with them.
That is the right and natural thing. I shall stay; but I shall force no
one to stay with me.”

Susan was quite calm at once, and her tone was dry: “You are very much
in error, if you think I tremble for myself. If you stay, it goes
without saying that I stay too. Let us not waste another word.” And she
gave her mistress the garment which a gesture had demanded.

Then were heard hurrying steps and cries, the whir of the motor, and
the barking of dogs. Monsieur Labourdemont strode wildly up and down
in the ante-room. The sergeant of gendarmes addressed his men from the
stairs. With equanimity Eva sat down at her toilet table, and let Susan
arrange her hair. The roar of the sea came through the open window. The
heavy dragging noise was suddenly interrupted by the rattle of rifle
fire.

A brief silence ensued. Labourdemont knocked at the door of the
sleeping chamber. There wasn’t another minute to be lost, he called
out, with a lump of terror in his throat. “Tell him what is needful,”
Eva commanded. Susan went out, and returned shortly with a sombre smile
on her lips. Eva’s glance questioned her. “Panic,” Susan said, and
shrugged her shoulders. “Naturally. They don’t know what to do.”

Again cries were heard; they were frightened and confused. A light
flickered; muffled commands followed. Loud cries burst into the
silence, then the howling of hundreds. Next came a sudden crash,
as though a wooden door had been broken down. Crackling of flames
swallowed the barking of the dogs, and was itself silenced by piercing
cries, hisses, roars. A pillar of fire arose without; the chamber was
crimson in the glow. Susan stood crimson in its midst; her eyes were
glassy, and her face a rigid mask.

Eva went to the window. Trees and bushes were steeped in glow. The
centre of the fire was not to be seen. The space in front of the castle
was deserted. The guards had vanished; seeing the hopelessness of
facing the superior forces of the mutineers, they had fled; nor was
a single one of Eva’s servants to be seen. Uncertain shadows rolled
forward, hissing in the glow and the darkness. Shots sounded from
all directions. The clash of shards resounded; they were stoning the
hothouses. Suddenly from the right and from the left, surging about the
house, masses of men burst out of the fiery twilight, that was momently
transformed into yellow brilliancy. It was a wild throng of arms and
rumps and heads, a raging mass, impetuously driving forward, whose
roaring and growling and whistling shook the very air.

“Leave the window!” Susan murmured, in rough beseeching.

Eva did not stir. Faces looked up and saw her. An incomprehensible word
flashed through the whirling mass. Many remained standing; but while
they stared upward, they were thrust aside by others behind them. The
human surge broke against the castle steps and ebbed away a little. A
wavering came upon it, then a silence.

“Leave the window!” Susan begged, with uplifted hands.

Masses of scarlet-tinged faces turned toward Eva. Close-packed, they
filled the semicircle in front of the castle; and still the mass
increased, like a dark fluid in a vessel that is slowly filled to the
brim. Those farthest behind stamped on the sward and flower-beds,
uprooted bushes, hurled statues to the ground. Most of them wore the
uniform of marines; but among them was also the mob of cities, human
offscourings eager for booty and blood--the men of the Black Hundreds.
They were armed with rifles, sabres, clubs, revolvers, iron bars, and
axes. A great number were drunk.

That incomprehensible word clanged once more above the serried heads.
The whirling forward rush started again. Fists worked their way upward.
A shot resounded. Susan uttered a throttled cry, as the hanging lamp
over the bed fell shattered. Eva stepped back from the window. She
shivered. Absent-mindedly she took a few steps, and lifted an apple
from a bowl. It slipped from her hand and rolled along the floor.

They entered the house. Blows of the axe were heard, the shuffle of
feet, the opening of doors. They were seeking.

“We are doomed,” Susan whispered, and clung to Eva’s arm with both
hands, as though someone were thrusting her into water.

“Let me be,” Eva repulsed her. “I shall try to speak to them. It will
suffice to show them courage.”

“Don’t go! For God’s sake, don’t!” Susan besought her.

“Let me go, I tell you. I see no other way. Hide, and let me go!”

Her step was the step of a queen. Perhaps she knew the sentence that
had been pronounced. Upon the threshold an icy feeling of ultimate
decision came over her. Her eyes were veiled. The way seemed far to
her and moved her to impatience. From the reflection of fire and the
twilit greyness, men bounded toward her and receded, surrounded her and
melted back. The nobility of her figure still had power over them; but
behind them venomous demons raged and made a path toward her. She spoke
some Russian words. The flaring whirl of heads and shoulders surged
fantastically up and down. She saw necks, beards, teeth, fists, ears,
eyes, foreheads, veins, nails. Features dislimned; the faces melted
into a glow of flame. Fire crackled in her gymnasium; hatchets crashed
against costly things; smoke filled the corridors; maniacal cries tore
the air. Eva turned.

It was too late. No magic of look or gesture availed. The depths were
unleashed.

She fled with the lightness of a gazelle. Loutish steps followed
her, and the wheezing of loud lungs. She reached the stairs of the
quadrangular tower, the structure of her whim. She ran up the stairs.
High up the gilded steps sparkled in the first glint of dawn. Her
hand glided without friction over the balustrade. The painted enamel,
another creation of her whims, was cool and calming to her palms. Her
pursuers grunted like wolves. But the light seemed to lift her upward.
She burst into the silvery morning, and beheld the burning buildings
swaying in the wind and the wide sea. Her pursuers surged after her
like a great heap of limbs, a polypus with hair and noses and cruel
teeth.

She leaped upon the parapet. Arms reached out after her. Higher! Ah, if
there were a higher height! Clouds covered the sky. Once upon a time
it had been different. Stars had comforted her--the lordly reaches of
the firmament. The memory lasted but a second. Hands grasped her; claws
were at her very breast. Four, six, eight pairs of arms were stretched
out toward her. A last reflection, a last struggle, a last sigh. The
air divided with a whir. She plunged....

On slabs of marble lay her body. That marvellous body was a mass
of bloody pulp. The broken eyes were open--empty, void of depth or
knowledge or consciousness. Over the parapet the human wolves howled in
their disappointed rage. Below others fell upon her dead. They tore the
garments from her body, and stuck shreds of them, like flags, on poles
and branches.

Slain on the threshold of her mistress’ bedchamber lay Susan Rappard.

When the work of plundering and destruction had been completed, the
wild horde withdrew. A man of mercy and shame had finally thrown a
horse-blanket over the dancer’s soiled and naked body.

As evening came, one man still wandered about amid the ruins, a lonely
man in lonely travail of spirit. He wore the garb of a priest, and on
his features was the stamp of a fate fulfilled. Those who came at a
late hour to seek and accompany him, greeted him with reverence, for
he was accounted by them a saint of the people and a prophet of the
kingdom to come.

He spoke to them: “I have lied to you; I am but a weak creature like
the rest.”

They rocked their heads and one answered: “Little Father Ivan
Michailovitch, do not destroy our hope or cease leading us in our
weakness.”

Thereupon this saint of his people gazed at the body that lay under
a horse-blanket amid the trampled flowers and the charred ruins, and
said: “Let us proceed then even unto the end.”


XXVIII

Thrice on the street Niels Heinrich stopped and stared into Christian’s
face. Then he went on, stumping his feet against the asphalt and
hunching his back. At first he dragged himself painfully along;
gradually his tread grew steadier.

At Kahle’s shop he asked with toneless jeer whether the gentleman was
employed by the police. In that case the gentleman needn’t delay or
worry. He knew the way to headquarters himself.

“I did not go with you from such a motive.”

“Well, what for then?” The gentleman was talking crazy again. He had a
way of trying to make people drunk with talk.

“Do you live in this house?” Christian asked.

Yes, he lived there. Maybe the gentleman would like to look at the
stinking hole? Right ahead then. He himself wouldn’t stay upstairs
long. He just wanted to fix himself up a little more neatly and then
go to Gottlieb’s Inn. That was a better class café with girlies
and champagne. He was going to treat to fifteen or twenty bottles
to-day. Why not--since he had the brass? But first he’d have to go to
Grünbusch’s to pawn something. Maybe all that’d bore the gentleman; and
maybe not, eh?

These words he snarled out in his rage on the dark stairs; but beneath
his rage seethed a hell of terror.

The light of a street-lamp close by his window threw a pale, greenish
light into the room, and saved Niels Heinrich the trouble of lighting a
lamp. He pointed to it and remarked with a snicker that to have one’s
lighting at public expense was pure gain. He could read his paper in
bed and didn’t even have to blow out the lamp before going to bed. That
showed you how a man had to live who wasn’t without brains and might
have gotten ahead in the world. It was a lousy, stinking hole. But now
things would change; he was going to move to the Hotel Adlon and have a
room with a private bath, and buy his linen at the Nürnberger Bazaar.

He put his hand in his pocket, and a clinking could be heard. Christian
took his words for incoherent babble and did not answer.

Niels Heinrich tore off his crumpled collar, and threw his coat and
waistcoat on the bed. He opened a drawer and then a wardrobe, and with
astonishing dexterity put on a clean collar, so tall that it seemed
to enclose his neck in a white tube, tied a cravat of yellow silk,
and slipped into a striped waistcoat and a morning coat. These things
looked new, and contrasted absurdly with the stained, checked trousers
which, for some reason, he did not change for others. The cuffs of his
shirt were also soiled.

“Well, then why?” Suddenly he asked again, and his eyes flickered
rabidly in the greenish light. “Why in hell do you stick to me like a
leech?”

“I need you,” answered Christian, who had remained near the door.

“You need me? What for? Don’t understand. Talk plain, man, talk plain!”

“It serves no purpose to talk in that manner,” Christian said. “You
misunderstand my being here and my ... how shall I put it?--my interest
in you. No, not interest. That’s not the right word. But the word
doesn’t matter. You probably think it was my purpose to have you
surrender to the authorities and to repeat in court the confession you
have made to me. But I assure you that that does not seem important to
me or, rather, important only in so far as it is desirable for the sake
of Joachim Heinzen, who is innocent and whom his position and inner
confusion must make very wretched. He must be in a terrible state. I
have felt that constantly, and felt the pain of it especially since
your confession. I can almost see him. I have a vision of him trying
to climb up the stony prison wall and wounding his hands and knees.
He doesn’t understand; he doesn’t understand how a wall can be so
steep and stony; he doesn’t understand what has happened to him. The
world must seem sick to him at its core. You have evidently succeeded
in hypnotizing him so effectively and lastingly, that under this
terrible influence he has lost all control of his own actions. There is
something in you that makes the exertion of such power quite credible.
I am quite sure that your very name has faded from his memory. If some
one went to him and whispered that name, Niels Heinrich Engelschall,
into his ear, he would probably collapse as under a paralytic stroke.
Of course, as I have thought it out, it is an exaggeration. But try
to imagine him. One must try to grasp men and things imaginatively.
Very few people do it; they cheat themselves. I see him as robbed of
his very soul, as so poverty-stricken that the thought is scarcely
bearable. You will reply: he is an idiot, irresponsible, with an
undeveloped sensorium--more animal than human. Even science uses that
argument; but it is a false argument. The premises are false and
therefore the conclusion. My opinion is that all human beings have
equally deep perceptions. There is no difference in sensitiveness
to pain; there is only a difference in the consciousness of that
sensitiveness. There is, one may say, no difference in the method of
bookkeeping, only in the accounting.”

With lowered head he went a pace nearer to Niels Heinrich, who
remained quite still, and continued, while a veiled smile hovered
over his lips: “Don’t misunderstand me. I don’t desire to exert the
slightest influence on your decisions. What you do or fail to do
is your own affair. Whether one may desire to free that poor devil
from his terrible situation, or not, is a problem of decency and
humanity. So far as I am concerned, there is nothing I care about so
little as to persuade you to an action which does not arise from your
own conviction. I don’t regard myself as a representative of public
authority; it is not for me to see to it that the laws are obeyed and
people informed in regard to a crime that has troubled them. What
would be the use of that? Would it avail to make things better? I
neither want to ensnare you nor get the better of you. Your going to
court, confessing your crime, expiating in the world’s sight, being
punished--what have I to do with all that? Not to bring that about am I
here.”

Niels Heinrich felt as though his very brain were turning in his skull
with a creaking noise. He grasped the edge of the table for support.
In his face was a boundless astonishment. His jaw dropped; he listened
open-mouthed.

“Punishment? What does that mean? And is it my office or within my
power to drag you to punishment? Shall I use cunning or force to make
you suffer punishment? It does not even become me to say to you: You
are guilty. I do not know whether you are guilty. I know that guilt
exists; but whether you are guilty or in what relation to guilt you
stand--that I cannot tell. The knowledge of that is yours alone; you
and you alone possess the standard by which to judge what you have
done, and not those who will be your judges. Neither do I possess it,
and so I do not judge. I ask myself: Who dares to be a judge? I see
no one, no one. In order that men may live together, it is perhaps
necessary that judgments be passed; but the individual gains nothing by
such judgments, either for his soul or for his knowledge.”

It was a bottomless silence into which Niels Heinrich had sunk. He
suddenly remembered the moment in which the impulse to murder the
machine had come upon him. With utter clearness he saw again the steel
parts with their film of oil, the swiftly whirling wheels, the whole
accurately functioning structure that had, somehow, seemed hostile and
destructive to him. Why that image of all others came to him now, and
why he remembered his vengeful impulse with an access of shame now--he
did not understand.

Christian was speaking again: “So all that does not concern me at all.
You need have no fear. What I want has nothing to do with it. I want--”
he stopped, hesitated, and struggled for the word, “I want you. I need
you....”

“Need me? Need me?” Niels Heinrich murmured, without understanding.
“How? What for?”

“I can’t explain it, I can’t possibly explain it,” said Christian.

Whereupon Niels Heinrich laughed--a toneless, broken laugh. He walked
around the whole table; then he repeated that same repressed, half-mad
laugh.

“You have removed a being from this earth,” said Christian, softly;
“you have destroyed a being so precious, so irreplaceable, that
centuries, perhaps many centuries, will pass till one can arise
comparable to it or like it. Don’t you know that? Every living creature
is like a screw in a most marvellously built machine....”

Niels Heinrich began to tremble so violently that Christian noticed it.
“What ails you?” he asked. “Are you ill?”

Niels Heinrich took his felt hat, that hung on a nail, and began to
stroke it nervously. “Man alive,” he said, “you make a fellow crazy,
crazy.” His tone was hollow.

“Please listen,” Christian continued insistently, “--in a most
marvellously built machine. Now there are important screws and less
important ones; and this being was one of the most important of all. So
important indeed that I am convinced that the machine is hurt forever,
because it has ceased to function. No one can ever again provide a
part of such delicacy and exquisite exactness, and even though a
substitute be found, the machine will never be what it once was. But
aside from the machine and my comparison, you have inflicted a loss on
me for which there are no words. Pain, grief, sadness--these words do
not reach far or deep enough. You have robbed me of something utterly
precious, forever irreplaceable, and you must give me something in
return. You must give me something in return! Do you hear that? That is
why I am standing here; that is why I am following you. You must give
me something in return. I don’t know what. But unless you do, I shall
be desperate, and become a murderer myself.”

He buried his face in his hands, and burst into hoarse, wild,
passionate weeping.

With quivering lips, in a small voice like a naughty child’s, Niels
Heinrich stammered: “Saviour above, what can I give you in return?”

Christian wept and did not answer.


XXIX

Thereupon they went from that room together, without having exchanged
another word.

The pawnbroker Grünbusch had already closed his shop. Niels Heinrich
sought another whom he knew to be reliable. He left Christian in the
street while he slipped into a dirty vault. He had torn one pearl from
the string, just one, to serve as a sample for the present. After the
old rascal who kept the shop had tested and weighed the pearl exactly,
he gave Niels Heinrich fifteen hundred marks. The money was partly
in bank-notes and partly in gold. He scarcely counted it. He stuffed
the coins into one pocket; the notes crackled as he crushed them into
another.

“Give him? What does he think I can give him?” He brooded. “Maybe he
smells a rat, and suspects that I stole the pearls. Does he mean that?
Does he want me to give them to him?”

When he reached the street again, and saw that Christian had waited
patiently and without suspicion, he merely made a wry face; and he
continued silently by the other’s side. Dumbfounded, he bore the heavy
weight of Christian’s continued presence; he could not imagine what
would come of it.

But the man’s weeping was still in his ears and in his limbs. A cold,
clear stillness filled the air of night, yet everywhere rustled the
sound of that weeping. The streets through which they passed were
nearly empty, yet in them was that weeping embodied in the whitish
mist. In the walls and balconies of the houses to the right and to the
left, it lifted up its treacherous voice--this weeping of a man.

He dared not think. Beside him went one who knew his thoughts. A rope
was about him, and he could move only so far as that other permitted.
Who is he? The question went through and through him. He tried to
remember his name, but the name had slipped from his mind. And all
that this man, this suddenly nameless man, had said to him, whirled up
within him like sparks of fire.

They had reached their goal at the end of half an hour. Gottlieb’s Inn
was a drinking place for workingmen and small shopkeepers. It contained
quite a number of rooms. First one entered the restaurant proper, which
was filled with guests all night. Its chief attraction consisted in a
dozen pretty waitresses, as well as twenty to thirty other ladies,
who smiled and smoked and lounged in their provocative costumes on the
green plush sofas, waiting for victims. Adjoining the restaurant there
were a number of cell-like private dining-rooms for couples. Beyond
these was a longish, narrow hall, which was rented out for parties
or to clubs, or in which gambling took place. The decoration of the
rooms corresponded to the quarter and its taste. Everything was gilt;
everywhere were pretentious sculptures of stucco. There were tall
pillars that were hollow and supported nothing, but blocked one’s path.
The walls were covered with paintings that had been the latest thing
the day before yesterday. Everything was new, and everything was dirty
and touched with decay.

Niels Heinrich went in through the swinging door, looked about dazzled
by the light, lurched past the tables, went into the passage that led
to the little private rooms, came back, stared into the painted faces
of the girls, called the head-waiter, and said he wanted to go into the
long hall at the rear, wanted the hall for the whole evening, in fact,
no matter what it cost. Twenty quarts of Mumm’s Extra Dry were to be
put on ice. He drew forth three one hundred mark bank-notes, and tossed
them contemptuously to the head-waiter. That cleared the situation. The
functionary in question had a mien at once official and ingratiating.
Two minutes later the hall was festively lit.

The women appeared, and young men who were parasites by trade, corrupt
boys who looked like consumptive lackeys, clerks out of a berth in
loud, checked clothes--doubtful lives with a dark past and a darker
future. At Gottlieb’s Inn there was never any lack of such. Cordially
they insisted on their long friendship for the giver of the feast. He
remembered not one, but turned no one away.

He sat at the centre of the long table. He had pushed his hat far back
on his head and crossed his legs and gritted his teeth. His face was
as white as the cloth on the table. Impudent songs were sung; they
crowed and cried and screeched and giggled and joked and guzzled and
wallowed and smacked each other; foul stories were told and boastful
experiences; they mounted on chairs and smashed glasses. In half an
hour the bacchanal destroyed all sobriety and reserve. It wasn’t often
that a man dropped in, as from the clouds, fairly dripping with money.

Niels Heinrich presided icily. From time to time he called out his
commands: “Six bottles! A chocolate cake! Nine bottles Veuve Cliquot!
A tray of pastry!” The commands were swiftly obeyed, and the company
yelled and cheered. A black-haired woman put an arm about his shoulder.
Brutally he thrust her back, but she made no complaint. A fat woman,
excessively rouged and décolletée, held a goblet to his lips.
Rancorously he spat into it, and the applause rattled about him.

He did not drink. On the wall immediately opposite him was a gigantic
mirror. In it he saw the table and the roisterers. He also saw the red
drapery that covered the wall behind him. He also saw several little
tables that stood against the drapery. They were unoccupied, save that
Christian sat at one. So through the mirror Niels Heinrich gazed across
and shyly observed that alienated guest, whose silent presence had at
first been noticed, but had now been long forgotten.

At Niels Heinrich’s left four men played at cards. They attracted a
public and sympathizers. From time to time Niels Heinrich threw a
couple of gold pieces on the table. He lost every stake; but always at
the same moment he threw down more gold.

He looked into the mirror and saw himself--colourless, lean, withered.

He threw down a hundred mark note. “Small stakes, big winnings!” he
boasted. A few of the spectators got between him and the mirror. “Out
of the way!” he roared. “I want to see that!” Obediently they slunk
aside.

He looked into the mirror and beheld Christian, who sat there straight
and slender, stirless and tense.

He threw down two more bank notes. “They’ll bring back others,” he
murmured.

And when he looked into the mirror again, he saw a vision in it. It was
a human trunk, a virginal body, radiant with an earthly and also with
another, with an immortal purity. The scarcely curving breasts with
their rosy blossoms had a sweet loveliness of form that filled him with
dread and with pain. It was only the trunk: there was no head; there
were no limbs. Where the neck ended there was a ring of curdled blood;
the dark triangle revealed its mystery below.

Niels Heinrich got up. The chair behind him clattered to the floor. All
were silent. “Out with you!” he roared. “Out! Out!” With swinging arms
he indicated the door.

The company rose frightened. A few lingered; others thronged toward
the door. Beside himself, Niels Heinrich grasped the chair, lifted it
far above his head, and stormed toward the loiterers. They scattered;
the women screamed and the men growled. Only the gamblers had remained
seated, as if the whole incident did not concern them. Niels Heinrich
swept with his hand across the tablecloth, and the cards flew in all
directions. The gamblers jumped up, determined to resist; but at the
sight of their adversary they backed away from him, and one by one
strolled from the hall. Immediately thereafter the head-waiter, with a
look of well-bred astonishment, came in and presented his bill. Niels
Heinrich had sat down on the edge of the table with his back toward the
mirror. A thin foam clung to his lips.

He paid the reckoning. The amount of his tip assuaged the deprecation
and surprise of the head-waiter. He asked whether the gentleman had
any further commands. Niels Heinrich answered that he wanted to drink
alone now. He ordered a bottle of the best and some caviare. One of the
doll-like waitresses hastened in with the bottle and opened it. Niels
Heinrich emptied a glassful greedily. At the food he shuddered. He
ordered the superfluous lights to be turned out; he didn’t need so much
light. All but a few of the incandescent lamps were darkened, and the
hall grew dim. The door was to be closed, he commanded further, and no
one was to enter unless he rang. Again he threw gold on the table. He
was obeyed in everything.

Suddenly it grew still.

Niels Heinrich still sat on the edge of the table.

Christian said: “That took a long time.”


XXX

Niels Heinrich slid from the edge of the table, and began to pace up
and down the entire length of the hall. Christian’s eyes followed him
uninterruptedly.

He had once read in a book, Niels Heinrich said, the story of a French
count, who had killed an innocent peasant girl, and had cut the heart
out of her breast and cooked and eaten it. And that had given him the
power of becoming invisible. Did Christian believe that there was any
truth to that story?

Christian answered that he did not.

He, for his part, didn’t believe it either, Niels Heinrich said. But it
was not to be denied that there was a certain magic in the innocence of
virgins. Perhaps they had hidden powers which they communicated to one.
It seemed to him this way, that in the guilty there was an instinct
that drew them to the guiltless. The thought, then, that underlay the
story would be, wouldn’t it, that virginity did communicate some hidden
powers? Was the gentleman prepared to deny that?

Christian, whose whole attention was given to these questions, answered
that he did not deny it.

But the gentleman had asserted that there were none who are guilty? How
did these things go together? If there were none who are guilty, then
none are guiltless either.

“It is not to be understood in that fashion,” Christian answered,
conscious of the difficulty, and conscious in every nerve of the
strangeness of the place, the hour, and the circumstances. “Guilt and
guiltlessness do not sustain the relation of effect and cause. One is
not derived from the other. Guilt cannot become innocence nor innocence
guilt. Light is light and darkness is darkness, but neither can be
transformed into the other, neither can be created by the other. Light
issues from some body--fire or the sun or a constellation. Whence
does darkness issue? It exists. It has no source; none other than the
absence of light.”

Niels Heinrich seemed to reflect. Still walking up and down, he flung
his words into the air. Every one was made a fool of--every one from
his childhood on. There had always been palavering about sin and wrong,
and everything had been aimed at giving one an evil conscience. If once
you had an evil conscience, no confession or penitence, no parson and
no absolution did you any good. And at bottom one was but a wretched
creature--a doomed creature, and condemned to damnation from the start.
That had convinced him, what the gentleman had said--without looking at
Christian, he stretched out his arm and index-finger toward him--oh,
that had convinced him, that no one had the right to judge another.
That was true. He hadn’t ever seen anyone either to whom one could
say: you shall pass judgment. Every one bore the mark of shame and of
theft and of blood, and was condemned to the same damnation from the
beginning. But if there was to be no more judging, that meant the end
of bourgeois society and the capitalistic order. For that was founded
on courts and on the necessity of finding men to assume its guilt, and
judges who were ignorant of mercy.

Christian said: “Won’t you stop walking up and down? Won’t you come and
sit by me? Come here; sit by me.”

No, he said, he didn’t want to sit by him. He wanted all these matters
explained just once. He didn’t want to be submissive with his mind
like a boy at school. The gentleman was incomprehensible, and was
making a fool of him with phrases. Let him give to him, Niels Heinrich,
something certain, something by which he could be guided.

“What do you mean by that--something certain?” Christian asked, deeply
moved. “I am a man like yourself; I know no more than yourself; like
yourself I have sinned and am helpless and puzzled. What is it I shall
give you--I?”

“But I?” Niels Heinrich was beside himself. “What shall I give? And you
wanted me to give you something! What is it? What can I give you?”

“Don’t you feel it?” Christian asked. “Don’t you know it yet--not yet?”

Silently they looked into each other’s eyes, for Niels Heinrich had
stopped walking. A shiver, an almost visible shiver ran down his limbs.
His face seemed as though singed by the desire of one who rattles at an
iron gate and would be free.

“Listen,” he said, suddenly, with a desperate and convulsive calmness,
“I stole those pearls in your house. I simply put them into my pocket.
One of them I pawned, and made those swine drunk with the money. You
can have them back if you want them. Those I can give you. If that’s
what you want, I can give it to you.”

Christian seemed surprised; but the passionate tensity of his face did
not relax at all.

Niels Heinrich put his hand into his trousers pocket. The string had
been broken, so that his hand was full of the loose pearls. He held it
out toward Christian; but Christian did not stir, and made no move to
receive the pearls. This seemed to embitter Niels Heinrich strangely.
He stretched out his hand until it was flat, and let the pearls roll on
the floor. White and shimmering, they rolled on the parquetry. And as
Christian still did not stir, Niels Heinrich’s rage seemed to increase.
He turned his pocket inside out, so that all the rest of the pearls
fell on the floor.

“Why do you do that?” Christian asked, more in astonishment than in
blame.

“Well, maybe the gentleman wanted a little exercise,” was the impudent
answer. And again that thin foam, like the white of an egg, clung to
his lips.

Christian lowered his eyes. Then this thing happened: he arose and drew
a deep breath, smiled, leaned over, dropped on his knees, and began to
gather up the pearls. He picked up each one singly, so as not to soil
his hands unnecessarily; on his knees he slid over the floor, picking
up pearl after pearl. He reached under the table and under the stairs,
where spilt wine lay in little puddles, and out of these nauseating
little puddles he scratched the pearls. With his right hand he gathered
them; and always, when his left hand was half full, he slipped its
contents into his pocket.

Niels Heinrich looked down at him. Then his eyes fled from that sight,
wandered through the room, found the mirror and fled from it, sought
it anew and fled again. For the mirror had become a glow to him. He no
longer saw his image in it; the mirror had ceased to reflect images.
And again he looked toward the floor where Christian crept, and
something monstrous happened in his soul. A stertorous moan issued from
his breast. Christian stopped in his occupation, and looked up at him.

He saw and understood. At last! At last! A trembling hand moved forward
to meet his own. He took it; it had no life. He had never yet so deeply
grasped it all--the body, the spirit, time, eternity. The hand had no
warmth: it was the hand of the deed, the hand of crime, the hand of
guilt. But when he touched it, for the first time, it began to live and
grow warm; a glow streamed into it--glow of the mirror, of service, of
insight, of renewal.

It was that touch, that touch alone.

Niels Heinrich, drawn forward, sank upon his knees. In this matter of
Joachim Heinzen, he stammered in a barely audible voice, why, one
might discuss it, you know. His eyes seemed broken and his features
extinguished. And they kneeled--each before the other.

Saved and freed from himself by that touch, the murderer cast his guilt
upon the man who judged and did not condemn him.

He was free. And Christian was likewise free.

The hall had a side-exit by which one could leave the house. There they
said farewell to each other. Christian knew well where Niels Heinrich
was going. He himself returned to Stolpische Street, mounted the stairs
to Karen’s rooms, locked himself in, lay down as he was, and slept for
three and thirty hours.

A vigorous ringing of the bell aroused him.


XXXI

Lorm was sick unto death. He lay in a sanatorium. An intestinal
operation had been performed, and there was slight hope of his recovery.

Friends visited him. Emanuel Herbst, most faithful of them all,
concealed his pain and fear beneath a changeless mask of fatalistic
calm. Since the first day on which he had seen on the face of his
beloved friend the first traces of fate’s destructive work, the
shadow-world of the theatre with all its activities had nauseated
him. With the dying of its central fire, he had a presentiment of the
approaching end of many things.

Crammon also came often. He loved to talk to Lorm of past days, and
Lorm was glad to remember and to smile. He also smiled when he was
told how numerous were the inquiries after him; that telegrams came
uninterruptedly from all the cities of the land, and showed how
profoundly his image and character had affected the heart of the
nation. He did not believe it; in his innermost soul he did not believe
it. He despised men too deeply.

There was but one human being in whose love he believed. That was
Judith. Unswervingly he believed in her love, though each hour might
have offered proof of his delusion, each hour of the day in which
he expressed the desire to see her, each hour of the night when he
controlled his moans of pain not to annoy the ears of paid, strange
women.

For Judith came at most for half an hour in the forenoon or for half
an hour in the afternoon, tried to conceal her impatient annoyance by
overtenderness and artificial eagerness, and said: “Puggie, aren’t
you going to be well soon?” or “Aren’t you ashamed to be so lazy and
lie here, while poor Judith longs for you at home?” She filled the
sick-room with noise and with futile advice, scolded the nurse, showed
the doctor his place, flirted with the consultant physician, chattered
of a hundred trivialities--a trip to a health resort, the last cook’s
latest pilfering, and never lacked reasons with which to palliate the
shortness of her stay.

Lorm would confirm these reasons. He had no doubt of any of them; he
gave her opportunities to produce them. He was remarkably inventive in
making excuses for her when he saw in others’ faces astonishment or
disapproval of her behaviour. He said: “Don’t bother her. She is an
airy creature. She has her own way of showing devotion, and her own way
of feeling grief. You must not apply ordinary standards.”

Crammon said to Letitia: “I didn’t know that this Judith was one
of those soulless creatures of porcelain. It was always my opinion
that the phrases concerning the superior tenderness of the female
soul--that’s the official expression, isn’t it?--constituted one of
those myths by which men, the truly more delicate and noble organs of
creation, were to be deceived into undue indulgence. But such spiritual
coarseness as hers would make a cowboy blush. Go to her and try to stir
her conscience. A great artist is leaving us, and his last sigh will be
given to a popinjay, who bears his name as a fool might wear the robes
of a king. Let her at least appear to do her duty, else she is worthy
of being stoned. One should follow the ancient Hindoo custom, and burn
her on her husband’s pyre. What a pity that these pleasant laws have
gone out of use.”

When Letitia next saw Judith she reproached her gently. Judith seemed
overwhelmed by remorse. “You are quite right, dear child,” she
answered. “But you see I can’t, I just can’t bear to be around sick
people. They always seem to wear a mask; they don’t seem to be the
same people at all; and there’s such a terrible odour. They remind one
of the most frightful thing in the world--of death. You’ll reply, of
course, that he’s my husband, my own husband. That makes it all the
worse. It creates a tragic conflict for me. One should rather have pity
on me than accuse me of things. He hasn’t the right to demand that I do
violence to my nature, and as a matter of fact, he doesn’t. He’s far
too subtle and too magnanimous. It’s only other people who do. Well,
what do they know about us? What do they know of our married life? What
do they know of my sacrifices? What do they know of a woman’s heart?
And furthermore”--she went on hastily, becoming aware of Letitia’s
inner estrangement from her--“so many things are happening just now,
so many horrid things. My father has just arrived. I haven’t seen him
since my marriage to Imhof. Do you know, by the way, that Imhof is
dying? They say, too, that he’s utterly ruined. I have been spared a
great deal; but wouldn’t it make you think that it is unlucky to love
me? Why do you suppose that is? My life is as harmless as the playing
of a little girl, and yet.... Why do you suppose it is?” She wrinkled
her forehead and shivered. “Well, my father is here. There will be an
interview--he, Wolfgang, and I. And oh, my dear, it’s such a hideous
affair that has to be discussed.”

“It concerns Christian, doesn’t it?” Letitia asked, and it was the
first time that she had uttered his name in Judith’s presence. She
had forgotten again and again; she had abandoned her purpose over
and over. She had felt Judith’s mysterious spite and hate against her
brother, and had not had the courage to face it. Always something more
important and more amusing had seemed to appear on the gay stage of
life. Now she repeated hesitantly: “It concerns Christian, doesn’t it?”

Judith lapsed into sombre silence.

But from that hour Letitia was tormented by a secret curiosity, and
this curiosity forbade forgetfulness. She had lost her way. Oh, she had
lost her way long ago, and daily she stumbled farther into the pathless
wild. Lost, confused, entangled,--thus did she seem to herself, and she
had many minutes of a fleeting melancholy. All the things that happened
in her life became too much for her, and yet all the trivialities of
the day disappeared as water does in sand, leaving no form, no echo, no
purpose. And in these moments of her sadness, she had the illusion of
a new beginning, and yearned for a hand to lead her forth from these
thickets of her life. She remembered that far night when her full heart
had been rejected, and nursed the ecstatic dream that now, when it was
used up and a little weary, it might find acceptance.

But she delayed and played with the vision in her mind. And then she
had a dream. She dreamed that she was in the lobby of a magnificent
hotel among many people; but she was clothed only in her shift, and
could scarcely move for shame. No one appeared to observe this. She
wanted to flee, but saw no door at all. While she looked about her in
her misery, the lift suddenly came down from the upper storeys. She
rushed into it and the door closed and the lift rose. But her dread did
not leave her, and she had a sense of approaching disaster. Voices from
without came to her: “There is some one dead--dead in the house.” To
stop the lift, she groped for the electric button, but she could not
find it. The lift rose higher and higher, and the voices died away.
Without knowing how she had come there, she stood in a long corridor
along which were the doors of many rooms. In one of the rooms lay a
crucifix about two yards long; it was of bronze covered with a patina.
She went in, and men moved respectfully aside. Now suddenly she was
clothed in a garment of white satin. She kneeled down beside the
crucifix. Someone said: “It is one o’clock, we must go to luncheon.”
Her heart was like a wound with compassion and yearning. She pressed
her lips against the forehead of the image of Christ. The metal body
stirred and grew and grew, and assumed the stature of life; and she,
more and more tenderly giving herself, infused blood into the image,
and gave its skin the colour of life, so that even the wounds of the
nails flushed red. Her feeling rose to an ardent pitch of gratitude and
adoration. She encircled the body and the feet of the rising Christ,
who lifted her as he rose. But one of the gentlemen said: “The gong is
sounding for the last call to table.” And at that she awoke.

Next morning she went to Crammon, and persuaded him to drive with her
to Stolpische Street.


XXXII

When Christian opened the door, his father stood before him. It was he
who had rung the bell.

The emotion which this unexpected sight aroused in him was so
restrained in its expression that the Privy Councillor’s eyes lost
their brief brightness and grew dark again.

“May one enter?” he asked, and crossed the threshold.

He walked to the middle of the room, placed his hat on the table, and
looked about him with astonishment held in check. It was better than
he had imagined and also worse. It was cleaner, more respectable, more
habitable; it was also more lonely and desolate. “So this is where you
live,” he said.

“Yes, this is where I live,” Christian repeated, with some
embarrassment. “Here and in a room across the court I have lived until
now. These were Karen’s rooms.”

“Why do you say until now? Are you planning to move again?”

Since Christian hesitated to answer, the Privy Councillor, not without
embarrassment in his turn, went on: “You must forgive me for coming
upon you so suddenly. I could not know whether you would consent
to such an explanation as has become necessary, and so I made no
announcement of my coming. You will understand that this step was not
an easy one to take.”

Christian nodded. “Won’t you sit down?” he asked, courteously.

“Not yet, if you don’t mind. There are things that cannot be discussed
while one is sitting still. They have not been thought out in that
posture either.” The Privy Councillor opened his fur-coat. His attitude
was one of superiority and dignity. His silvery, carefully trimmed
beard contrasted picturesquely with the silky blackness of his fur.

There was an oppressive pause. “Is mother well?” Christian asked.

The Privy Councillor’s face twitched. The conventional tone of the
question made it seem frivolous to him.

Worn out for a moment by this dumb summons to laws of life that had
lost their content and their meaning for him, Christian said: “Will
you permit me to withdraw for five minutes? I had been sleeping when
you rang. I think it was a sleep of many hours, and in my clothes,
too, so I must wash. And I want also to beg you to take along a little
package for mother. It contains an object that she values. I’m sorry
that I haven’t the right to explain more fully. Perhaps, if you desire,
she will give you the explanation herself, since the whole matter now
belongs to the past. So pardon me for a few minutes; I shall be at your
service almost immediately.”

He went into the adjoining room. The Privy Councillor looked after him
with consternation in his large, blue eyes. While he was alone, he did
not stir nor move a muscle of his body.

Christian re-entered. He had bathed his face and combed his hair.
He gave the Privy Councillor a little package tied with a cord. On
the white paper wrapping he had written: “For my mother. Gratefully
returned on the day of final parting. One piece is lacking through the
force of unavoidable circumstances; its value has been made up to me a
thousandfold. Greeting and farewell. Christian.”

The Privy Councillor read the words. “More riddles?” he asked, coldly.
“Why riddles on a placard? Have you not time to write a letter? Your
ways were more courtly once.”

“Mother will understand,” Christian replied.

“And have you no other message for her?”

“None.”

“May I ask the meaning of these words: ‘on the day of final parting’?
You referred once before to departure....”

“It would be more practical, perhaps, if you first told me the purpose
of your visit.”

“You have still your old technique of evasion.”

“You are mistaken,” said Christian. “I am not trying to evade at all.
You come to me like an enemy and you speak like one. I suspect you have
come to try to arrange something in the nature of a pact between us.
Wouldn’t it be simpler if you were frankly to state your proposals? It
may be that our intentions coincide. You want all to be rid of me, I
suppose. I believe that I can remove myself from your path.”

“It is so indeed,” the Privy Councillor said, with a rigid and aimless
glance. “The situation will brook no further delay. Your brother feels
himself trammelled and menaced in his vital interests. You are a source
of offence and anger to your sister. Although she has herself left
the appointed way, she feels your eccentricity like a deformity of
her flesh. Kinsmen of every degree declare the name and honour of the
family defiled and demand action. I shall not speak of your mother,
nor should I speak of myself. You cannot be ignorant of the fact that
you have struck at me where I was most vulnerable. I have been urged to
use force, but I have resisted. Force is painful and futile, and merely
recoils against him who uses it. Your plan of simply disappearing--I do
not know who mentioned it first--has many advantages. Other continents
offer a more grateful soil for ideas so obviously abstruse as your own.
It would be easy for you to change the mere scene of your activities,
and it would free us from a constant nightmare.”

“To disappear--that is precisely my intention,” Christian said. “I
used that very word to myself. If you had come yesterday, I should
probably not have been able to give you as complete satisfaction as I
can do to-day. Events have so shaped themselves, however, that we find
ourselves at the same point at the same time.”

“Since I do not know what events you mean, I cannot, to my regret,
follow you,” the Privy Councillor said, icily.

Without regarding the interruption, Christian continued, with his
vision lost in space. “It is, however, rather difficult to disappear.
In our world it is a difficult task. It means to renounce one’s very
personality, one’s home, one’s friends, and last of all one’s very
name. That is the hardest thing of all, but I shall try to do it.”

Roused to suspicion by his easy victory, the Privy Councillor asked:
“And is that what you meant by your final parting?”

“It was.”

“And whither have you determined to go?”

“It is not clear to me yet. It is better for you not to know.”

“And you will go without means, in shameful dependence and poverty?”

“Without means and in poverty. Not in dependence.”

“Folly!”

“What can hard words avail to-day, father?”

“And is this an irrevocable necessity?”

“Yes, irrevocable.”

“And also the parting between ourselves and you?”

“It is you who desire it; it has become a necessity to me.”

The Privy Councillor fell silent. Only a gentle swaying of his trunk
gave evidence that inwardly he was a broken man. Up to this moment
he had nursed a hope; he had not believed in the inevitable. He had
followed a faint beam of light, which had now vanished and left him in
the darkness. His heart crumbled in a vain love for the son who had
faced him with an inevitability which he could not comprehend. And all
that he had conquered in this world--power, wealth, honours, a golden
station in a realm of splendour--suddenly became to him frightfully
meaningless and desolate.

Once more he heard Christian’s clear and gentle voice. “You wanted
to fetter me through my inheritance; you sought to buy me with it. I
came to see that one must escape that snare. One must break even with
the love of those who proclaim: ‘You are ours, our property, and must
continue what we have begun.’ I could not be your heir; I could not
continue what you had begun, so I was in a snare. All whom I knew lived
in delight and all lived in guilt; yet though there was so much guilt,
no one was guilty. There was, in fact, a fundamental mistake in the
whole structure of life. I said to myself: the guilt that arises from
what men do is small and scarcely comparable to the guilt that arises
from what they fail to do. For what kinds of men are those, after
all, who become guilty through their deeds? Poor, wretched, driven,
desperate, half-mad creatures, who lift themselves up and bite the foot
that treads them under. Yet they are made responsible and held guilty
and punished with endless torments. But those who are guilty through
failure in action are spared and are always secure, and have ready and
reasonable subterfuges and excuses; yet they are, so far as I can see,
the true criminals. All evil comes from them. That was the snare I had
to escape.”

The Privy Councillor struggled for an expression of his confused
and painful feelings. It was all so different from anything he had
expected. A human being spoke to him--a man. Words came to him to
which he had to reconcile himself. They held the memory of recent and
unhealed wounds that had been dealt him. Arguments refused to come to
him. It was false and it was true. It depended on one’s attitude--on
one’s measure of imagination and willingness to see, on one’s insight
or fear, on one’s stubbornness or one’s courage to render an accounting
to oneself. The ground which had long been swaying under his feet
seemed suddenly to show huge cracks and fissures. The pride of his
caste still tried in that last moment to raise barricades and search
for weapons, but its power was spent.

Without hope of a favourable answer, he asked: “And do not the bonds of
blood exist for you any longer?”

“When you stand before me and I see you, I feel that they exist,” was
the answer. “When you speak and act, I feel them no longer.”

“Can there be such a thing as an accounting between father and son?”

“Why not? If sincerity and truth are to prevail, why not? Father and
son must begin anew, it seems to me, and as equals. They must cease to
depend on what has been, on what has been formulated and is prescribed
by use. Every mature consciousness is worthy of respect. The relation
must become a more delicate one than any other, since it is more
vulnerable; but because nature created it, men believe that it will
bear boundless burdens without breaking. It was necessary for me to
ease it of some burdens, and you regarded that action as a sin. It is
only worldly ideas that have chilled and blinded you to me.”

“Am I chilled and blinded?” The Privy Councillor’s voice was very low.
“Does it seem so to you?”

“Yes, since I renounced your wealth, it has been so. You have
constantly been tempted to use all the force you control against me.
You face me now with the demands of an affronted authority; and all
that, simply because I dared to break with the views of property and
acquisition current in the class in which I grew up. On the one hand,
you did not venture to violate my freedom, because in addition to
social and external considerations, you were conscious of a relation
between your heart and mine. I am afraid that prejudice and custom had
more to do with sustaining that relation than insight and sympathy;
but it exists, and I respect it. On the other hand, you were unable to
escape the influences of your surroundings and your worldly station,
and so you assumed that I was guilty of ugly and foolish and aimless
things. What are those ugly and foolish and aimless things that you
think me concerned with? And how do they hinder you and disturb you,
even granting their ugliness and folly and futility? Wherein do they
disturb Judith or Wolfgang, except in a few empty notions and fancied
advantages? And yet if it were more than that--would that little more
count? No, it would not count. No annoyance that they might suffer
through me would really count. And how have I wounded you, as you say,
and affronted your authority? I am your son and you are my father; does
that mean serf and lord? I am no longer of your world; your world has
made me its adversary. Son and adversary--only that combination will
ever change your world. Obedience without conviction--what is it? The
root of all evil. You do not truly see me; the father no longer sees
the son. The world of the sons must rise up against the world of the
fathers, if any change is to be wrought.”

He had sat down at the table and rested his head upon his hands. He
had suddenly abandoned the uses of society and his own conventional
courtesy. His words had risen from sobriety to passion; his face was
pale, and his eyes had a fevered glow. The Privy Councillor, who had
believed him incapable of such outbursts and such transformations,
gazed down at him rigidly. “These assertions are difficult to refute,”
he murmured, as he buttoned his fur-coat with trembling fingers. “And
what shall a debate avail us at this hour? You spoke of those who fail
through not doing. What will you do? It would mean much to me to hear
that from you. What will you do, and what have you done hitherto?”

“Until now it was all a mere preparation,” Christian said more calmly.
“Closely looked upon, it was nothing; it was something only as measured
by my powers and ability. I still cling too much to the surface.
My character has been against me; I do not succeed in breaking the
crust that separates me from the depth. The depth--ah, what is that
really? It is impossible to discuss it; every word is forwardness and
falsehood. I wish to perform no works, to accomplish nothing good or
useful or great. I want to sink, to steep, to hide, to bury myself in
the life of man. I care nothing for myself, I would know nothing of
myself. But I would know everything about human beings, for they, you
see, they are the mystery and the terror, and all that torments and
affrights and causes suffering.... To go to one, always to a single
one, then to the next, and to the third, and know and learn and reveal
and take his suffering from him, as one takes out the vitals of a
fowl.... But it is impossible to talk about it; it is too terrible.
The great thing is to guard against weariness of the heart. The heart
must not grow weary--that is the supreme matter. And what I shall do
first of all you know,” he ended with a winning, boyish smile, “I shall
vanish.”

“It would be a kind of death,” said the Privy Councillor.

“Or another kind of life,” Christian replied. “Yes, that is quite the
right name for it and also its purpose--to create another kind of
life. For this,” he arose, and his eyes burned, “this way of life is
unendurable. Yours is unendurable.”

The Privy Councillor came closer. “And surely, surely you will go on
living? That anxiety need not torment me too, need it?”

“Oh,” Christian said, vividly and serenely, “I must. What are you
thinking of? I must live!”

“You speak of it with a cheerfulness, and I ... and we ... Christian!”
the Privy Councillor cried in his despair. “I had none but you! Do you
not know it? Did you not? I have no one but you. What is to happen now,
and what is to be done?”

Christian stretched out his hand toward his father, who took it with
the gesture of a broken man. With a mighty effort he controlled
himself. “If it be inevitable, let us not drag it out,” he said. “God
guard you, Christian. In reality I never knew you; I do not now. It
is hard to be forced to say: ‘I had a firstborn son; he lives and has
died to me.’ But I shall submit. I see that there is something in you
to which one must submit. But perhaps the day will come when that
something within you will not utterly suffice; perhaps you will demand
something more. Well, I am sixty-two; it would avail me little. God
guard you, Christian.”

Restrained, erect, he turned to go.


XXXIII

Amadeus Voss said: “He will not enter upon the conflict. He has been
placed before the final choice. You think: ‘Oh, it is only his family
that would make him submit and conform.’ But the family is to-day
the decisive factor of power in the state. It is the cornerstone and
keystone of millennial stratifications and crystallizations. He who
defies it is outlawed; he has nowhere to lay his head. He is placed in
a perpetual position of criminality, and that wears down the strongest.”

“His people seem to have made a considerable impression on you,”
Lamprecht remarked.

“I discuss a principle and you speak of persons,” Voss replied,
irritably. “Refute me on my own ground, if you don’t mind. As a matter
of fact, I saw no one face to face except Wahnschaffe’s brother,
Wolfgang. He invited me, ostensibly to obtain information, but in fact
to test me. A remarkable chap; representative to the last degree. He
is penetrated by the unshakable seriousness of those who have counted
every rung of the social ladder and measured all social distances to a
millimetre. Ready for anything; venal through and through; stopping at
nothing; cruel by nature, and consistent through lack of mind. I don’t
deny the impressiveness of such an extraordinarily pure type. You can’t
image a better object lesson of all that constitutes the society of the
period.”

“And, of course, you took Christian’s part, and declared that you were
unapproachable and unbribable for diplomatic services?” Johanna asked,
in a tone of subtle carelessness. “Or didn’t you?” She walked up and
down in order to lay the board for Christian, whom she yearned for with
a deep impatience.

Michael did not take his eyes from the face of Amadeus Voss.

“I never dreamed of such folly,” Amadeus answered. “My occupation is
research, not moralizing. I have ceased sacrificing myself to phantoms.
I no longer believe in ideas or in the victory of ideas. So far as I am
concerned, the battle has been decided, and peace has been made. Why
should I not admit it frankly? I have made a pact with things as they
are. Do not call it cynicism; it is an honest confession of my sincere
self. It is the fruit of the insight I have gained into the useful, the
effective, into all that helps man actually and tangibly. There was no
necessity in the wide world for me to become a martyr. Martyrs confuse
the world; they tear open the hell of our agonies, and do so quite in
vain. When or where has pain ever been assuaged or healed through pain?
Once upon a time I went the way of sighs and the way of the cross; I
know what it means to suffer for dreams and spill one’s blood for the
unattainable; breast to breast have I wrestled with Satan till at last
it became clear to me: you can strip him off only if you give yourself
to the world wholly and without chaffering. Nor must you look back,
or, like Lot’s wife, you will be turned into a pillar of salt. Thus I
overcame the devil, or, if you prefer, myself.”

“It was, to say the least, a very weighty and significant
transformation,” said Johanna, cutting the buns in half and buttering
them. Her gestures were of an exquisitely calculated ease and charm.

“And what did you finally say to Wolfgang Wahnschaffe?” asked Botho von
Thüngen. He sat beside the window, and from time to time looked out
into the yard, for in him too there was a deep desire for Christian’s
presence. In each of them was a dark feeling of his nearness.

“I told him just about what I think,” Voss answered. “I said: ‘The
best thing you can do is to let everything take its natural course.
He will be entangled in his own snares. Resistance offers support,
persecution creates aureoles. Why should you want to crown him with
an aureole? A structure of paradoxes must be permitted to fall of its
own weight. All the visions of Saint Anthony have not the converting
power of one instant of real knowledge. There must be no wall about him
and no bridge for his feet; then he will want to erect walls and build
bridges. Have patience,’ I said, ‘have patience. I who was the midwife
of his soul on the road of conversion may take it upon myself to
prophesy; and I prophesy that the day is not far off when he will lust
after a woman’s lips.’ For this, I confess, was the thing that mainly
gave me pause--this life without Eros. And it was not satiety, no, it
was not, but a true and entire renunciation. But let Eros once awaken,
and he will find his way back. Nor is the day far off.” His face had a
look of fanatical certitude.

“It will be another Eros, not him you name,” said Thüngen.

Then Michael arose, looked upon Voss with burning eyes, and cried out
to him: “Betrayer!”

Amadeus Voss gave a start. “Eh, little worm, what’s gotten into you?”
he murmured, contemptuously.

“Betrayer!” Michael said.

Voss approached him with a threatening gesture.

“Michael! Amadeus!” Johanna admonished, beseechingly, and laid her hand
on Voss’s arm.

And while she did so, the door was opened softly, and the little
Stübbe girl slipped silently into the room. She was neatly dressed as
always. Her two blond braids were wound about her head and made her
pain-touched child’s face seem even older and more madonna-like. She
looked about her, and when she caught sight of Michael, she went up to
him and handed him a letter. Thereupon she left the room again.

Michael unfolded the letter and read it, and all the colour left his
face. It slipped from his hand. Lamprecht picked it up. “Does it
concern us too?” he asked, with a clear presentiment. “Is it from him?”

Michael nodded and Lamprecht read the letter aloud: “Dear Michael:--I
take this way of saying farewell to you, and beg you to greet our
friends. I must go away from here now, and you will not receive any
news of me. Let no one try to seek me out. It seemed simpler and more
useful to me to depart in this way than to put off and confuse the
unavoidable by explanations and questions. I have taken with me the
few things of mine that were in Karen’s rooms. They all went into a
little travelling bag. What remains you can pack into the box in the
other room; there are a few necessities--some linen and a suit of
clothes. Perhaps I shall find it possible to have these sent after
me, but it is uncertain. For you, Michael, I am sending one thousand
marks to Lamprecht, in order that your instruction may be continued
for a time; it may also serve in time of need. Johanna will find in
the house-agent’s care to-morrow, when I shall send it, an envelope
containing two hundred and fifty marks. Perhaps she will be kind enough
to use this money to satisfy a few obligations that I leave behind.
Once more: Greet our friends. Cling to them. Farewell. Be brave. Think
of Ruth. Your Christian Wahnschaffe.”

They had all arisen and grouped themselves about Lamprecht. Shaken to
the soul, Lamprecht spoke: “I am his, now and in future, in heart and
mind.”

“What is the meaning of it, and what the reason?” Thüngen asked, in the
shy stillness.

“Exactly like Wahnschaffe,” Voss’s voice was heard. “Flat and wooden as
a police regulation.”

“Be silent,” Johanna breathed at him, in her soul’s pain. “Be silent,
Judas!”

No other word was said. They all stood about the table, but the place
that had been laid for Christian remained empty. Twilight was beginning
to fall, and one after another they went away. Amadeus Voss approached
Johanna, and said: “That word you spoke to me, following the boy’s
example, will burn your soul yet, I promise you.”

Michael, rapt from the things about him, looked upward with visionary,
gleaming eyes.

In weary melancholy Johanna said to herself: “How runs the
stage-direction in the old comedies? Exit. Yes, exit. Short and sweet.
Exit Johanna. Go your ways.” She threw a last look around the dim room,
and, lean and shadowy, was the last to slip through the door.


XXXIV

When, two days later, Letitia and Crammon arrived in Stolpische Street,
they were told that Christian Wahnschaffe was no longer there. Both
flats had been cleared of furniture and were announced as to let. Nor
could any one give them any light on whither he had gone or where he
was. The house-agent said he had told his acquaintances that he was
leaving the city. To Crammon’s discomfort, a little crowd of people
gathered around the motor car, and jeering remarks were heard.

“Too late,” Letitia said. “I shall never forgive myself.”

“Oh, yes, you will, my child, you will,” Crammon assured her; and they
returned to the realms of pleasure.

Letitia forgave herself that very evening. And what could she have done
with so questionable a burden on her conscience? It was but a venial
sin. The first tinkle of a glass, the first twang of a violin, the
first fragrance of a flower obliterated it.

But at Crammon that neglect and lateness gnawed more and more and not
less. In his naïve ignorance he imagined that he could have prevented
that extreme step, had he but come two days earlier. Now his loss
was sealed and final. He fancied that he might have laid his hand on
Christian’s shoulder and given him an earnest and admonishing look, and
that Christian, put to shame, might have spoken: “Yes, Bernard, you
are right. It was all a mistake. Let us send for a bottle of wine, and
consider how we may spend the future most amusingly.”

Whenever, like a collector who examines his enviously guarded
treasures, Crammon turned over his memories of life, it was always the
figure of Christian that arose before him in a kind of apotheosis. It
was the Christian of the early days, and he only--amid the dogs in the
park, in the moonlit nights under the plantain, in the exquisite halls
of the dancer, Christian laughing, laughing more beautifully than the
muleteer of Cordova, Christian the seductive, the extravagant, the lord
of life--Eidolon.

Thus he saw him. Thus he carried his image through time.

And rumours came to him which he did not believe. People appeared who
had heard it said that Christian Wahnschaffe had been seen during the
great catastrophe in the mines of Hamm. He had gone down into the
shafts and helped bring up the bodies of men. Others came who asserted
that he was living in the East End of London, in the companionship of
the lowest and most depraved; and again others pretended to know that
he had been seen in the Chinese quarter of New York.

Crammon said: “Nonsense, it isn’t Christian. It’s his double.”

He was afraid of the grey years that drew nearer like fogs over the
face of the waters.

“What would you say to a little house in some valley of the Carinthian
Alps?” he asked Letitia one day. “A quaint and modest little house.
You plant your vegetables and grow your roses and read your favourite
books, in a word, you are secure and at peace.”

“Charming,” answered Letitia, “I’d love to visit you now and then.”

“Why now and then? Why not make it your abiding place?”

“But would you take in the twins, too, and the servants and auntie?”

“I’m afraid that would require a special wing. Impossible.”

“And furthermore ... I must confess to you that Egon Rochlitz and I
have come to an agreement. We’re going to be married. That would be one
more person.”

Crammon was silent for a while. Then he said irritably:

“I give you my curse. You offer me no alternative.”

With a smile Letitia offered him her cheek.

He kissed her with paternal reserve, and said: “Your skin is as velvety
as the skin of an apricot.”



LEGEND


In ancient times there lived a king named Saldschal who had a very
ill-favoured daughter. Her skin was rough and hard as that of a tiger,
and the hair of her head like the mane of a horse. This vexed the
king’s spirit sorely, and he caused her to be educated in the innermost
chambers of the palace, hidden from the eyes of men. When she had
grown up, and her marriage had to be thought of, the king said to his
minister: “Seek out and bring to me a poor, wandering nobleman.” The
minister sought and found such a nobleman. Him the king led to a lonely
place, and spoke: “I have a repulsively ill-favoured daughter. Will you
take her for your wife, because she is the daughter of a king?” The
youth kneeled and made answer: “I shall obey my lord.” So those two
were made man and wife, and the king gave them a house and closed it
with sevenfold doors, and said to his son-in-law: “Whenever you leave
the house, lock the doors and carry the key upon your person.” And in
this the youth was also obedient.

Now one day he and other nobles were bidden to a feast. The other
guests came in the company of their wives. But the king’s son-in-law
came alone, and the people marvelled greatly. “Either,” they said one
to another, “the wife of this man is so comely and delightful that he
hides her from jealousy, or she is so ill-favoured that he fears to
show her.” To resolve their doubts, they determined to make their way
into the house of the man. They caused him to be drunken and robbed
him of his keys, and when he lay in a stupor they set out toward his
dwelling.

While these things happened, the woman had grievous thoughts in her
lonely captivity. “Of what sin can I be guilty,” she asked herself,
“that my husband despises me and lets me dwell woefully in this place,
where I see neither the sun nor the moon?” And furthermore she thought:
“The Victorious and Perfect is present in His world. He is the refuge
and redeemer of all who suffer pain and grief. I shall bow down from
afar before the Victorious and Perfect. Think of me in thy mercy,” she
prayed, “and appear visibly before me, and, if so it be possible, in
this hour.” The Victorious and Perfect, who knew that the thoughts of
the king’s daughter were pure and filled with the deepest reverence,
raised her into His dwelling and showed her His head, which has the
hue of lapis lazuli. And when the king’s daughter beheld the head of
the Victorious and Perfect, she was filled with a very great joy, and
her mind was wholly cleansed. And in her purified estate it came to
pass that her hair grew soft and became the colour of lapis lazuli.
Thereupon the Victorious and Perfect showed her His face entire and
unconcealed. At that the joy of the king’s daughter grew so great that
her own face became comely and delightful, and every trace of ugliness
and coarseness vanished. But when at last the Victorious and Perfect
showed her the golden radiance of His majestic body, the devout ecstasy
felt by the king’s daughter caused her own body to be changed to a
perfection so divine that nothing comparable to it could be found in
all the world. In all His splendour the Victorious and Perfect appeared
before her; her joyous faith reached its utmost height, and her
innermost being became like to the soul of an angel.

And then came the men who desired to see her, and opened the doors
and entered in, and beheld a miracle of beauty. And they said, one
to another: “He did not bring the woman with him, because she is so
beautiful.” They returned to the feast, and made fast the key to the
man’s girdle. When he awakened from his drunkenness, and went to his
house and beheld his wife, and saw that she was incomparable for
beauty among women, he marvelled and asked: “How has it happened that
you, who were so ill-favoured, have become comely and delightful?”
She answered: “I became thus after I had seen the Victorious and
Perfect. Go and relate this thing to my father.” The man went and told
this matter to the king. But the king replied: “Speak to me not of
such things. Hasten to your house, and close it fast so that she may
not escape.” The son-in-law said: “She is like a goddess.” Whereupon
the king said: “If it be so in truth, lead her to me.” And greatly
marvelling, he received the beautiful one in the inner chambers of
his palace. Then he betook him to the place where is the seat of the
Victorious and Perfect, and bowed down before Him and worshipped Him.


THE END



Transcriber's Note


The following apparent errors have been corrected:

p. 2 "indentified" changed to "identified"

p. 9 "again" changed to "again."

p. 9 "approachd" changed to "approached"

p. 16 "mnid" changed to "mind"

p. 38 "to-day," changed to "to-day."

p. 62 "pastor asked" changed to "pastor asked."

p. 110 "to-night." changed to "to-night.”"

p. 145 "ourselves?”" changed to "ourselves?’"

p. 173 "springes" changed to "springs"

p. 185 "falshood" changed to "falsehood"

p. 226 "Futhermore" changed to "Furthermore"

p. 268 "conpensated" changed to "compensated"

p. 278 "embroided" changed to "embroidered"

p. 294 "as courier" changed to "a courier"

p. 372 "it it" changed to "it is"

p. 395 "terrrible" changed to "terrible"


Archaic or inconsistent language has otherwise been kept as printed. On
p. 115, the unbalanced quotation mark in "the eyes----”" was present in
the original German.





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