“If you regret it I shall forget all you have said,” Christian answered in his flexible, courteous way, that always had a touch of the equivocal.
Voss let his head droop. “Come in again when you are passing,” he begged gently. “Perhaps then I’ll tell you about what happened there!” He pointed with his thumb across his shoulder.
“I shall come,” said Christian.
Albrecht Wahnschaffe came into his wife’s bedroom. She was in bed. It was a magnificent curtained bed with carved posters. On both sides of the wall hung costly tapestries representing mythological scenes. A coverlet of blue damask concealed Frau Wahnschaffe’s majestic form.
Gallantly he kissed the hand which she held out toward him with a weary gesture, and glided into an armchair. “I want to talk to you about Christian,” he said. “For some time his doings have worried me. He drifts and drifts. The latest thing is his purchase of that diamond. There is a challenge in such an action. It annoys me.”
Frau Wahnschaffe wrinkled her forehead, and answered: “I see no need to worry. Many sons of wealthy houses pass their time as Christian does. They are like noble plants that need adornment. They seem to me to represent a high degree of human development. They regard themselves quite rightly as excellent within themselves. By birth and wealth they are freed from the necessity of effort. Their very being is in their aristocratic aloofness and inviolability.”
Albrecht Wahnschaffe bowed. He played with his slender white fingers that bore no sign of age. He said: “I’m sorry that I cannot quite share your opinion. It seems to me that in the social organism each member should exercise a function that serves the whole. I was brought up with this view, and I cannot deny it in favour of Christian. I am not inclined to quarrel with his mere expenditure of money, though he has exceeded his budget considerably during the last few months. The house of Wahnschaffe cannot be touched even by such costly pranks. What annoys me is the aimlessness of such a life, its exceedingly obvious lack of any inner ambition.”
From under her wearily half-closed lids Frau Wahnschaffe regarded her husband coolly. It angered her that he desired to draw Christian, who had been created for repose and play, delight and beauty, into his own turbid whirl. She answered with a touch of impatience: “You have always let him choose his own path, and you cannot change him now. All do not need to toil. Business is terribly unappetizing. I have borne two sons—one for you, one for myself. Demand of yours what you will and let him fulfil what he can. I like to think of mine and be happy in the thought that he is alive. If anything has worried me it is the fact that, since his trip to England, Christian has withdrawn himself more and more from us, and also, I am told, from his friends. I hope it means nothing. Perhaps there is a woman behind it. In that case it will pass; he does not indulge in tragic passions. But talking exhaustsme, Albrecht. If you have other arguments, I beg you to postpone them.”
She turned her head aside, and closed her eyes in exhaustion. Albrecht Wahnschaffe arose, kissed her hand with the same gallant gesture, and went out.
But her saying that she had borne one son for him and one for herself embittered him a little against his wife, whom he commonly regarded as an inviolable being of finer stuff. Why did I build all this? he asked himself, as he slowly passed through the magnificent halls.
It was more difficult for him to approach Christian than a member of the ministry or a distinguished foreigner. He vacillated between issuing a request and a command. He was not sure of his authority, and even less of any friendly understanding. But while he was spending a few days of rest and recreation in the family’s ancestral house at Würzburg, he sent a message to Christian, and begged him for an interview.
Crammon wrote to Christian. It was his humour to affect an archaic manner of speech:
“Most Honoured and Worthy Friend: With deep satisfaction I learn that your Worship has ruefully returned to the god Dionysos, and as a sign thereof laid down upon his altar a jewel, whose price has caused the teeth of the Philistines in the land to rattle, and their lame digestions to work with unwelcome swiftness. Your servant, the undersigned, did, on the contrary, when the news of happy augury came to him, perform a dance in his lonely closet, which so shocked the ladies of his palace that they at once called up psychiatrists on the telephone. Thus the world, barren of understanding, is incapable of great reflections.
“Unlovely are my days. I am ensnared in amorous adventures which do not content me, and, in addition, disappoint those who are involved. At times I sit by the charming glow ofmy chimney fire, and, closing my eyes, peruse the book of memory. A bottle of golden-hued cognac is my sole companion, and while I nourish my heart upon its artificial warmth, the higher regions are wont to sink into the cold mystery of mere idiocy. My mental powers are moving, like the crab, backward; my virile powers decline. Years ago in Paris I knew a chess player, a purblind old German, who lost every game he played, and exclaimed each time: ‘Where are the days in which I vanquished the great Zuckertort?’ The latter, I must explain, was a great master of the royal game. The necessary application to myself embarrasses me. There was once a Roman emperor famous above all others for his power over women; Maxentius was, I believe, the man’s name. But were I to exclaim: ‘Where are the days in which I rivalled the great Maxentius?’ it were but damnable boasting!
“It is a pity that you cannot be a beholder when I arise from my couch in the morning. Were this spectacle to be tested by connoisseurs and to be enjoyed by the laity, throngs would attend it, as whilom they did the rising of the kings of France. The gentry of the land would come to do me reverence, and lovely ladies would tickle me to elicit a beam of cheer upon my face. O blessed youth, friend and playmate of my dreams, I would have you know that the moments in which one leaves the linen well warmed by one’s own body, and goes forth to twelve hours of the world’s mischief, are to me moments of incomparable pitifulness. I sit on the bed’s edge, and regard my underwear with a loud though inward rage. Sadly I gather the remnants of my ego, and reknot the thread of consciousness where Morpheus cut it yestereve. My soul is strewn about, and rolls in little globules, like mercury spilt from a broken thermometer. Only the sacrificial fumes of the tea kettle, the fragrance of ham and of an omelet like cowslips, and, above all, gentle words uttered by the soft lips of my considerate housekeepers, reconcile me to my fate.
“Dear old Regamey is dead. The Count Sinsheim has had aparalytic stroke. My friend, Lady Constance Cuningham, a member of the highest aristocracy, has married a wealthy American bounder. The best are going, and the tree of life is growing bare. On my trip here I stopped over in Munich for three days as the guest of the young Imhofs. Your sister Judith is cutting a great figure. The painters paint her, the sculptors hew her in marble, the poets celebrate her. Yet her ambition is still vaulting. She desires passionately a little nine-pointed coronet upon her linen, her liveries, and her four motors, and flirts with everything that comes from the court or goes to it. Felix, on the contrary, being a democrat, surrounds himself with business men, speculators, explorers, and clever people of both sexes. Hence their house is a mixture of Guildhall, a grain exchange, a meeting of pettifoggers, and a jockey club. After watching the goings on for an evening, I retired to a corner with a pretty girl, and asked her to feel my pulse. She obeyed, and my suffering soul was soothed.
“Our sweet Ariel, I am told, intoxicates the Poles in Warsaw and the Muscovites in Moscow. In the latter city the students are said to have expressed their homage by a torchlight procession, and the officers to have covered the snowy streets from her dwelling to the theatre with roses. I am also told that the Grand Duke Cyril, commonly known as the human butcher, is half-mad with love of her, and is turning the world topsy-turvy to get her. It fills me with a piercing, depthless melancholy to think, O Ariel, that once I, too, felt thy breath. No more than that; but it suffices.Le moulin n’y est plus, mais le vent y est encore.
“With this final remark, dear brother of my heart and sorely missed friend, I commend you to God, and beseech you to give some sign to your affectionately longing Bernard Gervasius C. v. W.”
When Christian had read the letter, he smiled, and laid it quietly aside.
On the slope of the hill behind the village Christian and Amadeus Voss met quite by chance.
“I have been waiting for you all week,” said Voss.
“I was going to come to you to-day,” said Christian. “Won’t you walk a little with me?”
Amadeus Voss turned and accompanied Christian. They climbed the hill-top, and then turned toward the forest. Silently they walked side by side. The sun shone through the boughs and everything was watery. Remnants of snow rested on the dry foliage; the ground was slippery; on the road the water flowed in the deep ruts. When they left the forest the sun was just setting, the sky was greenish and pink, and when they reached the first houses of Heptrich, twilight had fallen. On the whole way they had not exchanged a syllable. At first Voss had deliberately not kept step with Christian. Later they walked in a rhythmic harmony that was like the prelude to their conversations.
“I’m hungry,” said Amadeus Voss; “there is an inn yonder. Let us go.”
They entered the guest room, which they found empty. They sat down at a table near the oven, for the cold air had chilled them. A bar-maid lit a lamp, and brought what they ordered. Christian, in an access of fear, which was less only than his curiosity, thought: What will happen now? and watched Voss attentively.
“The other day I read a moral tale in an old book,” said Amadeus, and he used a sharpened match as a tooth-pick in a way that made Christian tremble with nervousness. “It tells about a king, who realized that men and things in his country were growing worse every day, and he asked four philosophers to find out the reason. The four wise men consulted, and then each went to one of the four gates of the city and inscribed thereon one of the chief reasons. The first wrote: ‘Here mightis right, and therefore this land has no law; day is night, and therefore this land has no road; conflict is flight, and therefore this land has no honour.’ The second wrote: ‘One is two here, and therefore this land has no truth; friend is enemy here, therefore this land has no troth; evil is good, therefore we see no piety.’ The third wrote: ‘The snail pretends to be an eagle, and thieves hold all power.’ The fourth wrote: ‘The will is our counsellor, and its counsel is evil; the penny pronounces judgment, therefore our rule is vile; God is dead, and therefore the land is filled with sins.’”
He threw the match away, and leaned his head upon his hand. “In the same book,” he went on, “there is yet another story, and perhaps you will feel the connection between the two. Once upon a time the earth opened in the midst of Rome, and a yawning abyss was seen. The gods were questioned, and they made answer: ‘This abyss will not close until some one has leaped into it of his own free will.’ None could be persuaded to do that. At last a youth came and said: ‘If you will let me live for one year according to my pleasure, then at the year’s end I shall gladly and voluntarily plunge into the abyss.’ It was decided that nothing should be forbidden him, and he used the women and possessions of the Romans freely and at his pleasure. All yearned for the moment to come when they could be rid of him. And when the year was gone, he rode up on a noble charger, and with it leaped into the abyss, which immediately closed behind him.”
Christian shrugged his shoulders. “It is all dark to me,” he said moodily. “Did you really want to tell me these old tales? They have no meaning.”
Voss laughed hoarsely to himself. “You are not nimble,” he said, “you have not a nimble mind. Have you never felt the need of seeking refuge in some metaphor? It is like a drug that stills pain.”
“I don’t know what you mean by that,” Christian said, and again he heard the other’s soft laughter.
“Let us go,” said Christian and arose.
“Very well. Let us go.” Voss spoke with a morose air. And they went.
The night air was very still and the sky sown with stars that gleamed coldly. When the village lay behind them, they heard no sound.
“How long were you in Ribbeck’s house?” Christian asked suddenly.
“Ten months,” Amadeus Voss replied. “When I got to Halbertsroda, the land lay under ice and snow. When I left, the land lay under ice and snow. Between my coming and going, there was a spring, a summer, and an autumn.”
He stopped for a moment, and gazed after an animal that in the darkness leaped across the road and disappeared in the furrows of a field. Then he began to talk, at first in a staccato manner and drily, then vividly and tempestuously, and at last gasping for breath. They wandered away from the road, but were not aware of it; the hour grew late, but they did not know it.
Voss told his story:
“I had never seen a house like that. The carpets, pictures, tapestries, the silver, the many servants—it was all new to me. I had never eaten of such dishes nor slept in such beds. I came from amid four bare walls, from a cot, an iron stove, a wash stand, a book shelf, and a crucifix.
“My two pupils were eleven and thirteen. The older was blond and spare, the younger brunette and stocky. Their hair hung down their shoulders like manes. From the very first hour they treated me with a jeering resistance. At first I did not see Frau Ribbeck at all. Not till a week had passed did she summon me. She made the impression of a young girl; she had rust-red hair and a pale, intimidated, undeveloped face. She treated me with a contempt that I had not expected, andthat drove the blood into my temples. My meals were served to me alone. I was not permitted to eat at the master’s table, and the servants treated me as their equal. That gnawed at me cruelly. When Frau Ribbeck appeared in the garden and I lifted my hat, she barely nodded, blind and shameless in her contempt for one whom she paid. I was no more to her than thin air!
“It is as old as the world, this sin that was sinned against my soul. Ye sinners against my soul, why did you let me famish? Why did I taste of renunciation while ye revelled? How shall a hungry man withstand the temptations which the living Tempter places before him? Do you think we are not aware of your gluttony? All action, whether good or evil, runs through all nature. When the grape blossoms in Madeira, the wine that has been pressed from it stirs in a thousand casks far over sea and land, and a new fermentation sets in.
“One morning the boys locked the door of their room and refused to come to their instruction. While I shook the knob they mocked me from within. In the halls the servants stood and laughed at my powerlessness. I went to the gardener, borrowed an axe, and crashed through the door with three blows. A minute later I was in the room. The boys looked at me in consternation, and realized at last that I would not endure their insolence. The noise had brought Frau Ribbeck to the scene. She looked at the broken door and then at me. I shall never forget that look. She did not turn her eyes from me even while she was speaking to the children, and that was at least ten minutes. Her eyes asked: How dare you? Who are you? When she went out, she saw the axe near the door and stopped a moment, and I saw her shiver. But I knew that the direction of the wind had changed. Also it came into my consciousness that a human woman had stood before me.
“The teasing of my pupils was by no means at an end. On the contrary, they annoyed me as much as possible. But they did it secretively now, and the blame was hard to fix. I foundpebbles and needles in my bed, ink spilled over my books, a horrible rent in the best suit of clothes I had. They jeered at me before others, lied about me to their mother, and exchanged glances of shameless insolence when I held them responsible. What they did was not like the ordinary mischief of silly boys. They had been sophisticated by luxury. They were afraid of a draught, had the rooms so overheated that one grew faint, and thought of nothing but physical comforts. Once they fought, and the younger bit the older’s finger. The boy went to bed for three days, and insisted that a physician be called. Nor was this merely a case of lazy malingering; bottomless malevolence and vengefulness entered into it. They considered me as far beneath them, and lost no chance to make me feel my dependent position. My mood was often bitter, but I determined to practise patience.
“One evening I entered the drawing-room. The hour which I had set as the boys’ bed-time was past. Frau Ribbeck sat on the carpet, the boys snuggled on either side of her. She was showing them the pictures in a book. Her hair hung loose,—an unfitting thing, I thought—and its reddish splendour covered her as well as the boys like a mantle of brocade. The boys fixed green and evil eyes upon me. I ordered them to bed at once. There must have been something in my tone that frightened them and forced them to obey. Without contradiction they got up and retired.
“Adeline remained on the carpet. I shall simply call her Adeline, as, indeed, I did later during our intercourse. She looked at me exactly as she had done that day I had used the axe. One cannot well be paler than she was by nature, but her skin now became positively transparent. She arose, went to the table, lifted some indifferent object, and put it down again. At the same time a mocking smile hovered upon her lips. That smile went through and through me. And indeed the woman herself pierced me, body and soul. You’ll misunderstand me. It doesn’t matter. If you don’t understand, no explanationswill do any good. The sheet of ice above me cracked, and I had a glimpse of the upper world.”
“I believe I do understand you,” said Christian.
“To my question whether she desired me to leave the house, she replied that, since her husband had engaged me, it was for her to respect the arrangement. Her tone was frosty. I replied that the pressure of her dislike made it impossible for my activities to be fruitful. With an indirect glance at me, she answered that some method of decent co-operation could probably be found, and that she would think it over. Beginning with that evening, I was invited to table with her, and the boys and she treated me with respect, if not with kindness. Late one evening she sent for me and asked me to read to her. She gave me the book from which I was to read. It was a current fashionable novel, and, after I had read a few pages, I threw the volume on the table, and said that the stuff nauseated me. She nodded, and answered that that was quite her feeling, too, which she had not wanted to admit even to herself, and that she was grateful to me for my frankness. I went for my Bible, and read her the story of Samson from the Book of Judges. It must have seemed naïve to her, for when I had finished that mocking smile played again about her lips. Then she asked: ‘It’s hardly necessary, is it, to be a hero in Judah to share Samson’s fate? And do you think that what Delilah accomplished was so remarkable?’ I replied that I had no experience of such matters, and she laughed.
“One word led to another, and I gathered the courage to reproach her with the morally neglected condition of her children, and with the wounding and vulgar quality of all I had so far seen and experienced in her house. I intentionally used the sharpest words, in order that she might flare up in wrath and show me the door. But she remained quite calm, and begged me to explain my ideas more fully. I did so, not without passion, and she heard me with pleasure. Several times I saw her breathe deeply and stretch herself and close her eyes. Shecontradicted me, then agreed, defended her position, and in the end admitted it to be indefensible. I told her that the love which she thought she felt for her sons was really a sort of hatred, based on a poisoning of her own soul, in which there was yet another life and another love, which it was wicked to condemn to withering and death. She must have misunderstood me at this point, for she looked at me with her large eyes suddenly, and bade me go. When I had closed her door behind me, I heard sobs. I opened the door again, and saw her sitting there with her face hidden in her hands. I had the impulse to return to her. But her gesture dismissed me.
“I had never before seen any woman cry except my mother. I cannot tell you of my feelings. If I had had a sister and grown up in her companionship, I might have acted and felt differently. But Adeline was the first woman whom, in any deeper sense, I truly saw.
“Several days later she asked me whether I had any hope of forming her boys into human beings in my sense. She said that she had reflected on all I had urged, and had come to the conclusion that things could not go on as they were. I answered that it was not yet too late. She begged me to save what was possible, and announced that, in order to leave me a free hand, she had determined to travel for a few months. Three days later she departed. She took no personal farewell of her sons, but wrote them a letter from Dresden.
“I took the boys with me to a hunting lodge, that lay isolated in the woods, at a distance of two hours from Halbertsroda. It belonged to the Ribbeck estate, and Adeline had assigned it to me as a refuge. There I settled down with the boys and took them sternly in hand. Sometimes dread overcame me, when I thought of the words of Scripture: Why do you seek constantly to change your way? Beware lest you be deceived by Egypt, as you were deceived by Assyria.
“A deaf, old man-servant cooked for us, and luxurious meals were a thing of the past. The boys had to pray, to fast oncea week, to sleep on hard mattresses, and to rise at five in the morning. In every way I broke down their stubbornness, their dull sloth, their furtive sensuality, their plots and tricks. There was no play now, and the days were divided with iron regularity. I shrank from no severity. I chastised them; at the slightest disobedience I used a whip. I taught them the meaning of pain. When they cowered naked before me, with the bloody stripes on their bodies, I spoke to them of the martyrdom of the saints. I kept a diary, in order that Adeline might know exactly what had happened. The boys started when they heard me from afar; they trembled if I but raised my head. Once I came upon them whispering to each other in bed at night. I drove them out. They screamed and fled out of the house from me. In their night shifts they ran into the forest, and I, with two dogs following me, pursued them. Rain began to pour, and at last they broke down and threw themselves on the ground and begged for mercy. Most difficult of all it was to lead them to Confession. But I was stronger than the Evil One within them, and forced them to cleanse their souls. Bitter hours were the hours I endured. But I had made a vow to Adeline in my heart.
“The boys became thoughtful, subdued, and silent. They went into corners and wept. When Adeline returned I took them to Halbertsroda, and she marvelled at the change in them. They flung themselves into her arms, but they uttered no complaint against me, either then or when they were left alone with her. I had told them that if they were disobedient or stubborn, we would return to the hunting lodge. One or two days a week were spent there under any circumstances. Gradually they came to avoid their mother, and Adeline herself was more indifferent to them. The softish, hectic, over-tender element in their relations had disappeared.
“Adeline sought my companionship and conversation. She watched me, and was condescending, weary, distracted in mind, and restless. She adorned herself as though guests werecoming, and combed her hair thrice daily. In all respects she submitted to my regulations. There are dulled, worm-eaten, smouldering souls that kneel before the raised axe in another’s hand, and give only mockery to those who bend before them. Often her loftiness and reserve overwhelmed me, and I thought that she had no space for me in her mind. Then a look came into her eyes that made me forget whence I came and what I was in her house. Everything seemed possible with her. She was capable of setting fire to the house by night, because she was bored, and because the cancer that ate at her soul would cease its gnawing for no nobler ecstasy: she was capable of standing from noon to night before her mirror to watch a deepening furrow on her brow. Everything seemed possible. For is it not written: What man knoweth what is in man except only the spirit of man that is in him?
“My deep temptations began on an evening when, in the course of conversation, she carelessly laid her hand over mine, and withdrew it hastily. That gesture snatched from my sight the things about us. In the space between one thought and the next I had become the slave of visions and desires.
“She asked me to tell her about my life. I fell into that snare too, and told her.
“Once in the twilight I met her in the hall. She stood still, and looked at me piercingly. Then she laughed softly and moved away. I reeled, and the sweat stood in beads on my forehead.
“My heart was heavy when I was alone. Visions appeared that set my room in flames. My rosary and my missal were hidden from me, and I could find neither. Always there rose the cry in me: Once only! Let me taste that ecstasy but once! Then demons came and tormented me. All the muscles and nerves and sinews of my body seemed lacerated. Do with me as God wills, I whispered to the demons, for my heart is prepared. During sleep a strange force hurled me from my bed, and unconsciously I battered the walls with my head. Onewhole week I fasted upon bread and water, but it did not avail. Once when I had sat down to read, a huge ape stood before me and turned the leaves of my book. Every night a seductive vision of Adeline came to my bed-side. She stood there and spoke: ‘It is I, my beloved.’ Then I would rise and run senselessly about. But she would follow me and whisper: ‘You shall be my master and have all the good things of this world.’ But when I sought to grasp that vision of her, it showed a sudden aversion, and she called fluttering shadows to her aid. One was a notary with a pen and an ink-well, another a locksmith with a red-hot hammer, there was a mason with his trowel, an officer with naked sword, a woman with a painted face.
“So terrible was my state, that I understood but slowly and gradually the dreadful realities that took place about me. One morning Adeline came into the room where I was teaching the boys, sat down, and listened. She drew from her finger a ring that had in it a great, lovely pearl, played with it thoughtfully, arose, went to the window to watch the falling of the snow, and then left the room to go into the garden. I could not breathe or see any longer. There was an intolerable pressure on my chest, and I had to leave the room for a little to catch my breath. When I returned I saw in the eyes of my pupils a look of unwonted malevolence. I paid no attention to it. From time to time the old rebelliousness flared up in them, but I let them be. They sat before me half-crouching, and recited their catechism softly and with glances full of fear.
“About ten minutes passed when Adeline returned. She said she had left her ring on the table, and asked me whether I had seen it. She began to search for it, and so did I. She called her maid and a footman, who examined everything in the room; but the ring was gone. Adeline and her servants looked at me strangely, for I stood there and could not move. I felt at once and in every fibre that I was exposed to their suspicion. They searched on the stairs and in the hall, in thenew fallen snow of the garden, and again in the room, since Adeline insisted that she had taken the ring off there and forgotten it on the table. And I confirmed this statement, although I had not actually seen the ring on the table, since I had seen her and her gestures but as things in a dream. All the words that were exchanged between her and the servants seemed directed against me. I read suspicion in their looks and changed colour, and called the boys, who had stolen away as soon as they could, and questioned them. They suggested that their rooms be searched, and looked at me with malignity. I begged Adeline to have my room searched as well. She made a deprecating gesture, but said, as though in self-justification, that she attached a peculiar value to this ring and should hate to lose it.
“Meantime the manager of the estate, who happened to have spent that night at Halbertsroda, entered. He passed me by without greeting, but with a dark and hostile glance. Then it all came over me. I saw myself delivered over to their suspicions without defence, and I said to myself: Perhaps you have really stolen the ring. The fall from my previous spiritual condition to this vulgar and ugly one was so sudden, that I broke out into wild laughter, and insisted more urgently than ever that my room and effects and even my person be searched. The manager spoke softly to Adeline. She looked at me wanly and went out. I emptied my pockets in the man’s presence. He followed me to my room. I sat down by the window while he opened drawer after drawer in my chest and opened my wardrobe. The footman, the maid, and the two boys stood by the door. Suddenly the manager uttered a hollow cry and held up the ring. I had known with the utmost certainty a moment before that he would find the ring. I had read it in the faces of the boys. Therefore I remained quietly seated while the others looked at one another and followed the manager out. I locked my door and walked up and down, up and down, for many, many hours.
“When the night was over, there was a solemn calm in my soul. I sent a servant to ask Adeline whether she would receive me. She refused. To justify myself in writing was a thing I scorned to do. I would but degrade myself by asserting my innocence thus. My soul felt pure and cold. I learned next day that the manager had long heard rumours of the frightful cruelties I was said to inflict on the boys, who had, moreover, accused their mother and myself of an adulterous intimacy. Hence he had visited Halbertsroda secretly on several occasions, had questioned the servants, and had, that very morning, caused the boys to strip in his presence and had seen on their bodies the marks of the stripes that they had received. Since, in addition, their entire state of mind made him anxious, he sent a telegram to the Councillor, who arrived during the night with an official of the police.
“I suspect that Adeline at once saw through the plot concerning the ring, for it was not mentioned. The commissary turned to me and spoke vaguely of serious consequences, but I made no attempt to explain or excuse anything I had done. I left Halbertsroda that same night. I did not see Adeline again. She was, I have been told, sent off to a sanatorium. Three weeks later a little package came to me by post. I opened it and found in it the ring with the pearl. In our yard is a very ancient well. I went to that well and cast the ring into its depths.
“And now you know what happened to me in that world of the higher classes, in the house of the Councillor Ribbeck.”
They had to walk a while longer before they reached the gate of the park of Christian’s Rest. As Voss was about to take his leave, Christian said: “You’re probably tired. Why trouble to walk to the village? Be my guest over night.”
“If it does not inconvenience you, I accept,” Voss answered.
They entered the house and passed into the brightly lit hall.Amadeus Voss gazed about him in astonishment. They went up the stairs and into the dining hall, which was furnished in the purest style of Louis XV. Christian led his guest through other rooms into the one that was to be his. And Amadeus Voss wondered more and more. “This is quite another thing from Halbertsroda,” he murmured; “it is as a feast day compared to every day.”
Silently they sat opposite each other at table. Then they went into the library. A footman served the coffee on a silver platter. Voss leaned against a column and looked upward. When the servant had gone, he said: “Have you ever heard of the Telchinian pestilence? It is a disease created by the envy of the Telchines, the hounds of Actæon who were changed into men, and it destroys everything within its reach. A youth named Euthilides saw with that eye of envy the reflection of his own beauty in a spring, and his beauty faded.”
Christian looked silently at the floor.
“There is another legend of a Polish nobleman,” Amadeus continued. “This nobleman lived alone in a white house by the Vistula river. All his neighbours avoided him, for his envious glance brought them nothing but misfortune. It killed their herds, set fire to their barns, and made their children leprous. Once a beautiful maiden was pursued by wolves and took refuge in the white house. He fell in love with her and married her. But because the evil that was in him passed into her also, he tore out the gleaming crystals of his eyes, and buried them near the garden wall. He had now recovered. But the buried eyes gained new power under the earth, and an old servitor who dug them up was slain by them.”
Sitting on a low stool, Christian had folded his arms over his knee, and looked up at Voss.
“From time to time,” said Amadeus Voss, “one must expiate the lust of the eye. Over in the village of Nettersheim a maid servant lies dying. The poor thing is deserted by all the world. She lies in a shed by the stables, and the peasants whothink her merely lazy will not believe that she is about to die. I have visited her more than once, in order to expiate the lust of the eye.”
A long silence fell upon them. When the clock in the tall Gothic case struck twelve, they went to their rooms.
In obedience to his father’s summons, Christian travelled to Würzburg.
Their greeting was most courteous. “I hope I have not interfered with any plans of yours,” said Albrecht Wahnschaffe.
“I am at your disposal,” Christian said coolly.
They took a walk on the old ramparts but said little. The beautiful dog Freia, who was the constant companion of Albrecht Wahnschaffe, trotted along between them. It surprised the elder Wahnschaffe to observe on Christian’s face the signs of inner change.
That evening, over their tea, he said with an admirably generous gesture. “You’re to be congratulated, I understand, on a very unusual acquisition. A wreath of legends surrounds this diamond. The incident has caused quite a whirl of dust to fly and not a little amazement. Not unjustly so, it seems to me, since you are neither a British Duke nor an Indian Maharajah. Is the stone so very desirable?”
“It is marvellous,” Christian said. And suddenly the words of Voss slipped into his mind: One must expiate the lust of the eye.
Albrecht Wahnschaffe nodded. “I don’t doubt it, and I understand such passions, though, as a man of business, I must regret the tying up of so much capital. It is an eccentricity; and the world is endangered whenever the commoners grow eccentric. And so I should like to ask you to reflect on this aspect of things: all the privileges which you enjoy, all the easements of life, the possibility of satisfyingyour whims and passions, the supremacy of your social station—all these things rest on work. Need I add—on the work of your father?”
The dog Freia had strolled out from a corner of the room, and laid her head caressingly on Christian’s knee. Albrecht Wahnschaffe, slightly annoyed and jealous, gave her a smart slap on one flank.
He continued. “An exploitation of one’s capacity for work which reaches the extent of mine involves, of course, the broadest self-denial in all other matters. One becomes a ploughshare that tears up the earth and rusts. Or one is like a burning substance, luminiferous but self-consumed. Marriage, family, friendship, art, nature—these things scarcely exist for me. I have lived like a miner in his shaft. And what thanks do I get? Demagogues tell those whom they delude that I am a vampire, who sucks the blood of the oppressed. These poisoners of our public life either do not know or do not wish to know the shocks and sufferings and renunciations that have been mine, and of which their peaceful ‘wage-slave’ has no conception.”
Freia snuggled closer up to Christian, licked his hand, and her eyes begged humbly for a look. The beast’s dumb tenderness soothed him. He frowned, and said laconically: “If it is so, and you feel it so keenly, why do you go on working?”
“There is such a thing as duty, my dear spoiled boy, such a thing as loyalty to a cause,” Albrecht Wahnschaffe answered, and a gleam of anger showed in his pale-blue eyes. “Every peasant clings to the bit of earth into which he has put his toil. When I began to work, our country was still a poor country; to-day it is rich. I shall not say that what I have accomplished is considerable, when compared to the sum of our national accomplishment, but it has counted. It is a symptom of our rise, of our young might, of our economic welfare. We are one of the very great nations now, and have a body as well as a countenance.”
“What you say is doubtless most true,” Christian answered. “Unhappily I have no instinct for such matters; my personality is defective in things of that kind.”
“A quarter of a century ago your fate would have been that of a bread earner,” Albrecht Wahnschaffe continued, without reacting to Christian’s words. “To-day you are a descendant and an heir. Your generation looks upon a changed world and age. We older men have fastened wings upon your shoulders, and you have forgotten how painful it is to creep.”
Christian, in a sombre longing for the warmth of some body, took the dog’s head between his hands, and with a grunt of gratitude she raised herself up and laid her paws on his shoulders. With a smile, that included his petting of the dog, he said: “No one refuses the good things that fall into his lap. It is true I have never asked whence everything comes and whither it tends. To be sure, there are other ways of living; and I may yet embrace one of them some day. Then it will be apparent whether one becomes another man, and what kind, when the supports or the wings, as you put it, are gone.” His face had grown serious.
Albrecht Wahnschaffe suddenly felt himself rather helpless before this handsome, proud stranger who was his son. To hide his embarrassment, he answered hastily: “A different way of living—that is just what I mean. It was the conviction that a life which is nothing but a chain of trifles must in the end become a burden, that made me suggest a career to you that is worthier of your powers and gifts. How would you like the profession of diplomacy? Wolfgang seems thoroughly satisfied with the possibilities that he sees opening up before him. It is not too late for you either. It will not be difficult to make up the time lost. Your name outweighs any title of nobility. You would stay in a suitable atmosphere; you have large means, the necessary personal qualities and relations. Everything will adjust itself automatically.”
Christian shook his head. “You are mistaken, father,” hesaid, softly but firmly. “I have no capacity for anything like that, and no taste for it at all.”
“I suspected as much,” Albert Wahnschaffe said, in his liveliest manner. “Let us not speak of it any more. My second proposal is far more congenial to myself. I would encourage you to co-operate in the activities of our firm. My plan is to create a representative position for you in either our home or our foreign service. If you choose the latter you may select your own field of activity—Japan, let us say, or the United States. We would furnish you with credentials that would make your position very independent. You would assume responsibilities that are in no wise burdensome, and enjoy all the privileges of an ambassador. All that is needed is your consent. I shall arrange all details.”
Christian arose from his chair. “I beg you very earnestly, father, to drop that subject,” he said. His expression was cold and his eyes cast down.
Albrecht Wahnschaffe arose too. “Do not be rash, Christian,” he admonished his son. “I shall not conceal the fact that a definitive refusal on your part would wound me deeply. I have counted on you.” He looked at Christian with a firm glance. But Christian was silent.
After a while he asked: “How long ago is it since you were at the works?”
“It must be three or four years ago,” Christian answered.
“It was three years ago on Whitsuntide, if I remember rightly,” Albrecht Wahnschaffe said, with his habitual touch of pride in his memory, which was rarely at fault. “You had agreed on a pleasure trip in the Harz mountains with your cousin, Theo Friesen, and Theo was anxious to pay a flying visit to the factories. He had heard of our new welfare movement for workingmen, and was interested in it. But you scarcely stopped after all.”
“No, I persuaded Theo to go on. We had a long way ahead of us, and I was anxious to get to our quarters.”
Christian remembered the whole incident now. Evening had come before the car drove through the streets of the factory village. He had yielded to his cousin’s wish, but suddenly his aversion for this world of smoke and dust and sweat and iron had awakened. He had not wanted to leave the car, and had ordered the driver to speed up.
Nevertheless he recalled the hellish music made up of beaten steel and whirring wheels. He could still hear the thundering, whistling, wheezing, screeching, hissing; he could still see the swift procession of forges, cylinders, pumps, steam-hammers, furnaces, of all kinds; the thousands of blackened faces, a race that seemed made of coal in the breath of the fierce glow of white and crimson fires; misty electric moons that quivered in space; vehicles like death barrows swallowed up in the violet darkness; the workingmen’s homes, with their appearance of comfort, and their reality of a bottomless dreariness; the baths, libraries, club-houses, crêches, hospitals, infants’ homes, ware-houses, churches, and cinemas. The stamp of force and servitude, of all that is ugliest on earth, was bedizened and tinted in fair colours here, and all menaces were throttled and fettered.
Young Friesen had exhausted himself with admiration, but Christian had not breathed freely again until their car was out on the open road and had left the flaring horror in its panic flight.
“And you have not been there since?” Albrecht Wahnschaffe asked.
“No, not since that day.”
For a while they stood opposite each other in silence. Albrecht Wahnschaffe took Freia by her collar, and said with notable self-control: “Take counsel with yourself. There is time. I shall not urge you unduly, but rather wait. When you come to weigh the circumstances, and test your own mind, you will realize that I have your welfare at heart. Do not answer me now. When you have made a clear decision—let me know what it is.”
“Have I your permission to retire?” Christian asked. His father nodded, and he bowed and left the room.
Next morning he returned to Christian’s Rest.
In a side street of the busiest quarter of Buenos Ayres, there stood a house that belonged to the Gunderam family. The parents of Gottlieb Gunderam had bought it when they came to the Argentine in the middle of the nineteenth century. In those days its value had been small, but the development of the city had made it a considerable property. Gottfried Gunderam received tempting offers for it, not only from private dealers, but from the municipality. The rickety house was to be torn down, and to be replaced by a modern apartment house.
But Gottfried Gunderam turned a deaf ear to all offers. “The house in which my mother died,” he declared, “shall not be sold to strangers so long as the breath is in my body.”
This determination did not arise so much from filial piety, as from a superstition that was powerful enough to silence even his greed. He feared that his mother would arise from her grave and avenge herself on him, if he permitted the family’s ancestral home to be sold and destroyed. Wealth, good harvests, a great age, and general well-being were, in his opinion, dependent on his action in this matter. He would not even allow strangers to enter the house.
His sons and kinsmen mockingly called it the Escurial. Gottfried Gunderam took no notice of their jeers, but he himself had, gradually and quite seriously, slipped into the habit of calling the house the Escurial.
One day, long before his voyage to Germany, Stephen had cleverly taken advantage of his father in an hour when the old man was tipsy and merry, and had extorted a promise that the Escurial was to be his upon his marriage. When he came home with Letitia he counted upon the fulfilment of thispromise. He intended to establish himself as a lawyer in Buenos Ayres, and restore the neglected house.
He reminded his father of the compact. The old man denied it bluntly. He winked gravely. “Can you show me any record—black on white? Well, then, what do you want? A fine lawyer you are to think that you can enforce an agreement of which there is no record!”
Stephen did not reply. But from time to time—coldly, methodically, calmly—he reminded the old man of his promise.
The old man said: “The woman you have married is not to my taste. She doesn’t fit into our life. She reads and reads. It’s sickening. She’s a milk-faced doll without sap. Let her be content with what she has. I shan’t be such a fool as to plunge into expenditures on your account. It would cost a pretty penny to make the Escurial habitable. And I have no cash. Absolutely none.”
Stephen estimated the available capital of his father as amounting to between four and five millions. “You owe me my patrimony,” he answered.
“I owe you a damned good thrashing!” the old man replied grimly.
“Is that your last word?”
The old man answered: “Far from it. I won’t speak my last word for a dozen years. But I like peace at home, and so I’ll make a bargain with you. Whenever your wife gives birth to a man-child, you shall have the Escurial, and fifty thousand pesos to boot.”
“Give me the promise in writing! Black on white counts—as you yourself said.”
The old man laughed a dry laugh. “Good!” he cried, and winked with both eyes. “You’re improving. Glad to see that the money spent on your legal studies wasn’t quite wasted.” With a sort of glee he sat down at his desk, and made out the required document.
A few weeks later Stephen said to Letitia: “Let us drive to the city. I want to show you the Escurial.”
The only living creature in that house was a mulatto woman ninety years old. To rouse her one had to throw stones against the wooden shutters. Then she appeared, bent almost double, half-blind, clothed in rags, a yellow growth on her forehead.
The street, which had been laid out a century before, was a yard deeper than the more recent ones; and Stephen and Letitia had to use a short ladder to reach the door of the house. Within everything was mildewed and rotten, the furniture and the floors. In the corners the spiders’ webs were like clouds, and fat hairy spiders sat in them peacefully. The wall-paper was in rags, the window-panes were broken, and the fire-places had caved in.
But in the room in which the mother of Gunderam had died, there stood a beautiful inlaid table, an antique piece from a convent of Siena. The mosaic showed two angels inclining palm-branches toward each other, and between the two sat an eagle. Upon the table lay the dead woman’s jewels. Brooches and chains, rings and ear-rings and bracelets, had lain here dust-covered for many, many years. The reputation of the old house as being haunted had protected them more effectually than barred windows.
Letitia was frightened, and thought: “Am I to live here where ghosts may appear at night to don their old splendour?”
But when Stephen explained his plans for rebuilding and redecorating, she recovered her gaiety, and her imagination transformed these decayed rooms into inviting chambers and dainty boudoirs, cool halls with tall windows and airy, carpeted stairs.
“It depends quite simply on you whether we can have a happy and beautiful home very soon,” Stephen declared. “I’m doing my share. I wish I could say the same of you.”
Letitia looked away. She knew the condition which old Gunderam had made.
Again and again she had to disappoint Stephen. The Escurial lay in its deathlike sleep, and her husband’s face grew more and more sombre. He sent her to church to pray; he strewed her bed with ground wall-nuts; he made her drink a powder of bones dissolved in wine. He sent for an old crone who was gifted in magic, and Letitia had to stand naked, surrounded by seven tapers, and let the woman murmur over her body. And she went to church and prayed, although she had no faith in her praying and felt no devotion and knew nothing of God. Yet she shuddered at the murmurs of the Italian witch, although when it was all over, she laughed and made light of the whole thing.
In spirit she conceived the image of the child which her body denied her. The image was of uncertain sex, but of flawless loveliness. It had the soft eyes of a deer, the features of one of Raphael’s angels, and the exquisite soul of an ode by Hölderlin. It was destined to great things, and the dizzying curve of its fortune knew no decline. The thought of this dream child filled her with vaguely beautiful emotions, and she was amazed at Stephen’s anger and growing impatience. She was amazed and was conscious of no guilt.
Stephen’s mother, who was known as Doña Barbara to every one, said to her son: “I bore your father eight living creatures. Three are dead. Four are strong men. We need not even count your sister Esmeralda. Why is this woman barren? Chastise her, my son, beat her!”
Stephen gritted his teeth, and took up his ox-hide whip.
It was evening, and Christian went to the forester’s house. The way was very familiar to him now. He did not analyze the inner compulsion that drew him thither.
Amadeus Voss sat by his lamp and read in an old book. Through the second door of the room the shadow of his mother slipped away.
After a while he asked: “Will you go with me to-morrow to Nettersheim?”
“What am I to do there?” Christian questioned in his turn.
Amadeus raised his face, and his spectacles glimmered. He murmured: “She may be dead by this time.”
He drummed on his knees with his fingers. Since Christian said nothing, he began to tell him the story of the woman Walpurga, who was in the service of his uncle, the wealthy farmer Borsche.
“She was born in the village, a cottager’s daughter. At fifteen she went to the city. She had heard of the fine life one leads there and had great ambitions. She was in service here and there. Last she was in the house of a merchant whose son seduced her; and of course, when it was discovered, she was driven out. So it comes to pass that those who are by nature the victims must bear a punishment in addition.
“She bore a child, but the child died. She fell deeper and deeper, until she became a street-walker. She practised this calling in Bochum and in Elberfeld. But the life wore on her, and she fell ill. One day a great home-sickness came upon her. She mustered her last strength, and returned to her native village. She was penniless and weak, but she was anxious to earn her bread, no matter at what wage or through what labour.
“But no one would hire her. Her parents were dead and she had no relatives, so she became a public charge. She was made to feel it grievously. One Sunday the minister inveighed against her from the pulpit. He did not mention her name, but he spoke of vile lives and sinks of iniquity, of visitations and punishments, and of how the anger of the Lord was visible in an example that was before the eyes of all. Thus she was branded and publicly delivered over to the scorn of all people, and she determined to put an end to her life. One evening, as Borsche was returning from his inn, he saw a woman lying in the road in dreadful convulsions. It was Walpurga. No man was near. Borsche lifted her on his broad back, andcarried her to his farm. She confessed that she had scraped the phosphorus from many matches and eaten it. The farmer gave her milk as an antidote. She recovered, and was permitted to stay on the farm.
“On some days she could work, and then she dragged herself to the fields. On others she could not, and lay in a remote corner. The men servants, of whom there were many, regarded her body as common property. Resistance was useless. Not until Borsche learned this, and blazed out in anger, did things get better. She was only twenty-three, and despite her illness and the wretchedness of her life, she had preserved much of her youthful good looks. Her cheeks had a natural glow and her eyes were clear. So whenever she could not work, the other maids fell upon her, and called her a malingering bawd.
“Two weeks ago I happened to be wandering in the neighbourhood of Nettersheim, and stopped at Borsche’s house. I was well received there, for the family think highly of me as a future priest. They talked about Walpurga. The farmer told me her story, and asked me to have a look at her and give my opinion as to whether she was really ill. I objected, and asked why a physician had not seen her. He said that the doctor from Heftrich had examined her and could find nothing wrong. So I went to her. She lay in a shed, separated from the cows only by a wooden partition. She was wrapped in an old horse-blanket, and a little straw kept the chill of the earth from her body. Her healthy colour and her normal form did not deceive me. I said to the farmer: ‘She’s like a guttering candle.’ He and his wife seemed to believe me. But when I demanded of them that they give the sick woman decent lodging and care, they shrugged their shoulders, and said that it was as warm in the stable as anywhere, and that there was no sense in taking trouble or undergoing discomfort on account of a creature who had fallen so low.
“On the third day I saw her again, and I have seen her onevery other day since then. My thoughts could not get rid of her any more. In all my life no human creature has so tugged at my heart. She could no longer get up; the most malevolent had to admit that. I sat with her in the evil smelling shed on a wooden bench near where she lay. Each time I came she was happier to see me. I picked wild flowers on the way, and she took them in her hands and held them against her breast. They told her who I was, and gradually she put many questions to me. She wanted to know whether there really was an eternal life and eternal bliss. She wanted to know whether Christ had died on the cross for her too. She was afraid of the torments of purgatory, and said if they were as bad as the torments men could inflict she was sorry for the immortal part of her. She meant neither to revile men nor to complain of them. She merely wanted to know.
“And what answer could I give her? I assured her that Christ had taken her cross upon Him too. Her other questions left me silent. One is so dumb and desperate when a living heart thirsts after truth, and the frozen Christ within would melt into a new day and a new sun. They are even now in purgatory and ask when it will begin. Hidden in blackness, they do not see the dark; consumed by flames, they are unaware of the fire. Where is Satan’s true kingdom—here or elsewhere? And can that elsewhere be upon any star more accursed than this? The poor man is thrust from the wayside, the oppressed of the land creep into hiding; from the cities come the moans of the dying, and the souls of those who are wounded to death cry out. Yet God does not put an end to the iniquity. And is it not written that the Lord said to Satan: ‘From whence comest thou? And Satan answered the Lord, and said, From going to and fro in the earth and from walking up and down in it.’
“She confessed her sins to me, and begged me to grant her absolution. But nothing that seemed sinful to her seemed soto me. I saw the desolateness and loneliness of the world. I saw the bleak rooms and the barren walls, the streets by night with their flickering lamps, and the men with no compassion in their eyes. That is what I saw and what I thought of, and I took it upon my conscience to absolve her from all guilt. I set her free and promised her Paradise. She smiled at me and grasped my hand, and before I could prevent her she had kissed it. That was yesterday.”
Amadeus was silent. “That was yesterday,” he repeated, after a long and meditative pause. “I did not go to-day, out of fear of her dying. Perhaps she is dead even now.”
“If you still want to go, I am ready,” said Christian timidly. “I’ll go with you. It’s only an hour’s walk.”
“Then let us go,” said Amadeus, with a sigh of relief, and arose.
An hour later they were in Borsche’s farm yard. The stable door was open. The men servants and the maid servants stood in front of it. An old man held a lantern high up, and they all stared into the shed. In the dim and wavering light, their faces showed a mixture of reverence and amazement. Within, on a pallet of straw, lay the body of Walpurga. Its cheeks were rosy. Nothing in that countenance recalled death, but only a peaceful sleep.
On the wooden bench a single candle was burning; but it was near extinction.
Amadeus Voss passed through that group of men and women, and kneeled at the dead woman’s feet. The old man who held the lantern whispered something, and all the men and women kneeled down and folded their hands.
A cow lowed. After that there was no sound save from the bells of the unquiet cattle. The darkness of the stable, the face of the dead woman, which was like a face in a painting, the faces of the kneeling people, with their blunted foreheads andhard lips, in the yellow glimmer of the light—all these things Christian beheld, and something melted in his breast.
He himself watched it all from the darkness of the yard behind.
When Amadeus Voss joined Christian, the village carpenter came to measure the dead woman for her coffin. They started on their homeward way in silence.
Suddenly Christian stopped. It was near a tall mile-post. He grasped the post with both hands, and bent his head far back, and gazed with the utmost intensity into the drifting clouds of the night. Then he heard Amadeus Voss say: “Is it possible? Can such things be?”
Christian turned to him.
“I have a strange feeling in your presence, Christian Wahnschaffe,” Voss said in a repressed and toneless voice. And then he murmured to himself: “Is it possible? Can the monstrous and incredible come to pass?”
Christian did not answer, and they wandered on.
Crammon gave a dinner. Not in his own house; meetings of a certain character were impossible there, on account of the innocent presence of the two old maiden ladies, Miss Aglaia and Miss Constantine. The disillusion would have been too saddening and final to the good ladies, who were as convinced of the virtue of their lord and protector as they were of the emperor’s majesty.
In former years it had indeed sometimes seemed to them that their adored one did not always tread the paths of entire purity. They had closed an eye. Now, however, the dignity and intellectual resonance of his personality forbade any doubt.
Crammon had invited his guests to the private dining-room of a well-known hotel, in which he was familiar and esteemed. The company consisted of several young members of the nobility, to whom he was under social obligations, and, as forladies, there were three beauties, entertaining, elegant, and yielding, in the precise degree which the occasion required. Crammon called them his friends, but in his treatment of them there was something languid and even vexed. He gave them clearly to understand that he was only the business manager of the feast, and that his heart was very far away.
No one, in fact, was present to whom he was not completely indifferent. Best of all he liked the old pianist with long, grey locks, who closed his eyes and smiled dreamily whenever he played a melancholy or languishing piece, just as he had done twenty years ago, when Crammon was still fired by the dreams and ambitions of youth. He gave the old man sweets and cigarettes, and sometimes patted his shoulder affectionately.
The table groaned under its burden of food and wine. Pepper was added to the champagne to heighten every one’s thirst. There were cherries in the fruit bowls, and the gentlemen found it amusing to drop the pits down the semi-exposed bosoms of the ladies. The latter found it easier and easier, as the evening advanced, to resist the law of gravitation, and to display their charming shoes and the smooth silks and rustling laces of their legs in astonishingly horizontal attitudes. The most agile among them, a popular soubrette, climbed on the grand piano, and, accompanied by the grey-haired musician, sang the latest hit of the music halls.
The young men joined in the chorus.
Crammon applauded with just two fingers. “There is a sting in my soul,” he whispered into the din. He got up and left the room.
In the corridor the head-waiter Ferdinand was leaning alone and somewhat wearily against the frame of a mirror. A tender intimacy of two decades bound Crammon to this man, who had never in his life been indiscreet, in spite of the innumerable secrets he had overheard.
“Bad times, Ferdinand,” Crammon said. “The world is going to the deuce.”
“One must take things as they are, Herr von Crammon,” that dignified individual consoled him, and handed him the bill.
Crammon sighed. He gave directions that if his guests inquired after him, they were to be told that he was indisposed and had gone home.
“There is a sting in my soul,” he said, when he found himself on the street. He determined to travel again.
He yearned for his friend. It seemed to him that he had had no friend but that one who had cast him off.
He yearned for Ariel. It seemed to him that he had possessed no woman, because she had not yielded to him who was his very conception of genius and beauty.
At the door of his house stood Miss Aglaia. She had heard him coming and had hastened to meet him. It frightened Crammon, for the hour was late.
“There is a lady in the drawing-room,” Miss Aglaia whispered. “She arrived at eight, and has been waiting since then. She besought us so movingly to let her stay that we had not the heart to refuse. She is a distinguished lady, and she has a dear face——”
“Did she tell you her name?” Crammon asked, and the thunder-clouds gathered on his brow.
“No, not exactly——”
“People who enter my dwelling are required to give their names,” Crammon roared. “Is this a railway station or a public shelter? Go in and ask her who she is. I shall wait here.”
In a few minutes Miss Aglaia returned and said in a compassionate tone: “She’s fallen asleep in an armchair. But you can take a peep at her. I’ve left the door ajar.”
On tip-toes Crammon passed through the hall, and peered into the well-lit drawing-room. He recognized the sleeper at once. It was Elise von Einsiedel. She slept with her head leaned back and inclining a little to one side. Her face waspale, with blue circles under her eyes, and her left arm hung down limply.
Crammon stood there in his hat and overcoat, and gazed at her with sombre eyes. “Unhappy child!” he murmured.
He closed the door with all possible precaution. Then he drew Miss Aglaia toward the door and said: “The presence of a strange lady makes it unseemly, of course, for me to pass the night here. I shall find a bed elsewhere. I hope you appreciate my attitude.”
Miss Aglaia was speechless over such purity and sternness. Crammon continued: “As early as possible in the morning, pack my bags and bring them to meet me in time to catch the express to Ostende. And let Constantine come with you, so that I may say good-bye to her as well. Let the strange lady stay here as long as she desires. Entertain her courteously and fulfil all her wishes. She has a sorrow, and deserves kindness. If she asks after me, tell her that urgent affairs require my presence elsewhere.”
He went out. Sadly, and quite astonished, Miss Aglaia looked after him. “Good-night, Aglaia,” he called out once more. Then the door closed behind him.