Part 24

He had been living in the villa for two weeks, had been feeling well and in good form for serious work. He spread out every morning on the little table, where Therese's needlework had lain a short time ago, scores, works on musical theory, musical writing-paper, and occupied himself with solving problems in harmony and counterpoint. He often lay down in the meadow by the edge of the forest and read some favourite book or other, let melodies ring within him, indulged in day-dreams and was quite happy, with the rustling of the trees and the brilliance of the sun. In the afternoon, when Anna was resting, he would read aloud or talk to her. They often talked with affectionate anticipation about the little creature that was soon to come into the world, but never about their own future, whether distant or immediate. But when he sat by her bed, or walked up and down the garden with her arm-in-arm, or sat by her side on the white seat under the pear-tree, where the shining stillness of the late summer day rested above them, he knew they were tied fast to each other for all time, and that even the temporary separation with which they were faced could have no power to affect them in view of the certain feeling that they were all in all to each other.

It was only since the pains had come upon her that she seemed removed from him to a sphere where he could not follow her. Yesterday he had sat by her bed for hours and had held her hand in his. She had been patient, as always, had anxiously inquired if he were quite comfortable in the house, had begged him to work and go for walks as he had done before, since after all he could not help her, and had assured him that since she was suffering she loved him even more. And yet she was not the same, George felt, as she had been during these days. Particularly when she screamed out--as she had this morning in her worst pains--her soul was so far away from him that he felt frightened.

He was near the house again. No noise came from Anna's room, in front of the window of which the curtains moved slightly. Old Doctor Stauber was standing on the verandah. George hastened towards him with a dry throat. "What is it?" he asked hastily.

Doctor Stauber put his hand on his shoulder. "Going on nicely."

A groan came from within, grew louder, grew into a wild frenzied scream. George passed his hand over his damp forehead and said to the doctor with a bitter smile: "Is that what you mean by going on nicely?"

Stauber shrugged his shoulders. "It is written, 'With pain shalt thou....'"

George felt a certain sense of resentment. He had never believed in the God of the childishly pious, who was supposed to reveal himself as the fulfiller of the wishes of wretched men and women, as the avenger and forgiver of miserable human sins. The Nameless One which he felt in the infinite beyond his senses, and transcending all understanding, could only regard prayer and blasphemy as poor words out of a human mouth. Not even when his mother had died, after the senseless martyrdom of her suffering, not even when his father had died, passing away painlessly so far as he could understand, had he presumed to indulge in the belief that his own personal misfortunes in the world's progress signified more than the falling of a leaf. He had not bowed down in cowardly humility to any inscrutable solution of the riddle, nor had he foolishly murmured against an ungracious power of whose decrees he was the personal victim.

To-day he felt for the first time as though somewhere or other in the clouds an incomprehensible game was being played in which his own fortunes were the stakes. The scream within had died away and only groans were audible.

"And the beating of the heart?" asked George.

Doctor Stauber looked at him. "It could still be heard clearly ten minutes ago."

George fought against a dreadful thought which had been hounded up out of the depths of his soul. He was healthy, she was healthy, two strong young people.... Could anything like that be really possible?

Doctor Stauber put his hand on his shoulder again. "Go for a walk," he said. "We'll call you as soon as it's time." And he turned away.

George remained standing on the verandah for another minute. He saw Frau Rosner sitting huddled up in solitary brooding on the sofa near the wall in the large room that was beginning to grow dim in the shade of the late afternoon. He went away, walked round the house and went up the wooden stairs into his attic. He threw himself on the bed and shut his eyes. After a few minutes he got up, walked up and down in the room, but gave up doing so as the floor creaked. He went on to the balcony. The score of _Tristan_ lay open on the table. George looked at the music. It was the prelude to the third act. The music rang in his ears. The sea waves were beating heavily on a cliff shore, and out of the mournful distance rang the sad melody of an English horn. He looked over the pages far away into the silver-white brilliance of the daylight. There was sunshine everywhere--on the roofs, paths, gardens, hills and forests. The sky was spread out in its azure vastness and the smell of the harvest floated up from the depths. How were things with me a year ago? thought George. I was in Vienna, quite alone. I had not an idea. I had sent her a song ... '_Deinem Blick mich zu bequemen_' ... but I scarcely gave her a thought ... and now she lies down there dying.... He gave a violent start. He had meant to say mentally ... "She is lying in labour," and the words "lies dying" had as it were stolen their way on to his lips. But why was he so frightened? How childish! As though there existed presentiments like that! And if there really were danger, and the doctors had to decide, then of course they would have to save the mother. Why, Doctor Stauber had only explained that to him a few days ago. What, after all, is a child that hasn't yet lived? Nothing. He had begotten it at some moment or other without having wished it, without having even thought of the possibility that he might have become a father. How did he know either that in that dark hour of ecstasy, behind closed blinds a few weeks ago he had not ... also become a father without having wished it, without having even thought of the possibility; and perhaps it might have happened without his ever knowing!

He heard voices and looked down; the Professor's coachman had caught hold of the arm of the housemaid, who was only slightly resisting. Perhaps the foundations are being laid here too of a new human life, thought George, and turned away in disgust. Then he went back into his room, carefully filled his cigarette-case out of the box that stood on the table, and it suddenly seemed to him that his excitement was baseless and even childish, and it occurred to him: "My mother, too, once lay like that before I came into the world, just as Anna is doing now. I wonder if my father walked about as nervously as I am doing? I wonder if he would be here now if he were still alive? I wonder if I would have told him at all? I wonder if all this would have happened if he had lived?" He thought of the beautiful serene summer days by the Veldeser Lake. His comfortable room in his father's villa swept up in his memory and in some vague way, almost dreamwise, the bare attic with the creaking floor in which he now found himself seemed to typify his whole present existence in contrast to that former life which had been so free from care and responsibility. He remembered a serious talk about the future which he had had a few days ago with Felician. Immediately after this thought there came into his mind the conversation which he had had with a woman in the country, who had introduced herself with the offer to take charge of the child. She and her husband possessed a small property near the railway, only an hour away from Vienna, and her only daughter had died in the previous year. She had promised that the little one should be well looked after, as well, in fact, as though it were not a stranger's at all, and as George thought of this he suddenly felt as though his heart were standing still. It will be there before dark.... The child.... His child, but a strange woman was waiting somewhere to take it away with her. He was so tired after the excitement of the last few days that his knees hurt him. He remembered having previously felt similar physical sensations, the evening after his "leaving-examination" and the time when he had learnt of Labinski's suicide. How different, how joyful, how full of hope had been his mood three days ago, just before the pains began! He now felt nothing except an unparalleled dejection, while he found the musty smell of the attic more and more unpleasant. He lit a cigarette and stepped on to the balcony again. The warm silent air did him good. The sunshine still lay on the Sommerhaidenweg and a gilded cross shone over the walls from the direction of the churchyard.

He heard a noise beneath him. Steps? Yes, steps and voices too. He left the balcony and the room and rushed down over the creaking wooden staircase. A door opened, steps were hurrying over the floor. The next moment he was on the bottom step opposite Frau Golowski. His heart stood still. He opened his mouth without asking.

"Yes," she nodded, "a boy."

He gripped both her hands and felt, while he was beaming all over, a stream of happiness was running through his soul with a potency and intense warmth that he had never anticipated. He suddenly noticed that Frau Golowski's eyes were not shining as brightly as they certainly ought to have. The stream of happiness within him ebbed back. Something choked his throat. "Well?" he said. Then he added, almost menacingly: "Does it live?"

"It just breathed once.... The Professor hopes...."

George pushed the woman on one side, reached the great centre room in three strides and stood still as though spell-bound. The Professor, in a long white linen apron, held a small creature in his arms and rocked it hurriedly to and fro. George stood still. The Professor nodded to him and went on undisturbed with what he was doing. He was examining the little creature in his arms with scrutinising eyes, he put it on the table, over which a white linen cloth had been spread, made the child's limbs execute violent exercises, rubbed its breast and face, then lifted it high up several times in succession, and George always saw how the child's head drooped heavily on to its breast. Then the doctor put it on to the linen cloth, listened with his ear on its bosom, got up, put one hand on its little body and motioned gently with the other to George to approach.

Involuntarily holding his breath George came quite near him. He looked first at the doctor and then at the little creature which lay on the white linen. It had its eyes quite open, strangely big blue eyes, like those of Anna. The face looked quite different from what George had expected, not wrinkled and ugly like that of an old dwarf, no; it was really a human face, a silent beautiful child-face, and George knew that these features were the image of his own.

The Professor said gently: "I've not heard its heart beat for the last hour."

George nodded. Then he asked hoarsely: "How is she?"

"Quite well, but you mustn't go in yet, Herr Baron."

"No," replied George and shook his head. He stared at the immobile little body with its bluish shimmer and knew that he was standing in front of the corpse of his own child. Nevertheless he looked at the doctor again and asked: "Can nothing more be done?"

He shrugged his shoulders.

George breathed deeply and pointed to the closed bedroom door. "Does she know yet----" He asked the doctor.

"Not yet. Let's be thankful for the time being that it is over. She has gone through a lot, poor girl. I only regret that it should turn out to have been for nothing."

"You expected it, Herr Professor?"

"I feared it since this morning."

"And why ... why?"

The doctor answered softly and gently: "A very exceptional case, as I told you before."

"You told me...?"

"Yes, I tried to explain to you that this possibility ... it was strangled, you see, by the umbilical cord. Scarcely one or two per cent. of births end like that." He was silent.

George gazed at the child. Quite right, the Professor had prepared him in advance only he had not taken it seriously. Frau Rosner was standing by him with helpless eyes. George held out his hand to her and they looked at each other like persons whom the sore stress of circumstances has made companions in misfortune. Then Frau Rosner sank down on a chair by the wall.

The Professor said to George: "I will now go and just have a look at the mother."

"Mother!" repeated George, and gazed at him.

The doctor looked away.

"You will tell her?" asked George.

"No, not at once. Anyway, she will be ready for it. She asked several times in the course of the day if it was still alive. It will not have so dreadful an effect upon her as you fear, Herr Baron ... at any rate during the first hours, the first days. You mustn't forget what she has gone through."

He pressed George's limply-hanging hand and went.

George stood there motionless. He was gazing continually at the little creature, and it seemed to him a picture of undreamt-of beauty. He touched its cheeks, shoulders, arms, hands, fingers. How mysteriously complete it all was! And there it lay, having died without having lived, destined to go from one darkness into another, through a senseless nothingness. There it lay, the sweet tiny body which was ready for life and yet was unable to move. There they shone, those big blue eyes, as though with desire to drink in the light of heaven, and completely blind before they had seen a ray. And there was the small round mouth which was open as though with thirst, but yet could never drink at a mother's breast. There it gazed, that white child-face with its perfect human features, which was never to receive or feel the kiss of a mother, the kiss of a father. How he loved this child! How he loved it, now that it was too late! A choking despair rose within his throat. He could not cry. He looked around him. No one was in the room and it was quite still next door. He had no desire to go into that other room, nor had he any fear. He only felt that it would have been rather senseless. His eye returned to the dead child, and suddenly the poignant question thrilled through him whether it was really bound to be true. Could not every one make a mistake, a physician as much as a layman? He held his open palm before the child's open lips and it was as though something cool was breathed towards him. And then he held both hands over the child's breast and again it seemed as though a light puff were playing over the tiny body. But it felt just the same as in the other place: no breath of life had blown towards him. He now bent down again and his lips touched the child's cool forehead. Something strange, something he scarcely felt tingled through his body to the very tips of his toes. He knew it now; he had lost the game up there in the clouds, his child was dead. Then he slowly lifted his head and turned away. The sight of the garden tempted him into the open. He stepped on to the verandah and saw Doctor Stauber and Frau Rosner sitting on the seat that was propped against the wall--both silent. They looked at him. He turned away as though he did not know them and went into the garden. The shadow of the house fell obliquely over the lawn, there was still sunlight higher up but it was dull and as though without the strength to illumine the air. Why did he want to think of that light which was sun and yet did not shine, that blue in the heights which was heaven and yet did not bless him? What was the point of the silence of this garden, which should console and comfort him, and yet received him to-day as though it were some strange inhospitable place? It gradually occurred to him that just such a twilight had enveloped him in a dream a short time ago with a dreariness of which he had previously had no idea, and had filled his soul with incomprehensible melancholy. What now? he said to himself aloud. He did not seek for any answer, and only knew that something unforeseen and unalterable had happened that must change the face of the world for him for all time. He thought of the day when his father had died. A wild grief had overwhelmed him then; yet he had been able to cry and the world had not suddenly become dark and void. His father had really lived, had once been young, had worked, loved, had children, experienced joys and sorrows. And the mother who had borne him had not suffered in vain. And even if he himself should have to die to-day, however early it might be, he had nevertheless a life behind him, a life full of light and music, happiness and suffering, hope and anxiety, steeped in all the fulness of the world. And even if Anna had passed away to-day, in the hour when she gave life to a new being, she would as it were have fulfilled her lot and her end would have had its terrible but none the less deep significance. But what had happened to his child was senseless, was revolting--a piece of irony from somewhere or other, whither one could send no question and no answer. What was the point of it all? What had been the significance of these past months with all their dreams, their troubles and their hopes? For he knew, all in a flash, that the expectation of the wonderful hour in which his child was to be born had always lain in the depths of his soul every single day, even those which were most matter-of-fact, those which were most vacant, or those which were most wanton. And he felt ashamed, impoverished, miserable.

He stood by the garden fence at the top end and looked towards the edge of the forest, towards his seat on which he had rested so often, and he felt as though forest and field and seat had previously been his possessions, and that he must now surrender them too, like so much else. In a corner of the garden stood a dark grey neglected summer-house with three little window-apertures and a narrow opening for a door. He had always disliked it, and had only gone in once for a few moments. To-day he felt drawn inside. He sat down on the cracked seat and suddenly felt hidden and soothed, as though all that had happened were less true or could in some inconceivable way be undone. Yet this hallucination soon vanished, he left the inhospitable room and stepped into the open.

I must now go back into the house again, he thought with a sense of exhaustion, and could not quite realise that the dead body of his child must be resting in the dark room, which he could see from here stretching behind the verandah like an unfathomable darkness. He walked slowly down the garden. Anna's mother was standing with a gentleman on the verandah. George recognised old Rosner. He stood there in his overcoat, he had laid his hat in front of him on the table. He passed a pocket handkerchief over his forehead and his red-lidded eyes twitched. He went towards George and pressed his hand. "What a pity that it turned out differently," he said, "than we had all hoped and expected!"

George nodded. He then remembered that the old gentleman's heart had not been quite right during the past week and inquired after his health.

"It is kind of you to ask, Herr Baron. I am a little better, only I find going uphill rather troublesome."

George noticed that the glass door that led to the centre room was closed. "Excuse me," he said to old Rosner, strode straight to the door, opened it and quickly closed it behind him. Frau Golowski and Doctor Stauber were standing near the table and speaking to each other. He walked up to them and they suddenly stopped talking.

"Well?" he inquired.

Doctor Stauber said: "We have been speaking about the ... formalities. Frau Golowski will be kind enough to see to all that."

"Thank you," replied George and held out his hand to Frau Golowski.

"All that," he thought. A coffin, a funeral, a notification to the local registry; a son born of Anna Rosner, spinster, died on the same day. Nothing about the father of course. Yes, his part was finished. Only to-day? Had it not been finished the very second when quite by chance he became a father?

He looked at the table. The cloth was spread over the tiny corpse. Oh, how quick! he thought bitterly. Am I never to see it again? I suppose I may be allowed to, once. He drew the cloth a little away from the body and held it high up. He saw a pale child-face which was quite familiar to him, only since then some one had closed the eyes. The old grandfather's clock in the corner ticked. Six o'clock. Scarcely an hour had passed since his child had been born and died: the fact was already as indisputably certain as though it could never have been otherwise.

He felt a light touch on the shoulder.

"She took it quietly," said Doctor Stauber, standing behind him.

George dropped the cloth over the child's face and turned his head towards the side. "She already knows, then...?"

Doctor Stauber nodded. Frau Golowski had turned away.

"Who told her?" asked George.

"It wasn't necessary to tell her," replied Doctor Stauber, "was it?" He turned to Frau Golowski.

The latter explained: "When I went in to her she just looked at me, and then I saw at once that she already knew."

"And what did she say?"

"Nothing--nothing at all. She turned her eyes towards the window and was quite still. She asked where you had gone, Herr Baron, and what you were doing."

George breathed deeply. The door of Anna's room opened. The Professor came out in a black coat. "She is quite quiet," he said to George. "You can go in to her."

"Did she speak to you about it?" asked George.

The Professor shook his head. Then he said: "I am afraid I must go into town now; you'll excuse me, won't you? I hope things will go on all right. I shall be here early to-morrow any way. Good-bye, dear Herr Baron." He pressed his hand sympathetically. "You'll drive in with me, Doctor Stauber, won't you?"

"Yes," said Doctor Stauber, "I only want to say good-bye to Anna." He went.

George turned to the Professor. "May I ask you something?"

"Please do."

"I should very much like to know, Herr Professor, whether this is simply imagination. It seems to me, you know"--and he again lifted up the cloth from the tiny corpse--"as though this child did not look like a new-born one, more beautiful, so to speak. I feel as though the faces of new-born children were bound to be more wrinkled, more like old men. I can't tell you whether I have ever seen one or whether I've only read about it."

"You are quite right," replied the Professor. "It is just in cases of this kind, and also of course when things turn out more fortunately, that the features of the children are not distorted, are frequently, in fact, quite beautiful." He contemplated the little face with professional sympathy, nodded a few times: "Pity, pity" ... let the cloth fall down again, and George knew that he had seen his child's face for the last time. What name would it have had? Felician.... Good-bye, little Felician!

Doctor Stauber came out of the next room and gently closed the door. "Anna is expecting you," he said to George. The latter gave him his hand, shook hands with the Professor again, nodded to Frau Golowski and went into the next room.

The nurse got up from Anna's side and disappeared out of the room. Opposite the door hung a mirror in which George saw an elegant young gentleman who was pale and was smiling. Anna lay in her bed, which stood clear in the middle of the room, with big clear eyes, which looked straight at George.

"What kind of a figure do I cut?" he thought. He pushed the chair close to her bed with some ceremoniousness, sat down, grasped her hand, put it to his forehead and then kissed her fingers long and almost ardently.