Part 13

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.