Part 20

Every passing second heightened her unspeakable consternation. Her limbs trembled. She sat down on the other side of the room. The lad had his back turned to her, and she observed that his body began to twitch. She saw it by the creases in his coat and his arms, which were hanging down. It was like an endless convulsion. The helplessness which she felt in the face of this unknown tragedy caused her an almost physical pain, and inspired her with self-disgust and self-contempt. Her soul seemed steeped in blackness, shredded and crushed. While she suffered so, a desire came over her, a defiant and struggling desire, as for something ultimate to lay hold upon in life. It was the desire to see how Christian would take the terrible thing in which he was, to all appearances, implicated. Would he let it slide from him with his old elegant smoothness? Would he let it be shattered against that impenetrability against which all her life and fate had been shattered? Or would he be that other who was frank and changed and had wrought a miracle upon himself and upon all others except herself--who was incapable of faith out of shame and despair and desolation and an inner hurt? But if he was that other and changed man, if he approved himself in this supreme instance, then she need torment herself so cruelly no more. For in that case, what did her little sorrows matter? Then she must be humble, and wait for her summons, though she did not know what it would be.

And she waited, stretching out her slim throat like a thirsty deer.

XXVII

That “no, never, nevermore,” had driven Christian about without another thought. On this day he forgot that Karen was sick unto death.

As he was coming home that night it was raining. Nevertheless there were groups of people in front of the houses. Some uncommon event had brought them out of their rooms.

He had had no umbrella, and was wet to the skin. In the doorway, too, stood people who lived in the house. They whispered excitedly. When they saw him they became silent, stepped aside, and let him pass.

Their faces frightened him. He looked at them. They were silent. Terror fell on his chest like a lump of ice.

He went on. He was about to go up to Karen’s flat, but reconsidered and went toward the court. He wanted to be alone in his room for a while. Several people followed him. Among them was the wife of Gisevius and her son, a young man whose behaviour was marked by the well-defined class-consciousness of the organized worker.

Christian did not even observe that the window of his room was lit. He walked close to the wall; he was so wet. Opening the door, he saw Johanna and the boy. He did not at once recognize Michael, who sat turned aside. He nodded to Johanna in surprise. The tense and glittering look which she turned upon him made him start. He reached the table and recognized Michael Hofmann. He grew pale, and had to hold on to the table’s edge.

The door was still open, and in the dim light of the hall were crowded the five or six people who had followed him. It was not insolence that brought them to the threshold. They had been disquieted by rumours, and thought that he could give them some information.

Christian put his hand in the lad’s shoulder, and asked: “Where have you been, Michael? Where have you come from?”

The boy continued rigid and silent.

“Where is Ruth?” Christian asked, as by a supreme effort.

Michael arose. His eyes were unnaturally wide open. With both arms he made a large, obscure gesture. Horror shook him so that a gurgling sound which arose in his throat was throttled before it reached his lips. Suddenly he swayed and reeled and fell like a log. He lay on the floor.

Christian kneeled down and put his arms about him. He lifted him a little, and gathered the muddy, trembling boy close to him. He bent down his face, and learned an unheard-of thing from the beseeching, horror-stricken glance that sought him as from fathomless depths. Passionately he pressed Michael’s body against his own, which was so wet but no longer aware of its wetness. He pressed the boy to his heart, as though he would open to him his breast as a shelter, and the boy, too, clung to Christian with all his might. The convulsive rigidity relaxed, and from that unbelievably emaciated body there broke forth a sobbing like the moan of a wind of doom.

The boy knew. No one could be so shattered but one who knew.

Then Christian kissed the stony, dirty, tear-stained face.

Johanna saw it, and the timid people at the door saw it also.

INQUISITION

I

Edgar Lorm was accustomed to taking his meals without Judith, so he was not surprised at her absence to-day and sat down alone.

The meal was served: a lobster, breast of veal with salad and three kinds of vegetables, a pheasant with compote, a large boule de Berlin, pineapple and cheese. He drank two glasses of red Bordeaux and a pint of champagne.

He ate this excessively rich meal daily with the appetite of a giant and the philosophical delight of a gourmet. As he was lighting his heavy Havana cigar over his coffee, he heard Judith’s voice. She burst in, perturbed to the utmost.

“What has happened, dear child?” he asked.

“Something frightful,” she gasped, and sank into a chair.

Lorm arose. “But what has happened, my dear?”

She panted. “I haven’t been feeling at all well for several days. I got the doctor to look me over, and he says I’m pregnant.”

A sudden light came into Lorm’s eyes. “I don’t think that’s such a terrible misfortune.” He had difficulty in concealing his surprised delight. “On the contrary, I think it’s a blessed thing. I hardly dared hope for it. Indeed, my dear wife, I don’t know what I wouldn’t give to have it true.”

Judith’s eyes glittered as she replied: “It shall never be--never, never! I shall not remind you of our agreement; I shall not lay the blame on you if this terrible thing has really happened. I can’t believe it yet. It would make me feel bewitched. But you are mistaken if you count on any yielding on my part, any womanly weakness, or any awakening of certain so-called instincts. Never, never! My body shall remain as it is--mine, all mine. I won’t have it lacerated and I won’t share it. It’s the only thing I still call my own. I won’t have a strange creature take possession of it, and I refuse to age by nine years in nine months. And I don’t want some mocking image of you or me to appear. Never, never! The horror of it! Be careful! If you take delight in something I detest so, the horror will extend itself to you!”

Lorm stretched himself a little, and regarded her with amazement. There was nothing for him to say.

She went into her bedroom and locked the door. Lorm gave orders that no visitors were to be admitted. Then he went into the library, and spent the time until eight reading a treatise on the motions of the fixed stars. But often he raised his eyes from the book, for he was preoccupied not so much with the secrets of the heavens as with very mundane and very depressing things. He got up and went to the door of Judith’s room. He listened and knocked, but Judith did not answer. At the end of half an hour he returned and knocked again. She knew his humble way of seeking admission, but she did not answer. The door remained locked.

At the end of each half hour, which he spent in reading about the stars, he returned to the door and knocked. He called her name. He begged her to have some confidence in him and hear what he had to say. He spoke in muffled tones, so as not to arouse the attention of the servants. He asked her not to blame him for his premature delight. He saw his error and deplored it. Only let her listen to him. He promised her gifts--an antique candlestick, a set of Dresden china, a frock made by Worth. In vain. She did not answer.

Three days passed. An oppressive atmosphere rested on the household. Lorm slunk through the rooms like an intimidated guest. He humiliated himself so far as to send Judith a letter by the housekeeper, who took in her meals and who alone had access to her. At night he returned to the door again and again, placed his lips against it, and implored her. There was no stirring of anger in him, no impulse to clench his fist and break down the door. Judith knew that. She was beating her fish.

She knew that she could go any length.

This man had been the idol of a whole nation. He had been spoiled by fame, by the friendship of distinguished people, by the kindness of fate and all the amenities of life. His very whims had been feared; a frown of his had swept all opposition aside. Now he not only endured the maltreatment of this woman whom he had married after long solitariness and hesitation; he accepted insult and humiliation like the just rewards of some guilt. Weary of fame, appreciation, friendship, success, and domination, he seemed to lust after mortification, the reversal of all things, and the very voluptuousness of pain.

Quite late on the third evening he was summoned to the telephone by Wolfgang Wahnschaffe. The breach between Wolfgang and Judith that had followed his first visit forbade his visiting the house.

He begged Lorm for an interview on neutral ground. The occasion, he said, was most pressing. Lorm asked for details. The bitter and excited answer was that the question concerned Christian. Some common proceeding against him, some decision and plan, some protective measures were absolutely necessary. The family must be saved from both danger and inconceivable disgrace.

At this point Lorm interrupted him. “I feel rather sure that my wife will prove quite unapproachable in the matter. And what could I do more than the merest stranger?” Urged anew, he finally promised to meet Wolfgang at luncheon in a restaurant on Potsdamer Street.

He had scarcely hung up the receiver when Judith entered. She had on a négligée of dark-green velvet trimmed with fur. The garment had a long train. Her hair was carefully dressed, a cheerful smile was on her lips, and she stretched out both hands to Lorm.

He was happy, and took her hands and kissed them.

She put her arms about his neck and her lips close to his ear: “Everything is all right. The doctor is a donkey. I did you wrong. Everything is nice now, so be nice!”

“If only you are satisfied,” said Lorm, “nothing else matters.”

She nestled closer to him, and coaxed with eyes and mouth and hands: “How about the antique candlestick, darling, and the frock by Worth? Are you going to get them for me? And am I not to have my set of Dresden china?”

Lorm laughed. “Since you admit that you wronged me, the price of reconciliation is a trifle high,” he mocked. “But don’t worry. You shall have everything.”

He breathed a kiss upon her forehead. That disembodied tenderness was the symbol of the ultimate paralysis of his energy before her and men and the world. And from day to day this paralysis grew more noticeable, and bore all the physical symptoms of an affection of the heart.

II

An identical account in all newspapers gave the first public notification that a murder had been committed:

“At six o’clock yesterday a foreman and a workman from Brenner’s factory found the headless body of a girl in a shed on Bornholmer Street. The body was held by ropes in an unnatural position, and was so tightly wedged in among beams, boards, ladders, barrows, and refuse, that the police officers who were immediately summoned had the greatest difficulty in disentangling their gruesome find. The news spread rapidly through the neighbourhood, and a rumour that increased in definiteness pointed to the body of the murdered girl as that of the sixteen-year-old Ruth Hofmann residing in Stolpische Street. A notification of her disappearance had been lodged at police headquarters several days ago. The theory that it was she who was the victim of a murder of unparalleled bestiality became a certainty some hours later. A mason’s wife found in the mortar-pit of a building lot on Bellermann Street the severed head, which proved to belong to the body and was identified by several inhabitants of the house on Stolpische Street as that of Ruth Hofmann. Except for stockings and shoes, the body was entirely naked, and its mutilations indicated felonious assault. There is at present no trace of the murderer. But the investigations are being present with all possible care and energy, and it is warmly to be desired that the inhuman brute may soon be turned over to the ministers of justice.”

III

In the little rear room he had now been sleeping for fourteen hours. The widow Engelschall determined to go to him.

She passed through the half-dark passage-way in which the supplies were stored. Hams and smoked sausages dangled from the ceiling. On the floor stood kegs with sardines, herrings, and pickled gherkins. There were shelves filled with glasses of preserved fruit. The place smelled like a shop.

She stopped, took a little gherkin out of an open keg, and swallowed it without chewing.

The bell of the front-door rang. A sluttish creature, broom in hand, became visible at the end of the passage, and called out to the widow Engelschall that Isolde Schirmacher had come with an important message. “Let her wait,” the widow Engelschall growled. Softly she went into the small room in which Niels Heinrich was sleeping.

He lay on a mattress. A bluish flannel coverlet was over him. His hairy chest was bare; his naked feet protruded. The room was so small that not even a chest of drawers could have been squeezed in. Heaps of malodorous, soiled linen lay in the corners. Tools were scattered about the floor--a plane, a hammer, a saw. Old newspapers increased the litter, and on nails in the wall hung dirty clothes, ties, and a couple of overcoats. On the walls red splotches showed where bedbugs had been killed. On the table stood a candlestick with a piece of candle, an empty beer bottle, and a half empty whiskey bottle.

He lay on his back. The muscles of his face had snapped under an inhuman tension. Between his reddish eyebrows vibrated three dark furrows. His skin was the tint of cheese. On his neck and forehead were beads of sweat. His lids looked like two black holes. The slim, red little beard on his chin moved as he breathed--moved like a separate and living thing, a watchful, hairy insect.

He snored loudly. A bubble of saliva rose now and then from the horrible opening of his lips that showed his decayed teeth.

The widow Engelschall had had plans which had seemed easy to execute outside. Now she dared do nothing. Last night she had stood above him as she stood now. He had begun to murmur in his sleep, and she had hurried out in terror.

It buzzed in her head: What had he done with the two thousand marks which he had embezzled from the builder? She distrusted his assertion that he had spent it all on the cashier of the Metropolitan Moving Picture Theatre. To make up a part of the money and prevent his arrest, she had had to pawn all her linen, two chests of drawers, the furnishings of her waiting-room, and also to mortgage a life insurance policy. Her letter to Privy Councillor Wahnschaffe had not even been answered.

She didn’t believe that he had wasted so much good money on that slut. He must have a few hundreds lying about somewhere. The thought gave her no rest. It was dangerous to let him notice her suspicion; but she could risk entering the room while he slept, burrowing in his clothes, and slipping her hand under his pillow.

But she stood perfectly still. In his presence she was always prepared for the unexpected. If he but opened his mouth, she trembled within. If people came to speak of him, she grew cold all over. If she stopped to think, she knew that it had always been so.

When the village schoolmaster had caught the ten-year-old boy in disgusting practices with a girl of eight, he had said: “He’ll end on the gallows.” When he was an apprentice, he had quarrelled over wages with his employer and threatened to strike him. The man had said: “He’ll end on the gallows.” When he had stolen a silver chain from the desk of the minister’s wife at Friesoythe, and his mother had gone to return it, the lady had said: “He’ll end on the gallows.”

The memories came thick and fast. He had beaten his first mistress, fat Lola who lived in Köpnicker Street, with barbarous cruelty, because at a dance in Halensee she had winked at a postal clerk. When the girl had writhed whining on the floor, and shrieked out in her pain: “There ain’t such another devil in the world!” the widow Engelschall had appealed to the enraged fellow’s conscience, and had said to him: “Go easy, my boy, go easy;” but her advice had been futile. When his second mistress was pregnant, he forced her to go for treatment to an evil woman with whom he was also intimate, and the girl died of the operation. He jeered at the swinish dullness of women who couldn’t do the least things right--couldn’t bear and couldn’t kill a brat properly. No one, fortunately, had heard this remark but the widow Engelschall. Again she had besought him: “Boy, go it a bit easier, do!”

At bottom she admired his qualities. You couldn’t fool with him. He knew how to take care of himself; he could get around anybody. If only he hadn’t always vented his childish rage on harmless things. The expense of it! If the fire didn’t burn properly, he’d tear the oven door from its hinges; if his watch was fast or slow, he’d sling it on the floor so that it was smashed; if meat was not done to his liking, he broke plates with his knife; if a cravat balked in the tying, he’d tear it to shreds, and often his shirt too. Then he laughed his goat-like laugh, and one had to pretend to share his amusement. If he noticed that one was annoyed, he became rabid, spared nothing, and destroyed whatever he could reach.

She wondered what he lived on in ordinary times, when he had had no special piece of good luck. For he seemed always in the midst of plenty, with pockets full of money, and no hesitation to spend and treat. Sometimes he worked--four days a week or five. And he could always get work. He knew his trade, and accomplished in one day more than other workmen did in three. But usually he extended blue Monday until Saturday, and passed his time in unspeakable dives with rogues and loose women.

The widow Engelschall knew a good deal about him. But there was a great deal that she did not know. His ways were mysterious. To ask him and to receive an answer was to be none the wiser. He was always planning something, brewing something. All this commanded the widow Engelschall’s profound respect. He was flesh of her flesh and spirit of her spirit. Yet her anxiety was great; and recently the cards had foretold evil with great pertinacity.

And so she hesitated, full of fear. The palish, yellow skull on the coarse, fustian pillow paralysed her. The slack flesh of her fat neck drooped and shook, as she finally bent and reached down after his coat and waistcoat, which were lying under the chair. She turned away a little so as to conceal her motions. Suddenly she felt a hand on her shoulder and shrieked.

Niels Heinrich had risen noiselessly. He stood there in his shirt, and pierced her with the yellowish flare of his glance. “What’re you doing there, you old slut?” he asked with calm rage. She let the garments fall and retreated toward the door trembling. He stretched forth his arm: “Out!”

His appearance was fear-inspiring. Words died on her lips. With reeling steps she went out.

Isolde Schirmacher was still waiting in the hall. She began to weep when she gave her message: the widow Engelschall was to come to Stolpische Street without delay. Karen was very sick, was dying.

The widow Engelschall seemed incredulous. “Dying? Ah, it ain’t so easy to die. Give her my love, and say I’m coming. I’ll be there in an hour.”

IV

A further account appeared in the papers:

“The mystery which surrounds the murder of young Ruth Hofmann is beginning to clear up. The public will be glad to learn that the efforts of the police have brought about the apprehension of her probable slayer. The latter is Joachim Heinzen of Czernikauer Street, twenty years old, of evil reputation and apparently of not altogether responsible mind. Even before the discovery of the crime his behaviour attracted attention. Within the last few days the evidence against him has increased to the extent of justifying his arrest. When the police frankly accused him of the crime, he first broke down, but immediately thereafter resisted arrest with the utmost violence. Lodged in jail, he made a full and comprehensive confession. When asked to sign the protocol, however, he retracted his entire statement, and denied his guilt with extreme stubbornness. In his demeanour brutish stupidity alternated with remorse and terror. There can hardly be any doubt but that he is the criminal. The first formal examination by the investigating judge entrusted with the case will take place to-day. All the inhabitants of the house in Stolpische Street have been examined, among them a personality whose presence in that locality throws a curious side-light on a widely discussed affair, in which one of the most respected families among our captains of industry is involved.”

V

The hint in the last sentence caused endless talk. The name, which had considerately been left unmentioned, passed from mouth to mouth, no one knew how. The rumour reached Wolfgang Wahnschaffe. Colleagues asked him with cool amazement what his brother had to do with the murder of a Jewish girl in the slums. Even the chief of his Chancellery in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs summoned him, and questioned him with an expression that made him blanch with shame.

He wrote to his father: “I am in the position of a peaceful pedestrian who is in constant danger of a madman attacking him from behind. You are aware, dear father, that in the career I have chosen an unblemished repute is the first requisite. If my reputation and my name are to be constantly at the public mercy of an insane eccentric, who unhappily bears that name only to stain it, the time has come to use every means, no matter how drastic, to protect oneself. We have had patience. I was for far too long a flickering little flame beside the dazzling but, as is clear now, quite deceptive radiance of Christian. Now that my whole life’s happiness is at stake, as well as the honour of myself and my house, it would be the merest weakness on my part if I were to regard passively all that is happening and still likely to happen. This is likewise the opinion of my friends and of every right thinking person. Some energetic action is necessary if I am to sustain myself in the station which I have achieved, not to mention any other unpleasantness in which we may become involved. Until I hear from you, I shall try to get in touch with Judith, and take counsel with her. Although she ceased from all association with myself, in the most insulting manner and for reasons still dark to me, I believe that she will realize the seriousness of the situation.”

The Privy Councillor received this letter immediately on the heels of a conference with a delegation of strikers. It was some time before the pained amazement it automatically aroused in him really penetrated his consciousness. In any other circumstances the letter’s unfilial, almost impudent tone would have angered him. To-day he gave it no further thought. Swiftly he wrote a telegram in cipher to Girke and Graurock.

The reply which came by special delivery reached him the next evening at his house in Würzburg. Willibald Girke wrote: