Part 27

She arrived at five o’clock. The darkness had fallen. They went into Karen’s old rooms, since Michael was in Christian’s. To the latter’s surprise the boy had suddenly expressed the desire for instruction and for a teacher to-day. He had also asked how his life was to be arranged in future, where he had better go and to whom, and from whom he might hope for help, since he was unwilling to be a burden to Christian any longer. His words and demeanour showed a determination which he had never yet displayed. Christian had not been able to answer his questions satisfactorily at once. The change caused him, first of all, astonishment; and while he preceded Johanna to light the lamp, he reflected on the difficult decision ahead.

The door to the room in which Karen had died was locked. A feeble fire of wood that Isolde Schirmacher had lit at Christian’s bidding burned in the oven. She came in now, put on another log, and tripped out again.

Johanna sat on the sofa and looked about her expectantly. She trembled at the thought of the first word she would hear and the first she would speak. She had not taken off her cloak. Her neck and chin were buried in its collar of fur.

“It’s a little uncanny here,” she said softly at last, since Christian’s silence was so prolonged.

Christian sat down beside and took her hand. “You look so full of suffering, Johanna,” he said. “What is the cause of your suffering? Would it ease you to speak out? Tell me about it. You will reply that I cannot help you. And that is true; one can never really help another. Yet once you communicate yourself to a friend, the troubles within no longer rot in dull stagnation. Don’t you think so?”

“You come to me so late,” Johanna whispered, with a shudder, and drew up her shoulders, “so very, very late.”

“Too late?”

“Too late.”

Christian reflected sadly for a little. He grasped her hand more firmly, and asked timidly: “Does he torment you? What is there between him and you?”

She started and stared at him, and then collapsed again. She smiled morbidly and said: “I’d be grateful to anyone who took an axe and killed me. It’s all I’m worth.”

“Why, Johanna?”

“Because I threw myself away to roll in filth where it’s thickest and most horrible,” she cried out, in a cutting voice that was full of lamentation too, while her lips quivered, and she looked up.

“You see both yourself and others falsely,” said Christian. “Everything within you is distorted. All that you say torments you, and all that you hide chokes you. Have a little pity on yourself.”

“On myself?” She laughed a mirthless laugh. “On a thing like myself? It would be waste. Nothing is needed but the axe, the axe.” Her words changed to a wild sob. Then came an icy silence.

“What did you do, Johanna, to make you so desperate? Or what was done to you?”

“You come too late. Oh, if you had asked me before, just asked, just once. It is too late. There was too much empty time. The time was the ruin of me. I’ve wasted my heart.”

“Tell me how.”

“Once there was one who opened the dark and heavy portal just a tiny bit. Then I thought: it will be beautiful now. But he slammed the door shut in my face. And the crash--I still feel it in my bones. It was rash and foolish in me. I should not have had that glimpse of the lovely things beyond the gate.”

“You are right, Johanna; I deserve it. But tell me how it is with you now? Why are you so torn and perturbed?”

She did not answer for a while. Then she said: “Do you know the old fairy-tale of the goose-girl who creeps into the iron oven to complain of her woe? ‘O Falada, as thou hangest, O Princess, as thou goest, if thy mother knew of thy fate, the heart in her bosom would be broken.’ I haven’t taken a vow of silence, and I haven’t a burning oven for refuge, but I can’t look at anyone or let him look at me. Go over by the window and take your eyes from me, and I’ll tell you of my woes.”

With serious promptness Christian obeyed. He sat down by the window and looked out.

With a high, almost singing voice Johanna began. “You know that I got caught in the snares of that man who was once your friend. You see there was too much time in the world and the time was too empty. He acted as though he would die if he didn’t have me. He put me to sleep with his words and broke my will, my little rudimentary will, and took me as one takes a lost thing by the roadside that no one wants or claims. And when he had me in his grip the misery began. Day and night he tortured me with questions, day and night, as though I’d been his thing from my mother’s womb. No peace was left in me, and I was like one blinded by his own shame. And one day I ran away and came here, and it was just the day on which Michael came in after the terrible thing had happened to him, and of course you had no eyes for me and I--I saw more clearly than before how low I had fallen and what I had made of my life.”

She stared down emptily for a moment; then she shut her eyes and continued. There had been an evening on which she had felt so desolate and deserted that she had envied each paving stone because it lay beside another. And so she had suddenly, with all the strength of all the yearning in her, wished for a child. She couldn’t explain just how it had come over her--that insane yearning after a child, after something of flesh and blood that she might love. Just as that day in Christian’s room she had turned his behaviour into an envious experiment and test, and had wondered in suspense how he would take and withstand the utter misery of Michael; so, on that other day, she had put her own life to the test, and had made everything dependent on whether she would have a child or not. And when Amadeus had come, she had thrown herself at him--coldly and calculatingly. She wondered whether such things often happened in the world or had, indeed, ever happened before. But as time passed it became clear that her wish was not to be fulfilled and she was not even capable of what any woman of the people can accomplish. She wasn’t good enough for even that.

But in the meantime fate had played its direst trick on her. She had begun to love the man. It could not have come about differently, for he seemed so like herself--so full of envy, so avoided of men, so enmeshed and helpless within. The likeness in his soul had conquered her. To be sure, she could not tell whether it was really love, or something strange and terrible that is written of in no book and has no name. But if it was love to cling to some last contact while waiting for the end, to be extinguished and set on fire again, so that between fire and fire no breath was one’s own, and one wore an alien face and spoke alien words; if it was love to be ashamed and remorseful and flee from one’s own consciousness and drag oneself about in terror of the senses and of the spirit and own no thing on earth, no friend or sister or flower or dream--if such were love, well, it had been hers. But it hadn’t lasted long. Amadeus had shown signs of coldness and satiety. He had been paralysed. When he had devoured everything within her that could be devoured, he had been tired and had given her to understand that she was in the way. A cold horror had struck her, and she had gone. But the horror was still in her heart and everything in her was old and cold. She could never forget the man’s coarse face in that last hour--his scorn and satisfaction. Now she could neither laugh nor cry any more; she was ashamed. She would like to lie down very gently and wait for death. She was so frightfully tired, and disgust of life filled her to the brim.

She stopped, and Christian did not move. Long minutes passed. Then Johanna arose and went over to him. Without stirring she gazed with him out into the darkness, and then laid a ghostly hand upon his shoulder. “If my mother knew of my fate, the heart in her bosom would be broken,” she whispered.

He understood that touch, which sought a refuge, and her silent beseeching. Resting his chin upon his hand, he said: “O men, men, what are these things you do!”

“We despair,” she answered, drily, and with sardonic lips.

Christian arose, took her head between his two hands, and said: “You must be on your guard, Johanna, against yourself.”

“The devil has fetched me,” she answered; but at the same moment she became aware of the power of his touch. She became pale and reeled and pulled herself together. She looked into his eyes, first waveringly, then firmly. She tried to smile, and her smile was full of pain. Then it became less full of herself, and lastly, after a deep breath, showed a shimmer of joy.

He took his hands away. He wanted to say something more, but he felt the insufficiency and poverty of all words.

She went from him with lowered head. But on her lips there was still that smile of many meanings which she had won.

XIX

It happened that Christian, sleeping in the rooms upstairs, was awakened by the piercing cries of the Stübbe children. He slipped into his clothes and went over.

On the table stood a smoking kerosene lamp; next to it lay a baby huddled in greasy rags. From a sack of straw two children had risen up. They were clad in ragged shirts, and, clinging despairingly to each other, uttered their shrieks of terror. A fourth child, a boy of five, indescribably ragged and neglected, bent over a heap of broken plates and glasses. He hid his face in his hands and howled. The fifth child, a girl of eight or nine, stood by her mother, who lay quite still on the floor, and lifted her thin, beseeching arms and folded hands toward the monster who was her father, and who struck the woman blow after vicious blow in the beastliness of his rage. He used the leg of a chair, and under the mad fury of his blows terrible wounds appeared on the body of the woman, who uttered no sound. Only now and then she twitched. Her face was of a greyish blue. The bodice and the red petticoat she wore were shredded, and from every rent dripped her blood.

Stübbe’s madness increased with every blow. In his eyes there was a ghastly glitter; slime and foam flecked his beard; his hair stood on end and was stiff with sweat, and his swollen face was a dark violet hue. Sounds, half laughter, half gurgling, then again moans and curses and stertorous breathing and whistling came from his gullet. One blow fell on the beseeching child. She dropped on her face and moaned.

Christian grasped the man. With both hands he strangled him; with tenfold strength he fought him down. He felt an unspeakable horror of the flesh his fingers touched; in his horror it seemed to him that the wretched room became a conical vault in the emptiness of which he and this beast swayed to and fro. He smelt the whiskey fumes that rose from the beast’s open gullet, and his horror assumed odour and savour and burned his eyes. And as he struggled on--the claws of the man, who despite his drunkenness had a bear’s strength, against his throat, that belly against his, those knees close to his own--this moment seemed to stretch and stretch to an hour, a month, a year, and fate seemed to force him into a fatal hole. All nearness seemed to become closer and turn into touch. Man, the world, the sky--all were upon him, close as his own skin. And this became the meaning of it to him--deeper, deeper, closer, closer into the horrible and menacing.

A thin, little voice sounded: “Please don’t hurt father! Please, please don’t.” It was the voice of the little girl. She got up and approached Christian and clung to his arm.

Stübbe, gasping for air, collapsed. Christian stood there, pale as death. He smelt and felt that there was blood on him. People came in; the noise had roused them from their beds. A woman took the little children and sought to soothe them. One man kneeled by the murdered woman; another went for water. There were some who cried out and were excited; others looked on calmly. After a while a policeman appeared. Stübbe lay in a corner and snored; the lamp still smoked and stank. A second policeman drifted in, and took counsel with the first whether Stübbe was to be left here till morning or removed at once.

Christian still stood there, pale as death. Suddenly every eye was turned upon him. A dull silence fell on the room. One of the policemen cleared his throat. The child looked up at him breathlessly. It had a colourless, stern old face. Its unnaturally large, blue-rimmed eyes were filled with the immeasurable misery of the life it had lived. Christian’s look seemed to charm the child. The little figure seemed to grow and twine itself about that look like a sapling, and to lose its cold and suffering and sickness and fear.

Christian recognized the heroic soul of the little creature, its innocence and guiltlessness and rich, undying heart.

“Come with me, I have a bed for you,” he said to the child, and led it past the people and out of the room.

The little girl went with him willingly. In his room he touched her and raised her up. He could hardly believe such delicate limbs and joints capable of motion. So soon as she lay on his bed and was covered she fell into deep slumber.

He sat beside her and gazed into the colourless, stern, old face.

XX

And again, while he sat there, a landscape seemed to be about him.

On either side of a marshy path bare trees were standing, and their limbs protruded confusedly and crookedly into the air. The light was dim, as though it were a very early autumn morning. Heavy clouds hung down, mirroring their ragged masses in pools and puddles. Here and there were structures of brick, all half finished. One had no roof and another no windows. Everywhere were mortar-pits full of white mortar, and tools lay on the ground--trowels and spirit-levels and shovels and spades; also barrows and beams. No human being was in sight. The loneliness was damp and mouldy and ugly, and seemed to be waiting for man. All objects shared that tense and menacing mood of expectancy--the thin light falling from the ragged clouds, the marshy fluid in the ruts, the trees which were like dead, gigantic insects thrown on their backs, the unfinished brick structures, the mortar-pits and tools.

The only living creature was a crow sitting by the roadside, and observing Christian with a spiteful glance. Each time he approached the bird, it fluttered silently up and settled down a little distance ahead on a bare tree; and there it waited until he approached again. In the round eyes that glimmered brown as polished beans, there was a devilish jeering, and Christian grew tired of the pursuit. The moisture penetrated his garments, the mud filled his shoes, which stuck in the ooze at every step; the uncanny twilight obliterated all outlines, and deceived him in regard to the distances of objects. Exhausted, he leaned against a low tree-trunk, and waited in his turn. The crow hopped and flew, now farther, now nearer; it seemed vexed at his waiting and finally alighted on the roadside, and the polished bean-like eyes lost their treacherous expression and were slowly extinguished.

A prophetic shiver passed through space. The breath of the landscape was Ruth’s name; it strained to proclaim her fate.

And Christian waited.

XXI

Niels Heinrich hesitated a few minutes before he entered the room.

It happened to be empty, so that he was alone for a little while. In this short time he succeeded in getting possession of the string of pearls.

When Niels Heinrich arrived, Christian was just about to accompany the student Lamprecht for a walk. He desired to engage him as Michael’s teacher, and he could not speak quite openly to him in the boy’s presence. He was startled and found it difficult to control himself. To leave at this moment seemed hazardous. Niels Heinrich, who was moody and irresponsible, might not await his return, nor was it advisable to leave him alone with Michael. On the other hand, Christian had waited with electrically charged nerves for this important interview. He had waited from day to day, and he desired to gather his inner forces and subdue the excitement which Niels Heinrich’s silent entering had caused him. That would take time, and his indecision and embarrassment increased while he addressed Niels Heinrich courteously and asked him to be seated. At that moment the door opened again, and Johanna Schöntag came in. Christian received her eagerly, and in over-hasty words begged her to stay with Michael until his return; then he would go to the other flat with Herr Engelschall, with whom he had matters to discuss. Johanna was surprised at his impetuousness, and also looked in surprise at Niels Heinrich. Her expression showed very clearly that she didn’t know who the man was, and so Christian was obliged to introduce the two to each other. That seemed to him so absurd a proceeding that he only murmured the names hesitantly. Niels Heinrich grinned; and when Christian begged to be excused for a little while, he shrugged his shoulders.

The echo of Christian’s and Lamprecht’s steps had hardly died away in the courtyard when Johanna turned to Michael and said: “I was coming in to ask you to go with me to the Memorial Church in Charlottenburg. Cantatas of Bach will be sung. Do come; you have probably never heard anything like it. This gentleman will be so kind as to tell Herr Wahnschaffe where we have gone.” She looked at Niels Heinrich, but lowered her eyes at once. He gave her a feeling of profound discomfort. She had felt that discomfort the moment she had entered, and after Christian had gone, it had become so violent that she had made her proposal to Michael solely in order to avoid this hateful presence at any cost. She had had a vague intention earlier of attending the concert, but had dropped it again. The thought of taking the boy along had occurred to her but now.

“Charlottenburg, Memorial Church--all right, I’ll tell him,” Niels Heinrich said, and crossed his legs. He had been gazing at Michael uninterruptedly, and his gaze had been growing more and more sombre.

Michael had been conscious of a feeling quite akin to Johanna’s, but he endured bravely the yellow heat of those eyes. His fingers played nervously with a piece of paper on the table; his mind was seeking a hint, an image, a lost thread; he nodded at Johanna without looking at her, and followed her silently when she touched his arm. She had taken his hat and coat from the hook, and so they went.

Issuing from the house they saw Christian at the nearest corner, standing with Lamprecht under a lantern. Hastily they walked in the opposite direction.

Niels Heinrich got up. He lit a cigarette, and strode up and down with clicking steps. He stopped in front of a chest of drawers and tried each drawer. He did that mechanically, without curiosity and without definite expectation. The chest had a little top made of small, carved columns; this, too, contained a drawer. He pulled it open, and started violently as though he had been stung. Before his eyes lay a heap of enormous pearls.

Christian had almost forgotten them in the unlocked little drawer. Several days after Karen’s death Botho von Thüngen had told him that he was going to Frankfort. Members of his family were gathering there and a conference was to be held. Christian thought of taking advantage of this opportunity to send the pearls to his mother. A dreamy memory of their high value made him hesitate to entrust them to the mails. Thüngen had declared himself most willing to undertake the commission; but he never went to Frankfort. His relatives cast him off mercilessly; they were trying to get the courts to declare him irresponsible; their hue and cry robbed him of all repose, of every home, of all work. He was stripped of all means, and he had not been able to hold the woman whom he had married. She had fallen into deeper degradation than that from which he had sought to save her. In this utter distress of his, Christian had become his sole refuge and support.

Thus, in his anxiety over his friend, Christian had scarcely thought of the pearls for days. Though he had that faint memory of their value, no authentic impulse bade him secure them more carefully than in that open drawer, where Niels Heinrich’s furtive instinct had discovered them.

A long, slow, astonished whistle; a quivering of the emaciated cheeks; a look of hunger and one of criminal determination. Then a hesitation, as though even this marvellous treasure were of no import any more; and then again a burning in his eyes. The pearls promised unheard-of delights. And then again disgust: what for? He must fight out his conflict with this man. Behind him was a ravenous pack: witnesses, spies, hints, accomplices, and also the dog, the cellar, the blood, the body, the head, the Little Maggot hanged by the cord of her petticoat. And face to face with him was this man. We’ll see; we’ll measure our strength.

He reflected for some moments; then he flung out both hands, and the pearls were in his possession. There was a soft clinking, a gathering up, a shoving, and they disappeared in his trousers pocket. The pocket stuck out, but his coat hid the fact. If the man looked into the drawer and raised an alarm, why, one could fling the stuff back at him.

When Christian returned, Niels Heinrich was sitting on a chair and smoking.

XXII

“Forgive me,” said Christian. “It was an urgent appointment....” He interrupted himself, as he observed that Niels Heinrich was in the room alone.

“The young lady wants you to know that she took the boy and went to Charlottenburg to go to church,” Niels Heinrich said.

Christian was amazed. He answered: “So much the better. That leaves us undisturbed, and we can stay here.”

“That’s right. We’re undisturbed.” Next came a pause, and they looked at each other. Christian went to the threshold of the little bedroom to make sure that no one was within, then to the door that led to the hall. He turned the key.

“Why do you lock the door?” Niels Heinrich asked, with raised brows.

“It is necessary,” said Christian, “because all the people who come to see me are accustomed to finding the door open.”

“Then maybe you’d better blow out the lamp too,” Niels Heinrich jeered; “that’d be the sensible thing to do, eh? Dark’s a good place for secrets. And we’re going to fish for secrets, eh?”

Christian sat down on a chair at the opposite end of the table. He purposely disregarded the other’s cynical remark; but his silence and his tense expression aroused Niels Heinrich’s rage. Challengingly he leaned back in his chair and spat elaborately on the floor. They sat facing each other as though neither dared lose sight of the other for a second. Yet Christian continued to show his obliging and friendly attitude. Only a quivering of the muscles of his forehead and the peering intensity of his gaze revealed something of what was passing within him.

“Have you discovered anything new?” he finally asked, in his courteous way.

Niels Heinrich lit another cigarette. “Aw, something,” he said, and went on to tell that he had in the meantime discovered the woman who had hidden the Jew boy. It had been Molly Gutkind, known as the Little Maggot, and living at “Adele’s Rest.” He had followed the matter up and got the girl to confess. But on that very day, as the devil would have it, persons had come from the court and questioned her. The poor fool had probably talked more than was good for her. Anyhow, she’d fallen under suspicion and had been put in jail. There she’d evidently lost what little brains she ever had and had hanged herself. She was dead as a door-nail. That’s what he wanted to report, since the gentleman seemed to be interested. Now the gentleman knew, and had an idea of his, Niels Heinrich’s, willingness to oblige.

He blew clouds of smoke, and twirled his little beard with the fingers of his left hand.