Part 31

With lowered head he went a pace nearer to Niels Heinrich, who remained quite still, and continued, while a veiled smile hovered over his lips: “Don’t misunderstand me. I don’t desire to exert the slightest influence on your decisions. What you do or fail to do is your own affair. Whether one may desire to free that poor devil from his terrible situation, or not, is a problem of decency and humanity. So far as I am concerned, there is nothing I care about so little as to persuade you to an action which does not arise from your own conviction. I don’t regard myself as a representative of public authority; it is not for me to see to it that the laws are obeyed and people informed in regard to a crime that has troubled them. What would be the use of that? Would it avail to make things better? I neither want to ensnare you nor get the better of you. Your going to court, confessing your crime, expiating in the world’s sight, being punished--what have I to do with all that? Not to bring that about am I here.”

Niels Heinrich felt as though his very brain were turning in his skull with a creaking noise. He grasped the edge of the table for support. In his face was a boundless astonishment. His jaw dropped; he listened open-mouthed.

“Punishment? What does that mean? And is it my office or within my power to drag you to punishment? Shall I use cunning or force to make you suffer punishment? It does not even become me to say to you: You are guilty. I do not know whether you are guilty. I know that guilt exists; but whether you are guilty or in what relation to guilt you stand--that I cannot tell. The knowledge of that is yours alone; you and you alone possess the standard by which to judge what you have done, and not those who will be your judges. Neither do I possess it, and so I do not judge. I ask myself: Who dares to be a judge? I see no one, no one. In order that men may live together, it is perhaps necessary that judgments be passed; but the individual gains nothing by such judgments, either for his soul or for his knowledge.”

It was a bottomless silence into which Niels Heinrich had sunk. He suddenly remembered the moment in which the impulse to murder the machine had come upon him. With utter clearness he saw again the steel parts with their film of oil, the swiftly whirling wheels, the whole accurately functioning structure that had, somehow, seemed hostile and destructive to him. Why that image of all others came to him now, and why he remembered his vengeful impulse with an access of shame now--he did not understand.

Christian was speaking again: “So all that does not concern me at all. You need have no fear. What I want has nothing to do with it. I want--” he stopped, hesitated, and struggled for the word, “I want you. I need you....”

“Need me? Need me?” Niels Heinrich murmured, without understanding. “How? What for?”

“I can’t explain it, I can’t possibly explain it,” said Christian.

Whereupon Niels Heinrich laughed--a toneless, broken laugh. He walked around the whole table; then he repeated that same repressed, half-mad laugh.

“You have removed a being from this earth,” said Christian, softly; “you have destroyed a being so precious, so irreplaceable, that centuries, perhaps many centuries, will pass till one can arise comparable to it or like it. Don’t you know that? Every living creature is like a screw in a most marvellously built machine....”

Niels Heinrich began to tremble so violently that Christian noticed it. “What ails you?” he asked. “Are you ill?”

Niels Heinrich took his felt hat, that hung on a nail, and began to stroke it nervously. “Man alive,” he said, “you make a fellow crazy, crazy.” His tone was hollow.

“Please listen,” Christian continued insistently, “--in a most marvellously built machine. Now there are important screws and less important ones; and this being was one of the most important of all. So important indeed that I am convinced that the machine is hurt forever, because it has ceased to function. No one can ever again provide a part of such delicacy and exquisite exactness, and even though a substitute be found, the machine will never be what it once was. But aside from the machine and my comparison, you have inflicted a loss on me for which there are no words. Pain, grief, sadness--these words do not reach far or deep enough. You have robbed me of something utterly precious, forever irreplaceable, and you must give me something in return. You must give me something in return! Do you hear that? That is why I am standing here; that is why I am following you. You must give me something in return. I don’t know what. But unless you do, I shall be desperate, and become a murderer myself.”

He buried his face in his hands, and burst into hoarse, wild, passionate weeping.

With quivering lips, in a small voice like a naughty child’s, Niels Heinrich stammered: “Saviour above, what can I give you in return?”

Christian wept and did not answer.

XXIX

Thereupon they went from that room together, without having exchanged another word.

The pawnbroker Grünbusch had already closed his shop. Niels Heinrich sought another whom he knew to be reliable. He left Christian in the street while he slipped into a dirty vault. He had torn one pearl from the string, just one, to serve as a sample for the present. After the old rascal who kept the shop had tested and weighed the pearl exactly, he gave Niels Heinrich fifteen hundred marks. The money was partly in bank-notes and partly in gold. He scarcely counted it. He stuffed the coins into one pocket; the notes crackled as he crushed them into another.

“Give him? What does he think I can give him?” He brooded. “Maybe he smells a rat, and suspects that I stole the pearls. Does he mean that? Does he want me to give them to him?”

When he reached the street again, and saw that Christian had waited patiently and without suspicion, he merely made a wry face; and he continued silently by the other’s side. Dumbfounded, he bore the heavy weight of Christian’s continued presence; he could not imagine what would come of it.

But the man’s weeping was still in his ears and in his limbs. A cold, clear stillness filled the air of night, yet everywhere rustled the sound of that weeping. The streets through which they passed were nearly empty, yet in them was that weeping embodied in the whitish mist. In the walls and balconies of the houses to the right and to the left, it lifted up its treacherous voice--this weeping of a man.

He dared not think. Beside him went one who knew his thoughts. A rope was about him, and he could move only so far as that other permitted. Who is he? The question went through and through him. He tried to remember his name, but the name had slipped from his mind. And all that this man, this suddenly nameless man, had said to him, whirled up within him like sparks of fire.

They had reached their goal at the end of half an hour. Gottlieb’s Inn was a drinking place for workingmen and small shopkeepers. It contained quite a number of rooms. First one entered the restaurant proper, which was filled with guests all night. Its chief attraction consisted in a dozen pretty waitresses, as well as twenty to thirty other ladies, who smiled and smoked and lounged in their provocative costumes on the green plush sofas, waiting for victims. Adjoining the restaurant there were a number of cell-like private dining-rooms for couples. Beyond these was a longish, narrow hall, which was rented out for parties or to clubs, or in which gambling took place. The decoration of the rooms corresponded to the quarter and its taste. Everything was gilt; everywhere were pretentious sculptures of stucco. There were tall pillars that were hollow and supported nothing, but blocked one’s path. The walls were covered with paintings that had been the latest thing the day before yesterday. Everything was new, and everything was dirty and touched with decay.

Niels Heinrich went in through the swinging door, looked about dazzled by the light, lurched past the tables, went into the passage that led to the little private rooms, came back, stared into the painted faces of the girls, called the head-waiter, and said he wanted to go into the long hall at the rear, wanted the hall for the whole evening, in fact, no matter what it cost. Twenty quarts of Mumm’s Extra Dry were to be put on ice. He drew forth three one hundred mark bank-notes, and tossed them contemptuously to the head-waiter. That cleared the situation. The functionary in question had a mien at once official and ingratiating. Two minutes later the hall was festively lit.

The women appeared, and young men who were parasites by trade, corrupt boys who looked like consumptive lackeys, clerks out of a berth in loud, checked clothes--doubtful lives with a dark past and a darker future. At Gottlieb’s Inn there was never any lack of such. Cordially they insisted on their long friendship for the giver of the feast. He remembered not one, but turned no one away.

He sat at the centre of the long table. He had pushed his hat far back on his head and crossed his legs and gritted his teeth. His face was as white as the cloth on the table. Impudent songs were sung; they crowed and cried and screeched and giggled and joked and guzzled and wallowed and smacked each other; foul stories were told and boastful experiences; they mounted on chairs and smashed glasses. In half an hour the bacchanal destroyed all sobriety and reserve. It wasn’t often that a man dropped in, as from the clouds, fairly dripping with money.

Niels Heinrich presided icily. From time to time he called out his commands: “Six bottles! A chocolate cake! Nine bottles Veuve Cliquot! A tray of pastry!” The commands were swiftly obeyed, and the company yelled and cheered. A black-haired woman put an arm about his shoulder. Brutally he thrust her back, but she made no complaint. A fat woman, excessively rouged and décolletée, held a goblet to his lips. Rancorously he spat into it, and the applause rattled about him.

He did not drink. On the wall immediately opposite him was a gigantic mirror. In it he saw the table and the roisterers. He also saw the red drapery that covered the wall behind him. He also saw several little tables that stood against the drapery. They were unoccupied, save that Christian sat at one. So through the mirror Niels Heinrich gazed across and shyly observed that alienated guest, whose silent presence had at first been noticed, but had now been long forgotten.

At Niels Heinrich’s left four men played at cards. They attracted a public and sympathizers. From time to time Niels Heinrich threw a couple of gold pieces on the table. He lost every stake; but always at the same moment he threw down more gold.

He looked into the mirror and saw himself--colourless, lean, withered.

He threw down a hundred mark note. “Small stakes, big winnings!” he boasted. A few of the spectators got between him and the mirror. “Out of the way!” he roared. “I want to see that!” Obediently they slunk aside.

He looked into the mirror and beheld Christian, who sat there straight and slender, stirless and tense.

He threw down two more bank notes. “They’ll bring back others,” he murmured.

And when he looked into the mirror again, he saw a vision in it. It was a human trunk, a virginal body, radiant with an earthly and also with another, with an immortal purity. The scarcely curving breasts with their rosy blossoms had a sweet loveliness of form that filled him with dread and with pain. It was only the trunk: there was no head; there were no limbs. Where the neck ended there was a ring of curdled blood; the dark triangle revealed its mystery below.

Niels Heinrich got up. The chair behind him clattered to the floor. All were silent. “Out with you!” he roared. “Out! Out!” With swinging arms he indicated the door.

The company rose frightened. A few lingered; others thronged toward the door. Beside himself, Niels Heinrich grasped the chair, lifted it far above his head, and stormed toward the loiterers. They scattered; the women screamed and the men growled. Only the gamblers had remained seated, as if the whole incident did not concern them. Niels Heinrich swept with his hand across the tablecloth, and the cards flew in all directions. The gamblers jumped up, determined to resist; but at the sight of their adversary they backed away from him, and one by one strolled from the hall. Immediately thereafter the head-waiter, with a look of well-bred astonishment, came in and presented his bill. Niels Heinrich had sat down on the edge of the table with his back toward the mirror. A thin foam clung to his lips.

He paid the reckoning. The amount of his tip assuaged the deprecation and surprise of the head-waiter. He asked whether the gentleman had any further commands. Niels Heinrich answered that he wanted to drink alone now. He ordered a bottle of the best and some caviare. One of the doll-like waitresses hastened in with the bottle and opened it. Niels Heinrich emptied a glassful greedily. At the food he shuddered. He ordered the superfluous lights to be turned out; he didn’t need so much light. All but a few of the incandescent lamps were darkened, and the hall grew dim. The door was to be closed, he commanded further, and no one was to enter unless he rang. Again he threw gold on the table. He was obeyed in everything.

Suddenly it grew still.

Niels Heinrich still sat on the edge of the table.

Christian said: “That took a long time.”

XXX

Niels Heinrich slid from the edge of the table, and began to pace up and down the entire length of the hall. Christian’s eyes followed him uninterruptedly.

He had once read in a book, Niels Heinrich said, the story of a French count, who had killed an innocent peasant girl, and had cut the heart out of her breast and cooked and eaten it. And that had given him the power of becoming invisible. Did Christian believe that there was any truth to that story?

Christian answered that he did not.

He, for his part, didn’t believe it either, Niels Heinrich said. But it was not to be denied that there was a certain magic in the innocence of virgins. Perhaps they had hidden powers which they communicated to one. It seemed to him this way, that in the guilty there was an instinct that drew them to the guiltless. The thought, then, that underlay the story would be, wouldn’t it, that virginity did communicate some hidden powers? Was the gentleman prepared to deny that?

Christian, whose whole attention was given to these questions, answered that he did not deny it.

But the gentleman had asserted that there were none who are guilty? How did these things go together? If there were none who are guilty, then none are guiltless either.

“It is not to be understood in that fashion,” Christian answered, conscious of the difficulty, and conscious in every nerve of the strangeness of the place, the hour, and the circumstances. “Guilt and guiltlessness do not sustain the relation of effect and cause. One is not derived from the other. Guilt cannot become innocence nor innocence guilt. Light is light and darkness is darkness, but neither can be transformed into the other, neither can be created by the other. Light issues from some body--fire or the sun or a constellation. Whence does darkness issue? It exists. It has no source; none other than the absence of light.”

Niels Heinrich seemed to reflect. Still walking up and down, he flung his words into the air. Every one was made a fool of--every one from his childhood on. There had always been palavering about sin and wrong, and everything had been aimed at giving one an evil conscience. If once you had an evil conscience, no confession or penitence, no parson and no absolution did you any good. And at bottom one was but a wretched creature--a doomed creature, and condemned to damnation from the start. That had convinced him, what the gentleman had said--without looking at Christian, he stretched out his arm and index-finger toward him--oh, that had convinced him, that no one had the right to judge another. That was true. He hadn’t ever seen anyone either to whom one could say: you shall pass judgment. Every one bore the mark of shame and of theft and of blood, and was condemned to the same damnation from the beginning. But if there was to be no more judging, that meant the end of bourgeois society and the capitalistic order. For that was founded on courts and on the necessity of finding men to assume its guilt, and judges who were ignorant of mercy.

Christian said: “Won’t you stop walking up and down? Won’t you come and sit by me? Come here; sit by me.”

No, he said, he didn’t want to sit by him. He wanted all these matters explained just once. He didn’t want to be submissive with his mind like a boy at school. The gentleman was incomprehensible, and was making a fool of him with phrases. Let him give to him, Niels Heinrich, something certain, something by which he could be guided.

“What do you mean by that--something certain?” Christian asked, deeply moved. “I am a man like yourself; I know no more than yourself; like yourself I have sinned and am helpless and puzzled. What is it I shall give you--I?”

“But I?” Niels Heinrich was beside himself. “What shall I give? And you wanted me to give you something! What is it? What can I give you?”

“Don’t you feel it?” Christian asked. “Don’t you know it yet--not yet?”

Silently they looked into each other’s eyes, for Niels Heinrich had stopped walking. A shiver, an almost visible shiver ran down his limbs. His face seemed as though singed by the desire of one who rattles at an iron gate and would be free.

“Listen,” he said, suddenly, with a desperate and convulsive calmness, “I stole those pearls in your house. I simply put them into my pocket. One of them I pawned, and made those swine drunk with the money. You can have them back if you want them. Those I can give you. If that’s what you want, I can give it to you.”

Christian seemed surprised; but the passionate tensity of his face did not relax at all.

Niels Heinrich put his hand into his trousers pocket. The string had been broken, so that his hand was full of the loose pearls. He held it out toward Christian; but Christian did not stir, and made no move to receive the pearls. This seemed to embitter Niels Heinrich strangely. He stretched out his hand until it was flat, and let the pearls roll on the floor. White and shimmering, they rolled on the parquetry. And as Christian still did not stir, Niels Heinrich’s rage seemed to increase. He turned his pocket inside out, so that all the rest of the pearls fell on the floor.

“Why do you do that?” Christian asked, more in astonishment than in blame.

“Well, maybe the gentleman wanted a little exercise,” was the impudent answer. And again that thin foam, like the white of an egg, clung to his lips.

Christian lowered his eyes. Then this thing happened: he arose and drew a deep breath, smiled, leaned over, dropped on his knees, and began to gather up the pearls. He picked up each one singly, so as not to soil his hands unnecessarily; on his knees he slid over the floor, picking up pearl after pearl. He reached under the table and under the stairs, where spilt wine lay in little puddles, and out of these nauseating little puddles he scratched the pearls. With his right hand he gathered them; and always, when his left hand was half full, he slipped its contents into his pocket.

Niels Heinrich looked down at him. Then his eyes fled from that sight, wandered through the room, found the mirror and fled from it, sought it anew and fled again. For the mirror had become a glow to him. He no longer saw his image in it; the mirror had ceased to reflect images. And again he looked toward the floor where Christian crept, and something monstrous happened in his soul. A stertorous moan issued from his breast. Christian stopped in his occupation, and looked up at him.

He saw and understood. At last! At last! A trembling hand moved forward to meet his own. He took it; it had no life. He had never yet so deeply grasped it all--the body, the spirit, time, eternity. The hand had no warmth: it was the hand of the deed, the hand of crime, the hand of guilt. But when he touched it, for the first time, it began to live and grow warm; a glow streamed into it--glow of the mirror, of service, of insight, of renewal.

It was that touch, that touch alone.

Niels Heinrich, drawn forward, sank upon his knees. In this matter of Joachim Heinzen, he stammered in a barely audible voice, why, one might discuss it, you know. His eyes seemed broken and his features extinguished. And they kneeled--each before the other.

Saved and freed from himself by that touch, the murderer cast his guilt upon the man who judged and did not condemn him.

He was free. And Christian was likewise free.

The hall had a side-exit by which one could leave the house. There they said farewell to each other. Christian knew well where Niels Heinrich was going. He himself returned to Stolpische Street, mounted the stairs to Karen’s rooms, locked himself in, lay down as he was, and slept for three and thirty hours.

A vigorous ringing of the bell aroused him.

XXXI

Lorm was sick unto death. He lay in a sanatorium. An intestinal operation had been performed, and there was slight hope of his recovery.

Friends visited him. Emanuel Herbst, most faithful of them all, concealed his pain and fear beneath a changeless mask of fatalistic calm. Since the first day on which he had seen on the face of his beloved friend the first traces of fate’s destructive work, the shadow-world of the theatre with all its activities had nauseated him. With the dying of its central fire, he had a presentiment of the approaching end of many things.

Crammon also came often. He loved to talk to Lorm of past days, and Lorm was glad to remember and to smile. He also smiled when he was told how numerous were the inquiries after him; that telegrams came uninterruptedly from all the cities of the land, and showed how profoundly his image and character had affected the heart of the nation. He did not believe it; in his innermost soul he did not believe it. He despised men too deeply.

There was but one human being in whose love he believed. That was Judith. Unswervingly he believed in her love, though each hour might have offered proof of his delusion, each hour of the day in which he expressed the desire to see her, each hour of the night when he controlled his moans of pain not to annoy the ears of paid, strange women.

For Judith came at most for half an hour in the forenoon or for half an hour in the afternoon, tried to conceal her impatient annoyance by overtenderness and artificial eagerness, and said: “Puggie, aren’t you going to be well soon?” or “Aren’t you ashamed to be so lazy and lie here, while poor Judith longs for you at home?” She filled the sick-room with noise and with futile advice, scolded the nurse, showed the doctor his place, flirted with the consultant physician, chattered of a hundred trivialities--a trip to a health resort, the last cook’s latest pilfering, and never lacked reasons with which to palliate the shortness of her stay.

Lorm would confirm these reasons. He had no doubt of any of them; he gave her opportunities to produce them. He was remarkably inventive in making excuses for her when he saw in others’ faces astonishment or disapproval of her behaviour. He said: “Don’t bother her. She is an airy creature. She has her own way of showing devotion, and her own way of feeling grief. You must not apply ordinary standards.”