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  The caretaker slammed the door thunderously behind him. His steps, heavy with rage, terrified the tenants of the rooms below the library. For years they had been used to a deathly silence. The stairs were suddenly full of disputing people. Everyone thought it must be the caretaker. Up to now the Professor had been his Benjamin. The tenants hated Kien on account of the gratuity, which the caretaker on every possible occasion, cast in their teeth. Most probably the Professor was refusing to give him another penny. He was quite right of course, but deserved all he got. So far the caretaker had never let anyone off lightly. But it was a mystery to the tiptoe listeners, that they could hear no voices, only the well-known bellowing step.

  For the rage of the caretaker was so great that he searched the flat in silence. He was saving up his anger. He was determined to make an example of Kien when he found him. Behind his grating teeth dozens of imprecations were accumulating. On his fists, the red hairs rose on end. He noticed it as he chucked aside the wardrobes in Therese's new bedroom. The sh— might be anywhere. Thérèse followed him with understanding. When he halted, she halted too, when he looked behind anything, she did likewise. He took little notice of her, after a minute or two he was as used to her as his shadow. She guessed he was holding in his mounting wrath. With his, her own grew too. Her husband wasn't only a thief, he'd gone ofFand abandoned her, a defenceless woman. She was silent, so as not to interrupt the caretaker; the closer they got to each odier, the less she feared him. Her bedroom she had allowed him to enter first. When she unbolted the other two closed rooms she went ahead of him. He glanced hastily over her old room next to the kitchen. He could only imagine Kien in a big room, however well hidden. In the kitchen he had a sudden impulse to smash all the crockery. But it would have been a shame to waste his fists; he spat on the stove and let things be. Now he stamped back into the study. On the way he stopped long to gaze at the coat stand. Kien was not suspended from it. He tossed over the huge writing desk. He needed both his fists for it and took awful vengeance for this humiliation. He grabbed at a bookshelf and flung several dozen volumes to the ground. Then he looked about him, to see if Kien would not suddenly appear. It was his last hope.

  'Decamped!' he stated. His oaths had all forsaken him. He felt depressed by the loss of his ioo schillings. Together with his pension it secured him the gratification of his passion. He was a man of gigantic appetite. What would become of his spy-hole if he starved? He held out both his fists to Thérèse. The hairs were still all on end. 'Look at that!' he bellowed. 'In all my life I've never been in such a rage! Never!'

  Thérèse looked at the books on the floor. He thought his fists were his apology and her compensation. She did feel compensated but not by his fists. 'But excuse me, he wasn't even a man!' she said.

  'A bloody whore, that's what he was!' bellowed the injured party. 'A gangster! A wanted man! A murderer!'

  Thérèse wanted to say 'a beggar' but he had already got as far as 'gangster'. And while she was thinking of'thief, his 'murderer' made any further bid impossible. He wasted little time swearing. Very soon he was mellowed again and began to pick up the books. Easily as he had thrown them down, they were hard to put back. Thérèse fetched the steps and climbed up herself. Her successful day moved her to sway her hips. With one hand the caretaker handed her the books, with the other he went for her and pinched her violently in the thigh. Her mouth watered. She was the first woman whom he had won by his method of wooing. All the others he had simply assaulted. Thérèse breathed to herself: There's a man! Again please. Aloud she said, bashfully: 'More!' He gave her a second pile of books and pinched her with equal violence on the left. Her mouth overflowed. Then it occurred to her that such things aren't done. She screamed and threw herself off the steps into his arms. He simply let her fall to the ground, broke open the starched skirt and had her.

  When he got up, he said: 'That'll learn him, the old skeleton!' Thérèse sobbed: 'Excuse me, I belong to you now!' She had found a man. She had no intention of letting him go. He answered 'Shurrup!' and that very night moved into the flat. During the day he stayed at his post. At night he advised her, in bed. Litde by little he learnt what had really happened, and ordered her unobtrusively to pawn the books before her husband came back. He would keep half the proceeds as his due. He put the fear of God into her about her legal position. But he was an ex-policeman and would help her. For this reason too she obeyed him, unquestioning. Every third or fourth day they set off, heavily laden, for the Theresianum.

  CHAPTER VIII

  THE THIEF

  The caretaker recognized what used to be his Professor at the first glance. His new post as adviser to Thérèse suited him better; first and foremost it brougnt him in more than his old gratuity. It was not in his interest to avenge himself. That's why he wasn't resentful and carefully looked in the other direction. The Professor stood on his right. The parcel had meanwhile been flicked on to his left arm. He tested its weight for a moment and became conveniently absorbed in this examination. Thérèse had by now acquired the habit of doing everything he did. With a vehement motion she gave the thief a cold shoulder and clutched with passion at her beautiful, large parcel. The caretaker had already passed by. But that man suddenly barred her path. She pushed him dumbly to one side. Dumbly he laid his hand on the parcel. She pulled at it, he held it fast. The caretaker heard a rusding. Without looking round, he went up the stairs. He wanted this meeting to pass off quietly and told himself she had only brushed her parcel against the banisters. Now Kien too tugged at the parcel. Her resistance grew. She turned her face to him, he closed his eyes. This bewildered her. The man higher up the stairs did not come to her help. Then she remembered the police and the crime she was committing. If she got herself put away the thief would get hold of the flat again, that's what he was like, he wouldn't think twice about it. Hardly had she lost her flat, than her strength deserted her. Kien got hold of the major weight of the parcel on his side. The books gave him strength and he said: 'Whither are you taking them?' He must have seen the books. The paper was not torn anywhere. She saw him as the master of the house. The eight long years of her service flashed through her mind in the fraction of a second. It was all over with her self-possession. But she had one comfort. She called the police to her help. She screamed: 'He's insulted me!'

  Ten steps higher up the stairs a disappointed man came to a halt. If the sh— house had stopped them on their way out, well and good; but now, before they had cashed their goods! He managed to choke back the bellow rising in his throat and beckoned Thérèse with his hand. She was too busy and took no notice. While she screamed twice more 'He's insulting me!' she sized up the thief curiously. According to her ideas, he should have been in rags, shameless, holding out a hollowed hand to everyone, the way beggars do, and, when he saw something easy, just stealing it. In fact, he looked much better than he did at home. She couldn't explain it. Suddenly she noticed that his coat, to the right of his chest, had swollen. In the old days he never carried money about. His wallet was almost empty. Now it looked fat. She knew all. He had the bankbook. He had cashed his money. Instead of hiding it at home he carried it round with him. The caretaker knew of every detail, even of her post-office book. Whatever there was, he found it, or he pinched it out of her. But her dream of the bankbook in a secret crevice, that she had kept to herself. Without this to fall back on life would have held no more pleasures for her. In a flood of clumsy satisfaction at the secret which she had kept from him for so many weeks, she called out now — a moment after her plaintive 'He's insulting me' — 'I ask you, he's a thief!' Her voice rang out, indignant and delighted at once, as is usual when people are handing over a thief to the police. Only that melancholy undertone which some women's voices assume on such occasions when the culprit happens to be a man, was absent from hers, for was she not handing over her first man to her second? And this one was a policeman.

  He came down and repeated dully: 'You're a thief!' He saw no other egress from this disastr
ous situation. The theft was obviously a lie in self-defence on Therese's part. He laid a heavy hand on Kien's shoulder and declared, as though once again he were on active service: 'In the name of the law, you are under arrest! You come along with me, and come quiet!' The parcel dangled from the litde finger of his left hand. He stared commandingly in Kien's face and shrugged his shoulders. His duty allowed him to make no exceptions. The past was the past. Then they'd got on well enough. Now he had to arrest him. How gladly he would have said 'Do you remember ... ?' Kien crumpled up, not alone under the pressure of the hand, and muttered: 'I knew it.' The caretaker distrusted this answer. Peaceable criminals are artful. They make themselves out to be like that and then try for a getaway. That's why the come-along was invented. Kien submitted to it. He tried to stand upright, his height forced him to stoop. The caretaker grew affectionate. He hadn't arrested a soul for years. He had anticipated difficulties. Delinquents offer resistance. If they don't they'll make a getaway. If you're in uniform they want to know your number. If you're not, they want a warrant. But here was one who made no trouble. He allowed himself to be questioned, he came quiet, he didn't protest his innocence, he made no disturbance, he was a criminal anybody could be proud of. Immediately in front of the glass door he turned to Thérèse and said: ' That's how it's done !' He was well aware a woman was watching him. But he was uncertain whether she fully appreciated the details of his work. 'Anyone else would have knocked him out straight away. With me, taking a man up's a simple matter. Come quiet, that's the rule. An amateur couldn't make 'em come quiet. If you're an expert a criminal will come quiet of his own free will. Domestic animals have to be tamed. Cats have a wild nature. At the circus you see performing lions. You can make tigers jump through a burning hoop. But a man's got a soul. The organ of the law grabs his soul, and he'll come quiet as a lamb.' He spoke these words only in thought, although he was burning to bellow them out loud.

  Anywhere else and at any other time this arrest, which at long last had come his way, would have turned his head. When he was still on the active list he arrested specially to create a disturbance and was in the worst odour with authority on account of his methods. Then he used to proclaim his action so long and loud that a crowd of gaping people gathered round him. Born to be an athlete, he daily created a circus tor himself. Finding people chary of applause, he clapped himself. To show his strength he made use of the arrestee instead of his other hand. If the arrestee were strong he dropped hitting him and stung him to a boxing match. Out of contempt for the creature's defeat he used to say in evidence that he had been attacked. Weaklings he thus favoured with an increased sentence. If he came up against some one stronger than himself—with real criminals this was the case sometimes—his conscience bade him accuse them falsely, because undesirable elements must be put away. Only since he had had to confine his activities to a single house, he who had once had charge of a whole beat, did he become more discreet. He selected his partners among wretched hawkers and beggars, and even for these he had to he in wait for days. They feared him and warned each other; only greenhorns came his way; and yet he prayed for them to come. He knew that they grudged themselves to him. His circus was limited to the tenants of the block. And he lived in hopes of a real, noisy arrest in circumstances of the utmost difficulty.

  Then recent events had interrupted him in his pursuits. Kien's books brought him in money. He did most of the work and safeguarded himself on every side. All the same, he had an uncomfortable feeling he was getting money for nothing. When he was in the force he had always felt that his muscular exertions were being paid for. True he took good care to make his book list a heavy one, and selected the books by weight. The fattest and oldest tomes bound in pigskin were the first to go. All the way to theTheresianum he would balance his parcel heading it every now and again, taking Therese's away from her, ordering her to fall back and then tossing it into her arms. She suffered from such treatment and once she complained. But he persuaded her he had to do it on account of the passers-by. The more insolently they handled the books, the less likely was it to occur to anyone that they were not their own. She had to agree, but she didn't like it. All the same he was discontented, felt himself a mere weakling and often said he'd be a Jew next. This tiny twinge, which he took for his conscience, made him forgo the fulfilment of his ancient dream and arrest Kien quietly.

  But Thérèse was not to be robbed of her pleasure. She had noticed the fat wallet. Swiftly she glided round the two men and placed herself between the panels of the glass door which her skirt had pushed open. With her right hand she seized Kien's head as if to embrace him and dragged it down, to her level. With her left hand she pulled out the wallet. Kien wore her arm like a crown of thorns. For the rest he did not stir. His own arms were pinioned by the come-along. Thérèse held up the roll of notes on high and cried: 'Excuse me, here it is!' Her new man admired all that money, but shook his head. Thérèse wanted an answer, she said: 'Haven't I a right? Haven't I a right?' 'Do you take me for a doormat!' replied the caretaker. His remark referred to his conscience and to the door, which Thérèse was barring. She wanted recognition, a word of praise, for her beautiful money, before she pocketed it. When she thought of pocketing it, she was sorry for herself. Now her new man knew everything, she had no more secrets. Such a moment, and he said not a word. He ought to tell her what a fine woman she was ! She had found the thief. He had tried to slip past him. Now he was trying to slip past her. She wouldn't have it. She had a heart. He only knew how to pinch. He couldn't say a word. Shurrup, that's all he could say. He wasn't superior. He wasn't clever. A man, that's all. She'd be ashamed to face Mr. Brute. I ask you, what was he before? A common caretaker! She'd have nothing to do with such people. And she, taking that creature into her fiat. Now he didn't even say thank you. If Mr. Brute found out he'd never kiss her hand again. What a voice he had ! She had found all the money. He would take it all away again. Must she give it all to him? If you please, she was fed up with him! It must be gratis. She wouldn't have his wanting money. She needed it for her old age. She wanted a decent old age. Where was she to get skirts from if he tore them all? He tore her skirts and took her money. All the same, he might say something! He was a man!

  Furious and hurt she waved the money tins way and that. She held it right under his nose. He was considering. All joy in the arrest had left him. As soon as she had manipulated the wallet, he foresaw the consequences. He wouldn't see the inside of a gaol for her. She was clever, but he knew the law. He had been in the force. What did she know about it? He wished himself back at his post; she was repulsive to him. She had upset him. For her sake he had lost his gratuity. He had long since learnt the true story. Only for the sake of their partnership did he officially continue his hatred for Kien. She was old. She was demanding. She wanted him to come every night. He wanted to knock her about, she wanted something else. She only let him pinch her first. He hit her once or twice and she screamed the place down. The devil she did! He'dsh—on a woman like that. It would all come out now. He'd lose his pension. He'd sue her. She'd have to pay him the equivalent. He'd keep his share. The best thing now would be to inform against her. The old cow! As if the books were hers! Not on your life. God help the Professor. He was too good for her. You wouldn't find another like him. To think he'd married the filthy bitch. Housekeeper indeed ! Her mother died in the gutter. She'd told him so herself. If she were forty years younger .. . His daughter, God rest her, she had a heart of gold. She had to lie down beside him while he watched out for beggars. He used to look and pinch. Pinch and look. Those were the days! If a beggar came, he had something to knock about. If none came, there was always the girl. Cry, she used to. Didn't do her no good. You can't do anything against a father. Ah, she was a love. All of a sudden she died. Her chest, that little room. But he couldn't spare her. If he'd known, he'd have sent her away. The Professor remembered her. Never did her no harm. The other tenants bullied the poor kid. Just because she was his daughter. And this
filthy bitch here never even said 'Good morning' to her! He could murder her!

  Filled with hate, they faced each other. One word from Kien, even a friendly one, would have brought them together again. His silence kindled their hate; it flamed to heaven. One of them had hold of Kien's body, the other of his money. He himself was lost to them. Ah, if they only had him! His body swayed like a blade of grass. A violent storm bowed him down. The banknotes crackled like lightning in the air. Suddenly the caretaker bellowed at Thérèse: 'Give back that money!' She couldn't. She released Kien's head from her embrace, it didn't shoot up, it remained in the same position. She had expected a movement. As none occurred she flung the notes in her new man's face and shrieked piercingly: 'You knock a man down, you! You're afraid. A doormat, you are! It isn't fair! A coward like you! Scum, you are! Soft, you are! I ask you!' Her hatred supplied her with the precise words to rouse him. With one hand he began to shake Kien out. A coward he wouldn't be called. With his other he laid about Thérèse. Get out of his way, there. She'd know him better soon. That's not what he was like! This was what he was like. The banknotes fluttered to the ground. Thérèse sobbed: 'All the beautiful money!' Her man seized her. The blows weren't hard enough. Better shake her. Her back pushed open the glass door. She clutched tight at the round door-knob. He dragged her back, grabbing her by the collar of her blouse, dragged her close up to him and beat her hard against the door — close up to him — hard against the door. With his other hand he dealt with Kien. Kien was a wrung-out rag in his hand; the less he felt there, the more vigorously he went to work on Thérèse.