Karl came down to dinner.
He was like a blind man feeling his way through passages once familiar to his sight. There were the same sightless eyes, the same pathetic feeling, the same slow step and sad confusion. Therese watched him come. The opening, dividing pain so close to her these days began to stir in her heart. Her first impulse was to go to him, as one goes to assist the blind, to lead him to his place. She resisted, however, prudently. Though she was so keenly and sorrowfully aware of his gauntness, his pallor, his bright fixed eyes and drawn lead-colored lips, she put on her best and most engaging smile and assumed a matter-of-fact attitude.
This was the first time he had appeared at dinner for a week. To judge from Therese’s attitude, he had never missed a meal with her.
“Good evening, Karl!” she said, in a sprightly voice. “Lotte has made your favorite cheesecake. Is it not a lovely evening? Shall we walk after dinner?”
He stopped abruptly in the doorway, gazing at her, searching for her, as though startled at hearing her in a room he expected to be empty. The sightlessness in his face was almost unbearable to her.
Then he smiled. “Good evening, Therese.” She could hardly hear him, so muffled and thick was his voice, so uncertain and exhausted. He sat down. His hands trembled as he unfolded his napkin. He dropped it. He fumbled for it on the floor. She saw that his bent head was graying. These visible threads of anguish made her close her eyes on a spasm of torment and grief. She appeared not to notice, and kept the smile firm on her lips.
“And a really excellent roast! It is remarkable that Lotte was able to get it, in these days. I am afraid it will have to last us the week.”
He lifted a glass of water to his lips. The lamplight was shattered into brilliant flashes of light on its crystal. His hand was so thin that the bones appeared to thrust through the fair and delicate skin. She saw that his lips were cracked, as though he had been through a prolonged fever.
He began to look about him, dazed and numb. And then she knew that he had not consciously intended to come into the dining room. But habit had taken him by the hand and had led him down. He was confusedly wondering how he had happened to come here. He was a stranger in the room, a wanderer led in from a wild storm, bewildered, disoriented and afraid.
Automatically he lifted spoon and fork to his mouth. They returned to his plate almost as full as they had left it. He chewed slowly, and sometimes paused, suspended in the very act. He is dying, thought Therese, something squeezing with agony in her breast. He was dying, and Germany was dying. The whole world was dying. She felt that she was in a universal graveyard, where the dead and the expiring convulsively embraced each other. A sense of complete horror overwhelmed her. It seemed to her that she felt the touch and taste of wet clay on her lips. She struggled against the horror. She had experienced this same sensation in nightmares. But now there was no awakening.
Or could there be an awakening? In that universal graveyard, surely there were some whose blood was still warm, whose sinews were still strong! But were they enough?
We must struggle for reality, she thought wildly. We must not be overwhelmed by the hideous dream. We must believe in the sunlight, and in fires, and candlelight, and books, and laughter, and gardens, and health. We must believe in order. Never must we allow ourselves to believe that the graveyard is reality. If we do, we shall end in the grave ourselves.
But the horror held her. She had a dreadful impulse to rise with a scream, and flee. But where could one flee? Into the darkness and the homeless night?
She became conscious that Karl was gazing at her fixedly.
“Are you ill, Therese?” he asked, and his words and manner were gentle, if deadly tired.
Her heart throbbed. She wanted to burst into tears. She tried to restrain herself. Karl had seen her weep only once, when the hopes she had had for a child had been cruelly dissipated. She remembered how distressed and broken he had been at the sight of her weeping. She bit her lips fiercely.
If I cry he will take me down into the graveyard with him, and I shall never be able to rescue him, she thought. So she made herself smile.
“I have had a little headache,” she answered. His thin profile was Wilhelm’s. But she had driven Wilhelm away. But she had so much to do! She must save Karl. She dared not diffuse her strength.
Immediately, she saw that her words were the worst she could have uttered. He put his uncertain hand to his head. He smiled, terribly.
“My head aches, also,” he said, almost jubilantly. Then he paused. His mouth fell open; his eyes became glazed. “Or is it my own head?” He appeared to meditate. “Or another’s? I do not know. Therese, if one’s head aches, like this, it means that every one’s head aches, too? It is a universal pain?” He leaned towards her, eagerly, across the gleaming damask. Hope and madness made a light on his ghastly face.
Despair seized her. Impotence turned her body to ice. She could not struggle. She thought: I must give in. It is more than I can do.
But the thought awakened her German pride and doggedness.
“I shall give you some aspirin after dinner,” she replied, practically. “My headache was quite bad, but it is gone now. You should have told me before.”
The madness on his face subsided. The sufferer had opened his door and had glared out for a moment, tortured. Now he shut the door again. But behind the door he lurked still, muttering awful things to himself.
“I think the evening air will be good for both of us,” she went on.
He did not reply. Old Lotte crept into the room and stared at him fearfully. Therese refused to let her catch her eye. She made her expression stern and controlled. She watched the old woman remove Karl’s almost untouched plate. She smiled, nodded to Lotte, allowed her own plate to be removed. Lotte said, in the voice of a servant allowed many things in a household because of long service: “You did not like the roast?”
She implied that any one who did not like a good red roast in these days was reprehensible and outrageous. All at once the tight horror in Therese relaxed. Lotte’s words awoke her from the nightmare. She laughed.
“Lotte, we appreciated it too much! We hardly dared eat it! But look how much is left for tomorrow, and the next day!”
Lotte grunted suspiciously. She eyed the roast with a dolorous expression. “It will not last so long, Frau Doctor. No one brought ice today. Now, if we had an American refrigerator—”
It was a sore spot between Therese and Lotte, this old quarrel about refrigerators. Therese seized on it with an almost febrile delight. It was the light of sanity in a universe of dark, swirling madness.
“Now, do not argue, Lotte! I shall not have one of those noisy things in the house. The Herr Doctor must not be disturbed when he writes. You know that.” Her tones were a little too loud, like one who talks through ether, rejoicing in the sound of life.
Lotte grunted again, ill-naturedly. “I talked to the Muellers’ Gretchen this morning. The Herr Professor vowed he would have no refrigerator. But the Frau Professor bought one just the same. He never hears it, in his study.”
Therese leaned towards her husband. “Karl, would you mind one of those electric refrigerators? I am quite exhausted by Lotte’s stubborn arguments. If you do not mind, I shall get one and that will be one controversy ended.”
He stared at her blindly. He wet his lips. He swallowed painfully. Then he looked at Lotte, thereafter returning his eyes to Therese. Lotte waited eagerly, but with a look that implied that she had no real hope.
His voice was rusty when he said: “Get anything you want, Therese.”
Lotte exhaled a triumphant breath. She marched out of the dining-room, bearing the plates like triumphal wreaths. Her short broad back expressed her victory over the obstinate Frau Doctor, whom she regarded as her own child.
“Thank you, Karl,” said Therese.
But he had already forgotten her. She no longer existed for him. He rose and began to feel his way to the door. She opened her lips to call him, then c
losed them. Impotence darkened over her again. She heard him walk, stumbling, up the stairs. She heard the door of his study open, then close. She heard the click of the lock.
The window looking out upon the garden was open. It was very dark outside. There was nothing to be seen. But she heard the uneasy threshing of trees, the thrilling of insects. She sat without moving, her hands in her lap. The lamplight flickered on the table, caught gleams on the silver on the huge old mahogany sideboard. Shadows of dim light passed over the walls, with their crimson wallpaper. There was no sound. Therese’s mouth opened, and she gasped, like one in a vacuum.
She looked about the empty room. She looked at the empty table. There were only two chairs at its long spotless expanse. The silver on it winked and glittered in the light of the crystal chandelier. Gerda had sat here, at Therese’s left hand, and Karl’s right. All at once she was there again, young and fragile and smiling, lamplight on her flaxen hair and in her deep blue eyes. So intense was the illusion of her presence that Therese murmured: “Gerda!” And there were tears in her own eyes and an overpowering sensation of bitter grief in her heart.
Gerda continued to gaze at her, smiling and intent. Therese saw her lips moving, but she could hear nothing. But what Gerda said appeared to have entered her consciousness, for the taut breathlessness relaxed, and her limbs released their twisted muscles.
Gerda was gone. Therese looked about her in a daze “She was here,” she said aloud. “Gerda was here! I know it! She is not dead at all! It is I who am dead, and Karl. We are all dead.”
Lotte entered the room. Seeing Therese alone, she started, squinted her eyes, looked about disbelieving. “The Herr Doctor is gone?” she asked incredulously.
“Yes,” replied Therese. Her whole body was trembling. “He could eat no more. He went to his room.”
“But I heard you talking to him, just now, Frau Doctor.”
“You are mistaken, Lotte.”
The two women gazed at each other intently. A look of fear came over old Lotte’s face. She thinks I am mad, too, thought Therese. Wildness laid its hands on her. She was not responsible for her words. “Fräulein Gerda was here a moment ago,” she said.
Now she will think I am completely insane, thought Therese. But to her stupefaction, Lotte quietly laid the cheesecake in its silver dish on the table. Her old gnarled hands shook a little.
“She is often here,” she said, softly. “Sometimes in her room. Sometimes on the stairs. I hear her laugh. Once, she played the piano for me, and then she turned to me and said: ‘Lotte, did you like that?’”
The old woman straightened up, drew a long breath. Her face was pale and moved. “It is not I alone, Frau Doctor. Lottechen has heard the Fräulein, too. We are not afraid. In Herr Professor Mueller’s house, Gretchen has seen his father, who died ten years ago. When we have our nights off, we servants talk of how often we have seen the dead, lately. In the streets, in the houses, in the churches. They are everywhere. Just as they were everywhere when Our Lord died. But we are not afraid. They smile at us, and speak to us. Germany is full of ghosts. But it is as though we are dead, and they are alive.”
She looked at Therese steadfastly. “Do you know what I think, Frau Doctor? I think the Lord is here again. Walking in the world. I think we are going to have a terrible time. I think it is the end. It is doomsday.”
Therese made herself smile indulgently, as a mistress smiles at a garrulous old servant who believes in the occult, and witches. But her curious shaking did not subside.
“What imaginations you have, Lotte! But that is the peasant mind, of course. You are always seeing doomsdays.”
Lotte shook her head obstinately. “This is the real doomsday. You do not believe it, Frau Doctor? But you shall see! We are only peasants, but we feel it in our bones. You shall see!”
Doomsday. The garden was still now, like death. Even the insects were still. The light flickered on the walls.
Suddenly, profound coldness encased Therese’s body. Reality receded from her. She was in an appalling and unknown universe where anything could happen. A universe full of dark tides and mysterious terrors, conscious and watchful. Within the doors of the little world, there was light and minute activity. Outside the doors, chasms waited, and bottomless pits opened silently.
She said: “You have forgotten my coffee, Lotte.” To herself she said: “We know nothing. Nothing at all.”
She watched the old woman leave the room. She was all alone. Terror darkened every wall, and the air was full of its odor.
She sat in the drawing-room. Lotte had peevishly protested at building a fire in the shining grate. But this was mere habit. She grumbled at everything. But her old sunken eyes were bright with concern for Therese, so pale and shivering.
Therese looked at the fife. She saw its warmth, but did not feel it. She could not control herself. At times, she was conscious of disembodied visitors. They were all about her. Vaguely, she heard a bell ring somewhere. Lotte came into the room pursing her lips.
“Herr Professor Erlich is here, and wishes to see the Herr Doctor,” she said, disapprovingly.
Kurt! Fright made Therese start to her feet. “Oh, he cannot see him! Tell him to go away, Lotte! Tell him the Herr Doctor is ill.”
“I told him, and he said: ‘It is a lie.’”
Therese was panic-stricken. “Under no circumstances must he see the Herr Doctor!” She paused, moistened her dry lips, glanced around the drawing-room with haunted eyes. “I will go into the library. Show the Herr Professor there.”
She went into the library and waited, wringing her hands convulsively. She had some moments to wait. Then Kurt entered. She gazed at him without speaking, overwhelmed at the change in him. His large and burly figure had shrunken; his shoulders were bent. The slight gray at his temples had widened. But the change was strongest in his face, which was heavily lined and drawn. His small bellicose eyes were sunken and bright with suffering, and there was a constant tremor about his hard wide mouth.
He saw her, but looked beyond and about her. “Good evening, Therese,” he said hoarsely, and in a preoccupied tone. “Where is Karl? I must see him at once.”
“Please sit down, Kurt,” she said, trying to keep her manner natural.
“I must see Karl,” he repeated, and now his voice broke.
They stood facing each other, Therese calm, the man looking about him like one completely distraught.
“I am sorry, Kurt, but that’s impossible. Please sit down.” She seated herself. He sat down also, automatically, on the edge of his chair. He kept wetting his lips. His eyes implored her, like the wounded eyes of a dying animal.
“You see, Kurt, he is still very ill.”
The pathetic suffering vanished from his face. “Therese, that is not true. Maria told me today that he is accepting dinner invitations. When I heard that, I was happy. I knew that he must be better.” There was a cry in his voice. “I must see him, Therese!”
She fumbled desperately in her mind for the proper words. Fright rose in her. How could she control him? If she could not, he would force his way into Karl’s presence. Her imagination fainted with horror at the thought. She said coldly: “If you insist upon seeing him, everything that I have been able to do for him, will be ruined. Kurt, have you forgotten that you caused the death of his sister, and his best friend?”
His eyes lighted with rage against her. “Gerda was my sister, also. Perhaps you have forgotten?”
She stared at him. Suddenly she was filled with hatred for him, and violence. There, like a speared bull he sat, leaning towards her, panting, the man who had brought this dreadfulness upon Karl, the man who had brought death and agony to Germany. He personified all the forces and storms that had battered her with such ferocity; he was the earthquake which had thrown up the earth on which she stood. She lost her old compassion for him.
“Kurt,” she said, quite quietly, but in a shaking voice which she could hardly control, “I have forgotten nothing.
And I know that if Karl sees you, he will go entirely insane, or even attempt to kill you. I—I should not have permitted you to come into this house!”
Like all Germans, he was taken aback at this counter-assault. He tried to stare her down. When he could not, the rage receded from his tormented face, his panting became lower and more controlled. Now he was once more pathetic and moving. He said at last imploringly: “Therese, cannot you see that I must talk to my brother?” His large and brutal hands involuntarily extended themselves to her; he was a victim begging for his life. “Maria tells me that you spoke to her very sensibly today. She said that you admitted I could not have done anything else than what I did. When she told me that I said to myself: ‘Therese was always a practical and intelligent woman. She will help me.’”
Therese pressed her hand against her breast; her heart was leaping; the blood was drumming in her ears. She struggled for calmness. Deceit, she saw, was her only course. She made herself smile faintly.
“Kurt, I would do anything to help you. But this is impossible. Believe me, I am telling you the truth. The moment Karl shows signs of real recovery, I will call you. I have no desire to keep you apart. It is really painful to me to see your estrangement. But there is nothing else I can do at this time.”
Because truth was so mixed with her deception, he believed her. His hands fell limply to his knees. The mournfulness of a stricken beast gave a dignity and almost heroic resignation to his face.
“I know, I know!” he murmured, brokenly. “You were always my friend, Therese. You did not like that Jew, either!” A new change came over him. His fists clenched; he beat them wildly on his knees. His face took on a hideous rage and ferocity. “It is all that Jew’s fault! God, why did he not die before my father took him into his house! He was always there, laughing at me. He taught Karl to laugh at me. He taught Karl to hate me! And there was never any one but Karl in all the world for me!” He gasped; he drew in a deep breath. There was a heavy wheezing in his throat. Suddenly he put his hands to his temples, and clutched them, his fingers trembling violently. His eyes disappeared in wrinkles of physical anguish. He groaned.