“Back!” she said, quietly.
The young man was astounded. His hand fell to his side. He stared at her, blinking. But before her will he was powerless. He stood like a graven image, his eyes alight with impotent hatred.
Wilhelm was struggling against his mother’s hand. The doctor had to intervene. He was Maria’s cousin, a stout plebeian man who had cultivated a beard in order to acquire dignity. He understood nothing. He forcibly removed Maria’s hand. “You are smothering him,” he said, severely.
Wilhelm, sinking again, fought sternly for the last wisps of his life. And never once did he remove his drowning eyes from Therese’s face.
Frau Reiner glanced briefly at the doctor. “Will you please leave the room a moment, Hans?” she asked. Her request was a command, and the doctor was forced to obey, reluctantly, shaking his head.
Maria burst into loud crying sobs, like a tormented animal. She rocked back and forth on her chair, wringing her hands, throwing back her head as though she were being strangled. Alfred could not move. He clutched a bedpost with sweating hands. He regarded his brother, not with grief, but with hatred and terror. Beads of sweat ran down his face. He was willing his brother to die before speaking. His fingers on the post worked. They were strangler’s fingers. Frau Reiner moved an inch or two towards him, holding her cane like a lethal weapon. “Speak, Wilhelm,” she said, gently and clearly.
The boy still looked at Therese. His faint whispering was stronger.
“Aunt Therese, I killed him. You must understand, I killed him.”
Bubbles of foam appeared at the corners of his lips. His will made him stronger. He lifted himself on his pillows. It was as if he wished to impress his ghastly words clearly on Therese’s consciousness.
“Yes, Wilhelm,” she answered softly, mechanically. “I understand.” But the black faintness had her again, smothering her, beating her down. She did not understand.
He shook his head impatiently. His eyes started from his head, as he implored her to listen and comprehend. “No, you do not understand. I—I killed Captain von Keitsch. I had to kill him.”
Suddenly a white wild light passed over his face, like the reflection of joy. He could sit up. He was animated by a strange and supernatural strength. Alfred stared at him, terrified. Maria continued her prolonged groaning. But the dying boy saw only Therese, still.
Therese’s mouth opened as though she were dying, herself. Her lids half-fell over her eyes. She fought to control her impulse to fall to the floor. But some inner will power made her say aloud: “Yes, Wilhelm, I can see you had to kill him.”
He nodded. The light brightened on his face. “Yes, yes, Aunt Therese, you understand! I could not kill them all. But I could kill one. He was one of the worst.…”
“You are lying!” shouted Alfred, frantically. He turned savagely to Therese and Frau Reiner. “He is delirious! He is lying!”
“Quiet!” commanded Frau Reiner, lifting her cane at him, and compelling him with her ancient fiery eyes. “Quiet, animal!”
His terror urged him to oppose her at all costs. But her gaze quelled him. He subsided with something like a whimper in his bull’s throat. His big fleshy face worked.
Wilhelm’s whispering went on. “I planned it carefully. No one saw me come or go. There—there was a man there, pleading for something. I had gotten in before the Captain came; I was in a closet in the same room with him and the man. The man was a Jew.…” He had to halt. His breathing became thicker and hoarser. The stern look of preoccupation appeared on his face again, as he forced his dying flesh to obey him. “It was no use. He kicked the Jew and hit him with his fists. The Jew went away. Then I knew that I really had to kill him. He was so wicked, Aunt Therese. When I had gone there, I was not sure just what I was going to do. I—I was mad. I had been mad for such a long time.”
“Yes, yes, darling,” said Therese, softly, smiling, not wiping away her tears. “I know.”
He regarded her pleadingly. “I knew it was not wrong to kill him. I knew it was just. He has killed so many men.” The poor boy shuddered violently. “I have seen him kill them. He took our division to a concentration camp.…”
The remembrance transfixed him. His eye-sockets widened. His mouth fell open. There was something dreadful in his expression.
“Fool! Coward! Criminal!” said Alfred, between his teeth.
But Wilhelm had not heard him. He wrung his hands. The death-damp was thickening on his skin. He lay back on his pillows, and gasped. Again, he resumed the struggle to live until he had spoken.
After a long moment, he opened his eyes and once more fixed them on Therese. It was evident that he could not live much longer. Only his will was compelling his heart to beat.
“I knew I had to kill him. It was like killing a tiger. It was just.” His words and breath came in short tearing gasps. “No one saw me. I was happy. I had done something good in my life. And then—and then—last night they began to say the Jews had killed him. I knew what that meant. Pogroms. Massacres of innocent people. I thought I would go mad again. I could not let that happen. Aunt Therese?” he pleaded, piteously. “I cannot see you.”
“I am here, dear one,” she said, gently and clearly. “And I hear all you say.”
“I thought I would go to them and tell them that I had done it. But I have always been a coward.” His dying voice was a thin breathless cry. “I could not go. I knew what they would do to me. So—so I wrote a note last night. And then—I stole some of my father’s morphine.…”
He was at his last gasp. He could only say: “I could not let the Jews suffer. I had to die. It was the only way. Aunt Therese? You will not let them kill innocent people?”
Over her mounting faintness, and the deathliness of the taste in her mouth and throat, Therese said: “No, dear one, I shall not let them kill the innocent.” Her voice came clearly, fully, sternly, and he was satisfied.
He closed his eyes. He smiled. His hands and lips fluttered. Then he was still.
They all watched him for a long time. But he no longer breathed. That harried, innocent, tormented soul had gone. The tortured flesh was at peace. The dead face took on a look of calm and dignity and fulfillment.
Then Maria uttered a loud ferocious cry, as though her heart were being torn from her breast. She fell on her son’s body. She kissed him wildly, holding him in her arms, uttering strange incoherent words. It was appalling to see. They turned from her. The two women stood side by side, pale and inexorable. Alfred faced them. His lips were white and stiff.
“Of course, you will not repeat this—this lie. You must know he was insane, and lying.”
“It was not a lie,” said Frau Reiner.
“It was not a lie,” said Therese.
He smiled grimly. His breath was uneven.
“You have no proof. Mother and I will deny you were even in the room. You are not going to save the lives of filthy Jewish criminals by defaming our family name, the name of my father, and destroying my own career.”
“Your family name,” said Frau Reiner quietly, but with such terrible old eyes. “What is that, compared with the lives of the innocent? What do you matter, you inhuman animal? You uniformed beast? You swastika-decked foulness? The whole world shall know.”
He gave a short snarling laugh. “You have no proof. The note he left is lost. We have searched everywhere.…”
“It is not lost,” said Frau Reiner. “I found it. Do not look for it, Alfred. It is not in the house. It is already on its way to a man in high places, who has never countenanced violence and murder.”
He dwindled, crumpled. He fell back, and stared at her, with hatred and fright. Then he began to whine, to plead.
“Grandmother! You cannot do this thing to us!”
She lifted her face, and again it was full of heroic dignity and gravity.
“I can and shall do this to you. It is justice. It is truth.”
He burst into tears. It was a sickening thing to see this young ma
n, burly and fleshy, in his flamboyant uniform, weeping. He kept passing his hands over his face to wipe away his tears. Frau Reiner regarded him with disgust but also with compassion.
“Take counsel with yourself, Alfred. And may God have mercy on your soul.”
She leaned on Therese’s arm. The two women left the room. They went back to Frau Reiner’s apartments. The old woman, with unusual vigor, locked the door, went to the window, and beckoned to Therese. She then removed an envelope from her withered breast. She leaned towards Therese and whispered in her ear:
“The confession is in this envelope. The address is upon it. Take it at once. Put it in your bosom. Hold it tightly. Do not delay an instant.”
Therese took it and put it next to her warm breasts. “At once,” she said. She was no longer weeping. “At once,” she repeated.
Frau Reiner drew a deep quivering breath. She fell into her chair and covered her face with her hands. She was now only an old, old woman, with not many days left to her. Therese watched her, not moving. Finally the old beldame removed her hands. Her mummy’s face and eyes were quite dry.
She said calmly: “I am glad that Wilhelm is dead. In my heart, I rejoice. It is good, in these days, that the young die. It is very good. We must really rejoice. We must always rejoice, when death comes.”
34
The night before, Karl had been pacing restlessly for hours. An unbearable tension was in his body. He was forced to wipe his hands and face repeatedly. His breath was short yet heavy. His mind was like a pit, afloat with dark fogs and formless movements. He kept glancing about him, despairingly, blindly, his step growing more and more feeble, his expression more and more fevered. At intervals he stopped and called aloud, imploringly: “Eric! Eric!”
At moments he was devoured by an almost delirious expectation. He walked through the silent sleeping house. He peered into the deserted rooms. At each doorway he whispered: “Eric.”
He knew that Eric was in the house. Every night, for months, he had called to him, despairing, knowing there would be no answer, for Eric was not there. But tonight, he knew Eric was here, that he would speak. But when?
His mind, clouded for almost a year, torn and wounded and crippled and tormented, came suddenly alive with a terrible clarity. He was conscious that much time had lapsed, that grave events had taken place. He was like a victim of amnesia, suddenly awakened, and horrified. Only Eric could help him now, and save him from complete despair.
He returned to his study, and looked about him, pale, emaciated, bewildered and dreadfully ill. His eye wandered over each object, and sickened. The old fearful pounding in his temples began again, as his spirit again engaged in its old struggle with his will-to-madness and will-to-die. But now his spirit was stronger. The conflict, in consequence, was more powerful, grimmer. Karl felt in himself the war of mysterious and implacable forces, to which his tortured body responded with physical agony. He closed his eyes, groaned, covered his face with his hands. He knew that the end had come. He would become alive again, or die, tonight. He could think of nothing. He was merely a mass of nerves and unspeakable pain.
Some one called his name, quietly, urgently. He dropped his hands. His lamp burned on his desk. Near-by, bathed in the soft lamplight, sat Eric, calm and smiling, his bright black eyes shining, his vital personality filling the room, which, all at once, was warm and safe.
Karl had not drawn the heavy curtains at the windows. The light of the lamp streamed beyond the sill, revealing the skeins and movement of the snow. Everything was silent, breathless. There was only Eric, smiling and waiting.
Karl stared at him. All at once, his face worked and tears blinded his eyes. Something like black ice cracked in him, divided, melted. He said simply:
“Then, Eric, you are not dead at all?”
Eric smiled, as though with deep amusement. “Dead? How foolish! Of course I am not dead!”
Karl sobbed aloud. Eric regarded him with compassion.
“Neither is Gerda dead,” he said, very softly.
Karl’s weeping filled the room with a broken and moving sound. The tears ran down his pale gaunt face.
“It is only you who are dying, almost dead,” said Eric, and now his face was stern. “That is why I have been allowed to come to you, to save you.”
He stood up. He came to Karl, and placed his hand on his shoulder.
“You are killing yourself, with hatred and madness.”
Karl put his cold and trembling hand on the other’s. It was warm and firm, and infinitely reassuring.
“But—they did that thing to you—I had to avenge you, Eric.”
Eric sighed. “You avenged nothing but yourself, Karl.”
He went back to his seat. His face was full of stern sorrow. He regarded Karl somberly.
“Hatred destroys the hater, my friend. They never hurt me, Karl. They did not kill me. How could they? I did not kill myself, and so, how could I die?”
He paused, then went on in a low voice: “Nothing can hurt a man but himself.… I was allowed to come, because there is so much work for you to do. You would not see it. But the world needs you. I have come to tell you this, to awaken you.”
He regarded Karl with eyes suddenly brilliant with light.
“So much to do! Men are going mad. The whole earth is mad. Perhaps this is the end. If men are utterly lost, it is because you, and others like you, failed them. Doom and destruction are approaching closer every hour. Will you not see? Will you close your eyes forever? How will you reconcile this with your conscience, your soul?”
Karl was silent. He listened, holding his breath. His eyes were dazzled and dim. Through this dimness he was conscious of nothing but Eric’s voice.
“Today is only the beginning of sorrows. The tragedy which men have been making will overwhelm this generation, and the generations to come. The disease which afflicts them is universal. There are no voices in the wilderness. There is only the chatter of cynical apes in a jungle. The storm is rising. Listen, and you can hear it, Karl!”
Karl listened. He heard nothing. He lifted his head and listened again. Then, as from an immense distance he heard an ominous muttering and roaring, the hollow groaning of thunder. These did not come from the sky or the earth. They seemed to come from out of the depths of cosmic space, like an avalanche from the stars, from the outer borders of the universe. Karl saw the quiet snow at the windows, was conscious of the quiet of the sleeping house and the city. But over and under them all was the deep and terrible thunder, shaking men’s souls, shaking the pillars of the world. The thunder of the future.
“When that day comes,” said Eric, in a strange voice, “men will say everywhere: ‘Why are we so afflicted?’ They will not know that the affliction has come from themselves, because they are faithless and treacherous, cruel and greedy, tormenters of their brothers, haters of each other. They will cry out for peace, and will not know that there is no peace, because it is not in their hearts. There will be frightful wars, and massacres, and famines, and pestilences, and they will try to hope, telling themselves that when all this passes there will be peace and quietness again. But this will be a lie, which they will tell themselves. For the things which are to come are only the red shadows from their own spirits. The pestilence is in themselves. Even when they lay down their arms, exhausted, the cause will still fester within them.”
He paused again. It seemed to Karl that everything listened, and waited, not in quietness, but with horror.
“Where is there any hope?” asked Eric, mournfully. “There is no hope, until each man has a revelation in himself, until he sees God again in the darkness he has created. Each man must forget himself for his brother. Each man must have a rebirth of fortitude and faith, of simplicity and goodness, of gentleness and justice, of pity and passion. He must forget his own miserable life, his own self-love and greed. He must be prepared to die, heroically, and with joyful courage. He must never compromise with evil, nor try to appease madness and fury. He m
ust say to himself: ‘It is not I who matters. It is my brother.’”
Eric sighed. “Who can teach men these things?”
He said: “He who saves his life shall lose it, if he saves it at the expense of his suffering brother. That is the law of God. Men have heard it before, but now they laugh at it. It must be your work, and the work of others like you, to show it to be the truth it is, and that only by this truth can men live.”
Karl asked simply: “But how, and where, can I begin, Eric?”
Eric smiled at him. “First of all, you must have the will and the desire to begin. Then, everything shall be shown to you, and you will see the way yourself.”
Karl passed his hands over his face. “Forgive me,” he whispered.
“No, Karl, I have no power to forgive you. You must forgive yourself.”
He went on, very gently: “You will not see me again, until you come to me. But I will be with you. Only call on me, at any time, and I will help you.”
A sensation of unbearable grief and loss seized Karl. He looked up. “Eric, do not leave me! Do not leave me again!”
Eric shook his head. “I never left you. It was you who left me.”
He stood up again. The wooden doll with the prong in its head lay on the desk. Eric lifted it and regarded it sadly.
“You did not do this to Kurt, poor Kurt. You did this to yourself, Karl!”
He laid down the doll and regarded Karl intently.
“I must go. I have done all that I could do. You must do the rest.”
He stretched out his hand to Karl, and Karl took it. A warm and comforting fire ran into his body at the touch. Even when Eric removed his hand, the fire remained, dissolving and thawing the ice in his heart. Then, all at once Eric had gone, and there was only the still lamplight and the snow at the window.
Karl sat motionless for a long time. His face was without expression. His eyes were closed. The wind rose and the snow came faster. Then Karl began to look about him. An enormous tiredness overwhelmed him, but it was the tiredness of peace. He stood up and walked slowly about the room, his head bent. He began to weep again, but with a feeling of release after great torment.