Only in the billowing darkness of the attics above two eyes were open, and staring. Endlessly cooped-up there, knowing he could never again leave these attics alive, something long under intolerable strain in Wolff was beginning to break at last.
November the Eleventh: in Wolff’s eyes and many others “blackest day in the calendar, day that the traitors sold Germany down the river ...”
Germany had not been defeated: whatever the world pretended, she had not been defeated! For in childhood the axiom that Germany could not be defeated had been imbedded in Wolff deep in his core of intuited knowledge, far below all corrective reach of perception or reason.
This, then, was the early but abiding disaster of Wolff and his kind: transcendental truth had set them at logger-heads with all reality, a deadlock Wolff could not break. However, in the course of his self-immolation on the altar of “Germany” Wolff’s over-altruist self had by now so atrophied it could no longer contain this his Disaster: yet of its nature that disaster allowed no normal outlet—neither into God nor man. Final escape could be only into the absolute unreality of death; but in the meantime Wolff had turned, as to Death’s twin and surrogate-on-earth, to Romantic Love: sole comparable realm, with Death’s, of the Unreal.
Thus, in the same knightly way as Palamon in his Athenian tower, this Wolff had also fallen deeply into romantic love last summer with the unknown girl seen “romen to and fro” beneath him in the garden. For Mitzi’s yellow hair too was
“broyded in a tresse
Bihinde hir bak, a yerde long I gesse,”
and like Palamon, the moment he saw it Wolff too had
“bleynte, and cryde ‘A!’
As if he stongen were unto the herte.”
Wolff still knew nothing about Mitzi; for she was too sacred to speak of even to Franz. They could never meet: this girl he called “his” must never know he existed ... But that was all as it should be, for this kind of loving alone could have suited Wolff, and his love was all the more deep and poignant for being unreal.
Now Reality had broken into even this charmed circle too, so that tonight Wolff knew his jangled nerves might no longer turn for solace to what had lately become its habitual source for him—to inward dramas of killing himself in Mitzi’s presence, to the exquisite pleasure of dying with his face bathed in Mitzi’s scalding tears. Yet even tonight his homing thoughts unwatched kept creeping back willy-nilly towards this their usual performance, and each such time his reverie was shattered anew by the recurring shock of those two lovers seen stumbling together through the snow!
Each such blow left something defenseless in Wolff weaker, till finally the intolerable tension snapped at last. A German girl who accepted an Englishman’s advances, and this her guilty lover ... THEY MUST BE KILLED. It was a very voice from outside: the most compulsive call of Conscience even this addict had ever heard.
Why had Wolff not plunged on them from his window that first moment he saw them together—like a plummet, like an avenging Lucifer destroying himself and them together all three?
Perhaps he might have—had they come near enough. Yet for him that would surely have been altogether too soon! For this was murder; and surely the essence of murder lies always less in the final perfunctory act than in the malice prepense: in the turning it over and over and over beforehand in one’s mind. No, this must be carefully planned. Wolff was ignorant even, as yet, who slept where in those stories downstairs he had never entered. No precipitate act, this; but rather, a passionless duty he had to perform, a punishment he had to inflict: his last and supreme sacrifice to offer on Germany’s altar, this was an act to be done in the coldest of cold blood ... yet at the very thought of coming on Mitzi asleep and killing her an excruciating flame lit in the pit of his stomach, constricting his breathing!
The supernatural voice had hit Wolff at first with the suddenness and violence of an electric shock, striking him rigid; but now the rigor had passed, leaving all over him a heavenly glow. Vividly now Wolff saw himself creeping through the dark and silent house like the angel of death: he saw himself silently opening a door, within which lay Mitzi still and white on her bed with her eyelids closed and her hair all dispread: he stretched himself on her like Elisha on the Shunammite child ... and saw his two hands close to his own eyes as they smothered her with the pillow ...
Wolff was huddled the while face-down on his attic floor, and the heart in his breast thumped wilder and wilder for beneath his taut overlaying weight on the lumpish furs he could feel Mitzi’s heart beating under him. He could feel it flutter, and stop. At that a thunder as of falling towers was all about him, setting his ear-drums ringing: he felt giddy to bursting, almost as if about to vomit.
Or, ought Mitzi perhaps to die by the knife rather? Yes: for “I ABHOR THINGS STRANGLED” came from the darkness the cold divine command.
Repeating his scene da capo Wolff now dwelt on his teasing point pricking through the thin nightgown to the naked skin so that she half-woke: then the sudden thrust into the throbbing heart itself, the knife pumping in the wound, the withdrawal and the hot blood welling to his elbow. And this time, how peaceful that moment of vision! Wolff’s giddiness was gone: in spite of his heart’s thumping his troubled spirit was nearer tranquillity now than for many months past.
“A passionless duty ... ?” Wolff was contrite. But nothing could still the new life which coursed in his veins tonight as he slipped quickly out of his wraps, in the dark, and crept down the stairs in his socks.
15
At nightfall the day’s drowsing doubts, like roosting owls, tend to take wing and hoot. Alone in his office tonight Otto could nohow get Mitzi out of his mind. It was their decision at Saturday’s conclave that gave him no peace: Had it been right, that decision? For what, after all, had been their real motive in reaching it?
One thing Otto couldn’t forget was the tone of Walther’s voice exclaiming that there’d never been a blind Kessen ever before: he had sounded almost accusing, as if being born physically faulty meant she deserved to be banished from everyone’s sight. No one had seemed to consider if she’d be happy “there”: how to make up to Mitzi for her affliction.
Surely there was doubt she’d be even accepted! Normally they’d never take someone so handicapped: at the least it meant special permissions.
Otto sighed. He knew very well, really, that Influence could cope with all that. There’d be benefactions. They’d never refuse ... not a hope. And if they did refuse, what was the alternative? (Otto was holding his list of timber prices close to his eyes but they still wouldn’t focus: annoyed, he turned his oil lamp even higher; but it only smoked.) He had to admit Adèle had been unanswerable: marriage was out of the question, for what sort of a Schweinhund would ever marry a blind girl? Some insensitive climbing clerk, for her dowry and connections? Surely even this was better than that!
What other solution was there?
Mitzi wasn’t to be told yet ... yes, and how would she take it when they did tell her? But Otto was aware this was something no one would ever quite know. Mitzi had too much courage—too much self-control. When they told her, she’d just obey orders, poker-faced: make the best of it.
Looked-at like that the whole thing was near-blasphemy! But reason told him there must be plenty of similar cases.
Otto was still turning this treadmill when the clock struck two.—Bed! He was doing no good here. So at last he lit his carying-candle and put out the lamp. But this dimmer light only made vivider his mental image of the niece he was soon so totally to lose. Mitzi had never been his favorite among Walther’s children (surely one always likes boy-children better than girls?) but he was deeply concerned for her; and now as he passed her door on his way to his own room this concern turned to an impulse so strong it surprised him: he must see how she was! Quietly he opened the door, and listened candle in hand to the darkness inside.
Not a sound. She seemed to be sleeping, but he’d better make sure. So Otto pushed the door wider, an
d went in to look.
16
As Wolff had reached habitation-level, the first door he came to stood open onto the stairs. Since it was right on his line of retreat (this room normally not used), he slipped inside to investigate; and by stovelight recognized his English rival.
“THIS ONE SHALL DIE BY FIRE ...” The Voice was so loud Wolff wondered it didn’t wake the sleeper; but Augustine never stirred.
Fire ... Wolff knew at once what to do, when the time came (for he had done the same thing once before, to a police-spy at Aachen): he must drag this young man out of bed pinioned in the sheet and too suddenly for any struggle and kill him by holding his head against the red-hot stove. Already (remembering Aachen) Wolff heard the sizzle, smelt cooking bone and hair. It ought to be quite easy—when the time came: but that was not yet, might not even be tonight. For this kind of killing was not like a quiet stabbing: even if he gagged his victim too with the bedsheet he could hardly count on no noise at all; there was Mitzi, and he must not risk rousing the house till there was only himself left to kill.
He knew now where the Englishman slept. But Mitzi came first: it might be more difficult to discover which room was Mitzi’s, nevertheless that was the next thing Wolff had to find out.
Augustine stirred, and half-woke just as a reddish shadow vanished through his door.
Quiet as any shadow Wolff prowled on down into the pitch-dark hall. Here there were many doors. But here again Fate was smoothing his path tonight; for one door stood ajar, with a light inside. Through the chink Wolff could just see the head of the bed; and at what he saw there his skin flushed hot from head to foot—for it was all coming true. That hair spread over the pillow in the candlelight was Mitzi’s!
The candle which lit the room was hidden from outside, where Wolff stood. But just then the shadow shifted, and warned him just in time that someone else was in there before him! He checked himself on the threshold.
Standing at the foot of the bed, Otto had just raised his candle to look at her.
Asleep (Otto thought), with her hair all loose undone, Mitzi looked not even a young girl yet—only a child. Asleep, he saw with relief, she shut her eyes exactly as everyone else does: asleep, no one could tell.
Walther and Adèle—even Franz—had they no imagination? Surely they loved her more even than he did: then had they no notion what the life they were sending her to must be like for her? For someone so immature still, so human, so ... earthly? Almost one heard those great gates creak as they slowly crushed shut on her!
Otto pitied his niece so deeply that almost (he thought) it were better the poor girl had died.
Outside in the hall a loose tile clinked as Wolff retreated. He was back in his attics long before Otto had left Mitzi and gone to his room.
Wolff knew now where they both slept: he could do it whenever he liked! Fate whose servant he was wasn’t fickle (said Wolff to himself as he ousted the fox from its nest in those warm abandoned furs): Fate was helping him; and Fate wasn’t fickle! When the time did come for a killing she always gave him the signal: till then, he must wait.
17
Morning again! Monday’s wintry sun up, and those twin molehills in the blankets erupting into two little boys pulling on leather knickerbockers much blackened and polished at the knees and seats: buckling on belts which each carried a decorative sheath-knife, its handle a roe-deer’s foot.
After breakfast Augustine praised those knives loudly; for he saw they were cherished cult-objects and he hoped to give pleasure. But this marked praise seemed only to cause consternation; and it mystified him still further when, in a solid glum lump, all four children followed him to his room.
For a moment the lump blocked his doorway in silence. Then, “Have you told yet?” ten-year-old Trudl asked him in a deep, harsh voice.
Trudl was speaking “good” German carefully, for Augustine’s benefit; but what did she mean by “told,” he wondered?—Ah, about that fight-in-a-snowstorm of course! But after himself saving the situation for them why on earth should she think he’d “tell”?
“No,” said Augustine, smiling.
Trudl nodded (after all, if he had told Papa they’d have heard of it!). Then she signed to the two little boys, and with yard-long faces they began unbuckling their belts. Trudl snatched both the knives and held them out to Augustine: “Here you are, then,” she said, and watched him intently.
“It’s a waste!” said the younger girl, Irma. She addressed the ceiling cynically: “If he takes them he can still ‘tell’ just the same.”
“No! D-d-don’t give them yet!” stammered Rudi. “Make him swear first!”
“‘Make him swear’!” jeered Irma. “When he’s English, you little nit-wit? What good’s that?”
“B-b-but ...” Augustine was so flabbergasted he even caught Rudi’s stammer: “I-I-I ... I don’t want your knives!”
“We all thought that was what you meant,” explained Trudl, non-plussed. “You as good as said so!”
For answer, Augustine thrust back the two knives violently —and they fell to the ground.
“He wants something else, then,” said Irma, flatly. Heinz fumbled out a rather sticky pre-war fifty-pfennig piece, looked at it disparagingly and returned it to his pocket. There was a pause.
Then, “What will you take, to promise?” asked Trudl anxiously. “If it isn’t the knives you want?”
“I expect all he wants is to tell—when he’s ready,” Irma suggested. “He likes keeping us waiting: it’s fun for him.”
But at this Trudl flung herself furiously on Augustine, grabbing his jacket as if she was trying to shake him. “You must say what you want!” she cried: “You must you must you must!”
“Yes, now’s your chance, Greedy!” said Irma, addressing Augustine directly for the first time. Then she exchanged glances with the twins: “Else we’ll tell Papa ourselves and take our whacking—and that way you’ll get nothing!” she added spitefully.
“Yes—serve him right!” said Rudi, refixing his knife to his belt. After all, even a caning might be better than blackmail: “Who minds a sore b-b-bum?” he added, lordly.
“I do ... he must promise,” Trudl miserably muttered. Astonished, the others stared at her hostile and uncomprehending: “I’m too old to be beaten, now ... it gives me the ‘funny feeling.’ I’m older than any of you!”
The situation was so bizarre Augustine hardly knew if he was on his head or his heels. In vain he tried to convince them he’d hate for them to be beaten: that he’d no intention of telling tales—but all gratis, he wanted nothing: but no, his silence had to be bought! Their attitude was that otherwise no Englishman’s word could be trusted. This astounded Augustine, for surely “an Englishman’s word is his bond” is known the world over? (It astounded this anti-patriot, too, to discover how angry this ignorant attitude made him!)
In the end, Augustine gave in. “Very well,” he said, “I’ll tell you.” There was an anxious silence, while resources were inwardly totted. “I want the biggest snowman there’s ever been; and you’ve jolly well got to build it for me.”
They started at him in paralytic astonishment. A grown-up want a snowman? Mad ... utterly mad! Eight eyes fixed on him fearfully, the whole body retreated backwards.
“Before lunch!” Augustine called after them cheerfully: “It’s a bargain—don’t forget!”
Whew! he thought: and these were her brothers and sisters—the same flesh and blood as his Mitzi!
What a fool he’d been, Saturday, not to take his chance in the chapel and speak to Mitzi! He’d had no other chance since; and indeed so long as she kept to her room how could he—short of going to Walther and demanding to see her?
No doubt Cousins Walther and Adèle were wondering what he was waiting for; but what did the old idiots expect? Augustine was quite prepared to ask Walther’s leave for the marriage after speaking to Mitzi, but it was just too Victorian if Walther expected to be asked for permission before! “Leave to ad
dress my attentions ...” yes, it looked very much as if that was what Walther did expect, hiding Mitzi away like this!
As for Mitzi herself, what must she be thinking? She’d be feeling deserted, she’d be asking herself what sluggard sort of lover was this: she might think he’d had second thoughts ... she might even suppose that sacred moment of one-ness in the courtyard had meant nothing to him!
All eyes were upon him—so Augustine supposed: everyone was waiting for Augustine to speak! It never occurred to him no one—not even Mitzi herself—had noticed him falling in love.
18
Mitzi was indeed feeling deserted that morning; but deserted by God, not Augustine.
Waking (for Mitzi that morning) had been like waking in an unexpectedly empty bed: God wasn’t there—it was as simple as that! Yesterday God talked in her ear, breathed over her very shoulder: wherever she turned there wasn’t the tiniest interstice but God was there: yet today, when she called to Him she could hear the words of her prayer traveling outwards for ever into infinite empty distances. Nothing even echoed them back to her—for nothing was there.