Der Wunsch. English

  IV.

  Wherefore had she died?

  This question henceforth puzzled the whole town completely. In thestreets--at the tea-table, on the alehouse benches--it was the onetopic for discussion. People indulged in the most out-of-the-waysurmises, the most hazardous conjectures were put forward, and still noone was one whit the wiser. Some spoke of an unhappy, others of anover-happy love affair, and others again declared that they had alwayspredicted that she would not come to a good end.

  During her life-time already, her proud, taciturn, reserved nature hadbeen a riddle to the good homely townfolk; now her death was a stillgreater riddle to them.

  Meanwhile it had got about that the physician had been the first toreceive news of the suicide, and the only one to whom she herself hadconfided her intention. People crowded up to him; they almost stormedhis house; but he persisted in his silence. With all the bluffness ofwhich he was so particularly capable, he sent the importunatequestioners about their business. Olga's letter he had on the verysame day committed to the flames, for he feared that a court of lawmight require it of him. As for the rest, the cause of death was soevident that even a post-mortem examination could be dispensed with.As might have been expected, the dead girl had not succeeded inabsolutely removing every trace of her deed. In the glass standing onher night-table were found, adhering to its sides, drops of a fluidwhose flavour proved, even to a non-expert, that here a solution ofmorphia was in question. The chain of evidence became complete when inthe garden, embedded under some hawthorn bushes, were found fragmentsof glass bottles, to the necks of which a portion of the poisonoussolution still adhered in white crystallised streaks. They hadevidently been thrown out of the window, and still bore labels givingthe date of the prescription and directions for taking.

  As matters stood, it would have been simple madness on the doctor'spart if he had dared to attempt to hush up the suicidal intention; foreven carelessness in taking the sleeping draught was quite out of thequestion.

  Nevertheless, he was tormented by the idea that he had been unable tocarry out the dying girl's last request, and he faithfully promisedhimself that he would all the more truly at least keep the secret whichshe had wrapped round her motives for the unhappy deed.

  If only he himself could see his way clear at last! The days passed by,however, and still he could not succeed in taking possession of thelegacy which Olga had left to him.

  Mrs. Hellinger, senior, mistrusted him; she told him openly to his facethat he had always had some secret understanding with the dead girl,and behind his back she added that if he had not prescribed suchunreasonably strong solutions of morphia, Olga would have been aliveand happy for a long time to come. She almost went so far as to ascribethe blame of her niece's death to their old family friend.

  At any rate she did not permit him henceforth to remain for one secondalone in the dead girl's room. She kept the door carefully locked, anddeclared she would not suffer the dead girl's belongings, which to herwere sacred relics, to be defiled by the touch of strange hands, or bystrange glances.

  Thus from hour to hour there was increasing danger that the book, inwhich Olga had written down her confessions, might fall into the oldwoman's hands.

  She need only take it into her head one day to rummage among the littlecollection of volumes which filled the book-shelf, and the mischief wasdone.

  Added to this anxiety, which drove the old doctor daily to theHellingers' house, came his growing uneasiness about Robert who, sincethat disastrous hour, had fallen a prey to blank, despairing lethargy.He seemed absolutely deprived of the power of speech, would endure noone near him, and even taciturnly shunned and avoided him, his oldfriend; by day he roamed about in the fields, by night he sat by hischild's cot, and stared down upon it with burning, reddened eyes.

  So said the servants, who three times had found him in the morning inthis position.