He took a step forward, her room evidently his destination.
“Mistvich!” Bertha said, at the same time retreating into the
passage-way.—“Go!”
Got into the room, he did not seem to know what next to do. So far he had
been evidently quite clear as to his purpose. He had been feeling the
same necessity as her—he, to see his victim. He had not known what he
wanted with her, but the obvious pretext and road for the satisfaction of
this impulse was the seeking of pardon.
She had a moment before felt that she _must_ see him again, at once,
before going further with her life.—He, more vague but more energetic,
had come at the end of twenty minutes. They were now together, quite
tongue-tied. Once he was there, the pretext appeared unnecessary. The
_real_ reason might be found. The real reason no doubt was an intuition
not to lose her absolutely, the wisdom of his appetite counselling.
He stood leaning on his cane, and staring in front of him.—Bertha stood
quite still, as she would sometimes do when a wasp entered the room,
waiting to see if it would blunder about and then fly out again. He was
a dangerous animal, he had got in there, and might in the same manner go
off again in a minute or two.
Now was the chance she had been fretting for to wipe out in some way
what had happened;—not to seem, anyhow, to have taken it all as a matter
of course.—But it was _too_ convenient. She had never reckoned on his
actually coming and putting himself at her disposition in this way. He
stood there without saying anything, just as though he had been sent for
and it were for her to speak.—She would have been inclined to send him
back to his room, and _then_, perhaps, go to _him_.
Constantly on the point of “throwing him out,” as her energetic German
idiom put it, it yet evidently would then, in the first place, be
the same as before. Secondly, she was a good deal intimidated by his
unexplained presence. She had a curiosity about him,—curiosity rather as
to how what had happened to her could be straightened out or a little
sense in some way got into it. The material of this modification was
in him and only there.—She hated him thoroughly now. But this new and
distinct feeling gave him at last some reality.—Her way of regarding
Kreisler was that of the girl a man “has got into trouble,” and to whom
she looks to get her out of it.
So she stood, anxious as to what he might have come there to do,
gradually settling down into a “proud and silent indignation,” behind
which her curiosity might wait and see what would transpire.
Kreisler had at length, having allowed her to stay unexplained by his
side for a week or so, divined some complication. Her case might possibly
be similar to his? She did not interest him any the more for this. But
communication would not be, perhaps, absolutely useless.
His only possibility of action at present was to act violently, in gusts.
He did not know, when he began an action, whether he would be able to go
through with it.—He could not now prevail upon himself to go through the
senseless form of apology or anything else. He had got there, that would
have to be sufficient.
But the situation for Bertha became urgent, too. The difficulty was
that there was _nothing adequate_ to be done, that she could think
of, in any way in proportion to the enormity of the occasion. Yet, to
escape from the memory of Kreisler, what had happened must be wiped
out, checkmated, by some action. She was still stunned and overwhelmed
with the normal feminine feelings proper to the case. But yet even here
there was an irregularity. Another source of infinite discomfort was
that she could not even _feel_, as she should normally, the extent of
the outrage, although it was evident enough. She had an hysterical
inclination, in waves of astonishment, to accept its paradoxical and
persistent appearance. This appearance Kreisler’s peculiar manner,
her own present mind and the unexampled circumstances gave it. It was
nothing,—a bagatelle!—Pooh! it is nothing, after all! How _can_ it be of
any importance, seeing that⸺?—This was one of those things that seem to
have got into the category of waking by mistake. It had nothing to do
with life’s context. And yet it _was_ life. She must deal with it.
She had wished to _free_ Sorbert. _That_ had been the beginning of all
this. It was with idea of sacrifice in her mind that she had committed
the first folly on the boulevard.—Well, _she had succeeded_. What did
Kreisler mean?—At last his significance was as clear as daylight. He
meant _always_ and _everywhere_ merely that _she could never see Tarr
again_!
She now faced him with fresh strength, her face illuminated with happy
tragic resolve.—Supposing she had _given_ herself to a man to compass
this sacrifice? As it was, everything, except the hatefulness and
violence of the act, had been spared her. And in telling Sorbert that
there was something, now, between them, she had been driven to something,
she would be nobly lying, and turning an involuntary act into a voluntary
one.
She could now, too, be tragically forbearing even with Kreisler.
“Herr Kreisler, I think I have waited long enough. Will you please leave
my room?”
He stirred gently like a heavy flower in a light current of wind. But he
turned towards her and said:
“I don’t know what to say to you.—Is there nothing I can do to make up to
you—? I shall go and shoot myself, Fräulein! I cannot stand the thought
of what I have done!”
This was perplexing and made her angry. He appeared to possess a genius
for making things complicated and more difficult.
“All I ask you is to go. That will be the best thing you can do for me.”
“Fräulein, I _can’t_!—Do listen to me for a moment.—I cannot even refer
to what has happened without insult in the mere direction of the words.—I
am mad—mad—mad!—You have showed yourself a good friend to me. And that
is the way I repay you! Were you anywhere but here and unprotected,
there would be a man to answer to for this outrage. I will be that man
myself!—I come to ask your permission!”
His appetite, waking afresh, was the only directing thing in Kreisler at
present. With hypocritical—almost palpably mock—eloquence, he was serving
that.
This talk alone would have been of little use or consequence to Bertha.
But coming in conjunction with her new independent reinforcement, which
alone would have been enough to shape things to a specious ending, it was
in a way effective.—The new contradiction and struggle in her mind was
between her natural aversion for Kreisler now and her feeling of clemency
towards him in his now beautiful usefulness.
She was very dignified, wise, and clement when she answered:
“Let us leave all that, if you please.—It was my fault.—I should have
known better what I was doing. You must have been mad, as you say. But if
you wish to show yourself a gentleman now, the only obvious thing is to
go away, as I have said, and not to molest or remind me any further of
what has passed. There is nothing more to say, is there?—Go, now, please!”
Kreisler flung himself on his knees, and seized her hand, she receiving
this with astonished, questioning protestation.
“Fräulein, you are an angel! You don’t know how much _good_ you do me!
You are _so_ good, so good! There is nothing you can ask of me too much.
I have done something I can never undo. It is as though you had saved my
life.—Otto Kreisler you can always count on!—The greatest service you can
do me, that I humbly beg you may—is to ask some service of me, the more
difficult the better!—Good-bye, Fräulein.”
Giving her hand a last hug, he sprang up, and Bertha heard him next
stormily descending the stairs, and then farther away passing rapidly
down the avenue.
Bertha was distinctly affected by this demonstration. It put a last
brilliant light of grateful confusion on all the emotions emanating from
Kreisler. The sort of notion he had evoked in parting that they had
been doing something splendid together—a life-saving, a heroism—found a
hospitable ground in her spirit. Taking everything together, things had
been miraculously turned round. Her late blackness of depression and
perplexity now merged in steadily growing relieved exaltation.