Frau Golowski came out of the house. George could see her from the
top end of the garden as she stepped on to the verandah. He hurried
excitedly towards her, but as soon as she saw him in the distance she
shook her head.
"Not yet?" asked George.
"The Professor thinks," replied Frau Golowski, "some time before dark."
"Some time before dark," said George and looked at his watch. And now
it was only three.
She held out her hand sympathetically and George looked into her kind
eyes, which were somewhat tired by her nocturnal vigils. The white
transparent curtain in front of Anna's window had just been slightly
drawn back. Old Doctor Stauber appeared by the window, threw George a
friendly reassuring glance, disappeared again and the curtains were
drawn. Frau Rosner was sitting in the large centre room by the round
table. George could only see from the verandah the outlines of her
figure; her face was quite in the shade. Then a whimpering and then a
loud groan forced their way from the room in which Anna lay. George
stared up at the window, stood still for a while, then turned round
and walked for the hundredth time to-day up the path to the top of the
garden. It is clear that she is already too weak to shriek, he thought;
and his heart pained him. She had lain in labour for two whole days and
two whole nights. The third day was now approaching its end,--and now
it was still to last until evening came. On the evening of the first
day Doctor Stauber had called in the Professor, who had been there
twice yesterday and had remained in the house since noon to-day. While
Anna had gone to sleep for a few minutes, and the nurse was watching by
her bed, he had walked up and down in the garden with George and had
endeavoured to explain to him all the peculiar features of the case.
For the time being there was no ground for anxiety. They could hear the
child's heart beating quite clearly. The Professor was a still fairly
young man with a long blonde beard, and his words trickled gently and
kindly like drops of some anodyne drug. He spoke to the sick woman like
a child, stroked her over the hair and forehead, caressed her hands and
gave her pet names. George had learned from the nurse that this young
doctor exhibited the same devotion and same patience at every sick-bed.
What a profession! thought George, who had once, during these three
bad days, fled to Vienna for a few hours, which enabled a man to have
a sound dreamless sleep for six good hours up there in the attic this
very night while Anna was writhing in pain.
He walked along by the faded lilac-bushes, tore off leaves,
crunched them in his hand and threw them on the ground. A lady in a
black-and-white striped morning dress was walking in the next garden
on the other side of the low bushes. She looked at George seriously
and almost sympathetically. Quite so! thought George. Of course she
heard Anna's screams the day before yesterday, yesterday and to-day.
The whole place in fact knew of what was happening there; even the
young girls in the _outré_ Gothic villa, who had once taken him for
the interesting seducer; and there was real humour in the fact that a
strange gentleman with a reddish pointed beard, who lived two houses
away, should have suddenly greeted him yesterday in the village with
respectful understanding.
Remarkable, thought George, how one can make oneself popular with
people. But Frau Rosner let it be seen that even though she did
not regard George as mainly responsible for the seriousness of the
position she certainly regarded him as somewhat callous. He did not
bear any grudge for this against the poor good woman. She could not
of course have any idea how much he loved Anna. It was not long
since he had known it himself. She had not addressed any question to
him on that morning of his arrival when George had lifted his head
off her lap after a long silent fit of weeping, but he had read in
the painful surprise of her eyes that she guessed the truth, and he
thought he understood why she did not question him. She must realise
how completely she possessed him again, how henceforth he belonged to
her more than he had ever done before, and when he told her in the
subsequent hours and days of the time which he had spent far away from
her, and that now fateful name resounded casually but yet insistently
out of the catalogue of the women whom he had met, she smiled, no
doubt, in her slightly mocking way, but scarcely differently than when
he spoke of Else or Sissy, or the little girls in their blue dresses
who had peeped into the music-room when he was playing.
He had been living in the villa for two weeks, had been feeling well
and in good form for serious work. He spread out every morning on the
little table, where Therese's needlework had lain a short time ago,
scores, works on musical theory, musical writing-paper, and occupied
himself with solving problems in harmony and counterpoint. He often lay
down in the meadow by the edge of the forest and read some favourite
book or other, let melodies ring within him, indulged in day-dreams and
was quite happy, with the rustling of the trees and the brilliance of
the sun. In the afternoon, when Anna was resting, he would read aloud
or talk to her. They often talked with affectionate anticipation about
the little creature that was soon to come into the world, but never
about their own future, whether distant or immediate. But when he
sat by her bed, or walked up and down the garden with her arm-in-arm,
or sat by her side on the white seat under the pear-tree, where the
shining stillness of the late summer day rested above them, he knew
they were tied fast to each other for all time, and that even the
temporary separation with which they were faced could have no power to
affect them in view of the certain feeling that they were all in all to
each other.
It was only since the pains had come upon her that she seemed removed
from him to a sphere where he could not follow her. Yesterday he had
sat by her bed for hours and had held her hand in his. She had been
patient, as always, had anxiously inquired if he were quite comfortable
in the house, had begged him to work and go for walks as he had done
before, since after all he could not help her, and had assured him that
since she was suffering she loved him even more. And yet she was not
the same, George felt, as she had been during these days. Particularly
when she screamed out--as she had this morning in her worst pains--her
soul was so far away from him that he felt frightened.
He was near the house again. No noise came from Anna's room, in front
of the window of which the curtains moved slightly. Old Doctor Stauber
was standing on the verandah. George hastened towards him with a dry
throat. "What is it?" he asked hastily.