A groan came from within, grew louder, grew into a wild frenzied
scream. George passed his hand over his damp forehead and said to the
doctor with a bitter smile: "Is that what you mean by going on nicely?"
Stauber shrugged his shoulders. "It is written, 'With pain shalt
thou....'"
George felt a certain sense of resentment. He had never believed in
the God of the childishly pious, who was supposed to reveal himself as
the fulfiller of the wishes of wretched men and women, as the avenger
and forgiver of miserable human sins. The Nameless One which he felt
in the infinite beyond his senses, and transcending all understanding,
could only regard prayer and blasphemy as poor words out of a human
mouth. Not even when his mother had died, after the senseless martyrdom
of her suffering, not even when his father had died, passing away
painlessly so far as he could understand, had he presumed to indulge in
the belief that his own personal misfortunes in the world's progress
signified more than the falling of a leaf. He had not bowed down in
cowardly humility to any inscrutable solution of the riddle, nor had he
foolishly murmured against an ungracious power of whose decrees he was
the personal victim.
To-day he felt for the first time as though somewhere or other in the
clouds an incomprehensible game was being played in which his own
fortunes were the stakes. The scream within had died away and only
groans were audible.
"And the beating of the heart?" asked George.
Doctor Stauber looked at him. "It could still be heard clearly ten
minutes ago."
George fought against a dreadful thought which had been hounded up out
of the depths of his soul. He was healthy, she was healthy, two strong
young people.... Could anything like that be really possible?
Doctor Stauber put his hand on his shoulder again. "Go for a walk," he
said. "We'll call you as soon as it's time." And he turned away.
George remained standing on the verandah for another minute. He saw
Frau Rosner sitting huddled up in solitary brooding on the sofa near
the wall in the large room that was beginning to grow dim in the shade
of the late afternoon. He went away, walked round the house and went
up the wooden stairs into his attic. He threw himself on the bed and
shut his eyes. After a few minutes he got up, walked up and down in
the room, but gave up doing so as the floor creaked. He went on to the
balcony. The score of _Tristan_ lay open on the table. George looked
at the music. It was the prelude to the third act. The music rang in
his ears. The sea waves were beating heavily on a cliff shore, and out
of the mournful distance rang the sad melody of an English horn. He
looked over the pages far away into the silver-white brilliance of the
daylight. There was sunshine everywhere--on the roofs, paths, gardens,
hills and forests. The sky was spread out in its azure vastness and the
smell of the harvest floated up from the depths. How were things with
me a year ago? thought George. I was in Vienna, quite alone. I had not
an idea. I had sent her a song ... '_Deinem Blick mich zu bequemen_'
... but I scarcely gave her a thought ... and now she lies down there
dying.... He gave a violent start. He had meant to say mentally ...
"She is lying in labour," and the words "lies dying" had as it were
stolen their way on to his lips. But why was he so frightened? How
childish! As though there existed presentiments like that! And if there
really were danger, and the doctors had to decide, then of course they
would have to save the mother. Why, Doctor Stauber had only explained
that to him a few days ago. What, after all, is a child that hasn't
yet lived? Nothing. He had begotten it at some moment or other without
having wished it, without having even thought of the possibility that
he might have become a father. How did he know either that in that
dark hour of ecstasy, behind closed blinds a few weeks ago he had not
... also become a father without having wished it, without having even
thought of the possibility; and perhaps it might have happened without
his ever knowing!
He heard voices and looked down; the Professor's coachman had caught
hold of the arm of the housemaid, who was only slightly resisting.
Perhaps the foundations are being laid here too of a new human life,
thought George, and turned away in disgust. Then he went back into his
room, carefully filled his cigarette-case out of the box that stood
on the table, and it suddenly seemed to him that his excitement was
baseless and even childish, and it occurred to him: "My mother, too,
once lay like that before I came into the world, just as Anna is doing
now. I wonder if my father walked about as nervously as I am doing? I
wonder if he would be here now if he were still alive? I wonder if I
would have told him at all? I wonder if all this would have happened
if he had lived?" He thought of the beautiful serene summer days by
the Veldeser Lake. His comfortable room in his father's villa swept
up in his memory and in some vague way, almost dreamwise, the bare
attic with the creaking floor in which he now found himself seemed to
typify his whole present existence in contrast to that former life
which had been so free from care and responsibility. He remembered a
serious talk about the future which he had had a few days ago with
Felician. Immediately after this thought there came into his mind the
conversation which he had had with a woman in the country, who had
introduced herself with the offer to take charge of the child. She and
her husband possessed a small property near the railway, only an hour
away from Vienna, and her only daughter had died in the previous year.
She had promised that the little one should be well looked after, as
well, in fact, as though it were not a stranger's at all, and as George
thought of this he suddenly felt as though his heart were standing
still. It will be there before dark.... The child.... His child, but a
strange woman was waiting somewhere to take it away with her. He was
so tired after the excitement of the last few days that his knees hurt
him. He remembered having previously felt similar physical sensations,
the evening after his "leaving-examination" and the time when he had
learnt of Labinski's suicide. How different, how joyful, how full of
hope had been his mood three days ago, just before the pains began! He
now felt nothing except an unparalleled dejection, while he found the
musty smell of the attic more and more unpleasant. He lit a cigarette
and stepped on to the balcony again. The warm silent air did him good.
The sunshine still lay on the Sommerhaidenweg and a gilded cross shone
over the walls from the direction of the churchyard.
He heard a noise beneath him. Steps? Yes, steps and voices too. He
left the balcony and the room and rushed down over the creaking wooden
staircase. A door opened, steps were hurrying over the floor. The next
moment he was on the bottom step opposite Frau Golowski. His heart
stood still. He opened his mouth without asking.
"Yes," she nodded, "a boy."
He gripped both her hands and felt, while he was beaming all over, a
stream of happiness was running through his soul with a potency and
intense warmth that he had never anticipated. He suddenly noticed that
Frau Golowski's eyes were not shining as brightly as they certainly
ought to have. The stream of happiness within him ebbed back. Something
choked his throat. "Well?" he said. Then he added, almost menacingly:
"Does it live?"
"It just breathed once.... The Professor hopes...."
George pushed the woman on one side, reached the great centre room in
three strides and stood still as though spell-bound. The Professor, in
a long white linen apron, held a small creature in his arms and rocked
it hurriedly to and fro. George stood still. The Professor nodded to
him and went on undisturbed with what he was doing. He was examining
the little creature in his arms with scrutinising eyes, he put it on
the table, over which a white linen cloth had been spread, made the
child's limbs execute violent exercises, rubbed its breast and face,
then lifted it high up several times in succession, and George always
saw how the child's head drooped heavily on to its breast. Then the
doctor put it on to the linen cloth, listened with his ear on its
bosom, got up, put one hand on its little body and motioned gently with
the other to George to approach.
Involuntarily holding his breath George came quite near him. He looked
first at the doctor and then at the little creature which lay on the
white linen. It had its eyes quite open, strangely big blue eyes, like
those of Anna. The face looked quite different from what George had
expected, not wrinkled and ugly like that of an old dwarf, no; it was
really a human face, a silent beautiful child-face, and George knew
that these features were the image of his own.
The Professor said gently: "I've not heard its heart beat for the last
hour."