The costumer and the wig-maker had arrived in Edgar Lorm’s study. He
was going to try on his costume for the rôle of Petrucchio. “The Taming
of the Shrew” was soon to be given with new scenery and a new cast, and
he looked forward to playing the impetuous and serene tamer.
Judith, sitting on a low stool in her over-dainty sitting-room, her
arms folded on her knees, heard his resonant voice, although three
closed doors separated them. He was quarrelling; tradesmen and
assistants always enraged him. He was difficult to satisfy, for what he
demanded of himself he also required of others--the tensest exertion
and the most conscientious toil.
Judith was bored. She opened a drawer filled with ribands, turned over
the contents, tried the effect of different ribands in her hair, and
looked at herself in the glass with a frown. That occupation tired her
too. She left the drawer open and the many-coloured silks scattered
about.
She went through the rooms, knocked at Lorm’s door and entered. She
was surprised at his appearance. In the lace-trimmed, velvet doublet,
the pied hose, the broad-brimmed hat with its adventurous feather, the
brown locks of the wig that fell to his shoulders, he looked a victor,
handsome, bold, fascinating. And his very way of standing there was art
and interpretation; the whole world was his stage.
Like soldiers at attention, the costumer and wig-maker stood before him
and smiled admiringly.
Judith smiled too. She had not expected to find him in a new
transformation, and she was grateful for the experience. She came
to him, and touched his cheeks with her fingers. His eyes, still lit
by the ardour of the poet’s creation, asked after her desire. He was
accustomed to have her express some wish whenever she condescended to a
caress. With her arm she drew his head down a little and whispered: “I
want you to make me a present, Edgar.”
He laughed, embarrassed and amused. The good-natured observation of the
two strangers was painful to him. He drew her arm through his and led
her to the library. “What shall I give you, child?” The bold fervour of
Petrucchio which, with the donning of the costume, had passed into him,
faded from his face.
“Anything you please,” Judith answered, “but something remarkable that
will delight me and something that you are fond of.”
He smacked his lips, looked merry and yielding, glanced about him, took
up one object after another, pushed his chin forward and reflected,
mimicked a whole scale of emotions from puzzled helplessness to anxious
serviceableness, and finally struck his forehead with a roguish and
graceful gesture. “I have it,” he cried. He opened a little cabinet,
and with a bow gave Judith a watch of very old Nürnberger make. Its
case was of exquisite old gold filigree work.
“How charming,” said Judith, and balanced the watch on the palm of her
hand.
Lorm said: “Now amuse yourself admiring it. I must go and send those
fellows away.” With a swift, resilient tread he left the room.
Judith sat down at the great oak table, looked at the engraved
ornamentation on the watch, pressed a little spring, and, when the oval
sides of the case flew open, gazed into the ancient, lifeless works.
“I shall take it all apart,” she determined. “But not now; to-night. I
want to see what’s inside.” And she looked forward with a glow to the
evening hour when she would take the watch apart.
But the present, charming as it was, did not suffice her. When Lorm
returned in modern dress, a clean-shaven gentleman and husband, she
held out the watch-case from which she had slipped the works, and
begged or rather commanded him, who was now the man of common clay:
“Fill it with gold pieces, Edgar. That’s what I want.”
She was all voracity, avidity, desire.
Lorm lowered his head in vicarious shame. In a drawer of his desk he
had a little roll of gold-pieces. He filled the watch-case and gave it
to her. Then he said, “While you were out driving to-day, your brother
Wolfgang called. He stayed about an hour. He seems to have a rather
sterile nature. It amused me--the difficulty he had in placing me in
some social category whose ways he understood. He’s a born bureaucrat.”
“What did he want?” Judith asked.
“He wanted to consult you about Christian. He’s coming again to do so.”
Judith arose. Her face was pale and her eyes glittered. Her knowledge
of Christian’s changed way of life was derived from a talk she had
had with Crammon during his visit to Berlin, from the letters of a
former friend, and from messages that had come to her directly from her
parents. The first news had awakened a rage in her that gnawed at her
soul. Sometimes when she was alone and thought of it she gritted her
teeth and stamped her feet. Further details she heard made the very
thought of him fill her to the brim with bitterness. If she had not
possessed the gift of forcing herself to forgetfulness, of commanding
it so successfully as to annihilate the things she desired not to
be, her inner conflicts over this matter would have made her ill and
morose. Every enforced recollection awakened that rage in her, and
recoiled against him who caused it.
Lorm knew and feared this fact. His instinct told him, moreover, that
what Judith feared in Christian’s actions was an evil caricature
of her own fate; for she did not conceal the fact from him that she
considered herself as one who had voluntarily fallen from her original
station. But he thought too modestly of himself to resent this attitude
of hers. To tremble at the opinions of people had become a part of her
innermost nature. Although she was no longer upheld by the elements
that had once nourished her aristocratic consciousness, her being was
still rooted in them, and she felt herself degraded in her new life.
But even this could not explain the wild fury to which she yielded at
any mention of Christian’s name.
Her attitude was that of a cat at bay. “I don’t want him to come back,”
she hissed. “I don’t want to hear anything about that man. I’ve told
you that a hundred times. But you’re always so flabby, and go in for
everything. Couldn’t you have told him that I won’t listen? Get a car
and drive to him at once. Forbid him absolutely to enter my house or
to write me. But no! You’re such a coward. I’ll write to him myself.
I’ll tell him that his visits will always be a pleasure to me, although
his sudden fondness is queer enough, but that I will not, under any
circumstances, listen to a word about that man.”
Lorm did not dare to contradict her. With gentle superiority he said:
“I don’t understand your extreme bitterness. No one considers your
brother Christian to have done anything criminal. He is very eccentric,
at the worst. He harms no one. What injury has he done you? Weren’t you
and he very fond of each other? You used always to speak of him with an
affectionate and proud emphasis. I don’t understand.”
She became livid and drunk with rage. “Of course,” she jeered, “you!
Does anything touch you? Have you any sense left for anything but
grease-paint and old rags? Have you any conception of what those words
stood for--Christian Wahnschaffe? What they meant? You in your world of
lies and hollowness--what should you understand?”
Lorm came a step nearer to her. He looked at her compassionately. She
drew back with a gesture of aversion.
She was beating, beating the fish.