In the little rear room he had now been sleeping for fourteen hours.
The widow Engelschall determined to go to him.
She passed through the half-dark passage-way in which the supplies were
stored. Hams and smoked sausages dangled from the ceiling. On the floor
stood kegs with sardines, herrings, and pickled gherkins. There were
shelves filled with glasses of preserved fruit. The place smelled like
a shop.
She stopped, took a little gherkin out of an open keg, and swallowed it
without chewing.
The bell of the front-door rang. A sluttish creature, broom in hand,
became visible at the end of the passage, and called out to the widow
Engelschall that Isolde Schirmacher had come with an important message.
“Let her wait,” the widow Engelschall growled. Softly she went into the
small room in which Niels Heinrich was sleeping.
He lay on a mattress. A bluish flannel coverlet was over him. His
hairy chest was bare; his naked feet protruded. The room was so small
that not even a chest of drawers could have been squeezed in. Heaps
of malodorous, soiled linen lay in the corners. Tools were scattered
about the floor--a plane, a hammer, a saw. Old newspapers increased the
litter, and on nails in the wall hung dirty clothes, ties, and a couple
of overcoats. On the walls red splotches showed where bedbugs had been
killed. On the table stood a candlestick with a piece of candle, an
empty beer bottle, and a half empty whiskey bottle.
He lay on his back. The muscles of his face had snapped under an
inhuman tension. Between his reddish eyebrows vibrated three dark
furrows. His skin was the tint of cheese. On his neck and forehead were
beads of sweat. His lids looked like two black holes. The slim, red
little beard on his chin moved as he breathed--moved like a separate
and living thing, a watchful, hairy insect.
He snored loudly. A bubble of saliva rose now and then from the
horrible opening of his lips that showed his decayed teeth.
The widow Engelschall had had plans which had seemed easy to execute
outside. Now she dared do nothing. Last night she had stood above him
as she stood now. He had begun to murmur in his sleep, and she had
hurried out in terror.
It buzzed in her head: What had he done with the two thousand marks
which he had embezzled from the builder? She distrusted his assertion
that he had spent it all on the cashier of the Metropolitan Moving
Picture Theatre. To make up a part of the money and prevent his
arrest, she had had to pawn all her linen, two chests of drawers, the
furnishings of her waiting-room, and also to mortgage a life insurance
policy. Her letter to Privy Councillor Wahnschaffe had not even been
answered.
She didn’t believe that he had wasted so much good money on that slut.
He must have a few hundreds lying about somewhere. The thought gave
her no rest. It was dangerous to let him notice her suspicion; but she
could risk entering the room while he slept, burrowing in his clothes,
and slipping her hand under his pillow.
But she stood perfectly still. In his presence she was always prepared
for the unexpected. If he but opened his mouth, she trembled within. If
people came to speak of him, she grew cold all over. If she stopped to
think, she knew that it had always been so.
When the village schoolmaster had caught the ten-year-old boy in
disgusting practices with a girl of eight, he had said: “He’ll end on
the gallows.” When he was an apprentice, he had quarrelled over wages
with his employer and threatened to strike him. The man had said:
“He’ll end on the gallows.” When he had stolen a silver chain from the
desk of the minister’s wife at Friesoythe, and his mother had gone to
return it, the lady had said: “He’ll end on the gallows.”
The memories came thick and fast. He had beaten his first mistress, fat
Lola who lived in Köpnicker Street, with barbarous cruelty, because
at a dance in Halensee she had winked at a postal clerk. When the
girl had writhed whining on the floor, and shrieked out in her pain:
“There ain’t such another devil in the world!” the widow Engelschall
had appealed to the enraged fellow’s conscience, and had said to him:
“Go easy, my boy, go easy;” but her advice had been futile. When his
second mistress was pregnant, he forced her to go for treatment to an
evil woman with whom he was also intimate, and the girl died of the
operation. He jeered at the swinish dullness of women who couldn’t
do the least things right--couldn’t bear and couldn’t kill a brat
properly. No one, fortunately, had heard this remark but the widow
Engelschall. Again she had besought him: “Boy, go it a bit easier, do!”
At bottom she admired his qualities. You couldn’t fool with him. He
knew how to take care of himself; he could get around anybody. If only
he hadn’t always vented his childish rage on harmless things. The
expense of it! If the fire didn’t burn properly, he’d tear the oven
door from its hinges; if his watch was fast or slow, he’d sling it on
the floor so that it was smashed; if meat was not done to his liking,
he broke plates with his knife; if a cravat balked in the tying,
he’d tear it to shreds, and often his shirt too. Then he laughed his
goat-like laugh, and one had to pretend to share his amusement. If he
noticed that one was annoyed, he became rabid, spared nothing, and
destroyed whatever he could reach.
She wondered what he lived on in ordinary times, when he had had no
special piece of good luck. For he seemed always in the midst of
plenty, with pockets full of money, and no hesitation to spend and
treat. Sometimes he worked--four days a week or five. And he could
always get work. He knew his trade, and accomplished in one day more
than other workmen did in three. But usually he extended blue Monday
until Saturday, and passed his time in unspeakable dives with rogues
and loose women.
The widow Engelschall knew a good deal about him. But there was a
great deal that she did not know. His ways were mysterious. To ask
him and to receive an answer was to be none the wiser. He was always
planning something, brewing something. All this commanded the widow
Engelschall’s profound respect. He was flesh of her flesh and spirit
of her spirit. Yet her anxiety was great; and recently the cards had
foretold evil with great pertinacity.
And so she hesitated, full of fear. The palish, yellow skull on the
coarse, fustian pillow paralysed her. The slack flesh of her fat neck
drooped and shook, as she finally bent and reached down after his coat
and waistcoat, which were lying under the chair. She turned away a
little so as to conceal her motions. Suddenly she felt a hand on her
shoulder and shrieked.
Niels Heinrich had risen noiselessly. He stood there in his shirt, and
pierced her with the yellowish flare of his glance. “What’re you doing
there, you old slut?” he asked with calm rage. She let the garments
fall and retreated toward the door trembling. He stretched forth his
arm: “Out!”
His appearance was fear-inspiring. Words died on her lips. With reeling
steps she went out.
Isolde Schirmacher was still waiting in the hall. She began to weep
when she gave her message: the widow Engelschall was to come to
Stolpische Street without delay. Karen was very sick, was dying.
The widow Engelschall seemed incredulous. “Dying? Ah, it ain’t so easy
to die. Give her my love, and say I’m coming. I’ll be there in an hour.”