A fleck of sunlight trembled on the opposite wall of the courtyard. Its
reflection lighted up the mirror over the leather sofa. A feeble fire
was burning in the oven. Before going to the funeral Johanna Schöntag
had thrown in a few small shovelfuls of coal. The fire crackled a
little, but the room was growing cold.
Michael Hofmann sat in front of the chessboard. The student Lamprecht
had set him a problem, and Michael stared at the board and the
chessmen. Occasionally his thoughts converged in a will to find a
solution, then they went wandering again. He had now succeeded in
turning his mind toward outward things sufficiently to remember the
chessmen and their positions. Even in the darkness of the night, during
which he slept but rarely, he saw the figures of the two kings.
The fleck of sunshine sank lower on the wall, and the snow on the
pavement glittered. Michael looked out through the window, and the
gleaming of the snow caused his eyes to move. The whiteness--why did
it torment him? He wanted to wipe it out or blow it away or cover it.
Whiteness was a lie.
He got up and walked through the room. The glitter of the sunlight came
insolently from the whiteness, and the room was filled with its lying
shimmer. He hated it.
He stopped and listened and his eyelids twitched. Something floated
before his mind, knocked at its door--not so much a forgotten thing as
one suppressed and throttled. From his trousers pocket he drew forth a
round, tightly-rolled, blackish brown object. He looked at it and began
to shudder. For a moment his eyes had the same brooding look as when
he regarded the chessmen. Then his fingers grew restless, and, growing
paler and paler, he sought to unroll the object in his hand. It was a
cloth, a handkerchief. Once it had been white; now it was drenched in
blood.
It had been white, but now it was black with blood; and the blood had
congealed so that the cloth had the toughness of leather and was hard
to unfold. At last the surface appeared, and in one corner of it the
embroidered initials, R. H.
“Whiteness is evil and redness is evil,” Michael whispered to himself,
with the look of a beaten dog. He was struggling with a temptation,
hunting for a way out, and all his being spoke of despair. He looked
about him, hurried to the oven, opened the little iron door, and threw
in the blood-drenched handkerchief. When the swift flame flared up he
sighed with relief, and stood still and quivering.