It happened that Christian, sleeping in the rooms upstairs, was
awakened by the piercing cries of the Stübbe children. He slipped into
his clothes and went over.
On the table stood a smoking kerosene lamp; next to it lay a baby
huddled in greasy rags. From a sack of straw two children had risen up.
They were clad in ragged shirts, and, clinging despairingly to each
other, uttered their shrieks of terror. A fourth child, a boy of five,
indescribably ragged and neglected, bent over a heap of broken plates
and glasses. He hid his face in his hands and howled. The fifth child,
a girl of eight or nine, stood by her mother, who lay quite still
on the floor, and lifted her thin, beseeching arms and folded hands
toward the monster who was her father, and who struck the woman blow
after vicious blow in the beastliness of his rage. He used the leg of
a chair, and under the mad fury of his blows terrible wounds appeared
on the body of the woman, who uttered no sound. Only now and then
she twitched. Her face was of a greyish blue. The bodice and the red
petticoat she wore were shredded, and from every rent dripped her blood.
Stübbe’s madness increased with every blow. In his eyes there was a
ghastly glitter; slime and foam flecked his beard; his hair stood on
end and was stiff with sweat, and his swollen face was a dark violet
hue. Sounds, half laughter, half gurgling, then again moans and curses
and stertorous breathing and whistling came from his gullet. One blow
fell on the beseeching child. She dropped on her face and moaned.
Christian grasped the man. With both hands he strangled him; with
tenfold strength he fought him down. He felt an unspeakable horror of
the flesh his fingers touched; in his horror it seemed to him that the
wretched room became a conical vault in the emptiness of which he and
this beast swayed to and fro. He smelt the whiskey fumes that rose
from the beast’s open gullet, and his horror assumed odour and savour
and burned his eyes. And as he struggled on--the claws of the man, who
despite his drunkenness had a bear’s strength, against his throat, that
belly against his, those knees close to his own--this moment seemed to
stretch and stretch to an hour, a month, a year, and fate seemed to
force him into a fatal hole. All nearness seemed to become closer and
turn into touch. Man, the world, the sky--all were upon him, close as
his own skin. And this became the meaning of it to him--deeper, deeper,
closer, closer into the horrible and menacing.
A thin, little voice sounded: “Please don’t hurt father! Please, please
don’t.” It was the voice of the little girl. She got up and approached
Christian and clung to his arm.
Stübbe, gasping for air, collapsed. Christian stood there, pale as
death. He smelt and felt that there was blood on him. People came in;
the noise had roused them from their beds. A woman took the little
children and sought to soothe them. One man kneeled by the murdered
woman; another went for water. There were some who cried out and were
excited; others looked on calmly. After a while a policeman appeared.
Stübbe lay in a corner and snored; the lamp still smoked and stank. A
second policeman drifted in, and took counsel with the first whether
Stübbe was to be left here till morning or removed at once.
Christian still stood there, pale as death. Suddenly every eye was
turned upon him. A dull silence fell on the room. One of the policemen
cleared his throat. The child looked up at him breathlessly. It had a
colourless, stern old face. Its unnaturally large, blue-rimmed eyes
were filled with the immeasurable misery of the life it had lived.
Christian’s look seemed to charm the child. The little figure seemed to
grow and twine itself about that look like a sapling, and to lose its
cold and suffering and sickness and fear.
Christian recognized the heroic soul of the little creature, its
innocence and guiltlessness and rich, undying heart.
“Come with me, I have a bed for you,” he said to the child, and led it
past the people and out of the room.
The little girl went with him willingly. In his room he touched her and
raised her up. He could hardly believe such delicate limbs and joints
capable of motion. So soon as she lay on his bed and was covered she
fell into deep slumber.
He sat beside her and gazed into the colourless, stern, old face.