Niels Heinrich slid from the edge of the table, and began to pace up
and down the entire length of the hall. Christian’s eyes followed him
uninterruptedly.
He had once read in a book, Niels Heinrich said, the story of a French
count, who had killed an innocent peasant girl, and had cut the heart
out of her breast and cooked and eaten it. And that had given him the
power of becoming invisible. Did Christian believe that there was any
truth to that story?
Christian answered that he did not.
He, for his part, didn’t believe it either, Niels Heinrich said. But it
was not to be denied that there was a certain magic in the innocence of
virgins. Perhaps they had hidden powers which they communicated to one.
It seemed to him this way, that in the guilty there was an instinct
that drew them to the guiltless. The thought, then, that underlay the
story would be, wouldn’t it, that virginity did communicate some hidden
powers? Was the gentleman prepared to deny that?
Christian, whose whole attention was given to these questions, answered
that he did not deny it.
But the gentleman had asserted that there were none who are guilty? How
did these things go together? If there were none who are guilty, then
none are guiltless either.
“It is not to be understood in that fashion,” Christian answered,
conscious of the difficulty, and conscious in every nerve of the
strangeness of the place, the hour, and the circumstances. “Guilt and
guiltlessness do not sustain the relation of effect and cause. One is
not derived from the other. Guilt cannot become innocence nor innocence
guilt. Light is light and darkness is darkness, but neither can be
transformed into the other, neither can be created by the other. Light
issues from some body--fire or the sun or a constellation. Whence
does darkness issue? It exists. It has no source; none other than the
absence of light.”
Niels Heinrich seemed to reflect. Still walking up and down, he flung
his words into the air. Every one was made a fool of--every one from
his childhood on. There had always been palavering about sin and wrong,
and everything had been aimed at giving one an evil conscience. If once
you had an evil conscience, no confession or penitence, no parson and
no absolution did you any good. And at bottom one was but a wretched
creature--a doomed creature, and condemned to damnation from the start.
That had convinced him, what the gentleman had said--without looking at
Christian, he stretched out his arm and index-finger toward him--oh,
that had convinced him, that no one had the right to judge another.
That was true. He hadn’t ever seen anyone either to whom one could
say: you shall pass judgment. Every one bore the mark of shame and of
theft and of blood, and was condemned to the same damnation from the
beginning. But if there was to be no more judging, that meant the end
of bourgeois society and the capitalistic order. For that was founded
on courts and on the necessity of finding men to assume its guilt, and
judges who were ignorant of mercy.
Christian said: “Won’t you stop walking up and down? Won’t you come and
sit by me? Come here; sit by me.”
No, he said, he didn’t want to sit by him. He wanted all these matters
explained just once. He didn’t want to be submissive with his mind
like a boy at school. The gentleman was incomprehensible, and was
making a fool of him with phrases. Let him give to him, Niels Heinrich,
something certain, something by which he could be guided.
“What do you mean by that--something certain?” Christian asked, deeply
moved. “I am a man like yourself; I know no more than yourself; like
yourself I have sinned and am helpless and puzzled. What is it I shall
give you--I?”
“But I?” Niels Heinrich was beside himself. “What shall I give? And you
wanted me to give you something! What is it? What can I give you?”
“Don’t you feel it?” Christian asked. “Don’t you know it yet--not yet?”
Silently they looked into each other’s eyes, for Niels Heinrich had
stopped walking. A shiver, an almost visible shiver ran down his limbs.
His face seemed as though singed by the desire of one who rattles at an
iron gate and would be free.
“Listen,” he said, suddenly, with a desperate and convulsive calmness,
“I stole those pearls in your house. I simply put them into my pocket.
One of them I pawned, and made those swine drunk with the money. You
can have them back if you want them. Those I can give you. If that’s
what you want, I can give it to you.”
Christian seemed surprised; but the passionate tensity of his face did
not relax at all.
Niels Heinrich put his hand into his trousers pocket. The string had
been broken, so that his hand was full of the loose pearls. He held it
out toward Christian; but Christian did not stir, and made no move to
receive the pearls. This seemed to embitter Niels Heinrich strangely.
He stretched out his hand until it was flat, and let the pearls roll on
the floor. White and shimmering, they rolled on the parquetry. And as
Christian still did not stir, Niels Heinrich’s rage seemed to increase.
He turned his pocket inside out, so that all the rest of the pearls
fell on the floor.
“Why do you do that?” Christian asked, more in astonishment than in
blame.
“Well, maybe the gentleman wanted a little exercise,” was the impudent
answer. And again that thin foam, like the white of an egg, clung to
his lips.
Christian lowered his eyes. Then this thing happened: he arose and drew
a deep breath, smiled, leaned over, dropped on his knees, and began to
gather up the pearls. He picked up each one singly, so as not to soil
his hands unnecessarily; on his knees he slid over the floor, picking
up pearl after pearl. He reached under the table and under the stairs,
where spilt wine lay in little puddles, and out of these nauseating
little puddles he scratched the pearls. With his right hand he gathered
them; and always, when his left hand was half full, he slipped its
contents into his pocket.
Niels Heinrich looked down at him. Then his eyes fled from that sight,
wandered through the room, found the mirror and fled from it, sought
it anew and fled again. For the mirror had become a glow to him. He no
longer saw his image in it; the mirror had ceased to reflect images.
And again he looked toward the floor where Christian crept, and
something monstrous happened in his soul. A stertorous moan issued from
his breast. Christian stopped in his occupation, and looked up at him.
He saw and understood. At last! At last! A trembling hand moved forward
to meet his own. He took it; it had no life. He had never yet so deeply
grasped it all--the body, the spirit, time, eternity. The hand had no
warmth: it was the hand of the deed, the hand of crime, the hand of
guilt. But when he touched it, for the first time, it began to live and
grow warm; a glow streamed into it--glow of the mirror, of service, of
insight, of renewal.
It was that touch, that touch alone.
Niels Heinrich, drawn forward, sank upon his knees. In this matter of
Joachim Heinzen, he stammered in a barely audible voice, why, one
might discuss it, you know. His eyes seemed broken and his features
extinguished. And they kneeled--each before the other.
Saved and freed from himself by that touch, the murderer cast his guilt
upon the man who judged and did not condemn him.
He was free. And Christian was likewise free.
The hall had a side-exit by which one could leave the house. There they
said farewell to each other. Christian knew well where Niels Heinrich
was going. He himself returned to Stolpische Street, mounted the stairs
to Karen’s rooms, locked himself in, lay down as he was, and slept for
three and thirty hours.
A vigorous ringing of the bell aroused him.