* * * * *
It was nearly three o'clock when the doctor came hurrying in. Konski
would not leave the master, and had despatched the porter. Konski
took the doctor's hat and stick, and pointed in silence--he could not
speak--to the big couch at the bottom of the room. The doctor took the
lamp from the writing-table, and held it to the pale face. Konski
followed and relieved him of the lamp, whilst the doctor made his
investigation.
"He must have been dead an hour and more," he said, looking up. "Why
did you not send sooner? Put the lamp back upon the writing-table, and
tell me all you know."
He had sat down in Bertram's chair. "Take a chair," he went on, "and
tell me all."
Then Konski told.
He had come back at a quarter-past twelve from the telegraph-office,
and had found his master writing away busily, when he brought in the
bottle of champagne which he had been ordered to fetch from the cellar.
His master had scolded him for bringing only one glass, and made him
fetch another, for they must both drink and clink glasses to the health
of the young lady.
"Then," the servant went on, "I sat opposite to him, for the first time
in my life, in that corner, at the small round table, he in the one
chair and I in the other. And he chatted with me, not like a master
with his servant, no; exactly--well, I cannot describe it, sir; but you
know how good and kind he always was. I never heard an unkind word from
him all these ten years I have been with him, and if ever he was a bit
angry, he always made up for it afterwards. And, to-morrow I was to
leave for Rinstedt to get married, and he had given us our furniture
and all, and fitted up a new shop for us into the bargain. Then we
talked a good deal of Rinstedt, and of the man[oe]vres last year, and
of Miss Erna that was, and of Italy, where, as you know, sir, I was
with the master two years ago. Well, I mean, it was not I who was
talking so much, but master, and I could have gone on listening,
listening for ever, when he was telling of Capri, where we did not get
that time, and where Mrs. Ringberg is staying now--Miss Erna as was.
And then his eyes shone and sparkled splendidly, but he hardly drank
any wine, just enough to pledge the young lady's health with, and the
rest is in his glass still. But he made me fill up mine again and
again, for I could stand it, said he, and he could not, he said, and he
would presently finish his work; and there are the papers on the table
in front of you, sir, that he had been looking at. And then, of a
sudden like, he says, 'Konski, I am getting tired; I shall lie down for
half an hour. You just finish the bottle meanwhile, and call me at
half-past one sharp.' It was just striking one o'clock then.
"So he lay down, and I put the rug over him, sir, and, oh--I'll never
forgive myself for it; but all day long I had been running backward and
forward about these things of mine, and then at last the long walk at
night to the telegraph-office, and perhaps the champagne had gone to my
head a bit, since I am sure, that I had not sat for five minutes before
I was asleep. And when I woke it was not half-past one, but half-past
two, so that I was regular frightened like. But as the master was
a-sleeping calm and steady, I thought, even as I was standing quite
close to him, that it was a pity to wake him, even though he was lying
on his left side again, which formerly he could not bear at all, and
which you, sir, had forbidden so particularly. I mind of our first
evening in Rinstedt, sir, but then he did wake up again ... and now he
is dead."
Konski was crying bitterly. The doctor held out his hand to him.
"It is no fault of yours. Neither you nor I could have kept him alive.
Now, leave me here alone; you may wait in the next room."
After Konski had left, the doctor went to the little round table on
which the empty bottle and two glasses were standing, one empty, one
half-full. Above the sofa, to the right and left, were gas-brackets,
with one lighted jet on either side. He held the half-full glass to
the light and shook it. Bright beads were rising from the clear,
liquid.