older than herself: he fulfilled the function of beadle of the church:
during _Gottesdienst_ (Divine service) he used to stand sentinel at
the church door, wearing a white armlet with black stripes and a silver
tassel, leaning on a cane with a curved handle. By trade he was an
undertaker. His name was Sami Witschi. He was very tall and thin, with a
slight stoop, and he had the clean-shaven solemn face of an old peasant.
He was very pious and knew better than any one all the tittle-tattle of
the parish. Bäbi and Sami were thinking of getting married: they
appreciated each other's serious qualities, and solid faith and malice.
But they were in no hurry to make up their minds: they prudently took
stock of each other,--Latterly Sami's visits had become more frequent.
He would come in unawares. Every time Anna went near the kitchen and
looked through the door, she would see Sami sitting near the fire, and
Bäbi a few yards away, sewing. However much they talked, it was
impossible to hear a sound. She could see Bäbi's beaming face and her
lips moving: Sami's wide hard mouth would stretch in a grin without
opening: not a sound would come up from his throat: the house seemed to
be lost in silence. Whenever Anna entered the kitchen, Sami would rise
respectfully and remain standing, without a word, until she had gone out
again. Whenever Bäbi heard the door open, she would ostentatiously break
off in the middle of a commonplace remark, and turn to Anna with an
obsequious smile and wait for her orders. Anna would think they were
talking about her: but she despised them too much to play the
eavesdropper.
The day after Anna had dodged the ingenious trap of the ashes, as she
entered the kitchen, the first thing she saw in Sami's hand was the
little broom she had used the night before to wipe out the marks of her
bare feet. She had taken it out of Christophe's room, and that very
minute, she suddenly remembered that she had forgotten to take it back
again; she had left it in her own room, where Bäbi's sharp eyes had seen
it at once. The two gossips had immediately put two and two together.
Anna did not flinch. Bäbi followed her mistress's eyes, gave an
exaggerated smile, and explained:
"The broom was broken: I gave it to Sami to mend."
Anna did not take the trouble to point out the gross falsehood of the
excuse: she did not seem even to hear it: she looked at Bäbi's work,
made a few remarks, and went out again impassively. But when the door
was closed she lost all her pride: she could not help hiding behind the
corner of the passage and listening--(she was humiliated to the very
depths of her being at having to stoop to such means: but fear mastered
her).--She heard a dry chuckle of laughter. Then whispering, so low that
she could not make out what was said. But in her desperation Anna
thought she heard: her terror breathed into her ears the words she was
afraid of hearing: she imagined that they were speaking of the coming
masquerades and a charivari. There was no doubt: they would try to
introduce the episode of the ashes. Probably she was wrong: but in her
state of morbid excitement, having for a whole fortnight been haunted by
the fixed idea of public insult, she did not stop to consider whether
the uncertain could be possible: she regarded it as certain.
From that time on her mind was made up.
* * * * *
On the evening of the same day--(it was the Wednesday preceding the
carnival)--Braun was called away to a consultation twenty miles out of
the town: he would not return until the next morning. Anna did not come
down to dinner and stayed in her room. She had chosen that night to
carry out the tacit pledge she had made with herself. But she had
decided to carry it out alone, and to say nothing to Christophe. She
despised him. She thought:
"He promised. But he is a man, he is an egoist and a liar. He has his
art. He will soon forget."
And then perhaps there was in her passionate heart that seemed so
inaccessible to kindness, room for a feeling of pity for her companion.
But she was too harsh and too passionate to admit it to herself.
Bäbi told Christophe that her mistress had bade her to make her excuses
as she was not very well and wished to rest. Christophe dined alone
under Bäbi's supervision, and she bored him with her chatter, tried to
make him talk, and protested such an extraordinary devotion to Anna,
that, in spite of his readiness to believe in the good faith of men,
Christophe became suspicious. He was counting on having a decisive
interview with Anna that night. He could no more postpone matters than
she. He had not forgotten the pledge they had given each other at the
dawn of that sad day. He was ready to keep it if Anna demanded it of
him. But he saw the absurdity of their dying together, how it would not
solve the problem, and how the sorrow of it and the scandal must fall
upon Braun's shoulders. He was inclined to think that the best thing to
do was to tear themselves apart and for him to try once more to go right
away,--to see at least if he were strong enough to stay away from her:
he doubted it after the vain attempt he had made before: but he thought
that, in case he could not bear it, he would still have time to turn to
the last resort, alone, without anybody knowing.
He hoped that after supper he would be able to escape for a moment to go
up to Anna's room. But Bäbi dogged him. As a rule she used to finish her
work early: but that night she seemed never to have done with scrubbing
her kitchen: and when Christophe thought he was rid of her, she took it
into her head to tidy a cupboard in the passage leading to Anna's room.
Christophe found her standing on a stool, and he saw that she had no
intention of moving all evening. He felt a furious desire to knock her
over with her piles of plates: but he restrained himself and asked her
to go and see how her mistress was and if he could say good-night to
her. Bäbi went, returned, and said, as she watched him with a malicious
joy, that Madame was better and was asleep and did not want anybody to
disturb her. Christophe tried irritably and nervously to read, but could
not, and went up to his room. Bäbi watched his light until it was put
out, and then went upstairs to her room, resolving to keep watch: she
carefully left her door open so that she could hear every sound in the
house. Unfortunately for her, she could not go to bed without at once
falling asleep and sleeping so soundly that not thunder, not even her
own curiosity, could wake her up before daybreak. Her sound sleep Was no
secret. The echo of it resounded through the house even to the lower
floor.
As soon as Christophe heard the familiar noise he went to Anna's room.
It was imperative that he should speak to her. He was profoundly uneasy.
He reached her door, turned the handle: the door was locked. He knocked
lightly: no reply. He placed his lips to the keyhole and begged her in a
whisper, then more loudly, to open: not a movement, not a sound.
Although he told himself that Anna was asleep, he was in agonies. And
as, in a vain attempt to hear, he laid his cheek against the door, a
smell came to his nostrils which seemed to be issuing from the room: he
bent down and recognised it; it was the smell of gas. His blood froze.
He shook the door, never thinking that he might wake Bäbi: the door did
not give.... He understood: in her dressing-room, which led out of her
room, Anna had a little gas-stove: she had turned it on. He must break
open the door: but in his anxiety Christophe kept his senses enough to
remember that at all costs Bäbi must not hear. He leaned against one of
the leaves of the door and gave an enormous shove as quietly as he
could. The solid, well-fitting door creaked on its hinges, but did not
yield. There was another door which led from Anna's room to Braun's
dressing-room. He ran to it. That too was locked: but the lock was
outside. He started to tug it off. It was not easy. He had to remove the
four big screws which were buried deep in the wood. He had only his
knife and he could not see: for he dared not light a candle; it would
have meant blowing the whole place up. Fumblingly he managed to fit his
knife, into the head of a screw, then another, breaking the blades and
cutting himself; the screws seemed to be interminably long, and he
thought he would never be able to get them out: and, at the same time,
in the feverish haste which was making his body break out into a cold
sweat, there came to his mind a memory of his childhood: he saw himself,
a boy of ten, shut up in a dark room as a punishment: he had taken off
the lock and run out of the house.... The last screw came out. The lock
gave with a crackling noise like the sawing of wood. Christophe plunged
into the room, rushed to the window, and opened it. A flood of cold air
swept in. Christophe bumped into the furniture in the dark and came to
the bed, groped with his hands, and came on Anna's body, tremblingly
felt her legs lying still under the clothes, and moved his hands up to
her waist: Anna was sitting up in bed, trembling. She had not had time
to feel the first effects of asphyxiation: the room was high: the air
came through the chinks in the windows and the doors, Christophe caught
her in his arms. She broke away from him angrily, crying:
"Go away!... Ah! What have you done?"
She raised her hands to strike him: but she was worn out with emotion:
she fell back on her pillow and sobbed:
"Oh! Oh! We've to go through it all over again!"
Christophe took her hands in his, kissed her, scolded her, spoke to her
tenderly and roughly:
"You were going to die, to die, alone, without me!"
"Oh! You!" she said bitterly.
Her tone was as much as to say:
"You want to live."
He spoke harshly to her and tried to break down her will.
"You are mad!" he said. "You might have blown the house to pieces!"
"I wanted to," she said angrily.
He tried to play on her religious fears: that was the right note. As
soon as he touched on it she began to scream and to beg him to stop. He
went on pitilessly, thinking that it was the only means of bringing her
back to the desire to live. She said nothing more, but lay sobbing
convulsively. When he had done, she said in a tone of intense hatred:
"Are you satisfied now? You've done your work well. You've brought me to
despair. And now, what am I to do?"
"Live," he said.
"Live!" she cried. "You don't know how impossible it is! You know
nothing! You know nothing!"
He asked:
"What is it?"
She shrugged her shoulders:
"Listen."
In a few brief disconnected sentences she told him all that she had
concealed from him: Bäbi's spying on her, the ashes, the scene with
Sami, the carnival, the public insult that was before her. As she told
her story she was unable to distinguish between the figments of her fear
and what she had any reason to fear. He listened in utter consternation,
and was no more capable than she of discerning between the real and the
imaginary in her story. Nothing had ever been farther from his mind than
to suspect how they were being dogged. He tried to understand: he could
find nothing to say: against such enemies he was disarmed. Only he was
conscious of a blind fury, a desire to strike and to destroy. He said:
"Why didn't you dismiss Bäbi?"
She did not deign to reply. Bäbi dismissed would have been even more
venomous than Bäbi tolerated: and Christophe saw the idiocy of his
question. His thoughts were in a whirl: he was trying to discover a way
out, some immediate action upon which to engage. He clenched his fists
and cried:
"I'll kill them?"
"Who?" she said, despising him for his futile words.
He lost all power of thought or action. He felt that he was lost in such
a network of obscure treachery, in which it was impossible to clutch at
anything since all were parties to it. He writhed.
"Cowards!" he cried, in sheer despair.
He slipped down on to his knees and buried his face against Anna.--They
were silent for a little. She felt a mixture of contempt and pity for
the man who could defend neither himself nor her. He felt Anna's limbs
trembling with cold against his cheek. The window had been left open,
and outside it was freezing: they could see the icy stars shivering in
the sky that was smooth and gleaming as a mirror.
When she had fully tasted the bitter joy of seeing him as broken as
herself, she said in a hard, weary voice:
"Light the candle."
He did so. Anna's teeth were chattering, she was sitting huddled up,
with her arms tight folded across her chest and her knees up to her
chin. He closed the window. Then he sat on the bed. He laid his hands on
Anna's feet: they were cold as ice, and he warmed them with his hands
and lips. She was softened.
"Christophe!" she said.
Her eyes were pitiful to see.
"Anna!" said he.
"What are we going to do?"
He looked at her and replied:
"Die."
She gave a cry of joy.
"Oh! You will? You will?... I shall not be alone!"
She kissed him.
"Did you think I was going to let you?"
She replied in a whisper:
"Yes."
A few moments later he questioned her with his eyes. She understood.
"In the bureau," she said. "On the right. The bottom drawer."
He went and looked. At the back of the drawer he found a revolver. Braun
had bought it as a student. He had never made use of it. In an open box
Christophe found some cartridges. He took them to the bed. Anna looked
at them, and at once turned her eyes away to the wall.
Christophe waited, and then asked:
"You don't want to...?"
Anna turned abruptly:
"I will.... Quick!"
She thought:
"Nothing can save me now from the everlasting pit. A little more or
less, it will be just the same."
Christophe awkwardly loaded the revolver.
"Anna," he said, and his voice trembled. "One of us will see the other
die."
She wrenched the pistol out of his hands and said selfishly:
"I shall be the first."
They looked at each other once more.... Alas! At the very moment when
they were to die for each other they felt so far apart!... Each was
thinking in terror:
"What am I doing? What am I doing?"
And each was reading the other's eyes. The absurdity of the thing was
what struck Christophe most. All his life gone for nothing: vain his
struggles: vain his suffering: vain his hopes: all botched, flung to the
winds: one foolish act was to wipe all away.... In his normal state he
would have wrenched the revolver away from Anna and flung it out of the
window and cried:
"No, no! I will not."
But eight months of suffering, of doubt and torturing grief, and on top
of that the whirlwind of their crazy passion, had wasted his strength
and broken his will: he felt that he could do nothing now, that he was
no longer master of himself.... Ah! what did it matter, after all?
Anna, feeling certain that she was doomed to everlasting death,
stretched every nerve to catch and hold the last minute of her life:
Christophe's sorrowful face lit by the flickering candle, the shadows on
the wall, a footstep in the street, the cold contact of the steel in her
hand.... She clung to these sensations, as a shipwrecked man clings to
the spar that sinks beneath his weight. Afterwards all was terror. Why
not prolong the time of waiting? But she said to herself:
"I must...."
She said good-by to Christophe, with no tenderness, with the haste of a
hurried traveler fearful of losing the train: she bared her bosom, felt
for her heart, and laid the mouth of the revolver against it. Christophe
hid his face. Just as she was about to fire she laid her left hand on
Christophe's. It was the gesture of a child dreading to walk in the
darkness....
Then a few frightful seconds passed.... Anna did not fire. Christophe
wanted to raise his head, to take her in his arms: and he was afraid
that his very movement might bring her to the point of firing. He heard
nothing more: he lost consciousness.... A groan from Anna pierced his
heart. He got up. He saw Anna with her face distorted in terror. The
revolver had fallen down on to the bed. She kept on saying plaintively;
"Christophe!... It has missed fire!..."
He took the pistol: it had lain long forgotten and had grown rusty: but
the trigger was in working order. Perhaps the cartridges had gone bad
with exposure to the air.--Anna held out her hand for the revolver.
"Enough! Enough!" he implored her.
She commanded him:
"The cartridges!"
He gave them to her. She examined them, took one, loaded the pistol,
trembling, put the pistol to her breast, and fired.--Once more it missed
fire.
Anna flung the revolver out into the room.
"Oh! It is horrible, horrible!" she cried. "_He_ will not let me die!"
She writhed and sobbed: she was like a madwoman. He tried to touch her:
she beat him off, screaming. Finally she had a nervous attack.
Christophe stayed with her until morning. At last she was pacified: but
she lay still and breathless, with her eyes closed and the livid skin
stretched tight over the bones of her forehead and cheeks: she looked
like one dead.
Christophe repaired the disorder of her bed, picked up the revolver,
fastened on the lock he had wrenched away, tidied up the whole room.,
and went away: for it was seven o'clock and Bäbi might come at any
moment.
* * * * *
When Braun returned next morning he found Anna in the same prostrate
condition. He saw that something extraordinary had happened: but he
could glean nothing either from Bäbi or Christophe. All day long Anna
did not stir: she did not open her eyes: her pulse was so weak that he
could hardly feel it: every now and then it would stop, and, for a
moment, Braun would be in a state of agony, thinking that her heart had
stopped. His affection made him doubt his own knowledge: he ran and
fetched a colleague. The two men examined Anna and could not make up
their minds whether it was the beginning of a fever, or a case of
nervous hysteria: they had to keep the patient under observation. Braun
never left Anna's bedside. He refused to eat. Towards evening Anna's
pulse gave no signs of fever, but was extremely weak. Braun tried to
force a few spoonfuls of milk between her lips: she brought it back at
once. Her body lay limp in her husband's arms like a broken doll. Braun
spent the night with her, getting up every moment to listen to her
breathing. Bäbi, who was hardly at all put out by Anna's illness, played
the devoted servant and refused to go to bed and sat up with Braun.
On the Friday Anna opened her eyes. Braun spoke to her: she took no
notice of him. She lay quite still with her eyes staring at a mark on
the wall. About midday Braun saw great tears trickling down her thin
cheeks: he dried them gently: one by one the tears went on trickling
down. Once more Braun tried to make her take some food. She took it
passively. In the evening she began to talk: loose snatches of
sentences. She talked about the Rhine: she had tried to drown herself,
but there was not enough water. In her dreams she persisted in
attempting suicide, imagining all sorts of strange forms of death;
always death was at the back of her thoughts. Sometimes she was arguing
with some one, and then her face would take on an expression of fear and
anger: she addressed herself to God, and tried obstinately to prove that
it was all His fault. Or the flame of desire would kindle in her eyes,
and she would say shameless things which it seemed impossible that she
should know. Once she saw Bäbi, and gave precise orders for the morrow's
washing. At night she dozed. Suddenly she got up: Braun ran to her. She
looked at him strangely, and babbled impatient formless words. He asked
her:
"My dear Anna, what do you want?"
She said harshly:
"Go and bring him."
"Who?" he asked.
She looked at him once more with the same expression and suddenly burst
out laughing: then she drew her hands over her forehead and moaned:
"Oh! my God! Let me forget!..."
Sleep overcame her. She was at peace until day. About dawn she moved a
little: Braun raised her head to give her to drink: she gulped down a
few mouthfuls, and, stooping to Braun's hands, she kissed them. Once more
she dozed off.
On the Saturday morning she woke up about nine o'clock. Without saying a
word, she began to slip out of bed. Braun went quickly to her and tried
to make her lie down again. She insisted. He asked her what she wanted
to do. She replied:
"Go to church."
He tried to argue with her and to remind her that it was not Sunday and
the church was closed. She relapsed into silence: but she sat in a chair
near the bed, and began to put on her clothes with trembling fingers.
Braun's doctor-friend came in. He joined Braun in his entreaties: then,
seeing that she would not give in, he examined her, and finally
consented. He took Braun aside, and told him that his wife's illness
seemed to be altogether moral, and that for the time being he must avoid
opposing her wishes, and that he could see no danger in her going out,
so long as Braun went with her. Braun told Anna that he would go with
her. She refused, and insisted on going alone. But she stumbled as soon
as she tried to walk across the room. Then, without a word, she took
Braun's arm, and they went out. She was very weak, and kept stopping.
Several times he asked her if she wanted to go home. She began to walk
on. When they reached the church, as he had told her, they found the
doors closed. Anna sat down on a bench near the door, and stayed,
shivering, until the clock struck twelve. Then she took Braun's arm
again, and they came home in silence. But in the evening she wanted to
go to church again. Braun's entreaties were useless. He had to go out
with her once more.
Christophe had spent the two days alone. Braun was too anxious to think
about him. Only once, on the Saturday morning, when he was trying to
divert Anna's mind from her fixed idea of going out, he had asked her if
she would like to see Christophe. She had looked at him with such an
expression of fear and loathing that he could not but remark it: and he
never pronounced Christophe's name again.
Christophe had shut himself up in his room. Anxiety, love, remorse, a
very chaos of sorrow was whirling in him. He blamed himself for
everything. He was overwhelmed by self-disgust. More than once he had
got up to go and confess the whole story to Braun--and each time he had
immediately been arrested by the thought of bringing wretchedness to yet
another human being by his self-accusation. At the same time he was
spared nothing of his passion. He prowled about in the passage outside
Anna's room; and when he heard footsteps inside coming to the door he
rushed away to his own room.
When Braun and Anna went out in the afternoon, he looked out for them
from behind his window-curtains. He saw Anna. She who had been so erect
and proud walked now with bowed back, lowered head, yellow complexion:
she was an old woman bending under the weight of the cloak and shawl her
husband had thrown about her: she was ugly. But Christophe did not see
her ugliness: he saw only her misery; and his heart ached with pity and
love. He longed to run to her, to prostrate himself in the mud, to kiss
her feet: her dear body so broken and destroyed by passion, and to
implore her forgiveness. And he thought as he looked after her:
"My work.... That is what I have done!"
But when he looked into the mirror and saw his own face, he was shown
the same devastation in his eyes, in all his features: he saw the marks
of death upon himself, as upon her, and he thought:
"My work? No. It is the work of the cruel Master who drives us mad and
destroys us."
The house was empty. Bäbi had gone out to tell the neighbors of the
day's events. Time was passing. The clock struck five. Christophe was
filled with terror as he thought of Anna's return and the coming of the
night. He felt that he could not bear to stay under the same roof with
her for another night. He felt his reason breaking beneath the weight of
passion. He did not know what to do, he did not know what he wanted,
except that he wanted Anna at all costs. He thought of the wretched face
he had just seen going past his window, and he said to himself:
"I must save her from myself!..."
His will stirred into life.