Scarcely heeding the abuse and scorn heaped upon him by the crowd, out
of the chaos and confusion of the contemptuous glances of others and
his own feeling of perplexity, Count Told stole, as if in a dream,
towards the vestibule. He thought of his wife, but he had not the
courage to look round for or inquire about her. His car stood before
the door, and the chauffeur was about to start the engine when the
Count made a gesture of denial, saying, “Wait for the Countess!”
He went into the town and hired the first taxi he saw to drive him
home. “What has happened to me?” was the question that he perpetually
put to himself. “What was it that overcame me? Who moved my hand?...
What is it that has happened? I know nothing about it. Can it be merely
a bad dream?”
But it was no dream. He reached his house and had to descend. He went
down the length of the garden and into the house. The footman took his
coat, and the Count went to the room where he and his wife, whenever
they had been out together, were wont to spend a short time before
going to bed, in exchanging the experiences the evening had afforded.
He always looked forward eagerly to these moments.
To-night he was alone there. “Where can my wife be?” he asked himself,
astonished and yet unconscious. So many tender memories clung to this
room, and he felt disappointed that in this dreadful hour she was not
by his side. It was the first painful experience of his existence.
But all at once it became clear to him that she must have sundered
herself from him, and he realized that by that inexpressibly strange
occurrence at the gaming-table in the Wendel mansion he had covered
himself with mire. It clung fast to him, and he thought, “Lucy must
leave me. She must remain away until I have purified myself.” But how
was he to accomplish the task?
And suddenly there came over him, like an icy blast in all its pitiless
severity, the full meaning of what he had done. He had done it, he
really had put cards at the bottom of the pack and then drawn them when
he wanted them, and with these he had won money. Yet he had not desired
to win money! What could have happened? Was there no help anywhere?
He had done something against his will. His act had thrust him out
of decent society, and to the end of his days he would be known as a
cheat. Was there no help to be found?
“I know now,” he said to himself, “what it is I have done, but I do
not know how I came to do it, neither the why nor the wherefore. I am
growing crazy, losing my self-confidence, and I shall henceforth be
unable to feel safe, whatever I do. Horrible, monstrous thought! I am
absolutely afraid of myself. How can I ever have reached such a point?
Yonder is a sculpture by Archipenko and the picture hanging there is
one of Kokoschka’s; I am quite certain of that; but what proceeds from
my own brain, and is my own creation, of that I can never more feel
certain again. I retain my sight, hearing and feelings, but my brain is
rotting!... I shall end in a lunatic asylum! My body moves in the light
of day while my mental powers are wrapped in a dim twilight. Is there
no one that can help me?”
He struggled with his tears, but he could not even allow himself to
weep, for he thought, “Perhaps I shall lose all consciousness of what I
am doing. If I weep, may I not possibly destroy a picture that I have
hitherto loved and worshipped, or abuse my man, or act improperly to
Lucy’s maid?”
And suddenly, at the utterance of his wife’s name, he collapsed
entirely. “Ah, Lucy, light of my life, can _you_ not help me?” he
cried. “Will you not come? Have you no longer faith in me? Why am I
left alone?”
He rang, and then, hastening to meet the footman, inquired for the
Countess.
“The Countess has not yet returned,” he was told.
“Nor telephoned? Has she not...”
“No, my lord, but an hour ago Herr Dr. von Wenk rang up, asking if he
might have the honour of waiting on her ladyship to-morrow morning. His
telephone number has been written down.”
“Go!” said the Count. “I will go to Dr. Wenk ... yes, to Dr. Wenk,” he
thought, and then, a prey to a thousand nameless fears, he cried aloud,
“Or else I shall hang myself! I must be able to tell some human being
what I feel....”
He hurried to the telephone, giving the number written down. “Yes,
this is the State Attorney, Dr. Wenk!” answered a strange voice in the
distance, and Told began to tremble. But he rallied all his energy and
self-control, saying, “Can I speak to you at once?”
He was terribly afraid that the fever of his desire might melt the
connecting wire and that he might get no answer. He breathed freely
again when he heard the words, “With pleasure! I shall expect you!”
“Fritz!” he shouted; “get the two-seater ready,” and he drove back to
Munich.
Wenk believed he had come on the Countess’s errand, and that something
had happened in the prison to put an end to the enterprise they had in
hand.
“I think, Count Told, that after all it was too risky an experiment.
The Countess....”
“No, no,” cried Told, interrupting him. “I ... I ... it is on my own
account that I’ve come here,” and then he began his story. He told,
too, what an extraordinary sensation of heat he had felt at the back
of his head, and this must have been the forerunner of misfortune. “Do
not be vexed, Dr. Wenk, that I, a stranger, should come to you thus,
but I should have had to put an end to myself if I had not been able to
confide in someone to-night. May I go on? Well, these powerful rays,
that were like red-hot iron at the back of my head, changed gradually
to a feeling of well-being throughout my whole body. They seemed to
bathe me in pleasant warmth, and I had a feeling that I was somehow
saved from something that lay before me, and in this very moment of
relief ... it happened! In the first half-hour afterwards I denied
that it could have done, but when I reached home I realized that the
dreadful story was true, and this thing had really happened. There is
no getting away from it, either for others or for myself.”
Wenk at once recalled his experience with the old Professor. He was
startled. Could it be possible that here too ... and he thought of the
Countess and of Cara Carozza. He asked Told, “Have you any suspicion at
all?”
The Count did not understand the question.
“Any suspicion? What do you mean? That I have been like this before?
Ill in this way? No, never!”
“No, a suspicion of any special person who was there?”
“The idea never occurred to me. I can’t understand how anybody else
could.... No ... I don’t suspect anyone!”
“Was there nobody in the company who did not seem to belong there, who
was not quite like the other guests?”
“It was a company of the Privy Councillor’s intimate friends. No, there
was nobody!”
Wenk rejected the idea. Besides, how could there be any connection
between the criminal he was seeking and the Count’s act of cheating?
It was apparently a momentary mental aberration, a loss of will-power.
A subconscious process in a strange and elusive personality which
bordered upon morbidity, which thus strove to register a mental
impression upon its fellow-players. The Count ought to consult a
psychiatrist. It was extraordinary that he should appeal to him, a
criminal prosecutor, but he did not put any question to him on this
head.
Told became silent, and the lawyer respected his mood. Then suddenly
he seemed to pull himself together and said, “I realize that I am
keeping you from your night’s rest; I beg you not to be vexed with
me. In misfortune it seems as if the mind sinks into a gulf, and the
consciousness grasps at the nearest support. You had rung up, and there
was some connection between you and ... my house, and so....” He broke
off. “But tell me, am I really saying what I want to, or am I talking
nonsense? You see, that is the horror of such an experience as mine.
It seems as if I shall always require a neurologist to guide my future
life.”
“Reassure yourself, Count; you are speaking quite clearly and saying
exactly what you want to express. I beg you to make use of me if
you can. My calling in some respects borders upon the sphere of the
specialist in nerve-disorders; perhaps it goes even further, and at any
rate it is bound up with the most mysterious and most speculative part
of man’s being. I am very sorry that the occasion that brings you to me
is such an unfortunate one, else I should be only too pleased by your
visit.”
While Wenk was speaking, desiring to convey that anything out of the
common which was mentally or spiritually of an unusual and critical
nature was really his concern, the idea occurred to him to enlist the
Count’s sympathy in his own aims. Count Told was a man of the world.
He belonged to a sphere through which Wenk hoped to be able to endow
the life of the nation with nobler qualities and loftier ideals. In
the practical necessities which the last few months had forced upon
him he had almost neglected the ideal side of the task before him. The
events of this night had brought him into unexpected relations with a
human being, and he could best serve him by not leaving him alone. He
explained his views to the Count.
“They talk of ours as the ‘upper’ class. This description, which
certainly has a substratum of truth, must be made a living reality once
more. Our class, free of the struggle to obtain a better social status,
is more than ever called upon to foster intellectual development and
mental gifts. It must cherish these noble qualities in itself and
turn them to account for others. Our sphere of politics must be the
spiritual one!”
Count Told’s life hitherto had been irreproachable. Both in sentiment
and in the externals of life he had shown himself superior, but for
lack of serious pursuits to which he could devote himself he had thrown
his energies into following up his hobbies, such as the collection
of Futurist works of art, for which there was as yet no standard to
judge by. He patronized young poets who were at present but a minority
and a novelty. They were brought into the light, and the discovery of
their powers engaged the serious attention of himself and his like.
The struggle to get possession of something new and striking was
carried on in this respect just as it was by the profiteers of ordinary
wares.... It was not the uneducated rich who devoted themselves to it,
but those who sought for their wealth a channel which should return
their gold stamped with the impress of beauty and of intellectual
superiority. But these fell victims to the age, and their ideas
dissolved in hysteria akin to that of a weeping woman whose whole
consciousness can hold but one idea. The value of money declined, and
in so doing its power over men became all the greater; it seized upon
them with ever-growing force, till at last it was like a disease.
Such was the connection between the hobbies of the Count and his like
and the age they lived in. The age made use of what was valuable in
them. The propagandists of the “new art” were merely stockjobbers,
uniting their intellectual ambitions with their speculations. The
celebrated “Blue Horses” were to be had for a couple of hundred marks
at first. X. bought them for eight hundred, and now it was impossible
to obtain them for two hundred thousand. It was such anecdotes as these
that spurred them on.
For a long time Wenk and Count Told discussed these things. The Count
opposed Wenk’s view, having learnt some of the terminology of the
artists whose pictures he bought.
“Folks even begin to say,” said Wenk to him on one occasion, “that
he speaks as well as a Futurist! And this school begins to affiliate
itself with another intellectual movement of our day, which stands
on much the same foundations--with the so-called theosophy. You
will notice that the Futurist _eo ipso_ is also a theosophist or an
anthropologist. But it is not because these ideas are really inwardly
connected, but because the pursuance of them is united. You will always
find nowadays that those who most freely deplore the materialism of our
age are those who in private life are most devoted to it. Moreover, in
the one case as in the other, it is not always a question of money.
Mental and spiritual greed is also an aspect of this age, which
exchanges the dominion of one for that of another. Everywhere folks
are seeking, seeking eagerly to escape from the misery of the present,
and for us mortals there remains but warfare--war against those near
us, against those among us, and against ourselves, and it is our class
especially which must wage war against ourselves!”
Wenk then asked the Count whether he would not spend the night with
him, as it was now so late.
The Count answered involuntarily, “Yes, but my wife....” Then he
stopped, looking at Wenk, and his face showed the return of his
tormenting thoughts. After a time he began again: “You had caused me to
forget my trouble, Dr. Wenk! For this night I have robbed you of, which
you have devoted to me so sympathetically, I shall eternally be in your
debt. I cannot think how I should have lived through it--alone! Now it
seems to be behind me, and I gratefully accept your offer of a bed.”
“How would you like,” said Wenk to Count Told next morning, “for me to
see the Privy Councillor and relate your story to him?”
“I should be extremely glad if you would.”
He hesitated as if he wanted to say something more. Wenk noticed it and
waited. Then he said, anticipating the other, “I am absolutely at your
service. If you have any other wish....”
The Count answered quickly, reddening as he spoke, “Yes, I want to
speak to my wife. When I think of her I feel ... so ashamed!”
“You need not be ashamed!”
“My wife has such a strong and forceful idea of life. It always seemed
as if she found our life together a somewhat feeble thing.... I wonder
whether it will be possible for her to go on living with a husband who
henceforth is but an invalid.”
“I will see her, too,” said Wenk.
* * * * *
The Privy Councillor received Wenk at once. As amiably as he could,
and in the pleasantly sarcastic tone which distinguished him on all
occasions, he told Wenk that his opinion was that the Count had been
anxious to adventure something that might raise him in his wife’s
esteem. The force of her personality stood far above his own, and he
hoped to attain to it by undertaking so hazardous a scheme as to “pack”
the cards and win the game. It was not on account of the money, he was
convinced of that. He merely wanted to exercise his imagination in
adventure as his wife did, but her strength of character always ensured
a safe way of escape. For the more feeble personality the first attempt
had ended in misfortune. His phantasies had been excited by the current
stories of the thieving band of gambling cheats, and the whole affair
was mainly due to his neighbour at the table, whose own desire for
gain influenced a weaker character and thus paved the way to a society
scandal.
“May I inquire, sir, who this neighbour was?”
“Ah, now that I have been so unamiable as to speak of him thus, I
cannot possibly betray him. Moreover, he is the blameless head of a
household, a professor of physiology.”
“The matter is a great deal more serious than you can have any idea
of, sir. The Count spent last night with me, driven to get away from
himself. He told me the story, down to the most trifling detail, and
I have no reason whatever to suspect that he was misrepresenting the
facts. He was absolutely confounded and crushed by the affair. It
seemed as if it had been a failure of intellectual force, a sudden
inhibition of brain-control. May there not have been someone among your
guests who exercised some special influence on the Count?”
“No, there was no Futurist poet or painter among them,” laughed the
Privy Councillor.
“I beg you not to consider my questions importunate, Councillor. You
really are convinced that no such person was present?”
“I do not believe there could have been any. All my guests have been
personally known to me for some time. You know what the occasion of
our meeting was, don’t you? We were studying the effect of hypnosis
on a medium. There were experts, professors, artists of repute, and
some personal friends in the company. Then there was a Dr. Mabuse,
whom I have not known very long, but whose extraordinary success as
a practitioner I respect very highly. He practises psychotherapy. And
that reminds me. If Count Told’s state is such as you describe it to
be, we might see what he can do for the Count, who is the son of one
of my very oldest friends, for I feel a great deal of sympathy for him
in his present position. Tell him from me that I strongly advise his
seeing Dr. Mabuse, to whom I will give him a letter, for I know his
telephone number only.”
Wenk said farewell, and drove from the house to Count Told’s villa at
Tutzing, hoping that he might find the Countess there, but he was told
by the footman that neither his master nor his mistress had spent the
night at home. Then he returned to his own chambers, where the Count,
pale and haggard, waited eagerly for him.
“I felt sure of it,” he said disconsolately, when Wenk told him that
the Countess had not returned home, “but one always hopes for the
impossible. And what about the Privy Councillor?”
“I told him exactly what you told me; he had regarded the matter in
another light, but not a very serious one. He advises you to consult a
neurologist whom he knows, and has given me this letter to him for you.”
“Dr. Mabuse,” read the Count. “Why, he was at the party last night.”
“Shall I go to him?” suggested Wenk.
“No, Doctor, I really must not rely on your kindness any longer. I must
pull myself together and deal with this crisis in my life. I will call
up Dr. Mabuse on the telephone, as we have his number there. I will do
it from here, if I may.”
“Dr. Mabuse,” said the Count at the telephone, “you were present at
Privy Councillor Wendel’s party last night when I had the misfortune
to....”
“That is so.”
“I want your professional help. The Councillor gave me a letter of
introduction to you. Can I bring it at once?”
The other voice answered harshly, “No. I do not see patients except
in their own homes. What is your address? Expect me there to-morrow
morning at 11 a.m. Repeat the appointment; what time is fixed?”
“Eleven a.m.,” said the Count, thoroughly terrified, and then he left
Wenk’s house.