Returned to Traunberg, he wandered slowly through all the rooms of the
castle. Then he had tea served in his room, drank a cupful, and ate a
trifle. He laid his watch upon the table. At twelve o'clock all should
be finished, he decided.
The cold calm of resolution gave way to the exciting feeling of
expectation.
He seated himself at his writing-table, thoughtfully he rested his head
in his hand, then he dipped the pen into ink, and wrote a long letter.
He read it through with a certain pedantry, added here and there a
comma, or made a letter plainer, placed the letter in an envelope, and
addressed it to Elsa.
His glance fell upon the watch--the hands pointed to quarter past
eleven. He rose and walked up and down uneasily. He began to ask
himself whether he had forgotten nothing, began to unconsciously seek
reasons for postponing his act.
His brow was bathed with cold sweat. He looked for his revolver and
Toledo dagger, which both had formerly lain upon his table. They were
gone. Evidently his valet had removed them. The razors also were
hidden.
Felix smiled bitterly. Then he drew a little English penknife from his
pocket, sharpened it upon an ash-receiver, and laid it on the table
beside his bed. Then, with folded hands, he crouched for a few minutes
beside his bed. He thought of the promise not to kill himself which he
had once given to his father. The promise could have no weight except
during the life of the old man.
When he looked again, the hands of the watch pointed to quarter before
twelve. His heart beat loudly. A moment of irresolution came. Then from
without a little soft bird cry floated in to him. He suddenly heard
again Gery's voice, "Who is 'the certain Lanzberg,' papa?"
Then he undressed himself, took the penknife, and with firm stroke cut
through the veins and arteries in his left wrist and ankle.
He rose once more to extinguish the candles on the table beside his
bed, then he sank back among the pillows.
He felt the warm blood flowing from him, and experienced a kind of
disgust; then he murmured with a sigh, "Blood washes all things clean."
The triumphal fanfare of the madrilena vibrated around him; the
excitement which had burned within him throughout the whole time was
for a moment increased tenfold.
But the madrilena died away, and the fearful memories faded, the great
painful weariness which had almost paralyzed him recently, preventing
him from sleeping, vanished--he felt easier and easier.
A comfortable drowsiness overcame him, and a thousand pictures changed
before his dreamy dim eyes.
He saw himself in the school-room, beside his tutor, and smiled at the
expression with which the tutor drew his cuffs down over his knuckles
when Elsa's French _bonne_ entered the room.
The present had vanished, his thoughts wandered further and further
back into the past.
He sits beside his mother in the church, small and sleepy. Through an
open window the fresh spring air blows in to the atmosphere of mould
and incense of the sacred edifice.
From half-closed eyes he sees a crowd of red peasant women, sees
the little school-boys who crowd as near as possible to the carved
_prie-dieus_ of the gentry. One of them winks at him.
The priest elevates the host. Little Felix's tired eyes close, the
peasants fade into a large red spot, the colored shadows of the church
windows lie on the bare, gray stone pavement like a carpet. His head
sinks upon his mother's arm. All is rosy vapor around him. Then his
mother kisses him on the forehead and whispers, "It is over; wake up!"