"Lord, Lord," they cried, as a nerve-racking cry from Eleanore rang
through the bleak house.
Daniel sprang up the steps. "Run for Dr. Mueller just as fast as your
feet can carry you," said Daniel to Philippina, who was then standing in
the kitchen in her bare feet with her hair hanging down her back. Daniel
was breathing heavily; Philippina was making some tea. Daniel then
hastened into Eleanore's room; Frau Hadebusch tried to keep him out, but
he pushed her to one side, gritted his teeth, and threw himself on the
floor by Eleanore's bed.
She raised her head; she was a pale as death; the perspiration was
pouring down over her face. "You shouldn't be here, Daniel, you
shouldn't see me," she said with much effort, but her tone was so
commanding and final that Daniel got up and slowly left the room. He was
seized with a strange, violent anger. He went out into the kitchen and
drank a glass of water, and then hurled the glass on the floor: it broke
into a hundred pieces.
Frau Hadebusch had followed him; she looked very much discouraged. When
he noticed the frame of mind she was in, he became dizzy; he had to sit
down in order to keep from falling. "Ah, the doctor will come," he said
in a brusque tone.
"My God, it makes you sick at the stomach to see how women suffer
to-day," said the old lady in her shrillest, one-tooth voice; it was
quite plain that she was pleased to know that the doctor was coming. The
present case had got her into serious trouble, and she wanted to get out
of it. "The devil to these women who are so delicately built," she had
said about an hour ago to the grinning Philippina.
Philippina came back with the announcement that Dr. Mueller was on a
vacation: "Well, is he the only physician in the city, you dumb ox?"
howled Daniel, "go get Dr. Dingolfinger; he lives here close by: right
over there by the Peller House. But wait a minute! You stay here; I'll
go get him."
Dr. Dingolfinger was a Jewish physician, a rather old man, and Daniel
had to ring and ring to get him out of his bed. But finally he heard the
bell, got up, and followed Daniel across the square. Daniel had left the
lantern burning at the front gate, and with it he lighted the doctor
through the court and up the stairs.
Then he sat down on the bench in the kitchen; how long he sat there he
did not know; he bent his body forward and buried his head in his hands.
The screams became worse and worse: they were no longer the cries of
Eleanore but of some unsouled, dehumanised being. Daniel heard them
all; he could think of nothing, he could feel nothing but that voice. At
times the terrible cry ran through his heart: Sisters! Sisters!
Frau Hadebusch came out several times to get hot water. The yellow tooth
in her lower jaw stuck out like a cracked, lecherous remainder and
reminder of her past life. Once Dr. Dingolfinger himself came out,
rummaged around in his leather case, which he had left in the hall,
looked at Daniel, and said: "It is going to come out all right; it will
all be over in a short while." At that Philippina poked at the fire, and
put on fresh coals. She looked at Daniel out of one corner of her eye,
and went on her way. From time to time old Jordan rapped on the wall to
have Philippina come up and tell him how things were going.
It must have been about four o'clock in the morning; the gloomy, grey
stones in the walls of the court yard were already being covered with
rosy tints from the East. There was a cry so fearful, so like that of a
voice from the wilds of the heart, that Daniel sprang to his feet and
stood trembling in every limb.
Then it became quiet, mysteriously, uncannily quiet.