In the middle of the night Christian left his couch, slipped into a
silk dressing gown and entered Crammon’s room. He lit a candle, sat
down by the side of Crammon’s bed, and shook his sleeping friend by the
shoulder. Crammon battled with sleep itself, and Christian turned his
head away in order not to see the struggling, primitive face.
At last, after much grunting and groaning, Crammon opened his eyes.
“What do you want?” he asked angrily. “Are you practising to play a
ghost?”
“I would like to ask you something, Bernard,” Christian said.
This enraged Crammon all the more. “It is crazy to rob a man of his
well-deserved rest. Are you moonstruck, or have you a bellyache? Ask
what you want to ask, but hurry!”
“Do you believe I do right to live as I do?” asked Christian. “Be quite
honest for once, and answer me.”
“There is no doubt that he’s moonstruck!” Crammon was truly horrified.
“His mind is wandering. We must summon a physician.” He half-rose, and
fumbled for the electric button.
“Don’t do that!” Christian restrained him mildly, and smiled a vexed
smile. “Try to consider what I’ve said. Rub your eyes if you aren’t
quite awake yet. There’s time enough for sleep. But I am asking you,
Bernard, for your quite sincere opinion: Do you think I am right in
living as I do?”
“My dear Christian Wahnschaffe, if you can tell me by what process this
craze has----”
“Don’t jest, Bernard,” Christian interrupted him, frowning. “This is no
time for a jest. Do you think that I should have remained with Eva?”
“Nonsense,” said Crammon. “She would have betrayed you; she would have
betrayed me. She would betray the emperor, and yet stand guiltless
in the sight of God. You can’t reckon with her, you can’t really be
yourself with her. She was fashioned for the eye alone. Even that
little story of the muleteer of Cordova was a trick. Be content, and
let me sleep.”
Christian replied thoughtfully. “I don’t understand what you say, and
you don’t understand what I mean. Since I left her I feel sometimes
as though I had grown hunchbacked. Jesting aside, Bernard, I get up
sometimes and a terror comes over me. I stretch myself out. I know that
I’m straight, and yet I feel as though I were hunchbacked.”
“Completely out of his head,” Crammon murmured.
“And now tell me another thing, Bernard,” Christian continued,
undeflected by his friend, and his clear, open face assumed an icy
expression. “Should we not have helped the boatman’s daughter, you
and I? Or should I not have done so, if you did not care to take the
trouble? Tell me that!”
“The devil take it! What boatman’s daughter?”
“Are you so forgetful? The girl in the beer-garden. She even gave her
name--Katherine Zöllner. Don’t you remember? And how those ruffians
treated her?”
“Was I to risk my skin for a boatman’s daughter?” Crammon asked,
enraged. “People of that sort may take their pleasures in their own
fashion. What is it to you or to me? Did you try to hold back the paws
of the wild beasts that tore up Adda Castillo? And that was a good deal
worse than being kissed by a hundred greasy snouts. Don’t be an idiot,
my dear fellow, and let me sleep!”
“I am curious,” said Christian.
“Curious? What about?”
“I’m going to the house where she lives and see how she is. I want you
to go along. Get up.”
Crammon opened his mouth very wide in his astonishment. “Go now?” he
stammered, “at night? Are you quite crazy?”
“I knew you’d scold,” Christian said softly and with a dreamy smile.
“But that curiosity torments me so that I’ve simply been turning from
side to side in bed.” And in truth his face had an expression of
expectation and of subtle desire that was new to Crammon. He went on:
“I want to see what she is doing, what her life is like, what her room
looks like. One should know about all that. We are hopelessly ignorant
about people of that kind. Do please come on, Bernard.” His tone was
almost cajoling.
Crammon sighed. He waxed indignant. He protested the frailty of
his health and the necessity of sleep for his wearied mind. Since
Christian, however, opposed to all these objections an insensitive
silence, and since Crammon did not want to see him visit a dangerous
and disreputable quarter of the city alone by night, he finally
submitted, and, grumbling still, arose from his bed.
Christian bathed and dressed with his accustomed care. Before leaving
the hotel they consulted a directory, and found the address of the
boatman. They hired a cab. It was half-past four in the morning when
their cab reached the hut beside the river bank. There was light in the
windows.
Crammon was still at a loss to comprehend. With the rusty bell-pull
in his hand, his confused and questioning eyes sought Christian once
more. But the latter paid no attention to his friend. A care-worn,
under-nourished woman appeared at the door. Crammon was forced to
speak, and, with inner vexation, said that they had come to ask after
her daughter. The woman, who immediately imagined that her daughter had
had secret affairs with rich gentlemen, stepped aside and let the two
pass her.