Crammon had discovered where and in whose company Christian had been on
the night of the festival preceding Judith’s wedding. The chauffeur
had been indiscreet. Then Crammon, in his brotherly concern, had made
inquiries, and the rumours that had reached the castle had all been
confirmed.
One morning, when they were both at Christian’s Rest, Crammon entered
his friend’s room and said: “I can’t hold in any longer. The sorrow of
it gnaws at me. You ought to be ashamed, Christian, especially of your
secretiveness. You join fugitive disturbers of the peace and hurlers
of bombs, and then you confuse the innocent poor by your brainless
generosity. What is it to lead to?”
Christian smiled, and did not answer.
“How can you expose yourself in that fashion,” Crammon cried; “yourself
and your family and your friends? I shall tell you this in confidence,
dearest boy: If you imagine that you have really helped the woman
to whom that Russian desperado dragged you, you are badly mistaken.
Fortunately I can rob you of that illusion.”
“Did you hear anything about her?” Christian asked, with a surprising
indifference in his tone and expression.
Crammon seemed to expand, and told his tale with breadth and unction:
“Certainly I have. I have even had dealings with the police and saved
you annoyance. The woman was to have been arrested and the money
confiscated. Luckily I was able to prevent that. I believe that the
State should keep order, but I don’t think it desirable that the
government should interfere in our private affairs. Its duty is to
safeguard us; there its function ends. So much for that! Concerning
your protégée I have nothing pleasant to report. The rain of gold
simply distracted the crowd in that house. They stuck to her and
begged, and several of them stole. Naturally there was a fight, and
some one plunged a knife into some one else’s bowels, and the maddened
woman beat them both with a coal shovel. The police had to interfere.
Then the woman moved into other quarters, and bought all sorts of
trash--furniture, beds, clothing, kitchen utensils, and even a cuckoo
clock. You have seen those little horrors. A cuckoo comes out of the
clock and screams. I was once staying with people who had three of
them. Whenever I went to sleep another cuckoo screeched; it was enough
to drive one mad. In other respects my friends were charming.
“As for the Kroll woman--your gift robbed her of every vestige of
common sense. She keeps the money in a little box, which she carries
about and won’t let out of her sight by night or day. She buys lottery
tickets, penny dreadfuls; the children are as dirty as ever and the
household as demoralized. Only that dreadful cuckoo clock roars. So
what have you accomplished? Where is the blessing? Common people cannot
endure sudden accessions of fortune. You do not know their nature in
the slightest degree, and the best thing you can do is to leave them in
peace.”
Christian’s eyes wandered out to the cloudy sky. Then he turned to
Crammon. He saw, as though he had never seen it before, that Crammon’s
cheeks were rather fat, and that his chin was bedded in soft flesh and
had a dimple. He could not make up his mind to answer. He smiled, and
crossed his legs!
What shapely legs, Crammon thought and sighed, what superb legs!