Christian remained at his country house. A heavy snow-fall came, and
the year drew toward its end.
He received no visitors. He answered neither the letters nor the
invitations of his friends. He was to have spent Christmas with his
parents at the castle, but he begged them to excuse him.
Since he was of age, Christian’s Rest had now passed fully into his
possession, and all his objects of art were gathered here--statuary,
pictures, miniatures, and his collection of snuff-boxes. He loved these
little boxes very much.
The dealers sent him their catalogues. He had a trusted agent at every
notable auction sale. To this man he would telegraph his orders, and
the things would arrive--a beaker of mountain crystal, a set of Dresden
porcelains, a charcoal sketch by Van Gogh. But when he looked at his
purchases, he was disappointed. They seemed neither as rare nor as
precious as he had hoped.
He bought a sixteenth century Bible, printed on parchment, with
mani-coloured initials and a cover with silver clasps. It had cost him
fourteen thousand marks, and contained the book-plate of the Elector
Augustus of Saxony. Curiously he turned the pages without regarding the
words, which were alien and meaningless to him. Nothing delighted him
but his consciousness of the rarity and preciousness of the volume. But
he desired other things even rarer and more precious.
Every morning he fed the birds. With a little basket of bread crumbs
he would issue from the door, and the birds would fly to him from all
directions, for they had come to know both him and the hour. They were
hungry, and he watched them busy at their little meal. And doing this
he forgot his desires.
Once he donned his shooting suit, and went out and shot a hare. When
the animal lay before him, and he saw its dying eyes, he could not bear
to touch it. He who had hunted and killed many animals could no longer
endure this sport, and left his booty a prey to the ravens.
Most of his walks led him through the village, which was but fifteen
minutes from his park. At the end of the village, on the high-road,
stood the forester’s house. Several times he had noticed at one of
its windows the face of a young man, whose features he seemed to
recall. He thought it must be Amadeus Voss, the forester’s son. When
he was but six he had often visited that house. Christian’s Rest had
not been built until later, and in those early years his father had
rented the game preserve here and had often lodged for some days at the
forester’s. And Amadeus had been Christian’s playmate.
The face, which recalled his childhood to him, was pallid and
hollow-cheeked. The lips were thin and straight, and the head covered
with simple very light blond hair. The reflection of the light’s rays
in the powerful lenses of spectacles made the face seem eyeless.
It amazed Christian that this young man should sit there for hours,
day after day, without moving, and gaze through the window-panes into
the street. The secret he felt here stirred him, and a power from some
depth seemed to reach out for him.
One day Christian met the mayor of the village at the gate of his park.
Christian stopped him. “Tell me,” he said, “is the forester Voss still
alive?”
“No, he died three years ago,” the man answered. “But his widow still
lives in the house. The present forester is unmarried, and lets her
have a few rooms. I suppose you are asking on account of Amadeus, who
has suddenly turned up for some strange reason--”
“Tell me about him,” Christian asked.
“He was to have been a priest, and was sent to the seminary at Bamberg.
One heard nothing but good of him there, and his teachers praised him
to the sky. He got stipends and scholarships, and every one expected
him to do well for himself. Last winter his superiors got him a
position as tutor to the boys of the bank president, Privy Councillor
Ribbeck. You’re familiar with the name. Very big man. The two boys
whose education Voss was to supervise lived at Halbertsroda, an estate
in Upper Franconia, and the parents didn’t visit them very often. They
say the marriage isn’t a happy one. Well, everything seemed turning out
well. Considering his gifts and the patron he had now, Amadeus couldn’t
have wanted for anything. Suddenly he drops down on us here, doesn’t
budge from the house, pays no attention to any one, becomes a burden
to his poor old mother, and growls like a dog at any one who talks to
him. There must have been crazy doings at Halbertsroda. No one knows
any details, you know. But every now and then the pot seethes over, and
then you get the rumour that there was something between him and the
Privy Councillor’s wife.”
The man was very talkative, and Christian interrupted him at last.
“Didn’t the forester have another son?” A faint memory of some
experience of his childhood arose in him.
“Quite right,” said the mayor. “There was another son. His name was
Dietrich, and he was a deaf-mute.”
“Yes, I remember now,” Christian said.
“He died at fourteen,” the mayor went on. “His death was never properly
explained. There was a celebration of the anniversary of the battle of
Sedan, and he went out in the evening to look at the bonfires. Next
morning they found his body in the fish-pond.”
“Did he drown?”
“He must have,” answered the mayor.
Christian nodded farewell, and went slowly through the gate toward his
house.
V
Letitia and her husband were in the Opera house at Buenos Ayres. The
operetta of the evening was as shallow as a puddle left by the rain in
the pampas.
In the box next to theirs sat a young man, and Letitia yielded now and
then to the temptation of observing his glances of admiration. Suddenly
she felt her arm roughly grasped. It was Stephen who commanded her
silently to follow him.
In the dim corridor he brought his bluish-white face close to her ear,
and hissed: “If you look at that fool once more, I’ll plunge my dagger
into your heart. I give you this warning. In this country one doesn’t
shilly-shally.”
They returned to their box. Stephen smiled with a smile as glittering
as a torero’s, and put a piece of chocolate into his mouth. Letitia
looked at him sidewise, and wondered whether he really had a dagger in
his possession.
That night, when they drove home, he almost smothered her with his
caresses. She repulsed him gently, and begged: “Show me the dagger,
Stephen. Give it to me! I want so much to see it.”
“What dagger, silly child?” he asked, in astonishment.
“The dagger you were going to plunge into my heart.”
“Let that be,” he answered, in hollow tones. “This is no time to speak
of daggers and death.”
But Letitia was stubborn. She insisted that she wanted to see it. He
took his hands from her, and fell into sombre silence.
The incident taught Letitia that she could play with him. She no
longer feared that sombre stillness of his, nor his great skull on his
powerful neck, nor the thin mouth, nor the paling face, nor the great
strength of his extraordinary small hands. She knew that she could play
with him.
Great fire-flies flew through the air, and settled in the grass about
them. When the carriage stopped at the villa, Letitia looked around
with a cry of delight. Sparks seemed to be falling in a golden rain.
The gleaming insects whirred about the windows, the roof, the flowery
creepers on the walls. They penetrated into the hall.
Letitia stopped at the dark foot of the stairs, looked at the
phosphorescent glimmer, and asked fearfully and with an almost
imperceptible self-mockery in her deep voice: “Tell me, Stephen,
couldn’t they set the house on fire?”
The Negro Scipio, who appeared with a lamp at the door, heard her words
and grinned.