When next Christian went through the village and saw Amadeus Voss at
the window, he stopped.
Voss got up suddenly and opened the window, and thereupon Christian
approached.
It was a time of thaw. The water dripped from the roofs and gutters.
Christian felt the moist air swept by tepid winds as something that
gives pain.
Behind the powerful lenses the eyes of Amadeus Voss had a yellowish
glitter. “We must be old acquaintances,” he said, “although it is very
long ago since we hunted blackberries among the hedges. Very long.” He
laughed a little weakly.
Christian had determined to lead the conversation to the dead brother
of Amadeus. There was that event in the mist of the past concerning
which he could gain no clearness, much as he might reflect.
“I suppose everybody is wondering about me,” Voss said, in the tone
of one who would like to know what people are saying. “I seem to be a
stumbling-block to them. Don’t you think so?”
“I mustn’t presume to judge,” Christian said, guardedly.
“With what an expression you say that!” Voss murmured, and looked
Christian all over. “How proud you are. Yet it must have been curiosity
that made you stop.”
Christian shrugged his shoulders. “Do you remember an incident that
took place when I stayed here with my father?” he asked gently and
courteously.
“What kind of an incident? I don’t know. Or--but wait! Do you mean that
affair of the pig? When they killed the pig over there in the inn, and
I----”
“Quite right. That was it,” Christian said with a faint smile. He had
scarcely spoken when the scene and the incident appeared with unwonted
clarity before his mind.
He and Amadeus and the deaf and dumb Dietrich had been standing at
the gate. And the pig had begun to scream. At that moment Amadeus had
stretched out his arms, and held them convulsively trembling in the
air. The long, loud, and piercing cry of the beast’s death agony had
been something new and dreadful to Christian too, and had drawn him
running to the spot whence it came. He saw the gleaming knife, the
uplifted and then descending arm of the butcher, the struggle of the
short, bristly legs, and the quivering and writhing of the victim’s
body. The lips of Amadeus, who had reeled after him, had been flecked
with foam, and he pointed and moaned: “Blood, blood!” And Christian had
seen the blood on the earth, on the knife, on the white apron of the
man. He did not know what happened next. But Amadeus knew.
He said: “When the pig screamed, a convulsive rigour fell upon me. For
many hours I lay stiff as a log. My parents were badly frightened,
for I had never had any such attacks before. What you remember is
probably how they tried to cheer me or shame me out of my collapse.
They walked into the puddle of blood and stamped about in it so that
the blood spurted. My dumb brother noticed that this only increased
my excitement. He made noises in his throat, and raised his hands
beseechingly, while my mother was hastening from the house. At that
moment you struck him in the face with your fist.”
“It is true. I struck him,” said Christian, and his face became very
pale.
“And why? Why did you do that? We haven’t met since that day, and we’ve
only seen each other from afar. That is, I’ve seen you. You were far
too proud and too busy with your friends to see me. But why did you
strike Dietrich that day? He had a sort of silent adoration of you. He
followed you about everywhere. Don’t you remember? We often laughed
about it. But from that day on he was changed--markedly so.”
“I believe I hated him at that moment,” Christian said, reflectively.
“I hated him because he could neither hear nor speak. It struck me as
a sort of malevolent stubbornness.”
“Strange! It’s strange that you should have felt so.”
They both became silent. Christian started to leave. Voss rested his
arms on the window ledge and leaned far out. “There’s a paragraph in
the paper saying that you’ve bought a diamond for half a million. Is
that true?”
“It is true,” Christian replied.
“A single diamond for over half a million? I thought it was merely a
newspaper yarn. Is the diamond to be seen? Would you show it to me?” In
his face there was something of horrified revolt, of panting desire,
but also of mockery. Christian was startled.
“With pleasure, if you’ll come to see me,” he answered, but determined
to have himself denied to Voss if the latter really came.
For a secret stirred him again, a depth opened at his feet, an arm was
stretched out after him.
X
On a certain night Letitia awoke and heard dragging, running steps,
the breathing of pursuers and pursued, whispers and hoarse curses, now
nearer, now farther. She sat up and listened. Her bed-chamber opened
upon gardens. Its doors led to the verandah that surrounded the entire
house.
Then the hurrying steps approached; she saw forms that detached
themselves in black from the greenish night and flitted by: one, and
then another, and then a third, and after a little while a fourth. She
was frightened, but she hated to call for help. To rouse Stephen, who
slept in the adjoining room, was a risk for her, as it was for every
one. At such times he would roar like a steer, and strike out wildly.
Letitia laughed and shuddered at the thought.
She fought her fear, got up, threw on a dressing gown, and stepped
determinedly on the verandah. At that moment thick clouds parted and
revealed the moon. Surprised by the unexpected light, the four forms
stopped suddenly, collided against each other, and stood panting and
staring.
What Letitia saw was old Gottlieb Gunderam and his three sons,
Riccardo, Paolo, and Demetrios, the brothers of her husband. There was
an unquenchable distrust between this father and his sons. They watched
and lay in wait for each other. If there was cash in the house, the old
man did not dare go to bed, and each of the brothers accused the rest
of wanting to rob their father. Letitia knew that much. But it was new
to her that in their dumb rage and malice they went so far as to chase
each other at night, each pursuer and pursued at once, each full of
hatred of the one in front and full of terror of the one behind him.
She laughed and shuddered.
The old man was the first to slink away. He dragged himself to his
room, and threw himself on the bed in his clothes. Beside the bed stood
two huge travelling boxes, packed and locked. They had stood thus for
twenty years. Daily, during all that period, he had determined at
least once to flee to the house in Buenos Ayres, or even to the United
States, whenever the conflict, first with his wife and later with his
sons, became too much for him. He had never started on that flight; but
the boxes stood in readiness.
Silently and secretively the brothers also disappeared. While Letitia
stood on the verandah and looked at the moon, she heard the rattle of a
phonograph. Riccardo had recently bought it in the city, and it often
happened that he set it to playing at night.
Letitia stepped a little farther, and peered into the room in which the
three brothers sat with sombre faces and played poker. The phonograph
roared a vulgar waltz out of its brazen throat.
Then Letitia laughed and shuddered.