Christian and Amadeus wandered across the Quai Kokerill in Antwerp.
A great transatlantic liner lay, silent and empty, at the pier. The
steerage passengers waited at its side for the hour of their admission.
They were Polish peasants, Russian Jews, men and women, young ones and
aged ones, children and sucklings. They crouched on the cold stones or
on their dirty bundles. They were themselves dirty, neglected, weary,
dully brooding--a melancholy and confused mass of rags and human bodies.
The mighty globe of the sun rolled blood-red and quivering over the
waters.
Christian and Amadeus stopped. After a while they went on, but
Christian desired to turn back, and they did so. At a crossing near the
emigrants’ camp, a line of ten or twenty donkey-carts cut off the road.
The carts looked liked bisected kegs on wheels, and were filled with
smoked mackerels.
“Buy mackerels!” the cart-drivers cried. “Buy mackerels!” And they
cracked their whips.
A few of the emigrants approached and stared hungrily; they consulted
with others, who were already looking for coins in their pockets, until
finally a few determined ones proceeded to make a purchase.
Then Christian said to Voss: “Let us buy the fish and distribute them.
What do you think?”
Amadeus was ill pleased. He answered. “Do as you wish. Great lords must
have their little pleasures.” He felt uncomfortable amid the gathering
crowd.
Christian turned to one of the hucksters. It was difficult to make
the man understand normal French, but gradually he succeeded. The
huckster summoned the others, and there followed excited chatter and
gesticulations. Various sums were named and considered and rejected.
This process bored Christian; it threatened to be endless. He offered
a sum that represented a considerable increase over the highest price
named, and handed his wallet to Amadeus that the men might be paid.
Then he said to the increasing throng of emigrants in German: “The fish
are yours.”
A few understood his words, and conveyed their meaning to the others.
Timidly they ventured forward. A woman, whose skin was yellow as a
lemon from jaundice, was the first to touch a fish. Soon hundreds came.
From all sides they brought baskets, pots, nets, sacks. A few old
men kept the crowd in order. One of these, who wore a flowing white
beard and a long Jewish coat, bowed down thrice before Christian. His
forehead almost touched the earth.
A sudden impulse compelled Christian to see in person to the just
distribution of the fish. He turned up his sleeves, and with his
delicate hands threw the greasy, malodourous fish into the vessels
held out for them. He laughed as he soiled his fingers. The hucksters
and some idle onlookers laughed too. They thought him a crazy, young
Englishman out for a lark. Suddenly his gorge rose at the odour of the
fish, and even more at the odour of these people. He smelled their
clothes and their breath, and gagged at the thought of their teeth and
fingers, their hair and shoes. A morbid compulsion forced him to think
of their naked bodies, and he shuddered at the idea of their flesh. So
he stopped, and slipped away into the twilight.
His hands still reeked of the smoked fish. He walked through the
streets that had had nothing to do with his adventure and the night
seemed empty.
Amadeus Voss had escaped. He waited in front of the hotel. There the
line of motor cars had gathered that was to accompany Eva on her
journey to Germany. Among the travellers were Crammon and Johanna
Schöntag.
V
In October the weather turned hot on the Rio de la Plata. All day one
had to stay in the house. If one opened a window, living fire seemed
to stream in. Once Letitia fainted, when she wanted to air her stuffy
room, and opened one of the wooden shutters.
The only spot that offered some shade and coolness toward evening
was an avenue of palms beside the river. Sometimes, during the brief
twilight, Letitia and her young sister-in-law Esmeralda would steal
away to that place. Their road passed the ranchos, the wretched
cave-like huts in which the native workmen lived.
Once Letitia saw the people of the ranchos merrily feasting and in
their best garments. She asked for the reason, and was told that a
child had died. “They always celebrate when some one dies,” Esmeralda
told her. “How sad must their lives be to make them so in love with
death.”
The avenue of palms was forbidden ground. When darkness came, the
bushes rustled, and furtive men slipped back and forth. Not long
before the mounted police had caught a sailor here who was wanted for
a murder in Galveston. Somehow Letitia dreamed of him. She was sure he
had killed his man through jealousy and bore the marks of a beautiful
tragedy.
One evening she had met in this spot a young naval officer, who was a
guest on a neighbouring estate. Letitia exchanged glances with him, and
from that time on he sought some way of approaching her. But she was
like a prisoner, or like a Turkish woman in a harem. So she determined
to outwit her guards; she really fell in love with the young officer.
Her imagination made an heroic figure of him, and she began to long for
him.
The heat increased. Letitia could not sleep at night. The mosquitoes
hummed sweetishly, and she cried like a little child. By day she locked
herself in her room, stripped off her clothes, and lay down on the cold
tiles.
Once she was lying thus with arms outstretched. “I’m like an enchanted
princess,” she thought, “in an enchanted castle.”
Some one knocked at the door, and she heard Stephen’s voice calling
her. Idly she raised her head, and from under her heavy lids gazed down
at her naked body. “What a bore it is,” she thought, “what a terrible
bore always to be with the same man. I want others too.” She did not
answer, and let her head droop, and rubbed her glowing cheek against
the warm skin of her upper arm. It pleased the master of the harem out
there to beg for admission; but Letitia did not open the door.
After a while she heard a tumult in the yard--laughter, the cracking of
whips, the report of rifles, and the cries of beasts in torment. She
jumped up, slipped into a silk dressing gown, opened the window that
gave on the verandah, and peered out.
Stephen had tied together the tails of two cats by means of a long
fuse. Along the fuse were fastened explosive bits of firework. The
hissing little rockets singed the cats’ fur, and the glowing cord
burned into their flesh. The cats tumbled about in their agony and
howled. Stephen goaded them and followed them. His brothers, bent over
the balustrade, roared with delight. Two Indians, grave and silent,
watched from the gate.
Stephen had, of course, counted on Letitia’s opening the door in her
curiosity. A few great leaps, and he was beside her. Esmeralda, who
was in the plot, had at once faced Letitia and prevented her from
locking the door. White with rage, and with raised fist, he stormed
across the threshold. She fell to her knees, and hid her face in her
hands.
“Why do you beat me?” she moaned, in horror and surprise. But he did
not touch her.
His teeth gnashed. “To teach you to obey.”
She sobbed. “Be careful! It’s not only me you’re hurting now!”
“Damnation, what are you saying?” He stared at her crouching figure.
“You’re hurting two now.” Letitia enjoyed fooling him. Her tears were
now tears of pity for herself.
“Woman, is that true?” he asked. Letitia peered furtively between her
fingers, and thought mockingly: “It’s like the last act of a cheap
opera.” She nodded with a gesture of pain, and determined to deceive
him with the naval officer.
Stephen gave a howl of triumph, danced about, threw himself down beside
her, and kissed her arms, her shoulders, and her neck. At the windows
and doors appeared Doña Barbara, Esmeralda, Stephen’s brothers, and
the servants. He lifted Letitia on his strong shoulders, and carried
her about on the verandah. He roared his orders: a feast was to be
prepared, an ox slaughtered, champagne to be put on ice.
Letitia had no qualms of conscience. She was glad to have made a fool
of him.
When old Gunderam learned the cause of the rejoicing in his house, he
chuckled to himself. “Fooled all the same, my sly lawyer man. In spite
of the written agreement, you won’t get the Escurial, not for a good
while, even if she has a whole litter.” With an unappetizing, broken
little comb he smoothed his iron grey beard, and poured eau de Cologne
on his head, until his hair, which was still thick, dripped.
But, strangely enough, the lie that Letitia had told in her terror
turned out to be the truth. In a few days she was sure. Secretly she
was amazed. Every morning she stood before the mirror, and looked
at herself with a strange respect and a subtle horror. But she was
unchanged. Her mood became gently melancholy, and she threw a kiss to
her image in the glass.
Since they were now afraid of crossing her wishes, she was permitted
to attend a ball given by Señor and Señora Küchelbäcker, and it was
there that she made the formal acquaintance of the naval lieutenant,
Friedrich Pestel.