When the girl had gone, Christian lay down on the sofa and folded his
hands beneath his head. Thus he lay until dawn. He neither switched off
the light nor did he close his eyes.
He saw the paintless stairs that led to the den where he had been and
the red carpet of the inn soiled by many feet; he saw the lamp in the
desolate street and the watch charms on the proprietor’s waistcoat; he
saw the brandy bottle on the shelf, and the green shawl of one of the
drunken women, and the tattooed symbols on the sailor’s naked arm: the
anchor, the winged wheel, the phallus, the fish, the snake; he saw the
rubber cherries on the prostitute’s hat and the silver brooch with the
garnets and the foolish motto: _Ricordo di Venezia_.
And more and more as he thought of these things they awakened in him an
ever surer feeling of freedom and of liberation, and seemed to release
him from other things that he had hitherto loved, the rare and precious
things that he had loved so exclusively and fruitlessly. And they
seemed to release him likewise from men and women whose friendship or
love had been sterile in the end.
As he lay there and gazed into space, he lived in these poor and mean
things, and all fruitless occupations and human relationships lost
their importance; and even the thought of Eva ceased to torment him and
betray him into fruitless humiliation.
That radiant and regal creature allured him no more, when he thought of
the blood-stained face of the harlot. For the latter aroused in him a
feeling akin to curiosity that gradually filled his soul so entirely
that it left room for nothing else.
Toward dawn he slumbered for an hour. Then he arose, and bathed his
face in cold water, left the hotel, hired a cab, and drove to the inn
called “The King of Greece.”
The nightwatchman was still at his post. He recognized this early guest
and guided him with disagreeable eagerness up two flights of stairs to
the room of Karen Engelschall.
Christian knocked. There was no answer. “You just go in, sir,” said
the porter. “There ain’t no key and the latch don’t work. All kinds of
things will happen, and it’s better for us to have the doors unlocked.”
Christian entered. It was a room with ugly brown furnishings, a
dark-red plush sofa, a round mirror with a crack across its middle, an
electric bulb at the end of a naked wire, and a chromo-lithograph of
the emperor. Everything was dusty, worn, shabby, used-up, poor and mean.
Karen Engelschall lay in the bed asleep. She was on her back, and her
dishevelled hair looked like a bundle of straw; her face was pale and a
little puffy. Recent scars showed on her forehead and right cheek. Her
full but flaccid breasts protruded above the coverings.
His old and violent dislike of sleeping people stirred in Christian,
but he mastered it and regarded her face. He wondered from what social
class she had come, whether she was a sailor’s or a fisherman’s
daughter, a girl of the lower middle-classes, of the proletariat or
the peasantry. Thus his curiosity employed his mind for a while until
he became fully aware of the indescribable perturbation of that face.
It was as void of evil as of good; but as it lay there it seemed
distraught by the unheard of torment of its dreams. Then Christian
thought of the carnelian on Mesecke’s hand, and the repulsively
red stone which was like a beetle or a piece of raw flesh became
extraordinarily vivid to him.
He made a movement and knocked against a chair; the noise awakened
Karen Engelschall. She opened her lids, and fear and horror burned in
her eyes when she observed a figure in her room; her features became
distorted with fury, and her mouth rounded itself for a cry. Then she
saw who the intruder was, and with a sigh of relief slid back among
the pillows. Her face reassumed its expression of stubbornness and of
enforced yielding. She watched, not knowing what to make of this visit,
and seemed to wonder and reflect. She drew the covers up under her
chin, and smiled a shallow, flattered smile.
Involuntarily Christian’s eyes looked for the red riband and the silver
brooch. The girl’s garments had been flung pell-mell on a chair. The
hat with the rubber cherries lay on the table.
“Why do you stand?” Karen Engelschall asked in a cheerful voice.
“Sit down.” Again, as in the night, his splendour and distinction
overwhelmed her. Smiling her empty smile, she wondered whether he was
a baron or a count. She had slept soundly and felt refreshed.
“You cannot stay in this house very long,” Christian said courteously.
“I have considered what had better be done for you. Your condition
requires care. You must not expose yourself to the brutality of that
man. It would be best if you left the city.”
Karen Engelschall laughed a harsh laugh. “Leave the city? How’s that
going to be done? Girls like me have to stay where they are.”
“Has any one a special claim on you?” Christian asked.
“Claim? Why? How do you mean? Oh, I see. No, no. It’s the way things
are in our business. The feller to whom you give your money, he
protects you, and the others mind him. If he’s strong and has many
friends you’re safe. They’re all rotten, but you got no choice. You get
no rest day or night, and your flesh gets tired, I can tell you.”
“I can imagine that,” Christian replied, and for a second looked into
Karen’s round and lightless eyes, “and for that reason I wanted to
put myself at your disposal. I shall leave Hamburg either to-day or
to-morrow, and probably stay in Berlin for some months. I am ready to
take you with me. But you must not delay your decision, because I have
not yet any address in Berlin, I don’t know yet where I shall live, and
if a plan like this is delayed it is usually not carried out at all.
At the moment you have eluded your pursuer, and so the opportunity to
escape is good. You don’t need to send for your things. I can get you
whatever you need when we arrive.”
Those words, spoken with real friendliness, did not have the effect
which Christian expected. Karen Engelschall could not realize the
simplicity and frankness of their intention. A mocking suspicion arose
in her mind. She knew of Vice Crusaders and Preachers of Salvation;
and these men her world as a rule fears as much as it does the
emissaries of the police. But she looked at Christian more sharply,
and an instinct told her that she was on the wrong track. Clumsily
considering, she drifted to other suppositions that had a tinge of
cheap romance. She thought of plots and kidnapping and a possible
fate more terrible than that under the heel of her old tormentor.
She brooded over these thoughts in haste and rage, with convulsed
features and clenched fist, passing from fear to hope and from hope to
distrust, and yet, even as on the day before, compelled by something
irresistible, a force from which she could not withdraw and which made
her struggles futile.
“What do you want to do with me?” she asked, and gave him a penetrating
glance.
Christian considered in order to weigh his answer carefully. “Nothing
but what I have told you.”
She became silent and stared at her hands. “My mother lives in Berlin,”
she murmured. “Maybe you’d want me to go back to her. I don’t want to.”
“You are to go with me.” Christian’s tone was firm and almost hard. His
chest filled with breath and exhaled the air painfully. The final word
had been spoken.
Karen looked at him again. But now her eyes were serious and awake to
reality. “And what shall I do when I’m with you?”
Christian answered hesitatingly: “I’ve come to no decision about that.
I must think it over.”
Karen folded her hands. “But I’ve got to know who you are.”
He spoke his name.
“I am a pregnant woman,” she said with a sombre look, and for the first
time her voice trembled, “a street-walker who’s pregnant. Do you know
that? I’m the lowest and vilest thing in the whole world! Do you know
that?”
“I know it,” said Christian, and cast down his eyes.
“Well, what does a fine gentleman like you want to do with me? Why do
you take such an interest in me?”
“I can’t explain that to you at the moment,” Christian answered
diffidently.
“What am I to do? Go with you? Right away?”
“If you are willing, I shall call for you at two, and we can drive to
the station.”
“And you won’t be ashamed of me?”
“No, I shall not be ashamed.”
“You know how I look? Suppose people point their fingers at the whore
travelling with such an elegant gentleman?”
“It does not matter what people do.”
“All right. I’ll wait for you.” She crossed her arms over her breast
and stared at the ceiling and did not stir. Christian arose and nodded
and went out. Nor did Karen move when he was gone. A deep furrow
appeared on her forehead, the fresh scars gleamed like burns upon her
earthy skin, a dull and primitive amazement turned her eyes to stone.