Chapter III: Front Matter (3)

The presiding officer rebuked him for his behavior, which he designated as indelicate, but Bastide cried in a firm, ringing voice: "Before God, who hears me and will judge me, I declare that it is all an awful lie. I have never as much as touched that woman or set eyes upon her."

Clarissa turned as white as chalk. It seemed to her as if she had but just now heard the clinking of the shattered mirror which she had dashed to the floor after the dance. When the prosecuting attorney asked her to continue, she remained silent; her eyes rolled and her whole body shook convulsively.

"Speak out!" exclaimed Bastide, addressing her, and indignation almost choked his voice, "speak! Your silence is even more ruinous to me than all the lies."

Clarissa lifted her eyes to him and asked with curious emotion: "Do you really not know me, Bastide?"

"No! no! no!" he burst out, and looking upward he muttered in distress: "She is demented."

Within a second's space Clarissa grew fiery red and again deathly pale. And turning toward Bastide once more, she exclaimed in a terrible tone of reproach: "Oh, murderer!"

The public applauded. Clarissa reeled, however; an usher of the court hurried to her side and caught her in his arms, a number of ladies left their places and busied themselves about her, and half an hour elapsed before she regained consciousness; but her appearance was as changed as if she had suddenly aged by twenty years. Monsieur d'Enjalran tried to continue the examination, but she answered only in incoherent words; she did not know; it was possible; she did not wish to contradict. Bastide Grammont had resumed his seat in the prisoner's dock; immeasurable distress and consternation were pictured on his countenance. His counsel bade Clarissa, since she had spoken, to continue. "I adjure you, Madame, make yourself clear," he said; "it depends upon you whether an innocent man shall be saved or shall be sent to the scaffold." Clarissa remained silent, as if she had not heard; in her breast there surged, like morning mist over the waters, a consoling and captivating image. Counselor Pinaud now turned to her with a severe exhortation; she was not to think she could make her assertions at will and suppress what she wished. The prosecuting attorney spoke up for her, saying that the cause of her silence was known; she herself had asserted that she entertained a conviction the grounds of which she could not state; it should suffice that she had uttered what was of the greatest importance; nay, he declared, moreover, that any further urging would be improper. He had not concluded his speech when Clarissa interrupted him; raising her right arm she said in solemn protest: "I have taken no oath."

Bastide Grammont looked up. Shaking off his stupor, he raised himself slowly and began in a voice all the more affecting by its calmness: "Prison walls do not speak. And yet the time will come when they will find a voice and will proclaim the secret means which have been employed to force all these wretches to make lies a shameful bulwark of their lives. Fualdes was not my enemy, he was only my creditor. If covetousness had misled a man otherwise decent and moderate, if it had armed his hand, I would never, for all that, have raised it against a defenseless old man. If you want a sacrifice, take me; I am ready, but do not mingle my lot with that of this brood. My family, who have always dwelt in the country, and have followed the customs and simple ways of rural life, are disgraced. My mother weeps and is crushed. Judge whether I, who am plunged in this sea of misfortune, can still cherish a love of life. I loved freedom once, I loved animals, the water, the sky, the air, and the fruits of the trees; but now I am dishonored, and if there were a future before me it would be sullied with shame, and the time would have an ill taste. Is it a court of justice before which I have been summoned? No, it is a hunt, the judge has become a hunter and prepares the innocent one to be a tidbit for the rabble. I ask no longer for justice, it is too late to mete out justice to me, too late, were the crown of France itself to be offered to me. I surrender myself to you to destroy me, your conscience will be loaded with that burden. One guilty man makes many, and your children's children will for this flood the living world with disgrace."

A paralyzed silence succeeded these words. But suddenly there burst forth an indescribable tumult. The public and the jurors arose and clenched their fists at Bastide Grammont, screamed and howled in wild confusion, Monsieur d'Enjalran's exhortation dying away unheard. And just as suddenly a deathly silence ensued. A faint, long-drawn cry which arose in the din, and now continued its plaintive note, petrified the faces of the listeners. All eyes tourned toward Clarissa. She felt the glances showering down upon her like the beams in a falling building.

Her heart was aflame with a desire for expiation ...

The speech of the public prosecutor gathered together once more the weapons of hatred which Rumor had forged against its victims; with cunning skill, he painted the night of the murder in such colors that the horror of it seemed to live for the first time, Bastide's advocate, on the other hand, contented himself with high-sounding phrases; he waxed warm, his listeners remained cold. While he was speaking there was a shoving and pushing in the rear of the hall; some of the ladies shrieked, a fair-sized dog ran through an opening in the bar, looked around him with glistening eyes, and, giving a short bark, crouched at Bastide's feet. Deeply moved, he laid his hand on the animal's neck, and motioned the usher, who wanted to remove it, back with a commanding gesture.

When the court retired for consultation, no one dared speak above a whisper. A woman sobbed and she was told to be quiet; it was the Benoit girl, Colard's sweetheart. She had wound her arms about the poor wretch's shoulders and her tear-stained face expressed but one desire--to share his fate. A relative of Bastide approached him in order to speak to him; Bastide shook his head and did not even look at the man. A sort of drowsiness had settled on his countenance--at any rate, words no longer carried any weight in his ears. Yet it happened that he lifted his eyes once more and after coursing through illimitable space they met those of Clarissa. Now the strange woman did not strike him as so strange. He heard, again the sound of her voice when she called him murderer; was it not rather a cry for help than an accusation? and that beseeching look, as if invisible hands were clutching at her throat? and that most delicate form so singularly free from indications of her age, quivering like a young birch in autumn?

Two lonely shipwrecked beings are driven by the currents of the ocean to the same spot, coming from opposite ends of the earth, unable to abandon the plank upon which their life depends, unable even to grasp each other's hands simply driven by the gradually dying wind to unknown depths. There was something weird in their mutual feeling of compassion. Yet Bastide's pained and gloomy astonishment gave way to the dreamy intoxication of fatigue, and the watchful eyes of his dog appeared to him like two reddish stars between black tree-tops. He heard the sentence of death when the court returned; he had risen, and listened to the words of the presiding judge; it sounded like the splashing of raindrops on withered leaves. He heard himself say something, but what it was he hardly knew. He saw many faces turned toward him in the dim light, and they gave him the impression of worm-eaten and decaying apples.

The verdict concerning the other accused persons was not to be announced until the following day. The crowds in the hall, in the entrances, and on the street, dispersed slowly. When Clarissa passed through the corridor every one stepped timidly aside.

She had learned that Bastide was not to be taken back to Rodez, but was to remain in the prison at Alby. She thereupon dismissed the carriage that was waiting for her, betook herself to an inn near by, where she asked for a room, and wrote a letter to her father--a few feverishly agitated sentences: "I know no longer what is truth and what is falsehood; Bastide is innocent, and I have destroyed him, though my desire was to help him; Yes and No are in my breast like two extinguished flames; if I were to return whence I came I should suffer a continual death; for that reason and because people live as they do, I go where I must." It was already past midnight when she asked to speak to the host. She requested him to send the letter in the morning to Chateau Perrie by a reliable messenger; she then asked the startled man to sell her a small basket of fresh fruit. The host expressed a polite regret that he had nothing more in his storeroom. Passionately urgent, she offered him ten, twentyfold its value and threw a gold piece on the table. "It is for a dying person," she said, "everything depends upon it." The man gazed anxiously at the pallid, gleaming countenance of the distinguished looking woman and pondered, declaring finally that he would rouse his neighbor, and bidding her wait. Left alone, she knelt down by the bedside, buried her face in the pillows and wept. After half an hour the host returned, carrying a basket full of pears, grapes, pomegranates, and peaches. Shaking his head, he followed her with his eyes as she hastened away, and held the sealed letter, which he was to forward, inquisitively up to the light.

The streets were desolate and bathed in shadowy moonlight. The windows of the little houses were blinking drowsily; under a gateway stood the night-watchman with a halberd and mumbled like a drunken man. In front of the low prison building there was an open space; Clarissa seated herself on a stone bench, and, as there was a pump near by and she felt thirsty, drank her fill. The softly swelling outlines of the hills melted almost imperceptibly into the sky, and behind a depression in the landscape a fire-light was glowing; she seemed to hear, too, on listening intently, the ringing of bells. The whole world was not asleep, then, and she could link her anxious heart to human concerns once more. After a time she rose, stepped over to the building, set the basket of fruit on the ground, and knocked with the knocker at the gate. It was a long while before the door-keeper appeared and gruffly demanded what she wanted. "I must speak to Bastide Grammont," she declared. The man made a face as if a demented person had waylaid him, growled in a threatening tone and was about to bang the door in her face. Clarissa clutched his arm with one hand, and tore the diamond brooch from her breast with the other. "There, there, there!" she stammered. The old man raised his lantern and examined the sparkling jeweled ornament on all sides. Clarissa misinterpreted his grinning, anxious joy, thought he was not satisfied, and gave him her purse into the bargain, "What is in the basket?" he inquired respectfully but suspiciously. She showed him what it contained. He contented himself with that, thought she was most likely the mistress of the condemned man, and, upon locking the door, walked on in front of her. They descended a few steps, then crossed a narrow passage. "How long do you wish to stay inside?" asked the keeper, when they had reached an iron door. Clarissa drew a deep breath and replied in a whisper that she would give three knocks on the door. The old man nodded, said he would wait at the head of the stairs, opened the door cautiously, handed the woman his lantern and locked the door behind her.

Inside Clarissa clung to the wall to give her riotous pulses time to subside. The room seemed moderately large and not altogether uninhabitable. Bastide lay on a pallet along the opposite wall, asleep and fully dressed. "What a stillness!" thought Clarissa shuddering, and stole softly to the bedside of the sleeping man. What quiet in that countenance, too, what a beautiful slumber, thought she, and her lips parted in mute sorrow. She placed the lantern on the floor where its light would strike his face, then she knelt down and listened to his steady breathing. Bastide's mouth was firmly closed, his eyelids were motionless, a sign of dreamlessness; his long beard encircled cheeks and chin like brown brushwood, his head was thrown slightly backward, and his hair shone with a moist gleam. Gradually the peace of his countenance passed into Clarissa too; all words, all signs which she had brought with her vanished, she determined to do nothing more than place her gift by his bed and depart. Accordingly she emptied the basket, and started and paused every time she heard but a grain of sand crunch under her feet. When she had laid out all the fruit and passed her hand tenderly over each, she grew more and more peaceful and calm; she felt herself so strangely bound to death that she dismissed the thought of leaving this room with a feeling akin to fear, and prepared to do what possessed her so strongly, with a composed assurance. A desire to kiss him arose within her, and she actually bent down toward him, but a commanding awe arrested her, more even than the fear that he might awake. Her body twisted and turned, she embraced him in spirit and felt as if she were freed from the earth, like a pearl dropped from a ring. She then rose quietly, walked softly to the other side of the room, stretched herself on the floor, took a small penknife and opened the veins in both wrists by deep cuts. Within a quarter of an hour she sighed twice, and the hand of Death sought in vain to wipe the enraptured smile from her pallid lips.

Bastide still slept on, that abysmal sleep where total oblivion chains and numbs body and spirit. Then he began to dream. He found himself in a spacious, secluded chamber, the centre of which was occupied by a richly decked table. Many people were seated around it; they were carousing and having a merry time. Suddenly all eyes were turned to the middle of the table, where a vessel of opaque blue glass, which had not been there before, now stood. What was in the glass receptacle? what could it signify? who brought it? was asked in muffled tones. Thereupon an uncanny silence ensued; all gazed now at the blue vessel, now, with sullen suspicion, at each other. All at once, the jovial revelers of a few moments ago arose and one accused the other of having placed the covered dish on the table. A violent clamor now arose, some drew their poniards, others swung chairs about, and meanwhile a slim, nude girl's figure was seen to emerge, like white smoke, from the vessel on the table. Bastide knew the face, it was that of the false witness Clarissa; with snake-like glistening eyes she gazed at him, always only at him. All the men followed her glance and they hurled themselves upon him. "You must die! You must die!" resounded from hoarse throats, but while they were still shouting their voices died away, the shadowy arms of the false witness stretched themselves out and divided one of the walls, exposing to view a blooming garden, in the centre of which stood a scaffold hung with branches laden with ripe fruit. Bastide was a boy once more; slowly he strode out, Clarissa's hands waved above him and plucked the fruit, and his fear of death was dulled by their intoxicating perfume, which, like a cloud, filled the entire hall, nay, the entire universe.

Here he awoke. His first drowsy glance fell upon the flickering light of the lantern, the second upon a huge pear, which, yellow as a rising moon, lay at his bedside. In dazed, joyous astonishment he grasped it, but on raising it to his lips noticed that it was stained with blood. He was startled, thought he was still dreaming. Beyond the windows the gray light of dawn was already spreading. Now he caught sight of the other fruit, gorgeous and abundant, as if paradise had been pillaged. But all was stained with blood ... A little rivulet of blood, divided into two streams, trickled over from the corner of the wall.

And Bastide saw ...

He tried to rise, but his unfinished sleep still paralyzed his body.

Bitter and wild grief wrung his breast. He longed no more for the day which awoke so drearily outside; weary of his own heart-beats and perfectly sure of what had happened and must happen, he yearned for the final end. He desired no special knowledge of the consummated fate of the being on the other side of the cell, who, dominated by mysterious spirits, had trust herself into his path--no knowledge of men and what they built or destroyed. Man was an abomination to him.

And yet when his glance fell upon the splendid fruit once more, he felt the woe of all creation; he wished at least to close the eyes of the giver. But just then the keeper, grown suspicious, turned the key in the lock.

BERNHARD KELLERMANN

* * * * * *

GOD'S BELOVED (1911) TRANSLATED BY KATHARINE ROYCE

Before dawn the lawyer rose from his bed, and at that very moment a thousand little birds, who lived in his room, began to twitter and trill. "Awake so early, little ones!" whispered the lawyer. He never spoke aloud.

"Well, good morning! Hush! Hush!"

And the thousand little birds chirped in answer and then obediently stopped singing.

The lawyer wrapped a thick woolen shawl around his shoulders, for he was always very cold, slipped his feet into his wadded boots, drew on his gloves, put his fur cap on his bald head and went out of the house.

It was still night and everything looked unreal and magical. Now and then the grass would bow down with a sudden jerk, as people do in their sleep, if they dream that they are falling, and then for a moment the lawyer would feel a warm breath, which vanished as suddenly as it came. A confused mass of gray and black clouds swept rapidly across the sky and at the zenith three golden stars were visible in a line, so that they looked like a flying spear darting through the clouds. The lawyer gazed thoughtfully for some moments at the flying spear while his mind struggled with some dim idea. Then he hurried with short shuffling steps as quietly as possible along the sandy paths of the asylum gardens.

"Hush, keep still!" he whispered, as he passed some bushes in which something was stirring.

At the edge of the kitchen-garden there was an old well with a pump which was no longer used, and here the lawyer began his task. He put the watering-pot under the spout and began to pump, trying to make no noise. As there was but little water in the well and the lawyer pumped slowly and cautiously, it took him half an hour to fill the pot. Then, panting and coughing, the little man carried it to the garden beds, and began to water the flowers, smiling happily and speaking lovingly to them meanwhile. "Don't be in such a hurry, little ones," he whispered, "my dear children, how you drink! Good morning!"

But just then began a great fluttering and stirring in an elder bush. Hundreds of little birds suddenly thrust their heads out between the leaves and chirped to the lawyer.

He made a startled gesture. "For heaven's sake, be quiet!" said he. "You are always trying to be the first! Every morning. Hush!" And immediately silence reigned in the elder bush.

The lawyer went quietly from bed to bed and watered his flowers. He stopped frequently to draw a deep breath and gazed up at the sky, where the motionless golden spear still seemed to be darting through the clouds. He pondered for some time over that and shook his head. From the "violent ward" came a longdrawn wailing, which at regular intervals was merged in pitiful weeping. But the lawyer paid no attention to these sounds. He only heard the birds fluttering their wings and whetting their beaks in the bushes.

A night nurse passed by, shivering.

"Already at work, so early?" said she, turning her pale face toward him.

The lawyer put down his watering-pot, bowed and took off his cap. "One must keep at it," he whispered, "the little ones will not wait."

Then he began with the tenderest care to water the beds beside the principal buildings. He paused by the open windows of the kitchen, which were very low, and examined the window-sills. He shook his head and seemed much grieved and disappointed. Yes, they had once more forgotten to put out the bread crumbs for his birds! How could any one rely upon such maids?

He hunted up a couple of little pebbles on the path and threw them, one at a time, into the dark kitchen, laughing softly to himself. They really must learn to be more careful. O, he would soon teach them to put the bread crumbs regularly on the window-sill. There was plenty of gravel on the path. And what if they had already complained so often!

The watering-pot was empty and in the gray light of dawn the lawyer walked back to the well.

Ever since his wife's death the poor man had been a friend of birds and flowers. When she was dying, she had said, with her last breath, "The flowers must always be watered and the birds must always be fed." Those had been her last words and the lawyer heard them ringing in his ears day and night. He heard them in every breeze, in every conversation, even when all was silent they were wafted to him. In his wife's room there had stood a dark, heavy clothes press (which, oddly enough, he could still remember), and this large, dark object also repeated his wife's last words, although it made no sound whatever. The lawyer continued to live in seclusion and solitude, and watered the flowers in the window-boxes and fed and watered the birds in the cages. The flowers withered and the birds died, one by one. The lawyer took no notice of his loss. Indeed it seemed to him as if the birds were hopping and twittering gaily in their cages. They hatched their young and kept on increasing. And the lawyer took a childlike pleasure in this increase. Finally there were hundreds, thousands, whose chirping he heard from morning till night. They lived in the walls, on the ceiling, everywhere. And the good man could not understand why others neither saw nor heard them.

As the sun rose, the lawyer had already finished a good part of his day's work and turned back to the ward, which looked like a country cottage standing in a pretty garden.

In the doorway, leaning against the doorpost, Michael Petroff, a former officer in the Russian army, stood smiling, and greeted him with a bright, cheerful "Good morning, my friend!"

The lawyer in his woolen shawl, scarf and wadded boots, bowed and touched his cap.

"Good morning, Captain!"

They bowed several times, for they respected each other highly, and shook hands only after the completion of this ceremony.

"Did you sleep well, Herr Advokat?" asked Michael Petroff, bending forward a little and smiling pleasantly.

"Did I sleep well? Yes, thank you."

"I too passed an excellent night," Michael Petroff continued with a bright happy laugh. "Really excellent. I had a dream--," he added, smiling and gazing out into the garden with his right eye half closed. "Yes, indeed!--Now do come into my office, my friend. I have news. After you!" He laid his hand on the little lawyer's shoulder and with a slight bow allowed him to pass in first.

Captain Michael Petroff was a tall slender man with cheerful steel-blue eyes and a small blond mustache, which like his soft, blond, parted hair, was beginning to turn white. He was dressed with scrupulous neatness and was carefully shaved. His chin was round and exquisitely formed, though a trifle weak, the modeling of his mouth was unusually fine and delicate, like that of a mere boy.

"Please be seated," said Michael Petroff, while with a gesture he invited the lawyer to sit on the sofa.

"But perhaps I am intruding?" whispered the lawyer, and remained standing.

"No, indeed! How could you--?" And Michael Petroff led the lawyer over to the sofa. The little man sat down timidly, looking gratefully up at his host. "You are so very busy--I know--," said he, and nodded at the writing table, which was heaped with documents, newspapers, and manuscripts.

"I have plenty to do," added Michael Petroff, with a curious smile on his pretty boyish lips. "But one has always time for one's friends. Here, do listen! I have just outlined a petition to the Hessian government--," Michael Petroff smiled and balanced a sheet of paper on his hand--"The Hessian government is to be urgently requested, most--urgently--requested, to reconsider the verdict in the case of a teacher!"

Michael Petroff glanced at his guest while four deep lines suddenly appeared on his forehead. "This teacher," he went on, "was sentenced to four years' imprisonment, only think--four years. He had ten mouths to feed and he embezzled some funds. Voila tout! What do you think of that! Ha, ha! That is the way of the world, you see! In my petition I demand not merely that the sentence should be revoked, but also that officers' salaries should be increased. I demand it--I, Captain Michael Petroff, and I shall also appear in the _Non-Partisan_. You will see, my friend!" Michael Petroff cast a fearless, triumphant glance at the little baldheaded lawyer, who listened and nodded, although he did not quite understand what the Captain meant.

"You do a great deal of good!" he whispered, nodding, while a childish smile flitted over his sad, pale little face. And after a moment's reflection he added, "You are a good man. You surely are!"

Michael Petroff shook his head. "I do my duty!" he declared earnestly. And laying his hand on his heart while his clear steel-blue eyes flashed, he added: "My sacred duty!"

Captain Michael Petroff, former officer in a St. Petersburg regiment, considered it his life work to plead for justice in this world. He called himself "The Tribunal of right and justice." He subscribed for two large daily papers, and searched them every day for cases in which, according to his judgment, injustice had been done to some one. And every day Michael Petroff found cases. Cases and nothing but cases. These cases he cut out, arranged them in chronological order and immediately went to work on them.

He often sat up late in his office, as he called his room, or in his editorial sanctum, as he sometimes designated it in an undertone when speaking to his confidential friend. There he would sit and write, in a hand as neat as copperplate, his memorials, protests, petitions, which he delivered every day at six o'clock to the head physician. Dr. Maerz. who had undertaken to forward them regularly. Dr. Maerz was glad to receive these manuscripts which he laid in a separate pigeonhole, in order to use them from time to time as material for his work on Graphomania.

The little time that this activity left him, Michael Petroff employed in editing his newspaper. And it was because of this paper that he sometimes secretly referred to his room as "his editorial sanctum." This newspaper did not appear regularly, but only when it happened to be ready. It usually appeared once a year, but sometimes twice, if his nervous condition urged him to greater haste.

Michael Petroff's paper was a fairly accurate representation of an ordinary daily paper, from the heading, in which the conditions of subscription were stated, as well as the name of the city in which the paper appeared--the city was arbitrarily chosen by Michael Petroff--to the fictitious names of the publisher and editor. Like any other paper, it contained advertisements, which Michael Petroff simply cut out of other papers, a leading article, and contributions. The whole editorial part, however, was engaged--with the exception of a few articles which were slipped in as a disguise--with the question: Is the confinement of Michael Petroff, Captain in the Russian army, justified? The titles of the separate articles varied from year to year, although the ideas expressed in them were similar. The Russian government's Ultimatum!--A letter from the Czar to the head physician, Dr. Maerz! And every year the paper appeared under a different name. Michael Petroff called it _The Eye of the World, The Conscience of Europe, The Bayonet._

Michael Petroff made no secret of his petitions, but he spoke of his newspaper only to his confidant, the lawyer. And although he was naturally friendly and very kind-hearted, possibly the reason he was so extremely fond of the lawyer was that he could talk to him about his paper.

"Just a moment, my friend," said he. "There is such news! I want to tell you the very latest. Please stay."

He went to the door and cleared his throat and listened. Then he stepped out into the corridor, coughed, looked up and down and came back satisfied. He drew out the editorial drawer, the key of which he wore around his neck, and with a happy laugh began: "The very latest! Listen! This cannot fail to have its effect. Just hear the headline: Doctor Maerz arrested!"

"Dr. Maerz arrested?" whispered the lawyer anxiously, looking up at Petroff in open-mouthed astonishment.

Michael Petroff laughed.

"Arrested? No, of course not. I go on to explain in the article that Dr. Maerz is going to be arrested, and that the only way for him to escape arrest is to give Michael Petroff his discharge immediately."

The lawyer nodded. "I see," said he, smiling because he saw Petroff looking so cheerful. And yet he was not thinking anything about Petroff's article, but only that he must give the birds their water. He grew restless and started to rise.

"Just a moment, please!" said Michael Petroff eagerly. "Yes, it is really an excellent idea," he continued rapidly, while his cheeks flushed with joy. "In my article I emphasize the fact that Dr. Maerz is an honorable man and a highly prized and respected physician, so that his conduct in this particular case causes widespread astonishment. I should like to ask you, my friend, what he will do when he reads this article? Ha, ha, ha! They will find out something, my dear fellow. I am not going to be unkind to him, not in the least. Well, in fact, in fact, I shall say, my dear Doctor, ha, ha! But just look at this too, in the _Non-Partisan_. Only look at this title, will you please!"

"Which one--?"

"Why, this one!"

"An interrogation point?"

"Yes! Ha, ha-- Simply an interrogation point! And beneath that: Where is Michael Petroff? An appeal to the public! But look at this, in the little _Feuilleton_: Michael Petroff, a Captain in the Russian army, has just completed his six-volume work on Shooting Stars. All the scientific journals are praising the clearness and acumen of this epoch-making work. Ha, ha, ha, didn't I tell you that there was news, my friend?"

The lawyer crouched in the sofa corner and made such an effort to think, that he held his breath.

"I don't understand--?" he whispered and slowly shook his head.

"What don't you understand?"

"That he should keep you in confinement."

Michael Petroff glanced at the lawyer in surprise. Then he leaned forward and whispered: "But I have already told you that my relations pay him."

"They pay him?"

"Yes, of course!" answered Michael Petroff cheerfully. "Enormous sums. Millions!"

"Oh!" The lawyer began to understand now.

"Yes, you see, that is how it is in the world!" said Michael Petroff, and snapped his fingers.

But the lawyer did not wholly comprehend yet.

"I do not understand," he began again. "Dr. Maerz is so kindhearted. I live here, I have my home and my food and I pay nothing. He has never asked me for any money.--I have no money, you know," he ended anxiously in a still lower tone.

Michael Petroff laid his hand pompously but protectingly on his friend's shoulder. "You work in the garden," said he, "you water the flowers. How could he have the face to expect you to pay money? That is perfectly simple. But perhaps you too have relations outside who pay for you?"

"Relations?"

"Yes. Outside--there!" A bitter smile curved Michael Petroff's beautiful boyish mouth. Should he tell this little old man in the woolen shawl where he really was? Should he perhaps explain to this little old man with the grayish wrinkled face, that there was an "outside"--where one could even get into a railway train or wash one's hands before sitting down to table? Suddenly he stood up on his tiptoes and instantly lost all conception of his own actual body; he seemed to himself like a gigantic tower rising up to the clouds, and looking down on the little baldheaded man, who had only two thin tufts of gray hair above his ears. He was seized with the desire to make the lawyer cry.

But suddenly he bowed slightly to his friend and said: "Please forgive Michael Petroff!" He walked across the room, then turned to his guest and said in precisely his usual tone: "Will the fair weather last today?"

"I think so--I am not sure," answered the lawyer doubtfully.

"Well, we will play cricket this afternoon. Are you cold?"

"Yes," whispered the lawyer and drew his scarf closer.

Michael Petroff gazed at him with his head on one side. "I cannot understand how you can be cold today." And he laughed gaily. "Come," said he, "let us--" he paused, for he did not know what he wanted to do--"Let us--Oh yes, let us go and see Friend Engelhardt. Come!--The Doctor was with him last night," he ended mysteriously.

"The Doctor?"

"Yes. Our friend is ill. Hm, hm." Michael Petroff carefully locked up the manuscript of his newspaper, put on a big gray English traveling cap, looked in the glass, and they left the room together. Michael Petroff laughed a soft guttural laugh. At Engelhardt's door they paused to listen, and then knocked.--

There were two great days in the year for Michael Petroff.

One was his birthday, the sixteenth of May. Michael Petroff never forgot it. On May sixteenth he would walk about with an important air, and looking about him he would say to every one he met: "This is my birthday. I thank you for your good wishes!" The attendant always came before dinner and asked him to come to Dr. Maerz's room to receive his congratulations.

Then Michael Petroff would go, with quick, light steps to Dr. Maerz's parlor, shake hands with him and thank him for the wonderful bouquet of white roses that Dr. Maerz gave him.

Michael never suspected where the bunch of white roses came from. He did not know that, on his birthday, his wife and daughter stood behind the portiere of the parlor, nor that they made the long journey every year to see him. The first few years the Captain's wife had had golden hair, but it had gradually turned gray, and now it was white, although she was still quite a young woman. Formerly she used to come alone, but for three years past she had always been accompanied by a young lady, who wept bitterly when she arrived and when she went away. This young lady had but one ear and concealed the disfigurement by the way in which she dressed her hair. Michael Petroff had cut off her other ear when she was only a child, during the first outbreak of his malady.

Michael Petroff chatted and laughed pleasantly with the head physician and carried the roses to his friend, the lawyer.

"Here are some flowers for you. I do not want them!"

The lawyer's eyes opened wide with delight, and he took the roses carefully as if they were fragile.

Michael Petroff's second great day was that on which his newspaper appeared.

The paper was always printed in the town. Michael Petroff had induced the porter of the Sanatorium to undertake take this commission. The porter delivered the manuscript to the printer and brought back the twenty-five printed copies to Michael Petroff. And then for a few days he was in a state of the greatest excitement. He sent the paper to the doctors, especially to Dr. Maerz, and waited in suspense to see what effect it would have. At such times he could not work, but wandered about the house and garden all day. If he met a doctor, he would stop and cast a triumphant glance at him, smiling as if secure of victory.

But a few days later he would question the doctors: "May I ask whether you have received a newspaper?"

"A newspaper?"

"Yes! I received it myself. _The Bayonet_?"

"Oh yes, I remember now. I will take a look at it."

"Yes, please do. There may be some things in it that will interest you. Ha, ha, ha!" And he laid his hand on the Doctor's shoulder and gazed meaningly at him.

Finally he asked the head physician himself.

"Yes, yes," answered he, "certainly I read that paper, my dear Captain. A curious thing. I made inquiries immediately, but the editors were not to be found, in spite of all my pains. They do not seem to be in existence. Or else they are gone. I scarcely know what to think of the paper, my dear Captain."

Then for a few days Michael Petroff would wander disconsolately about, and his depression might even bring on melancholia or frenzy. But after a few days he would always regain his cheerful spirits. He would greet his friends, and apologize for his disagreeable behavior. And immediately he would begin to plan out another newspaper. This time it must surely be a success. Take care. Dr. Maerz!

Such was Michael Petroff, Captain in the Russian army.

Friend Engelhardt, whom Michael Petroff and the lawyer were going to visit, was a gray-haired man about fifty years old, who had been only a year in Dr. Maerz's sanatorium. He was a shoemaker by trade and had sat all his life, year in, year out, under his glass globe of water,[A] tapping away on leather. He was unmarried, lived much alone and since he was industrious and economical, he had laid up a comfortable little property. And there he sat under his glass globe and nothing whatever happened. But gradually the globe began to look more and more strange to him. It flashed upon him and dazzled him, so that he sometimes felt for a moment a certain unacknowledged fear of it. It seemed to grow bigger and bigger, until at last the time came when Engelhardt's hair stood on end with horror--

[Footnote A: German shoemakers used a glass globe full of water placed in front of their lamp, to concentrate the light upon their work.]

And thenceforth he suffered from the strange and terrible delusion that he was the centre of the universe and that it was his task to keep the whole world in equilibrium. The myriad forces of all creation were united in him and he felt with agonizing constancy, how the suns and the planets were circling about him, and how everything was rushing and whirling through space. If a chain of skaters revolves around one man who is in the middle, that man will feel the extraordinary force with which the two rushing wings whirl around him, and he will be obliged to exert all his strength to maintain his position. Engelhardt felt precisely so and since his efforts were unremitting, his delusion exhausted him to such an extent, that in one year he had aged as if in ten. Even if--so he said--the heavenly bodies had been so marvelously ordained by the almighty Creator, that through all eternity they revolved in their foreordained circles and spirals (as he said), yet he suffered beyond endurance from the slightest disturbance in outer space. During the winter he had been unable to sleep for two weeks, because a swiftly moving star was pulling at him. Curiously enough, at this very time a comet appeared which astonished all the astronomers. Just then Schwindt, an attendant, had died under peculiar circumstances and Engelhardt--as he himself said--had _drunk in_ his soul, from which he had gained fresh strength, sufficient to last him throughout the spring and summer. But now again his task was wearing him out more every day and his powers were failing rapidly. The shooting stars and the swarms of meteors dragged at him, until he became dizzy, and especially the moon exerted at this period a terrible power over him. It sucked in his strength, and Engelhardt imagined that at any moment the ground might give way beneath him and he might sink into the depths and the whole universe might collapse above him.

When Michael Petroff and the little lawyer entered Engelhardt's room, after vainly knocking at the door for some time, they found him in bed, with his thin hairy hands lying helplessly on the coverlet. He was gazing directly upward, and indeed his eyes were rolled up so far that the whites showed, and he seemed to be looking fixedly at some special point in the ceiling. His face was of a somewhat yellowish tone and gave the impression of being made of porcelain, the skin was so smooth and the bones were so prominent. His forehead was uncommonly large in proportion to his small face and mouth, which was drawn together as if ready to whistle and was surrounded by many little lines centering at the lips. The shoemaker had wasted away so during the year that the collar of his bright colored shirt stood out a finger's breadth from his thin neck.

"Good morning!" said Michael Petroff gently and cheerfully. "Here are some friends to see you!" The lawyer remained timidly standing in the doorway.

Engelhardt did not answer. A shudder passed over him, and his thin hairy hands twitched from time to time, as if he were receiving an electric shock of varying strength.

Michael Petroff smiled and came toward him. "How are you, my dear friend?" said he softly and sympathetically, bending over Engelhardt. "Did the Doctor come to see you last night?"

Engelhardt rolled his head from side to side on the pillow. He was exhausted by a sleepless night and by the effects of the hypnotics that the Doctor had given him.

"Very ill!" answered he in a lifeless tone.

"Very ill?" Michael Petroff raised his eyebrows anxiously. He turned to the little lawyer, who still stood at the door. "Our poor friend does not feel well!" said he.

"Are you in pain?" Michael Petroff bent once more over the sick man and held his ear near Engelhardt's mouth.

"Yes," answered the sick man in a dull and lifeless tone, and murmured something in Petroff's ear. It sounded as if he were praying.

Michael Petroff straightened up again and glanced at the little lawyer. "He says that he has come to the end of his strength, our poor friend. He needs a new soul--like that time in the winter, when the attendant died, don't you remember?" And he shouted into the ear of the sufferer, unnecessarily loud: "I will speak with the Doctor, Friend Engelhardt. This is the Doctor's business. In one way or another he will get you a soul!"

But the little lawyer suddenly wrapped himself closer in his shawl. He was as cold as ice. Ordinarily very few impressions remained in his memory, but he still remembered clearly the death of the attendant Schwindt--and how Michael Petroff had come to his room and whispered mysteriously in his ear: "The attendant is dead. Engelhardt has taken his soul, don't you see!" So now he was horrified at the thought that Engelhardt might perhaps demand _his_ soul, and there was nothing that he feared more than death.

Death dwelt in his confused sick brain as a figure that was invisible all but the hands. Suddenly, Oh so suddenly, it would stand near him, close by his side. And a horrible chill would stream forth from the dread form, and all the flowers, white with frost, would die, and the millions of swift little birds would fall frozen through the air, and he himself would be changed into a little heap of snow.

The lawyer drew in his head, so that his thin gray beard pushed out above his scarf, and gazed timidly at Michael Petroff with his little mouse-like eyes and shivered.

Michael Petroff looked at him in astonishment. "What is the matter, my dear fellow?" he drawled, smilingly. "Are you afraid! Why should you be, I wonder? I shall go at once to Dr. Maerz and explain to him what Engelhardt requires. From what I know of him, he will not delay, and so everything will be attended to. I would gladly place my own soul at your disposal. Friend Engelhardt, but I still need it myself---I have a mission to fulfil, you know--I am Napoleon, and I fight a battle every day, I am--" But here he paused suddenly and listened.

"The Doctor is coming! Don't you hear him?" he whispered. "He will be here immediately--"

Dr. Maerz had come into the ward. He could be heard speaking with some one in the corridor, and the three men in the shoemaker's room listened. The Doctor's voice was the only one which had the power to change the current of their thoughts and to give them hopes, great hopes, indefinite though they were. It affected them somewhat as a voice affects wanderers, who believe that they are lost in a solitary wilderness. And yet Dr. Maerz did not talk much, but he had become a master of the art of listening, and would pay attention for hours every day to the complaints, the lamentations, and the hundreds of requests of his patients. But a few words from him had the power to encourage, to comfort, to cheer and to influence the mood of his patients for the whole day.

Suddenly the lawyer ceased to shiver, Michael Petroff began to laugh happily, and Engelhardt withdrew his gaze from the point in the ceiling and looked toward the half open door. He gazed so intently that his small bright eyes seemed to squint.

"Listen! The Rajah is talking with him!" said Michael Petroff, holding up his finger for silence.

"Nobody is watching you, my dear friend," said the Doctor's quiet voice.

And a deep and almost gentler voice replied: "I heard the watchman walking back and forth before my door all night, Sir. And I also heard the drum when the watch was relieved."

"My friend," answered the Doctor, "You must have been dreaming."

"No," continued the man whom Michael Petroff had called the "Rajah," "I excuse you, Sir, because I know that you are only doing your duty. But your tact ought to prevent you from carrying out your precautions in such an obvious way. I have given you my word of honor not to make any attempt to escape. I want you to tell that to the English government, by whose authority you are keeping me here in confinement. Neither have I any weapons concealed in my room. I want you to search it."

"I know that perfectly well, my friend!"

"All the same, I want you to search."

And the "Rajah" would not be satisfied until the Doctor had promised that his room should be searched immediately.

During this conversation Dr. Maerz had appeared in the doorway, with the "Rajah" just behind him. Dr. Maerz was a small man, dressed in a light-gray suit, with a ruddy beardless face and a quick, searching but gentle eye, while the "Rajah" stood behind him, tall and dark, and almost filling up the doorway. The "Rajah" had a long black beard and a fearless, dark brown face, in which the whites of his eyes showed strikingly.

The "Rajah" was simply a teacher, who had taught for a few years in India in a German school. A protracted fever had caused an incipient delusion, which, after his return to his native land, took entire possession of him. He imagined himself to be an Indian prince, who had been exiled by the English government.

He was extremely silent and reserved, and never talked with the other patients. His bearing expressed an inscrutable calm and an apparently quite natural pride. For days together he would favor no one with a glance. He would walk up and down the garden, very slowly, gazing scornfully at the flowers and trees, and every evening, if the weather permitted, he would sit apart on a bench and gaze at the sinking sun, turning his dark face toward it until it disappeared. And as he gazed at the setting sun, an obscure, wistful sorrow glowed in his dark eyes. For he saw palm trees, that seemed to melt into the sun, so that only their tops showed, edged with flame, while their trunks were invisible--and elephants, stepping proudly, with their little brown _mahouts_ upon their necks--and glittering golden temples, and crowds of dark, half naked natives, trotting along with branches in their hands, and uttering shrill cries--and then too, he saw himself, going on board the steamer that was to carry him into exile, while the dark people threw themselves down on the quay and wept. The "Rajah's" soul was filled with deep and bitter sorrow, and he rose and held his broad shoulders more erect, as if he were bearing a heavy burden. And he bore it! The "Rajah" never complained, never showed despondency, nor did he ever show any sign of what was taking place within him.

Even in his own room he behaved tranquilly. Very rarely was he heard to speak, and only once in a while--in his sleep--would he utter a long-drawn singing cry, such as street venders use in the Orient.

As Dr. Maerz entered the room, the little baldheaded lawyer bowed, with his cap in his hand, and stood modestly against the wall. His gratitude knew no bounds, because the Doctor allowed him to live quietly and peacefully among his flowers and birds, without ever asking him to pay anything. So today he did not even venture to ask Dr. Maerz for crumbs for the birds nor to complain of the negligence of the maids in the kitchen, although he had fully determined to do so.

But the lawyer could not look at the "Rajah" who stood dark and unapproachable in the passageway, without feeling timid and slightly anxious. To express his respect, he bowed low to the "Rajah," and since the latter did not notice him, he bowed once more, moving his lips in a whisper. But the "Rajah" did not vouchsafe him a glance. For a moment the lawyer thought of approaching and kissing the "Rajah's" hand. For he recalled a circumstance that had been sharply impressed upon his memory: One evening he had met the "Rajah" in the corridor and had bowed to him. They had been quite alone. The "Rajah" had come toward him and had said in a deep, mysterious voice, "My loyal subject!" and had given him his hand to kiss. "Wait!" the "Rajah" had continued, "I will show my favor to you. I have very little of the treasure left, that I brought with me into exile, but--here, take this." And the "Rajah" had slipped a little gray stone into his hand.

Michael Petroff, on the contrary, looked smilingly and questioningly at Dr. Maerz, while he stood politely back against the door. Meanwhile he tipped his head somewhat backward and sidewise and looked at the Doctor, as if he expected some very special news from him and as if he knew quite well that Dr. Maerz had such news for him today. So confidently did he look at him, while a smile played about his pretty boyish mouth.

But Engelhardt, whose brows were drawn up with pain as if they were fastened with rivets, had half sat up in bed and was explaining his needs and his sufferings to the Doctor. He spoke in a guttural tone, rapidly, in a murmur that was hard to understand, and his voice sounded like the distant barking of a dog, heard on a still night.