XII.
Opening the door of his lodging a few days later Albert noticed Eugenie talking with Frau Rodbertus. They were in the little parlor. He wondered what they were always talking about, this young girl and that middle aged woman. He wished to walk past them, up the stairs, to his room, but the parlor door was open and he could not pass unnoticed. Besides, he was lonesome and liked to talk to them—to Eugenie. There was something about her that always caused his lonesomeness to disappear. With her he felt at home. She made him forget Hilda.
Eugenie was seated close to Frau Rodbertus, leaning affectionately against the older woman, the candle light flickering on a table close by.
They soon laughingly began to talk of love. Albert called it a malady, which, he declared, was in some cases incurable. The widow laughed indulgently, with the tolerance of older people for the sweet nonsense of the young. Eugenie’s eyes were serious and she vouchsafed no comment.
Frau Rodbertus was to have escorted Eugenie home but Albert would not hear of it.
He took Eugenie’s arm carelessly, without any timidity, without even feeling the tremor of her arm as he touched it. Eugenie was silent as they walked through the dark quiet streets. Presently her hand touched his, and he clasped it, feeling the fingers moist and cool, and he playfully straightened her fingers one by one without resistance from her. Her fingers were slender and soft, and he was conscious of a strong desire to carry them to his lips.
She did not permit him to take her all the way home. “You know my father is very strict and would be horrified if he knew I allowed you to walk home with me in the evening.”
They stopped a few doors from her house. She lived in a dark narrow street devoid of street lamps.
“You are so sympathetic,” he was saying to her, referring to her attitude rather than her words. She had extended her hand to him but he was in no haste to part. He could see her eyes in the dark. They were fixed upon his face sympathetically, and they were so close to each other.
Suddenly—he never could recall how it came about—his hands began to creep along her arms—they crept slowly, barely touching her sleeves, from the wrists upward—until the tips of his sensitive fingers felt the contact of her slender shoulders—he felt their smooth roundness, the yielding softness of the velvet garment over them—and then his arms entwined her. When their lips met she caught her breath with an involuntary little gasp—half sob, half cry, and clung to him grippingly for a moment but soon rested in his arms, scarcely breathing, with the stillness of death. For a bare second he was frightened. He could not hear her breathe.
“Eugenie,” he whispered. He now held her at arm’s length and peered into her face, but it was so dark that he could only see her dilated eyes. She was just staring at him, mystified at the first kiss from a man’s lips. “Eugenie,” he whispered again, but he only heard her catching her breath in response. He bent forward and kissed her moist slender fingers and bade her good night. Her fingers clung to him as they parted, almost drawing him back. “Good night,” he repeated. Her reply was no louder than her breathing.
They parted.
He walked away a few steps, turned around, and halted. He saw a shadow moving toward her house. When he saw the door open he walked away as fast as his legs could carry him, as if he were speeding away from a scene of crime. He also entered his room stealthily. And when in bed he tried to understand what had happened. It all seemed like a dream. He tried to persuade himself it was a dream. He was in love with Hilda. He was sure Hilda was the only one he loved. Then his mind recalled the scene of the reapers. Was he like the driver, that beast-like peasant? He sighed. He found himself pitying Eugenie—that sweet, gentle, trusting Eugenie—and despising himself. He hated himself. His eyelids were soon wet with tears, an unbearable pain in his breast. The thought of Eugenie wrung his heart; it gnawed at his brain. Albert was easily given to tears, and they now flowed freely. He wept for Eugenie. She was so pure, so beautiful, so tender, so sympathetic, and he treated her as if—as if she were a reaper in the fields!
What was pounding in his ears so clamorously? The dashing waves by the sea . . . the driver was kissing Hilda . . . What surprised him was that the sight did not shock him and he looked on and laughed; he was not even jealous; there was no resentment in his heart. He laughed and told Frau Rodbertus not to mind it—Frau Rodbertus, in her long gown and slippers, was seated in his lap and calling him sweetheart, and he was married to the widow . . . As he was trying to recall when he had married her Hilda and Eugenie came in, arm in arm. But how they were dressed! Barefooted, with short skirts of unbleached linen and loose blouses, like the reapers; and then Uncle Leopold—it was Uncle Leopold but he wore a beard like Aaron Hirsch—rushed in and waved a stick at him—the stick looked like an axle . . .
He stirred and said to himself he did not know why he could not fall asleep, then stirred again, opened his eyes and beheld day-light. He leaned out of bed, reached for his watch on a chair close by, and jumped out. He had overslept.