XXII
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.