XXV
After losing twenty-eight thousand francs, the amount that he had gradually borrowed from Mr. Bradshaw and Prince Wiguniewski, Amadeus Voss got up from the gaming table, and staggered into the open. He had a dim notion that he would seek out Christian, to tell him that he would be able to settle the debt within twenty-four hours.
He went to the telegraph office, and sent a message to Christian. Then he stood beneath a chestnut tree in bloom, and muttered: “Brother, brother.”
A woman came along the road, and he joined her. But suddenly he burst out into wild laughter, turned down a side street, and went on alone.
He walked and walked for six endless hours. At two o’clock in the morning he was in Heyst. His brain seemed to have become an insensitive lump, incapable of light or reason.
Masses of dark grey clouds that floated in the sky assumed to him the aspect of women’s bodies. The clouds, which the hot night drove toward the north, were like cloaks over the forms he desired. He felt an obscure yearning for all the love in all the lands in which he had no part.
At the garden-gate of the villa he stopped and stared up at Christian’s windows. They were open and showed light. “Brother,” he muttered again, “brother!” Christian appeared at the window. The sight of him filled Voss with a sudden, overwhelming hatred. “Take care, Wahnschaffe!” he cried.
Christian left the window, and soon appeared at the gate. Amadeus awaited him with clenched fists. But when Christian approached, he turned and fled down the street, and Christian looked after him. Then his steps became slower, and Christian followed.
After Voss had wandered about aimlessly for a time, he felt a torturing thirst. He happened to pass a sailors’ tavern, considered for a moment, and entered. He ordered grog, but did not touch the glass. Five or six men sat at various tables. Three slept; the eyes of the others had a drunken stare. The tavern keeper, an obese fellow with a criminal face, sat behind the bar, and watched this elegantly attired guest, whose face was so pale and so disturbed. He concluded that the late comer was in a mood of despair, and beckoned to the bar-maid, a dark-haired, dirty Walloon, to sit down by him.
Impudently she did so, and started to talk. He did not understand her. She gave a coarse laugh, and put a hand on his knee. Behind her thin and ragged bodice her breasts stirred like animals. She had a primitive, animal odour. He turned dizzy. Then a lust to murder stirred in him.
He drew from his pocket all the money he had left. There were seventy francs—three gold and five silver coins. “The magic numbers,” he muttered, and grew a shade paler, “three and five!”
The Walloon woman turned greedy and caressing eyes upon the coins. The tavern keeper, scenting business, dragged his bulk forward.
“Strip off your clothes, and it’s yours!” said Amadeus Voss.
She looked at him stupidly. The tavern keeper understood German and translated the words. She laughed shrilly, and pointed toward the door. Amadeus shook his head. “No; now; here!” He was stubborn. The girl turned to her employer, and the two consulted in whispers. Her gestures made it evident that she cared little for the presence of the drunken or snoring men. She disappeared behind a brown partition that had once been yellow. The tavern keeper gathered the money on the table, waddled from window to window to see that the red hangings covered all the panes, and then stood guard at the door.
Amadeus sat there as though steeped in seething water. A few minutes passed. Then the Walloon woman appeared from behind the partition. The sailors looked up. One arose and gesticulated; one uttered a wild laugh. The woman stood with lowered eyes—stubborn, careless, rubbing one foot with the other. She was rather fat, quite without charm, and the lines of her body had been destroyed.
But to Amadeus Voss she was like a supernatural vision, and he gazed upon her as though his whole soul was in that gaze. His arms reached out, and his fingers became claws, and his lips twitched. The fishermen and the tavern keeper no longer saw the woman. They saw him. They felt fear. So unwonted was the sight that they did not observe the opening of the door. The tavern keeper’s whistled warning came too late. Christian, who entered, still saw the naked woman as she hurried toward the partition.
He approached Amadeus. But the latter took no notice of him. He stared spell-bound at the spot where the woman had stood.
Christian laid a hand upon his shoulder. Amadeus roused himself from his absorption, turned slow, questioning eyes upon his friend, and strangely uttered with his quivering lips these words: “Est Deus in nobis; agitante calescimus illo.”
Then he broke down, his forehead dropped on the table, and a shudder shook his body.
The tavern keeper muttered morosely.
“Come, Amadeus,” said Christian very quietly.
The drunken fishermen and sailors stared.
Amadeus arose, and groped like a blind man for Christian’s hand.
“Come, Amadeus,” Christian repeated, and his voice seemed to make a deep impression on Voss, for he followed him without hesitation. The tavern keeper and the sailors accompanied them into the street.
The tavern keeper said to the men with him: “Those are what you call gentlemen. Look how they behave! It shows you why the world is ruled so ill.”
“The dawn is breaking,” said one of the fishermen, and pointed to a purple streak in the eastern heaven.
Christian and Amadeus likewise stared at the purple seam of the east, and Amadeus spoke again: “Est Deus in nobis; agitante calescimus illo.”