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Karen’s body had been given back to the earth. Many of the people from the house had accompanied it to the grave. Christian thought he had also observed Johanna and Voss.
On the way home Dr. Voltolini walked beside him. For a while they did not speak. Then Christian with the perception of something unpleasant at his back, suddenly turned around. Ten paces behind he saw Niels Heinrich Engelschall. As Christian stopped, the other stopped too, and pretended to look at a shop window.
In the cemetery Christian had escaped from the friends who had accompanied him. Now, too, he would have preferred loneliness; but he did not want to wound the physician.
Continuing a conversation which they had started before the funeral, Dr. Voltolini said: “Stübbe ought to be separated from his family and placed in an institution. At any time delirium tremens might break out and he might kill the whole crowd. And even as it is, the poor woman can’t endure his cruelty much longer. She’s at the end of her strength.”
“I’ve interfered several times during the past few days,” Christian answered softly. “Other neighbours helped too. A man like that is worse than a wolf. The children stand around and tremble.”
“And it’s so difficult,” said Dr. Voltolini, “to get the authorities to take any preventive measures. The law is unreasonably severe. Once a misfortune has taken place, it enters more mercilessly than is necessary; but it can never be moved to prevent anything.”
Again Christian turned around. Niels Heinrich was still following. Again he stopped, looked about him indifferently, and spat on the sidewalk.
“It is never a question of what one knows or desires, but always of what one does,” Christian said, walking on again.
“And even what one has done, though it be inspired by the purest motives and the strictest sense of duty, is spattered with mud, and one must suffer for it as for a crime,” Dr. Voltolini said bitterly.
“Has that been your experience?” Christian asked, with apparently conventional sympathy, but with his aware and listening glance.
“I don’t like to talk about it,” Dr. Voltolini said, with a saddened mien. “I haven’t done so to any one here so far. You’re the first and only one who have made me want to talk. I felt that way so soon as I had met you. It isn’t as though you could advise or help me; it’s far too late for either. My misfortune has done its worst and has receded into the past. But constant silence gnaws at me, and I can escape a period of paralysis if I can tell you the story of what happened to me.”
Christian shook his head very slightly in his astonishment. Many people had already said similar words to him, and he did not understand their motive.
Dr. Voltolini continued: “Until two years ago I practised at Riedberg, near Freiwaldau, in Austrian Silesia. The town is several miles from the frontier of Prussia. Quite near it medicinal springs were discovered. It became a health resort of increasing popularity, and I and my family gradually attained a modest prosperity. But in the beginning of the summer of 1905 it happened that the wife of a cottager was attacked by typhoid fever, and I, according to my sworn duty, reported the case to the health authorities. Several citizens wanted to prevent my action. Even the commission on sanitation, whose chairman was mayor of the town, raised objections, and represented to me how the guests would be scared away for a long time and the town get a bad name. I told them I was acting in the interests of every one and could not be deterred by merely material considerations. First they besought and finally threatened me, but I remained firm.
“The first consequence was that a regiment, which had been ordered to Riedberg, and whose being stationed there would have been profitable to the town, was sent elsewhere. The panic that had been feared among the guests in the hotels did break out, and most of them fled. And now a wretched stream of abuse was poured out over me, and every one raged against me in the filthiest terms. The men did not respond to my greeting on the street. The butcher and baker and dairyman refused to sell their goods to my wife. Daily I received anonymous letters; you can imagine their character. My windows were smashed; no one came to my consultation hours, no patient dared to summon me. The fees that people owed me were not paid, and suspicions and slanders arose, ranging from silly talk to the vilest insinuations.
“Finally I was discharged from my office of district physician. I appealed to the National Medical Association, which in its turn appealed to the highest authorities. The town council and the sanitary commission were both dissolved by the governor of the province, the mayor was removed from office, my own dismissal revoked, and an escort of gendarmes despatched to the town to protect me and mine from violence. The trouble was that my situation was as bad as ever. The government could protect me from bodily hurt, but it could neither give me back my practice nor force my old patients to pay what they owed me. I was ruined. In the course of five months I brought twenty-one suits of slander and won every case. But I was more discouraged each time. It became clear that I could not stay at Riedberg. But where was I to go—a country doctor without private means, with a wife and children and, a feeble, aged mother to support? How was I to silence the slanderers, wash off the stain, and heal the inner hurt? I had no friend there who could lend me support; from the consolations of my wife there came to me only the voice of her own despair.
“I broke down completely. For eleven months I lay in a hospital. With unexampled energy my wife was busy during this period founding a new home for us and finding a new field of activity for me. I received permission to practise in Germany, and began life anew. Although I had lost faith both in my own powers and in mankind, my soul gradually grew calm again. Our circumstances are the most modest; but in this great city it is possible to be alone and to prevent the interference of strangers. For a long time I could practise my profession only if I forgot that my patients were human. I had to regard them as mechanisms that were to be repaired. Their pain and sorrow I passed over, and I hated to notice either. Do you understand that? Do you understand my coldness and contempt?”
“After all your experiences I can well understand it,” Christian answered. “But I believe your standpoint is no longer the same. Am I right? It seems to me that a change has taken place in you.”
“Yes, a change has taken place,” Dr. Voltolini admitted. “And it began——” He stopped and cast an unobtrusive glance at his companion. After a pause he said timidly: “Why did you smile that day when the Schirmacher girl showed you her ring? Do you remember? You may, of course, reply: it was natural to smile, for the stone which delighted her so was quite worthless, and yet to disillusion her would have been cruel. And yet your smile didn’t express that. It expressed something else.”
Christian said: “I really don’t remember precisely. I do remember the ring and the girl’s pleasure in it, but I can’t tell you to-day just why I smiled. It would have been better, by the way, if the girl had been less happy. A few days later she lost the ring, and the poor thing cried for hours. It would have been better if I had said to her: ‘Neither the ring nor the stone is worth anything.’ I should have told her to throw it away. On such occasions it is almost always better to say to people, ‘Throw it away.’ Perhaps I smiled because that is what I wanted to say and didn’t have the courage.”
“That’s how it looked,” Dr. Voltolini said quickly and with a touch of excitement. “That’s the impression I had.”
“Why speak of it?” Christian said.
They had reached the house on Stolpische Street. Niels Heinrich, who had followed them, disappeared among the vehicles on the street.
Dr. Voltolini looked at the pavement, and said with embarrassment and hesitation: “You could do a great deal for me in the sense you suggested, if I might call on you every now and then. It sounds strange and like a confession of weakness, coming from a man of my years to one of yours. I can’t justify my request, but I know I should be helped. I would get on and be more reconciled to my fate and work harder at the re-establishment of my life.” His eyes were turned tensely to Christian’s face.
Christian lowered his head, and after some reflection answered: “Your request is very flattering. I should be glad to serve you; I hope I may. But in order not to put you off with empty phrases, I should tell you that I shall be deeply preoccupied in the immediate future—not only inwardly, I am always that, but outwardly too. I am confronted with a difficult task—a terribly difficult task.”
Struck by Christian’s terrible seriousness Dr. Voltolini said: “I don’t mean to be inquisitive. But may I ask what that task is?”
“To find the man who murdered Ruth Hofmann.”
“How?” The physician was utterly astonished. “But I thought that the ... murderer had been arrested.”
Christian shook his head. “It is not the right man,” he said, softly but with assurance. “I saw him. I saw him when he appeared before the investigating judge. I knew him before the crime too. He is not the murderer.”
“That sounds strange,” said Dr. Voltolini. “Is that merely your personal opinion, or do the authorities also——?”
“It’s not an opinion,” Christian said meditatively. “Perhaps it’s more, perhaps it’s less—quite as one chooses. I don’t know what the authorities suspect. Undoubtedly they consider Joachim Heinzen the murderer. He has confessed, but I consider his confession false.”
“Did you express that opinion before the judge?”
“No. How could I have done that? I haven’t even a legitimate suspicion. Only I know that the man who is now held is not the murderer.”
“But how do you expect to find the real criminal, if you haven’t even a suspicion?”
“I don’t know, but I must do it.”
“You ... you must? What does that mean?”
Christian did not answer. He raised his eyes and held out a friendly hand to Dr. Voltolini. “And so, if you should come and not find me, don’t be angry at me. We shall meet again.”
The doctor clasped his hand firmly and silently.
Christian went into the house and up to Karen’s rooms. Fifteen minutes later Niels Heinrich mounted the same stairs.