He threw his shoulder against the crack and pushed with all his might, but though the door creaked a little it would not move.
‘Is there no other way?’ asked Maria impatiently. ‘I must get in!’
‘Oh, yes,’ Schmidt answered, ‘there is another way. I can smash the lock.’
‘I wish you would!’
He stood back and made a little gesture with his hand for her to move aside, and before she knew what he was going to do, the heel of his heavy walking boot struck the lock with the force of a small battering-ram. The door flew back on its hinges into total darkness, and there was a crash of broken glass as one of the mirrors fell from its panel to the marble Venetian pavement.
Maria uttered a little cry of hurt surprise, for what Schmidt had done seemed brutal to her; but she passed him quickly and went on into the dark, and the bits of broken mirror cracked under her tread. She was sure that the room had never been opened since she had left it, and she went straight to one of the windows without running against the furniture; the familiar fastenings had rusted and she could not move them quickly. Schmidt lit a wax-light and followed, but before he reached her side she had succeeded in opening the inner shutters, and the bright light from the slits in the blinds shone into the room through the dim panes.
Maria turned from the window and looked about her. The furniture stood as she had last seen it. A moment later Schmidt threw open the glass and the blinds and the violent sunshine flooded the dusty marble floor, the faded pink silk on the walls, the tarnished inlaid tables, the chairs, and a little sofa near the fireplace.
‘It is too much!’ cried Maria nervously. ‘There is too much light!’
Schmidt drew the blinds near together without quite shutting them. When he looked behind him again Maria was sitting on the little sofa near the fireplace, her face turned from him, and her fingers were nervously pulling at a rent in the pink silk which tore under her touch. But the young steward did not notice the action, and was already making a mental list of the repairs that would be necessary to make the boudoir habitable again. Maria looked ill, and he thought she was tired.