These thoughts passed through the murderer's mind as calmly as though he were reading them in a book. Mingled with them came doubts as to whether he had his cigar-case with him, and as to why he did not smoke a cigar. He cogitated long about it, and at length found himself returned to his dwelling. He opened the door; the last time he had opened the door a loud noise had been heard in the inner room. He listened for it now. He would give any thing to hear it. A few minutes ago it had been to be heard. Oh, if those few minutes had never been! Again he felt that hollow pressure, but more strongly, ever more strongly than before. He entered the room, the lamp still burned, the fragments of the rum-bottle lay about the sofa, the bits of broken mirror shone like silver dollars on the floor. Veitel sat down exhausted. Then it occurred to him that his mother had often told him a childish story in which silver dollars fell upon a poor man's floor. He could see the old Jewess sitting at the hearth, and he, a small boy, standing near her. He could see himself looking anxiously down on the dark earthen floor, wondering whether the white dollars would fall down for him. Now he knew—his room looked just as if there had been a rain of white dollars. He felt something of the restless delight which that tale of his mother had always awaked, when again came suddenly that same hollow pressure. Heavily he rose, stooped, and collected the broken glass. He put all the pieces into a corner of the cupboard, detached the frame from the wall, and put it wrong-side out in a corner. Then he took the lamp, and the glass which he used to fill with water for the night; but as he touched it a shudder came over him, and he put it down. He who was no more had drunk out of that glass. He took the lamp to his bedside and undressed. He hid his trowsers in the cupboard, and brought out another pair, which he rubbed against his boots till they were dirty at the bottom. Then he put out the lamp, and as it flickered before it went quite out, the thought struck him that human life and a flame had something in common. He had extinguished a flame. And again that pain in the breast, but less clearly felt, for his strength was exhausted, his nervous energy spent. The murderer slept.
But when he wakes! Then the cunning will be over and gone with which his distracted mind has tried, as if in delirium, to snatch at all manner of trivial things and thoughts in order to avoid the one feeling which ever weighs him down. When he wakes! Henceforth, while still half asleep, he will feel the gradual entrance of terror and misery into his soul. Even in his dreams he will have a sense of the sweetness of unconsciousness and the horrors of thought, and will strive against waking, while, in spite of his strivings, his anguish grows stronger and stronger, till, in despair, his eyelids start open, and he gazes into the hideous present, the hideous future.
And again his mind will seek to cover over the fact with a web of sophistry; he will reflect how old the dead man was, how wicked, how wretched; he will try to convince himself that it was only an accident that occasioned his death—a push given by him in sudden anger—how unlucky that the old man's foot should have slipped as it did! Then will recur the doubt as to his safety; a hot flush will suffuse his pale face, the step of his servant will fill him with dread, the sound of an iron-shod stick on the pavement will be taken for the tramp of the armed band whom justice sends to apprehend him. Again he will retrace every step he took yesterday, every gesture, every word, and will seek to convince himself that discovery is impossible. No one had seen him, no one had heard; the wretched old man, half crazy as he was, had drawn his own hat over his eyes and drowned himself.
And yet, through all this sophistry, he is conscious of that fearful weight, till, exhausted by the inner conflict, he flies from his house to his business, amid the crowd anxiously desiring to find something that shall force him to forget. If any one on the street looks at him, he trembles; if he meet a policeman, he must rush home to hide his terror from those discerning eyes. Wherever he finds familiar faces, he will press into the thick of the assembly, he will take an interest in any thing, will laugh and talk more than heretofore; but his eyes will roam recklessly around, and he will be in constant dread of hearing something said of the murdered man, something surmised about his sudden end. He may deceive his acquaintance: they will perhaps consider him remarkably cheerful, and one and the other will say, "Itzig is a good fellow; he is getting on in business." He will hang on many an arm that he never touched before, will tell merry stories, and go home gladly with any one who asks him, because he knows that he can not be alone. He will frequent the coffee-houses and beer-shops to hunt out acquaintance, and will drink and be as much excited as they, because he knows that he dare not be alone.
And when, late of an evening, he returns home, tired to death and worn out by his fearful struggle, he feels lighter hearted, for he has succeeded in obscuring the truth, he is conscious of a melancholy pleasure in his weariness, and awaits sleep as the only good thing earth has still to offer him. And again he will fall asleep, and when he awakes the next morning he will have to begin his fearful task anew. So will it be this day, next day, always, so long as he lives. His life is no longer like that of another man; his life is henceforth a battle, a horrible battle with a corpse, a battle unseen by all, yet constantly going on. All his intercourse with living men, whether in business or in society, is but a mockery, a lie. Whether he laughs and shakes hands with one, or lends money and takes fifty per cent. from another, it is all mere illusion on their part. He knows that he is severed from human companionship, and that all he does is but empty seeming; there is only one who occupies him, against whom he struggles, because of whom he drinks, and talks, and mingles with the crowd, and that one is the corpse of the old man in the water.
CHAPTER XLII.
Besides all friendly house-sprites and household divinities, there is one other in the secret, and silently triumphant at Anton's return, and that is the cousin.
Strangers indeed may shake their heads at much that passes, but she knows better: that Anton should sit all day long pale and silent in the office; Sabine evince a tendency to blush in her brother's presence, which never appeared before; sit silent for hours over her work, then silently start up and rush through the house, playful as a kitten after a ball of twine; the merchant himself keep constantly looking at Anton, and growing more and more merry from day to day, so that at last he positively rallies the cousin without ceasing—all this, indeed, may seem perplexing, but it was not so to one who had known for years what each of them liked for dinner (although she only ventured to present the favorite dish in order, once a month), who had with their own hands knitted their stockings and starched their collars. She accounted for all their inconsistencies most naturally.
The good lady took all the credit of Anton's return entirely to herself. She had determined to restore her favorite to the office, and she had had no ulterior intention, at least so she declared; for, in spite of the rose-lined coverlet and the embroidered curtains, she knew that the house to which she belonged was a proud house, which had ways of its own, and required very skillful management. And, indeed, when told that Anton was only to be a guest, she was herself in some uncertainty. But soon she got the upper hand of the merchant and his sister, for she made discoveries.