She began to shake, her knees would no longer support her, and she slid along the door to the floor.
Erik was dead. The horses had run away, had overturned the carriage at a street corner, and hurled Erik with his head against the wall. His skull had been fractured, and now he lay dead at Aalborg. That was the way it had happened, and most of this story was told in the telegram. No one had been with him in the carriage except the white-necked tutor known as the Arab. It was he who had telegraphed.
She crouched on the floor moaning feebly, both palms spread out on the carpet, her eyes staring with a fixed, empty look, as she swayed helplessly to and fro.
Only a moment ago everything had been light and fragrance around her, and, however much she tried, she could not instantly put all this out of her consciousness to admit the inky black night of grief and remorse. It was not her fault that her mind was still haunted by fitful, dazzling gleams of love’s happiness and love’s pleasure; that intense, foolish desires would force their way out of the whirl, seeking the bliss of forgetfulness, or trying to stop with a frenzied wrench the revolving wheel of fortune.
But it soon passed.
In black swarms, from everywhere, dark thoughts came flying like ravens, lured by the corpse of her happiness, and hacked it beak by beak, even while the warmth of life still lingered in it. They tore and slashed and made it hideous and unrecognizable, until the whole thing was nothing but a carrion of loathing and horror.
She rose and walked about, supporting herself by chairs and tables like one who is ill. Desperately she looked around for some cobweb of help, if it were only a comforting glance, a sympathetic pat of the hand, but her eyes met nothing but the glaring family portraits, all the strangers who had been witnesses of her fall and her crime—sleepy old gentlemen, prim-mouthed matrons, and their ever-present gnome child, the girl with the great round eyes and bulging forehead. It had acquired memories enough at last, this strange furniture, the table over there, and that chair, the footstool with the black poodle-dog, and the portière like a dressing-gown,—she had saturated them all with memories, adulterous memories, which they now spewed out and flung after her. Oh, it was terrible to be locked in with all these spectres of crime and with herself. She shuddered at herself; she pointed accusing fingers at herself, at this dishonored Fennimore who crouched at her feet; she pulled her dress away from between her imploring hands. Mercy? No, there was no mercy! How could there be mercy before those dead eyes in the strange town, those eyes which had become seeing, now that they were glazed in death, and saw how she had thrown his honor in the mud, lied at his lips, been faithless at his heart.
She could feel those dead eyes riveted on her; she did not know whence they came, but they followed her, gliding down her body like two ice-cold rays. As she looked down, while every thread of the carpet, every stitch in the footstools, seemed unnaturally clear in the strong, sharp light, she felt something walking about her with the footsteps of dead men, felt it brushing against her dress so distinctly that she screamed with terror, and darted to one side. But it came in front of her like hands and yet not like hands, something that clutched at her slowly, clutched derisively and triumphantly at her heart, that marvel of treachery, that yellow pearl of deceit! And she retreated till she backed up against the table, but it was still there, and her bosom gave no protection against it; it clutched through her skin and flesh.... She almost died of terror, as she stood there, helplessly bending back over the table, while every nerve contracted with fear, and her eyes stared as if they were being murdered in their sockets.
Then that passed.
She looked around with a haunted look, then sank down on her knees and prayed a long time. She repented and confessed, wildly and unrestrainedly, in growing passion, with the same fanatic self-loathing that drives the nun to scourge her naked body. She sought fervently after the most grovelling expressions, intoxicating herself with self-abasement and with a humility that thirsted for degradation.