At the same time Gertrude rose up in her bed, and stared with eyes as if she were beholding, who knows whom? at the door. After she had stared for a long while, she got up, opened the door, went out into the hall without making the slightest noise, came back, went out again, came back again, and got in bed, left the door open, sat upright and gazed at the closed door across the hall behind which she knew Daniel and Eleanore were. Her hair hung down in two long braids on either side of her head. Her pale face in this frame of black hair above it and on both sides of it looked like a wax figure in an old black frame.
Of the pictures that were being formed in her mind and soul, there was not a single twitching of the muscles to indicate what they looked like.
For her the entire world lay behind that door. It seemed to her that she could no longer endure the knowledge she had of what was taking place. In her maddened imagination she saw women stealing through the halls of the house; in every corner there was a woman, and with every woman there was a man; they embraced each other, and sank their teeth into each other’s flesh. It was all as criminal as it was irrational; it was a shame and an abomination to behold. Everywhere she looked she saw reprehensible nudeness; all clothes seemed to be made of glass; she could look neither at a man nor at a woman without turning pale. She had only one refuge: the cradle of her child. She would rush to it and pray. But as soon as her prayer was ended she again felt stifled in the poisoned air about her, while the desire to acquit herself of the crime of which she felt guilty, unable though she was to define the crime or determine her part in it, robbed her of her sleep. She felt that a great jagged stone was suspended over her head, that it was becoming less and less firmly attached every day, and that its fall if not imminent was certain.
Hour after hour passed by; Daniel finally appeared in the vestibule. He was not a little terrified when he saw the burning lamp and Gertrude sitting up in bed.
He went into the bedroom, closed the door, walked up to the cradle, looked at the child, and then went over to Gertrude. She cast a glance of infinite inquiry at him. It was a look that seemed to implore him for a decision, a judgment. At the same time she put out her hands as if to ward off any approach on his part. When she saw that he was astonished, she softened the expression on her face, and said: “Give me your hand.”
She took his right hand, stroked it, and whispered: “Poor hand, poor hand.”
Daniel bit his lips: “Oh woman, what ...?” That was all.
He sat down in silence on the edge of her bed. Gertrude looked at him in the same tense, anxious way in which she had studied him a few moments earlier. He sank down beside her, and fell asleep with his head on her breast.