“She asked me to tell her about my life. I fell into that snare too, and told her.
“Once in the twilight I met her in the hall. She stood still, and looked at me piercingly. Then she laughed softly and moved away. I reeled, and the sweat stood in beads on my forehead.
“My heart was heavy when I was alone. Visions appeared that set my room in flames. My rosary and my missal were hidden from me, and I could find neither. Always there rose the cry in me: Once only! Let me taste that ecstasy but once! Then demons came and tormented me. All the muscles and nerves and sinews of my body seemed lacerated. Do with me as God wills, I whispered to the demons, for my heart is prepared. During sleep a strange force hurled me from my bed, and unconsciously I battered the walls with my head. One whole week I fasted upon bread and water, but it did not avail. Once when I had sat down to read, a huge ape stood before me and turned the leaves of my book. Every night a seductive vision of Adeline came to my bed-side. She stood there and spoke: ‘It is I, my beloved.’ Then I would rise and run senselessly about. But she would follow me and whisper: ‘You shall be my master and have all the good things of this world.’ But when I sought to grasp that vision of her, it showed a sudden aversion, and she called fluttering shadows to her aid. One was a notary with a pen and an ink-well, another a locksmith with a red-hot hammer, there was a mason with his trowel, an officer with naked sword, a woman with a painted face.
“So terrible was my state, that I understood but slowly and gradually the dreadful realities that took place about me. One morning Adeline came into the room where I was teaching the boys, sat down, and listened. She drew from her finger a ring that had in it a great, lovely pearl, played with it thoughtfully, arose, went to the window to watch the falling of the snow, and then left the room to go into the garden. I could not breathe or see any longer. There was an intolerable pressure on my chest, and I had to leave the room for a little to catch my breath. When I returned I saw in the eyes of my pupils a look of unwonted malevolence. I paid no attention to it. From time to time the old rebelliousness flared up in them, but I let them be. They sat before me half-crouching, and recited their catechism softly and with glances full of fear.
“About ten minutes passed when Adeline returned. She said she had left her ring on the table, and asked me whether I had seen it. She began to search for it, and so did I. She called her maid and a footman, who examined everything in the room; but the ring was gone. Adeline and her servants looked at me strangely, for I stood there and could not move. I felt at once and in every fibre that I was exposed to their suspicion. They searched on the stairs and in the hall, in the new fallen snow of the garden, and again in the room, since Adeline insisted that she had taken the ring off there and forgotten it on the table. And I confirmed this statement, although I had not actually seen the ring on the table, since I had seen her and her gestures but as things in a dream. All the words that were exchanged between her and the servants seemed directed against me. I read suspicion in their looks and changed colour, and called the boys, who had stolen away as soon as they could, and questioned them. They suggested that their rooms be searched, and looked at me with malignity. I begged Adeline to have my room searched as well. She made a deprecating gesture, but said, as though in self-justification, that she attached a peculiar value to this ring and should hate to lose it.
“Meantime the manager of the estate, who happened to have spent that night at Halbertsroda, entered. He passed me by without greeting, but with a dark and hostile glance. Then it all came over me. I saw myself delivered over to their suspicions without defence, and I said to myself: Perhaps you have really stolen the ring. The fall from my previous spiritual condition to this vulgar and ugly one was so sudden, that I broke out into wild laughter, and insisted more urgently than ever that my room and effects and even my person be searched. The manager spoke softly to Adeline. She looked at me wanly and went out. I emptied my pockets in the man’s presence. He followed me to my room. I sat down by the window while he opened drawer after drawer in my chest and opened my wardrobe. The footman, the maid, and the two boys stood by the door. Suddenly the manager uttered a hollow cry and held up the ring. I had known with the utmost certainty a moment before that he would find the ring. I had read it in the faces of the boys. Therefore I remained quietly seated while the others looked at one another and followed the manager out. I locked my door and walked up and down, up and down, for many, many hours.
“When the night was over, there was a solemn calm in my soul. I sent a servant to ask Adeline whether she would receive me. She refused. To justify myself in writing was a thing I scorned to do. I would but degrade myself by asserting my innocence thus. My soul felt pure and cold. I learned next day that the manager had long heard rumours of the frightful cruelties I was said to inflict on the boys, who had, moreover, accused their mother and myself of an adulterous intimacy. Hence he had visited Halbertsroda secretly on several occasions, had questioned the servants, and had, that very morning, caused the boys to strip in his presence and had seen on their bodies the marks of the stripes that they had received. Since, in addition, their entire state of mind made him anxious, he sent a telegram to the Councillor, who arrived during the night with an official of the police.
“I suspect that Adeline at once saw through the plot concerning the ring, for it was not mentioned. The commissary turned to me and spoke vaguely of serious consequences, but I made no attempt to explain or excuse anything I had done. I left Halbertsroda that same night. I did not see Adeline again. She was, I have been told, sent off to a sanatorium. Three weeks later a little package came to me by post. I opened it and found in it the ring with the pearl. In our yard is a very ancient well. I went to that well and cast the ring into its depths.
“And now you know what happened to me in that world of the higher classes, in the house of the Councillor Ribbeck.”