Susan folded her hands and said resignedly: “Volvedme del otro lado, que de esto ya estoy tostado!” It is a Spanish ejaculation, and means: Lay me on the other side, for I have been toasted enough on this.
XIV
The house that Eva had taken was not very far from the beach. It was an old manor, which William of Orange had built, and which had belonged to the late Duchess of Leuchtenberg until a few years ago.
The rooms, built of mighty blocks of stone, soothed Eva. By day and night she heard the long-drawn thunder of the waves. Whenever she picked up a book, she dropped it again soon and listened.
She walked through those rooms, full of ancient furniture and dark portraits, glad to possess herself, and to await without torment him who came to her. She greeted him with half-closed eyes, and with the smile of one who has yielded herself wholly.
Susan practised on a piano with muted strings. When she had finished her task, she slunk away and remained hidden.
Christian and Amadeus Voss had taken lodgings in a neighbouring villa—Voss on the ground floor, Christian above. Since Christian neither asked questions nor detained him, Voss went out in the morning and returned in the evening or even late at night. He did not say where he had been, or what he had seen or experienced.
At breakfast on the third morning, he said to Christian: “It’s a thankless task to unchain a fellow like me. I breathe a different breath and sleep a different sleep. Somewhere my soul is ranging about, and I’m chasing it. I’ve got to catch it first, before I know how things are with me.”
Christian did not look up. “We’re invited to dine with Eva Sorel to-night,” he said.
Voss bowed ironically. “That invitation looks damnably like charity,” he said harshly. “I feel the resistance of those people to me, and their strangeness, in my very bones. What a superfluous comedy! What shall I do there? Nearly all of them talk French. I’m a provincial, a villager, and ridiculous. And that’s worse than being a murderer or thief. I may make up my mind to commit arson or murder, so as not to be ridiculous any more.” He opened his mouth as though to laugh, but uttered no sound.