The vision absorbed Christian. He stared at her. His name was spoken, with other names that were new to Maidanoff; and still he stared at that unfathomable and fatal image. His heart, in its sudden, monstrous loneliness, turned to ice; he felt both wild and stricken with dumbness; the tension of his soul became unendurable. Curious glances sought him out. He failed to move at the proper moment, and the moan that arose from the confusion of his utter grief had made a thing of mockery and scorn of him, before he fled past barren walls and stupid lackeys into the open.
The rain came down in torrents. He did not call his car, but walked along the road.
XXV
After losing twenty-eight thousand francs, the amount that he had gradually borrowed from Mr. Bradshaw and Prince Wiguniewski, Amadeus Voss got up from the gaming table, and staggered into the open. He had a dim notion that he would seek out Christian, to tell him that he would be able to settle the debt within twenty-four hours.
He went to the telegraph office, and sent a message to Christian. Then he stood beneath a chestnut tree in bloom, and muttered: “Brother, brother.”
A woman came along the road, and he joined her. But suddenly he burst out into wild laughter, turned down a side street, and went on alone.
He walked and walked for six endless hours. At two o’clock in the morning he was in Heyst. His brain seemed to have become an insensitive lump, incapable of light or reason.
Masses of dark grey clouds that floated in the sky assumed to him the aspect of women’s bodies. The clouds, which the hot night drove toward the north, were like cloaks over the forms he desired. He felt an obscure yearning for all the love in all the lands in which he had no part.
At the garden-gate of the villa he stopped and stared up at Christian’s windows. They were open and showed light. “Brother,” he muttered again, “brother!” Christian appeared at the window. The sight of him filled Voss with a sudden, overwhelming hatred. “Take care, Wahnschaffe!” he cried.
Christian left the window, and soon appeared at the gate. Amadeus awaited him with clenched fists. But when Christian approached, he turned and fled down the street, and Christian looked after him. Then his steps became slower, and Christian followed.