III
In the little rear room he had now been sleeping for fourteen hours. The widow Engelschall determined to go to him.
She passed through the half-dark passage-way in which the supplies were stored. Hams and smoked sausages dangled from the ceiling. On the floor stood kegs with sardines, herrings, and pickled gherkins. There were shelves filled with glasses of preserved fruit. The place smelled like a shop.
She stopped, took a little gherkin out of an open keg, and swallowed it without chewing.
The bell of the front-door rang. A sluttish creature, broom in hand, became visible at the end of the passage, and called out to the widow Engelschall that Isolde Schirmacher had come with an important message. “Let her wait,” the widow Engelschall growled. Softly she went into the small room in which Niels Heinrich was sleeping.
He lay on a mattress. A bluish flannel coverlet was over him. His hairy chest was bare; his naked feet protruded. The room was so small that not even a chest of drawers could have been squeezed in. Heaps of malodorous, soiled linen lay in the corners. Tools were scattered about the floor—a plane, a hammer, a saw. Old newspapers increased the litter, and on nails in the wall hung dirty clothes, ties, and a couple of overcoats. On the walls red splotches showed where bedbugs had been killed. On the table stood a candlestick with a piece of candle, an empty beer bottle, and a half empty whiskey bottle.
He lay on his back. The muscles of his face had snapped under an inhuman tension. Between his reddish eyebrows vibrated three dark furrows. His skin was the tint of cheese. On his neck and forehead were beads of sweat. His lids looked like two black holes. The slim, red little beard on his chin moved as he breathed—moved like a separate and living thing, a watchful, hairy insect.
He snored loudly. A bubble of saliva rose now and then from the horrible opening of his lips that showed his decayed teeth.
The widow Engelschall had had plans which had seemed easy to execute outside. Now she dared do nothing. Last night she had stood above him as she stood now. He had begun to murmur in his sleep, and she had hurried out in terror.