“I’ve interfered several times during the past few days,” Christian answered softly. “Other neighbours helped too. A man like that is worse than a wolf. The children stand around and tremble.”
“And it’s so difficult,” said Dr. Voltolini, “to get the authorities to take any preventive measures. The law is unreasonably severe. Once a misfortune has taken place, it enters more mercilessly than is necessary; but it can never be moved to prevent anything.”
Again Christian turned around. Niels Heinrich was still following. Again he stopped, looked about him indifferently, and spat on the sidewalk.
“It is never a question of what one knows or desires, but always of what one does,” Christian said, walking on again.
“And even what one has done, though it be inspired by the purest motives and the strictest sense of duty, is spattered with mud, and one must suffer for it as for a crime,” Dr. Voltolini said bitterly.
“Has that been your experience?” Christian asked, with apparently conventional sympathy, but with his aware and listening glance.
“I don’t like to talk about it,” Dr. Voltolini said, with a saddened mien. “I haven’t done so to any one here so far. You’re the first and only one who have made me want to talk. I felt that way so soon as I had met you. It isn’t as though you could advise or help me; it’s far too late for either. My misfortune has done its worst and has receded into the past. But constant silence gnaws at me, and I can escape a period of paralysis if I can tell you the story of what happened to me.”
Christian shook his head very slightly in his astonishment. Many people had already said similar words to him, and he did not understand their motive.
Dr. Voltolini continued: “Until two years ago I practised at Riedberg, near Freiwaldau, in Austrian Silesia. The town is several miles from the frontier of Prussia. Quite near it medicinal springs were discovered. It became a health resort of increasing popularity, and I and my family gradually attained a modest prosperity. But in the beginning of the summer of 1905 it happened that the wife of a cottager was attacked by typhoid fever, and I, according to my sworn duty, reported the case to the health authorities. Several citizens wanted to prevent my action. Even the commission on sanitation, whose chairman was mayor of the town, raised objections, and represented to me how the guests would be scared away for a long time and the town get a bad name. I told them I was acting in the interests of every one and could not be deterred by merely material considerations. First they besought and finally threatened me, but I remained firm.
“The first consequence was that a regiment, which had been ordered to Riedberg, and whose being stationed there would have been profitable to the town, was sent elsewhere. The panic that had been feared among the guests in the hotels did break out, and most of them fled. And now a wretched stream of abuse was poured out over me, and every one raged against me in the filthiest terms. The men did not respond to my greeting on the street. The butcher and baker and dairyman refused to sell their goods to my wife. Daily I received anonymous letters; you can imagine their character. My windows were smashed; no one came to my consultation hours, no patient dared to summon me. The fees that people owed me were not paid, and suspicions and slanders arose, ranging from silly talk to the vilest insinuations.