He was free. And Christian was likewise free.
The hall had a side-exit by which one could leave the house. There they said farewell to each other. Christian knew well where Niels Heinrich was going. He himself returned to Stolpische Street, mounted the stairs to Karen’s rooms, locked himself in, lay down as he was, and slept for three and thirty hours.
A vigorous ringing of the bell aroused him.
XXXI
Lorm was sick unto death. He lay in a sanatorium. An intestinal operation had been performed, and there was slight hope of his recovery.
Friends visited him. Emanuel Herbst, most faithful of them all, concealed his pain and fear beneath a changeless mask of fatalistic calm. Since the first day on which he had seen on the face of his beloved friend the first traces of fate’s destructive work, the shadow-world of the theatre with all its activities had nauseated him. With the dying of its central fire, he had a presentiment of the approaching end of many things.
Crammon also came often. He loved to talk to Lorm of past days, and Lorm was glad to remember and to smile. He also smiled when he was told how numerous were the inquiries after him; that telegrams came uninterruptedly from all the cities of the land, and showed how profoundly his image and character had affected the heart of the nation. He did not believe it; in his innermost soul he did not believe it. He despised men too deeply.
There was but one human being in whose love he believed. That was Judith. Unswervingly he believed in her love, though each hour might have offered proof of his delusion, each hour of the day in which he expressed the desire to see her, each hour of the night when he controlled his moans of pain not to annoy the ears of paid, strange women.
For Judith came at most for half an hour in the forenoon or for half an hour in the afternoon, tried to conceal her impatient annoyance by overtenderness and artificial eagerness, and said: “Puggie, aren’t you going to be well soon?” or “Aren’t you ashamed to be so lazy and lie here, while poor Judith longs for you at home?” She filled the sick-room with noise and with futile advice, scolded the nurse, showed the doctor his place, flirted with the consultant physician, chattered of a hundred trivialities—a trip to a health resort, the last cook’s latest pilfering, and never lacked reasons with which to palliate the shortness of her stay.