Duffer as I was, I knew enough English to translate this school-book dialogue. Lerne’s lie made me indignant. To think of his daring to say that Nell was dead, and that that was not her voice! What a piece of villainy! Ah! why did I not shout out to this phlegmatic couple, “Stop, you are being fooled! There is something strange and terrible here!”
Yes, but I did not know what it was, and the Macbeths would have taken me for another madman.
Meanwhile, the hired horse trotted along towards the gate, where Barbe stood ready to shut it.
Donovan had sat down again, in front of them. The Macbeths, father and son, maintained their stiff dignity, but as the carriage turned at the gate, I saw the father’s back suddenly bend and quiver more than could have been explained by the jolting over the stones.
Then the old cracking halves of the gate closed again.
I am sure that the brother Macbeth broke into sobs not much later.
Johann and Wilhelm departed. Were they going to relieve me of their company? I tracked them along the park as far as the laboratory. Nell was continuing her lamentations. They probably wanted to silence her, and, in fact, her howls ceased as soon as the assistants got into the yard.
But my fears were groundless. Instead of going up to the château to lock me in, the black-guards, having lighted cigars coolly sat down for an obvious siesta.
Through an open window of their block, I could see them in their shirt sleeves, smoking like chimneys, and rocking in their rocking-chairs.