He looked Lorinser steadily in the eye, and the effect produced by this name was fully equal to his expectations. A short pause ensued, then Lorinser whispered something in the ear of his host, and the latter with a submissive bend of the head, left the room.
They were scarcely alone, when Mohr drew his box of Latakia out of his pocket and began to make a cigarette. "You'll permit me to smoke I hope," he said affably to his silent companion. "The air here is abominably bad, the breath of heaven and hell mixed; I am afraid of the contagion and should like to disenfect myself."
Lorinser's eyes were fixed upon the floor. Not a muscle of his rigid face betrayed the feelings that were aroused by this visit. But when Mohr had lighted his cigarette, he said with a slight cough: "I must beg you to be brief, I don't like this odor."
"As brief as possible, my dear fellow," answered Mohr phlegmatically. "You'll give me credit for having troubled myself about you only for very serious motives, not merely from a desire to continue an acquaintance which is utterly uninteresting to me. The class of human beings to which you belong is, thank God, by no means numerous, but sufficiently well known for it to be a mere waste of time to study it. Goethe has described it admirably in Faust; you remember the passage where he speaks of a certain abortion. Even the manner of playing you represent, is not new. Zacharias Werner and others are your predecessors, so you've not even the merit of originality, but are simply a second-hand scoundrel."
"I only wish to observe," began Lorinser without losing his composure, "that we will suppose you to have poured forth all your invectives and come to the point at once. I'm accustomed to insults, and console myself by thinking, that far more holy men, nay our Saviour himself--"
"Beautiful!" interrupted Mohr. "But one good turn deserves another. I'll avoid every incivility except those which the mere business in hand may entail, and you'll promise me not to again desecrate in my presence a name so venerated as that of the founder of the Christian religion by uttering it with your lips. I confess my weakness; it makes me fairly sick, when I hear that a--how shall I express it--a poor sinner--that's not insulting--is playing a blasphemous farce in the name of that sublime sufferer and champion of humanity. So we're agreed? Very well. And now we'll proceed at once to business. Do you know this?" He put his hand into his breast pocket; Lorinser involuntarily shrank back.
"Calm yourself," said Mohr with a scornful laugh. "I've no pistol in my pocket, to aim at your breast and force you to a full confession. I despise such melodramatic means, which moreover would undoubtedly fail if directed toward such a holy man, to whom a martyr's crown would be a fitting reward. What I've brought here, is only a little book, a neat pocket edition of Thomas á Kempis. Your name is written on the first page, I mean your real name, before you believed in a second baptism and exchanged the somewhat foul old Adam of your 'Lorinser' for a speck and span 'Moser.' Do you recognize the little book?"
He held it out, and when the other had assented to the question with a silent bend of the head, laid it on the table. "Thank you," he continued; "you'll make this business easier for both of us, if you'll drop all unavailing and useless lies. I found this little book in a room in Dorotheenstrasse, from which on the day of your nocturnal visit, a lady in whom I'm interested, disappeared. I was fortunate enough to find her two nights after, and, as you're perhaps unaware, with dripping garments and in a very silent mood. We worked for five hours to obtain the smallest word. When she at last decided to open her eyes and lips, of course there was no mention of you. But the little Thomas à Kempis, probably in revenge for having been taken in paths where there can be no question of the 'Imitation of Christ,' committed the indiscretion of gossiping; the old maid-servant, who unlocked the room for you in the evening and saw you creep out again at a much later hour--you probably supposed you'd be seen only by God, who is already accustomed to close his eyes to your doings--this worthy person, I say, in reply to my questions, told me all and then suffered her mouth to be sealed forever. So there are only four persons who know this secret of that night. Three of them have good reasons to keep silence; but the fourth might in some devilish mood, against which we must be on our guard, or for some 'benevolent' or profligate object, tell the tale. To prevent this, my dear fellow, you'll say to that fourth person, that I am determined in such a case to stop his mouth forever, by shooting him down like a mad dog or finding some other way to silence him. You've understood me? A syllable, a wink, a shrug of the shoulders, which would impugn that lady's honor, and you'll receive a passport into the better world." He was silent, as if he expected some explicit answer. Lorinser had leaned his head back and was gazing at the ceiling. He coughed several times and passed his long, pliant fingers through his beard.
"And is this all that has brought you to me?" he asked after a pause. "I hope you admire the patience, with which I listen to your disconnected fancies; but I beg you not to abuse it." Mohr looked at him with icy contempt.
"You are a precious rascal," said he. "Under other circumstances I should wonder at the iron mask Mother Nature has put in the place where other men wear their faces. But, as I said before, the atmosphere here is so unpleasant that I'll limit myself to the most necessary words. So in brief: do you know the present abode of the lady who is the subject of our conversation?"