Hedvig felt a fever round her temples, a dull anxiety. All her silent, secret, suppressed feelings revived for the last time and moved about in the darkness. It was the restlessness of the body in the presence of the relentless oncoming autumn that melted together with her dim light-shy anxiety for her treasure.
Hedvig closed the window, pulled down the blind, turned on the light, and began to undress. She moved slowly, hesitatingly, sighing. At first she turned her back to the mirror, but by and by she stole one glance after the other into it. She was irresistibly drawn to the corner where the mirror stood. It seemed that the air there was not so still and burdened with loneliness. Before the mirror her movements quickened. With her glance fastened intently on her own image Hedvig loosened her hair and let her last garment fall to the floor. She had aged quickly of late, had grown grey about the temples and had folds beneath her breasts. And now she suddenly screwed up her face, so that it was full of wrinkles, and emphasised the weariness of her pose. “I am old,” she mumbled, “I am old.” And it seemed as if she had huddled up under the lee of old age.
But Hedvig did not escape so easily. She did not deceive herself. With a jerk she straightened herself up again, threw back her head, lifted her arms behind her neck so that her breasts seemed more beautiful. And she felt how a smile spread and opened out on her face. She saw it in the mirror, a strange, girlish trembling smile with pouting mouth, ready to be kissed and bitten. She began to turn and sway to and fro as if she heard dance-music. Closer and closer her face approached the mirror. She felt a faint sickness as if in a swing, and the air felt hot round her temples. Beside her own nakedness she beheld in the unnatural gloom of the mirror-room the nakedness of St. Sebastian. The ropes cut into his beautiful limbs. The points of the arrows were softly embedded in the even, slightly bronzed flesh.... To Hedvig he suddenly assumed Levy’s face. Yes, it was Levy’s mouth which smiled at her. His lips had lost their scorn and smiled close to hers, ecstatically, sensually. His eyes had lost their sharp, short-sighted stare and revealed black, fathomless depths of life and passion. His scorching breath rushed over her, his arms bent her irresistibly....
Hedvig collapsed. Moaning and sobbing she rolled on the carpet whilst the last late attenuated rush of blood painfully fought its way through her bosom....
Suddenly she started as if somebody had poured cold water over her. She seemed to hear footsteps and whispers outside. She flew to the switch, turned out the light and listened again intently. Then she quickly put on some clothes and lifted the blind carefully. Trembling in her whole body she lay there crouching and watched. At first she saw only the black darkness, but by and by she distinguished two figures, one dark and one light, down by the fence. They stood in the shadow of the firs tightly clasped together.
It was the chauffeur and the parlourmaid.
Hedvig was at once overcome by confused emotions of shame, indignation and furious suspicions. The impudent, shameless, immoral rabble! Before my eyes! Of course they were spying through the chinks in the blinds. And now they are laughing at me between their kisses. Yes, I have seen them often exchange glances of secret understanding. Fancy if they have seen me with the papers too. Fancy if they are conspiring to rob me. If they murder me one night and take everything and set fire to the house to hide their crime....
Hedvig remained on her aching knees till the couple had passed through the gate and disappeared in the darkness of the forest. Then she dragged herself to bed and lay there listening with every nerve in the thick darkness. All the time she imagined she heard something move in the wardrobe. In the end she had to get up and bring the papers and the money into her bed. With her arm round the two heavy leather portfolios she at last fell into a restless slumber.
The following morning Hedvig dismissed the chauffeur and the parlourmaid. That was the beginning to the depopulation of Hill villa. Then she sold the car and had a fire and burglar proof safe built into the wall in the wardrobe. When it began to grow cold in the autumn she closed up the picture galleries and only heated a few rooms. By that time both the cook and the other maid and the gardener had gone. She had only one servant left, an old bad-tempered, silent, faithful servant of the Hill family.
The snow came and Hedvig got herself up at dawn, so as not to be seen, and swept the snow drifts from the gate. For long periods only one thin column of smoke rose from the chimneys to show that there was still flickering life in the big white villa. It gradually began to become a ghost-house.