Herr Braunbart involuntarily raised his hand, Doctor Sammet looked down at his watch-chain in silence, and a short snigger escaped through the nose of one of the young surgeons, which was hardly opportune. The little pained look of bewilderment now showed on Klaus Heinrich's face. He said: “Of course…. As you are here…. So I shall be able to visit the institution in your company, Miss Spoelmann…. Captain von Braunbart, my aide-de-camp …” he added quickly, recognizing that his remark laid him open to a similar answer to the last. She responded by: “Countess Löwenjoul.”
The Countess made a dignified bow—with an enigmatic smile, a side glance into the unknown, which had something seductive about it. When, however, she let her strangely evasive gaze again dwell on Klaus Heinrich, who stood before her in a composed and military attitude, the laugh vanished from her face, an expression of sadness settled on her features, and for a second a look of something like hatred for Klaus Heinrich shone in her slightly swollen grey eyes. It was only a passing look. Klaus Heinrich had no time to notice it, and forgot it immediately. The two young surgeons were presented to Imma Spoelmann, and then Klaus Heinrich suggested that they should continue the tour all together.
They went upstairs to the first story; Klaus Heinrich and Imma Spoelmann in front, conducted by Doctor Sammet, then Countess Löwenjoul with Herr von Braunbart, and the young surgeons in the rear. Yes, the older children were here, up to fourteen years of age. An ante-room with wash-basins divided the girls' and the boys' rooms. In white bedsteads, with a name-plate at the head and a frame at the foot enclosing the temperature- and weight-charts—tended by nurses in white caps, and surrounded by cleanliness and tidiness—lay the sick children, and coughs filled the room while Klaus Heinrich and Imma Spoelmann walked down between the rows.
He walked at her left hand, out of courtesy, with the same smile as when he visited exhibitions or inspected veterans, gymnastic associations, or guards of honour. But every time he turned his head to the right he found that Imma Spoelmann was watching him—he met her great black eyes, which were directed at him in a searching, questioning way. It was so peculiar, he never remembered experiencing anything so peculiar before, her way of looking at him with her great eyes, without any respect for him or anyone else, absolutely unembarrassed and free, quite unconcerned whether anybody noticed it or not.
When Doctor Sammet stopped at a bed to describe the case—the little girl's, for instance, whose broken white-bandaged leg stuck straight out along the bed—Miss Spoelmann listened attentively to him, that was quite clear; but while she listened she did not look at the speaker, but her eyes rested in turn on Klaus Heinrich and the pinched, quiet child who, her hands folded on her breast, gazed up at them from her back-rest—rested in turn on the Prince and the little victim, the history of whose case she shared with the Prince, as if she were watching Klaus Heinrich's sympathy, or were trying to read in his face the effect of Dr. Sammet's words; or maybe for some other reason.
Yes, this was especially noticeable in the case of the boy with the bullet through his arm and the boy who had been picked out of the water—two sad cases, as Dr. Sammet remarked. “A severed artery, sister,” he said, and showed them the double wound in the boy's upper arm, the entry and exit of the revolver bullet. “The wound,” said Doctor Sammet in an undertone to his guests, turning his back to the bed, “the wound was caused by his own father. This one was the lucky one. The man shot his wife, three of his children, and himself with a revolver. He made a bad shot at this boy.”
Klaus Heinrich looked at the double wound. “What did the man do it for?” he asked hesitatingly, and Doctor Sammet answered: “In desperation, Royal Highness. It was shame and want which brought him to it. Yes.” He said no more, just this commonplace—just as in the case of the boy, a ten-year-old, who had been picked out of the water. “He's wheezing,” said Doctor Sammet, “he's still got some water in his lung. He was picked out of the river early this morning—yes. I may say that it is improbable that he fell into the water. There are many indications to the contrary. He had run away from home. Yes.” He stopped.
And Klaus Heinrich again felt Miss Spoelmann looking at him with her big, black, serious eyes—with her glance which sought his own and seemed to challenge him insistently to ponder with her the “sad cases,” to grasp the essential meaning of Doctor Sammet's remarks, to penetrate to the hideous truths which were incorporated and crystallized in these two little invalid frames…. A little girl wept bitterly when the steaming and hissing inhaler, together with a scrapbook full of brightly coloured pictures, was planted at her bedside.
Miss Spoelmann bent over the little one. “It doesn't hurt,” she said, “not a tiny bit. Don't cry.” And as she straightened herself again she added quickly, pursing up her lips, “I guess it's not so much the apparatus as the pictures she's crying at.” Everybody laughed. One of the young assistants picked up the scrapbook and laughed still louder when he looked at the pictures. The party passed on into the laboratory. Klaus Heinrich thought, as he went, how dry Miss Spoelmann's humour was. “I guess,” she had said, and “not so much.” She had seemed to find amusement not only in the pictures, but also in the neat and incisive mode of expression she had used. And that was indeed the very refinement of humour….
The laboratory was the biggest room in the building. Glasses, retorts, funnels, and chemicals stood on the tables, as well as specimens in spirits which Doctor Sammet explained to his guests in few quiet words. A child had choked in a mysterious way: here was his larynx with mushroom-like growths instead of the vocal chords. Yes. This, here in the glass, was a case of pernicious enlargement of the kidney in a child, and there were dislocated joints. Klaus Heinrich and Miss Spoelmann looked at everything, they looked together into the bottles which Doctor Sammet held up to the window, and their eyes looked thoughtful while the same look of repulsion hovered round their mouths.