It was fortunate for Apollonius that he had to put his whole soul into his purpose, that he had no time to follow his brother with his eye and heart, to see how the man whom he was trying to save sank deeper and deeper. When he rejoiced in his success, he did so from a feeling of loyalty to his brother and his brother's family; Fritz saw something quite different in his rejoicing and thought of nothing but of how to destroy it.
In the beginning he had given his wife the greater part of the money that he received weekly for his household expenses. Then he began to keep back more and more and finally he carried the whole of it into the places where the need of buying flatterers by treating them had followed him more faithfully than had the respect of the town. The experience he had had with the "important" people had not converted him. His wife had been obliged to get on with less and less. Old Valentine saw her distress, and from now on the house money went through his, instead of her husband's, hands. Finally Valentine became her treasurer, and never gave her more than she needed at the moment because money was no longer safe from her husband in her hands.
She used what time she had from her housekeeping and her children in doing different pieces of work which Valentine, as her agent, sold for her. The money that she thus received she used partly—she herself would rather go hungry even though she could not see her children do so—to adorn the living-room with all kinds of things that she knew that Apollonius loved. And yet she knew that Apollonius never came in there, that he never saw it. But then, she would not have done it if she had known that he would see it. Her husband saw it as often as he came into the room. Nothing escaped his eyes that might act as an excuse for his anger and his hatred. Then he began to abuse Apollonius, and in such terms as if he too must now show how much it is possible to acquire of another person's manner.
If the children were present it was his wife's first care to send them away. They must not witness his roughness and learn to despise their father—not for his sake but for their own. He did not betray how glad he was to be rid of the "spies." He feared that the children would complain of him to Apollonius. He did not think that his wife would complain herself, although he assumed that she and Apollonius met each other. Everything that he saw in the room was to him a fresh proof of his shame. How could he believe that it was for any other purpose than to be noticed by Apollonius? Then, when she told him that he might abuse her, only not Apollonius, the keen eye of jealousy showed him what pleasure she took in suffering for Apollonius. He reproached her with it, and she did not deny it. She said to him: "Because he suffers for me and for my children. He gives what he has been at great pains to save to take the place of the weekly sum of which the father has robbed his children."
"And he tells you that? He tells you that!" said the man, laughing with savage joy at having trapped her into a confession that she met him.
"Not he," returned his wife angrily, because the man she despised was judging Apollonius by himself. "Old Valentine told me." She went on to tell him that Valentine had sold as his own the watch that Apollonius had brought with him from Cologne. Apollonius had forbidden him to tell her.
"And also to tell you that he forbade him?" laughed her husband. And there was something of contempt in his laugh. Such things might indeed be believed of the dreamer; but now he would not believe it of him. "Of course!" he laughed still more wildly. "Even a stupider fellow than that dreamer knows that no woman will do it for nothing. The worst of them thinks herself worth something. One with such hair and such eyes and such a body!" He seized her by the hair and gazed into her eyes with a glance before which purity must blush; only depravity could meet it and laugh. He took her blush for a confession and laughed still more wildly. "You want to say that I am worse than he. Ha, Ha! You're right; I married such a woman. He wouldn't have done that. He isn't bad enough for that!"
Old Valentine must have failed to keep his word, or else Apollonius passed the door by chance when his brother believed him far away. He heard his brother's savage outbreak of anger, he heard the clear tone of the wife's voice, still clear and melodious in spite of her excitement. He heard them both without understanding what they were saying. He was shocked. He had not imagined that the breach between them had gone so far. And he was the cause of this breach. He must do what he could to improve matters.
His brother stood in his threatening attitude as if turned to stone when he caught sight of Apollonius entering. He had the feeling of a man suddenly surprised while doing a wrong. If Apollonius had turned on him as he deserved he would have groveled before him. But Apollonius wanted to reconcile them, and said so calmly and from his heart. He might indeed have known, for he had experienced it often enough, that his gentleness only gave his brother the courage to be sneeringly obstinate. It was the same this time. Fritz sneered at him, laughing savagely, and said that he was making an excuse where he was master. Was that the reason he had made himself master of the house? He knew that in Apollonius' place he would have behaved quite differently. He would have let the woman feel it whom he knew to be in his power. He was an honest fellow, and did not need to pretend to be so sweet. It occurred to him, moreover, how often he had sneaked about the door in vain, hoping to surprise Apollonius in the room. Now he was in the room. He had come in because he had not expected to find him. It was Apollonius who must be startled, Apollonius was the person caught, not he. The reconciliation was merely the first excuse on which Apollonius had seized. That was why he was so meek. That was why his wife was frightened—she had been trying to make him believe that Apollonius never came into the room. That was why she looked up at him so pleadingly. The contemptuous gaze with which she had just measured him had suddenly been torn from her consciously guilty face with the mask of pretended innocence. Now he knew with certainty: there was no longer anything to prevent; nothing remained to him but retribution. Now he could show his brother that he knew him, had always known him.
He pointed to his wife. "She's begging me to go. Why should I? I'll look out of the window. That will do just as well. I shan't see what you are doing."