Apollonius did not understand him. Christiane knew that he did not, without looking at him. She tried to leave the room. She could not endure to be humiliated in Apollonius' presence till she was nothing but dirt under his feet. Her husband held her with a savage grip. He seized her with the swoop of a bird of prey. She would have had to scream aloud if her mental torture had not deadened her physical pain.
"Don't mind her wanting to go away," gasped Fritz Nettenmair, stifled with unnatural laughter, and held his brother with his eye as he held his wife with his hand. "You needn't be afraid. Just as soon as I turn my back she will be here again. Go on, talk to each other. Go on, tell him that you can't bear him; I believe it of course; what won't a man believe if a woman like you tells him so? And you, give her some of your teachings from Cologne, where you learnt everything, how to drive your brother out of his house and business so as to—hm—well—Ha, ha! Why don't you tell her? A woman ought to be willing. Oh, such a willing woman is—go on, tell her what that kind of a woman is. She doesn't know it yet, innocent as she is! Ha, ha!"
Apollonius understood nothing of what he heard and saw; but the abuse of a man's strength on a helpless woman filled him with indignation. Involuntarily this feeling carried him away. It doubled his strength, which was far superior to his brother's at all times, when he gripped him by the arm that held his wife so that it let go its prey and dropped as if paralyzed. Christiane tried to leave the room, but she collapsed helplessly. Apollonius caught her and laid her on the sofa, supported against its back. Then he stood before his brother like a wrathful angel.
"I have tried to win you by gentleness, but you are not worthy of it. I have endured much at your hands and will continue to endure," said Apollonius; "you are my brother. You blame me for having driven you into misfortune; God is my witness that I have done everything that I knew to hold you back. For whom have I done what you reproach me with doing, if not for you, and for the sake of your honor and to save your wife and your children? Who compelled me to be hard on you? For whom do I work? For whom am I doing all that I do? If you knew how it hurts me to have you force me to tell you what I am doing for you! God knows, you force me to it; I have never done it yet, not with others, nor with myself. You know that you are only seeking an excuse to be unbrotherly toward me. I know it, and will continue to endure you as I have done till now. But that you should make an excuse of your wife's dislike of me to torture her too, and to treat her as no good man treats a good woman, that I will not stand."
Fritz Nettenmair burst into a horrible laugh. His brother had put him to shame in every way, and now still wanted to play the virtuous hero to him, the innocently offended, the chivalrous protector of the innocently offended woman. "A good woman! Such a good woman! Oh yes indeed! Is she not? You say so—and you are a good man. Ha, ha! Who should know better whether a woman is good or not than such a good man? You have not robbed me of everything? You have still to rob me of my reason so that I shall believe your fairy-tale. She dislikes you? She can't bear you? Oh, you don't know yet how much she dislikes you. I need only be away, then she will tell you. Then it will be bad for you! She will strangle you to make you believe her. When I am present she won't tell you. A woman won't tell a thing like that when her husband is there—a good woman, as she is. Why don't you say that you can't bear her either? Oh, I have no longer any sense! I'll believe anything that you two tell me!"
Forgetting everything but his passion, Fritz Nettenmair was convinced that Christiane and Apollonius had invented the fairy-tale of her dislike.
Apollonius stood shocked. He was obliged to say to himself what he did not want to believe. His brother read in his face terror at the light that was breaking in on him, dismay and pain at the misconstruction put upon his conduct. And everything that he saw was so genuine that even he was obliged to believe it. He was silenced by the thoughts that pierced his brain like strokes of lightning. So it might still have been prevented after all; what must come might still have been hindered! And again it was he, himself—But Apollonius—he saw that in spite of his confusion—still doubted and could not believe. So he might still destroy the effects of his madness, might still perhaps prevent, still hinder what must come, even if it were only for today and tomorrow. But how? Should he make a wild joke out of the whole scene? Such jokes were not unusual with him, and in his mind Apollonius once more became the dreamer of old who believed everything that was told him. He broke into a laugh, a fearful caricature of the jovial laugh with which he had formerly been accustomed to reward his own sallies. That was a confounded joke, that Apollonius could be made to believe that Fritz Nettenmair was jealous! Jovial Fritz Nettenmair jealous! Jovial Fritz Nettenmair! And, better still, of him. He had never heard a more confounded joke than that! He read in his wife's face how relieved she was at the turn he had given to the scene. He dared to appeal to her to confirm the fact that it was a confounded joke. Her "yes" made him still bolder. Now he laughed at his wife who could be "confounded" enough to reproach him angrily with having made her dependent on the favor of the man she hated, and explained laughingly that it was such things that gave rise to little quarrels in married life. He laughed at Apollonius for taking such a little dispute so seriously. He asked to be shown the married people who didn't have such disagreements now and then. It was easy to see that Apollonius was still a bachelor!
Apollonius heard the councilman's voice in the hall, asking for him; he went out quickly so that the councilman should not come in and be a witness to the scene. His brother heard them going away together. He was far from being reassured yet. When he went out Apollonius' face had shown that he was still struggling with the thought that had dawned on him.
Two passions were fighting against each other in Fritz Nettenmair's soul. The dissolute habit of forgetting himself in drink drew him out of the house by a hundred chains; jealous fear held him at home with a thousand talons. If his brother had not yet thought of what he might have if he liked, he himself had now introduced the thought into his mind. All day long he turned his fear over and over and did not let his wife out of his sight. Not until it had all grown quiet around him, till his wife had put the children to bed and laid herself to rest, till he no longer saw any light in Apollonius' windows, did the talons relax their hold and the chains draw the stronger. He locked the back door which separated Apollonius from the rest of the house, he even bolted it as well, and locked the door of the stairs leading to the piazza and finally the door at which he went out. He had cause for haste without knowing it. The disagreeable-looking workman could not stay much longer. Fritz Nettenmair did not yet know that Apollonius had been to the quarry owner and succeeded in having the workman dismissed, had talked to the police and brought it about that the workman might no longer let himself be seen in the neighborhood on the morrow. The workman was ready for his departure; from the public house he was going straight out into the wide world. He only wanted to take leave of his former master and tell him something more before he went.
There was little left in the world to which Fritz Nettenmair was attached. The road that he had been traveling led farther and farther down from what he loved most; it was irretrievably lost to him. He would never again be the centre of admiration and flattery. All that still bound him to his wife was the searing chain of jealousy. He never had been fond of his father; he hated his brother. He knew himself to be hated or, in his madness, believed himself to be hated. Little Annie would have clung to him with all the strength of a child's heart longing to be loved, but he drove her away from him with hatred; to him she was "the spy." To one man alone did his heart cling, to the one who least deserved it. He knew that the man had cheated him, had helped to ruin him, and still he clung to him. The man hated Apollonius, he was the only person besides himself who hated Apollonius and therefore Apollonius' brother clung to him!