Fritz Nettenmair laughed in wild mockery, and at the same time sobbed in impotent pain. The children were no longer his. He was no longer their father. Yet they were his children! And he had to go away and leave them; and those whom he hated, who had ruined everything for him, would be happy through his going. He became even more miserable than he had already been. He saw his wife lying before him in her beauty, and the desire entered his mind to destroy this beauty. But his recollection of the moment when he lay stretched before his father, prepared for death, was mightier than the desire and banished it. The picture of that moment lived strong within him, only there was an exchange of persons. He painted it with more and more vivid colors. And now it was a fierce joy that drove him again from the house to the shed and from the shed to the house. His arms moved in violent gesticulation. The moon rose. The house with the green shutters lay there so peaceful in its shimmer. No passer-by would have divined the unrest concealed behind its walls; none would have suspected the thought that hell was brewing there in a ruined vessel.
* * * * * Apollonius was exhausted from watching and struggling. He needed rest. The next morning he had to complete the garlanding of the tower-roof, and then take down his swinging-seat, block and pulley, iron ring and ladder. His step must be firm, his eye clear. For the single hour that remained before work was to begin, he did not wish to undress and go to bed. He sat down in his wooden chair. There sleep came to him sooner than he expected—but it was not the kind of sleep he needed; it was an uninterrupted disturbing dream. Christiane lay in his arms as she had lain the day before; he struggled again, but this time he did not conquer, he clasped her to him. When he opened his eyes, it was day and time to go to work. He was in a more excited state of mind than when he had left his father. He hoped that the visions of his dream which had intensified his old desires and his pangs of conscience concerning them would retreat before the fresh morning air and the sobering effect of a cold water rub. But this did not happen; they stayed with him and would not let go of him, not even during his work. The breath of her warm lips lingered on his cheek, he felt himself always in her throbbing embrace; passionate upbraidings of his brother rose again and again in his heart. He did not know himself any longer. In addition to the reproaches he made himself for his evil thoughts, came dissatisfaction because he knew he was not putting his whole mind on his work. Usually he worked his cheerful, industrious self into each task he performed, and it was bound to be good and lasting. But today it seemed to him that he was hammering unrighteous thoughts into his work, that he was forging out of them an evil charm, and that the result could not be good nor enduring.
The slater must work thoughtfully. The man who undertakes repairs today must rely upon the faithfulness of him who stood decades, perhaps centuries ago where he stands now. The lack of conscientiousness that rivets a roof-hook slovenly today may be the cause of a good man's death fifty years hence when he hangs his ladder on that hook. Behind the struggle of his conscience against the visions of his sinful dream lurked, like a dark cloud, the fear that in his distraction he might be forging a future disaster for somebody.
His work was done. The new tin decoration gleamed in the sun around the dark surface of the slate roof. Ring, tackle, swinging-seat and ladder had been removed; the workmen who had assisted at the removal had gone again. Apollonius had taken down the "flying" scaffold and the poles on which it rested; he stood alone on the narrow board which formed the path from the cross-beam to the roof-door. He stood thinking. He felt as if he had forgotten to drive in nails somewhere. He looked in the slate and nail boxes of his swinging-seat which hung near him on a beam. The sound of a mysterious hurrying step came to his ears from the tower stairs. He paid no attention to it, for just then he found a sheet of lead lying among his things. He had brought with him the exact number of sheets that he needed. So this was evidently one that he had forgotten; in his distracted state of mind he had overlooked one of the riveting points. From the door he looked up and down the surface of the roof. If the mistake had happened on this side of the tower he could perhaps rectify it without his seat. Perhaps the ladder would suffice to reach the required point. And so it proved to be. About six feet above him, near the roof-hook he had taken out a slate and had neglected to replace it with a sheet of lead and to fasten the garland to it. In the meantime the mysterious steps were coming ever nearer; the man in such haste had now reached the end of the stone stairs and was climbing the ladder to the roof. The clock below rumbled. It was almost two. Apollonius had not yet had dinner, but when there was a flaw of any kind in his work he could not rest until he had rectified it. He had gone back to fetch the ladder. It lay on the beam near the swinging-seat. As he stooped to get it he felt himself seized and pushed with wild violence toward the door. Instinctively he caught hold of the lower edge of a beam with his right hand while with his left he sought in vain for support. This movement brought him face to face with his assailant. Horrified he saw the distorted, wild features of his brother.
"You shall have her all to yourself, or down you go with me."
"Away!" cried Apollonius. In his angry pain all his reproaches against his brother mounted into his face. Exerting all his strength he pushed him back with his free hand.
"So you show your true face, at last?" mocked Fritz Nettenmair in still greater rage. "You have dislodged me from every place that I possessed; now it is my turn. You shall have me on your conscience, you fluff-picker. Throw me over, or down you go with me!"
Apollonius saw no deliverance. The hand with which he held desperately to the sharp edge of the beam was well-nigh exhausted. With all his strength he would have to seize his brother by the arms, turn him round and push him over if he did not want to be dragged down with him. And yet he cried: "I will not!"
"Very well," groaned Fritz. "You want to put the blame of this too on me; you want to make me do this too. Your sanctimoniousness shall now have an end." Apollonius would have sought a new hold, but he knew that his brother would take advantage of the instant when he let go his present one. Fritz was already just on the point of making a violent dash at him. Apollonius' hand was slipping from the edge of the beam. He would be lost if he did not find some new hold. He could perhaps make a jump and catch the beam with both hands; but then his brother, by the force of his own onset, would certainly fall through the door. A vision of his honest, proud, old father, of the young wife and her children, rose before him, and he remembered the vow that he had made to himself; he was their only support—he must live. One spring and he had caught the beam in his arms; at the same moment his brother rushed headlong past him. The weights below rattled, and the clock struck two. The jackdaws, disturbed in their rest by the struggle, swooped wildly down to the roof-door and fluttered about in a croaking cloud. There was the sound of a heavy body striking on the street pavement far below. A cry went up from all sides. Pale living faces looked on a paler dead one which lay all bloody on the pavement. Ghastly haste, screams, a clasping of hands, a running hither and thither, spread like a whirlwind from the church-yard to the farthest corner of the town. But the clouds high above in the sky heeded it not and continued on their vast course unmoved. They see so much self-created misery below them that a single instance cannot touch them.
Everything in the world has its use, if not in itself or for him who does it or who has it, then at least for others. So that which had brought disgrace on the house of Nettenmair was now a guard against greater disgrace. Fritz Nettenmair's love of drink was known everywhere; everybody had seen him drunk; it was no wonder that all who learned of his death attributed it to this vice. It was well that nobody outside of the Nettenmair household knew that he had intended to go to America; it was also well that, to avoid attracting attention upon his return, he had worn his ordinary workman's clothes in the mail coach with only his overcoat thrown over them. The coat had got lost on the way and those who had a right to its restitution naturally put in no claim for it. It did not occur to anybody to attach much importance to this scarcely-noticed incident, as it was not necessary to piece a story together when a complete one was already at hand. Moreover, before the deed he had gone to his usual place of recreation, had drunk heavily, and, after boasting in his foolhardy way that he would now perform his master-piece, had left the tavern for St. George's much intoxicated. All these outward circumstances served to confirm the generally accepted opinion. By a fortunate chance there had been no workmen at St. George's; of the struggle that had taken place before the fall nobody knew anything except Apollonius and the jackdaws who lived there. As soon as the inspector learned of Fritz's death he looked up Apollonius, whom he found sitting exhausted at the foot of the tower, and told him the story that was going the rounds. It entered nobody's head to question Apollonius. They all told him about it instead of letting him tell. He therefore kept silence about that which nobody questioned. The courts found no reason to make an investigation, and the danger which had menaced the honor of the family passed quietly over.