The Dead Are Silent | Page 7

terror of being thrown out again, and she screams aloud. The cab halts before the door of her home. She dismounts hastily, hurries with light steps through the house door, unseen by the concierge, runs up the stairs, opens her apartment door very gently, aind slips unseen into her own room. She undresses hastily, hiding the mud-stained clothes in her cupboard. To-morrow, when they are dry, she can clean them herself. She washes hands and face, and slips into a loose housegown.
The bell rings. She hears the maid open the door, she hears her husband's voice, and the rattle of his cane on the hat-stand. She feels she must be brave now or it will all have been in vain. She hurries to the dining-room, entering one door as her husband comes in at the other.
"Ah, you're home already?" he asks.
"Why, yes," she replies, "I have been home some time."
"They evidently didn't hear you come in."
She smiles without effort. But it fatigues her horribly to have to smile. He kisses her forehead.
The little boy is already at his place by the table. He has been waiting some time, and has fallen asleep, his head resting on an open book.
She sits down beside him; her husband takes his chair opposite, takes up a paper, and glances carelessly at it. Then he says: "The others are still talking away there."
"What about?" she asks.
And he begins to tell her about the meeting, at length. Emma pretends to listen, and nods now and then. But she does not hear what he is saying, she feels dazed, like one who has escaped terrible danger as by a miracle; she can feel only this: "I am safe; I am at home." And while her husband is talking she pulls her chair nearer the boy's and lifts his head to her shoulder. Fatigue inexpressible comes over her. She can no longer control herself; she feels that her eyes are closing, that she is dropping asleep.
Suddenly another possibility presents itself to her mind, a possibility that she had dismissed the moment she turned to leave the ditch where she had fallen. Suppose he were not dead! Suppose--oh, but it is impossible--his eyes--his--lips--not a breath came from them! But there are trances that are like death, which deceive even practised eyes, and she knows nothing about such things. Suppose he is still alive--suppose he has regained consciousness and found himself alone by the roadside--suppose he calls her by her name? He might think she had been injured; he might tell the doctors that there was a woman with him, and that she must have been thrown to some distance. They will look for her. The coachman will come back with the men he has brought, and will tell them that she was there, unhurt--and Franz will know the truth. Franz knows her so well--he will know that she has run away--and a great anger will come over him. He will tell them her name in revenge. For he is mortally injured, and it will hurt him cruelly that she has left him alone in his last hour. He will say: "That is Mrs. Emma ------. I am her lover. She is cowardly and stupid, too, gentlemen, for she might have known you would not ask her name; you would be discreet; you would have let her go away unmolested. Oh, she might at least have waited until you came. But she is vile--utterly vile--ah!--"
"What is the matter?" asks the Professor, very gravely, rising from his chair.
"What? What?"
"Yes, what is the matter with you?"
"Nothing." She presses the boy closer to her breast.
The Professor looks at her for a few minutes steadily.
"Didn't you know that you had fallen asleep, and--"
"Well?-- And--"
"And then you screamed out in your sleep."
"Did I?"
"You screamed as if you were having a nightmare. Were you dreaming?"
"I don't know--"
And she sees her face in a mirror opposite, a face tortured into a ghastly smile. She knows it is her own face, and it terrifies her. She sees that it is frozen; that this hideous smile is frozen on it, and will always be there, all her life. She tries to cry out. Two hands are laid on her shoulders, and between her own face and the mirrored one her husband's face pushes its way in; his eyes pierce into hers. She knows that unless she is strong for this last trial all is lost. And she feels that she is strong; she has regained control of her limbs, but the moment of strength is short. She raises her hands to his, which rest on her shoulders; she draws him down to her, and smiles naturally and tenderly into his eyes.
She feels his lips on her forehead, and she thinks: "It is all a dream--he will never tell--he will