The Dead Are Silent | Page 7

her
husband and child. She looks out through the cab window. She is
driving through the streets of the inner city. It is brilliantly light here,
and many people hurry past. Suddenly all that she has experienced in
the last few hours seems not to be true, it is like an evil dream; not
something real, irreparable. She stops her cab in one of the side streets
of the Ring, gets out, turns a corner quickly, and takes another carriage,
giving her own address this time. She does not seem able to think of
anything any more. "Where is he now?" She closes her eyes and sees
him on the litter, in the ambulance. Suddenly she feels that he is here
beside her. The cab sways, she feels the 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