The new terror
number that Herbert was his only heir. Herbert spoke to me about it one
day with the most sincere aversion, and I had once more an opportunity
of appreciating the strictness of his conscience.
“‘Would you like to be the heir of this sordid old miser who made his
fortune by ruining all the clockmakers in Höllenthal?’
“‘Certainly not,’ I returned. ‘Your father left us a certain amount of
property, and with what you can honestly earn we shall have enough to
live on even if Heaven chooses to send us a child.’
“I had no sooner uttered these words than I saw my Herbert turn as
white as a sheet. I put my arms round him, for I thought that he was
about to faint, but the blood returned to his face, and he exclaimed in
forcible tones:
“‘Yes, yes, the only true thing is to have the approbation of one’s
conscience.’
“And so saying he rushed wildly from the room.
“Sometimes he was away for a day or two on business, which consisted,
he told me, of buying plantations of standing trees and selling them
again to contractors. He did not work the whole thing himself but left
to others the task of turning the trees into sleepers for railways,
if the wood was of inferior quality, and posts and ships’ masts if it
was of the best quality. The essential thing was to display expert
judgment; and he had acquired his knowledge of timber from his father.
“He never took me away with him on any of his journeys. He left me
alone in the house with an old maid-servant who had received me with
ill-disguised hostility. I kept out of her way and wept in secret, for
I was not happy. I felt convinced that Herbert was hiding something
from me, something which was obsessing his mind, and which I too who
knew nothing, was never able to dismiss from my thoughts.
“And then the great forest frightened me. And the servant frightened
me. And old Basckler frightened me. And the old house! It was very
large with staircases everywhere leading to passages into which I dared
not venture. At the end of one of them in particular, stood a small
room. I had seen my husband enter it two or three times, but I myself
had never set foot in it.
“I could not pass the door of this room, which was always closed,
without a tremor. It was to this study that Herbert was wont to retire,
so he told me, to make up his accounts and balance his books, but it
was also to this room that he retired alone to bewail his secret.
“One night after he had set out on one of his journeys and I was vainly
endeavoring to sleep, my attention was attracted by a slight sound
under my window which I had left partly open on account of the extreme
heat. I got out of bed with every precaution. The sky was overcast and
great clouds hid the stars from sight. It was as much as I could do to
discern the threatening shadows of the nearest trees which faced the
house.
“I could not clearly distinguish my husband and the maid-servant until
they passed under my window, walking on the lawn with infinite caution
so that I should not hear the sound of their footsteps and carrying
between them a sort of long, somewhat narrow trunk which I had never
before seen. They entered the chalet and I did not hear nor see them
again for the next ten minutes.
“My anguish exceeded anything that it is possible to conceive. Why
were they hiding themselves from me? How was it that I had not heard
the coming of the chaise which usually brought Herbert home? Just then
I seemed to catch in the distance the neighing of a horse, and the
maid-servant appeared, crossed the lawn, vanished into the darkness,
and soon returned leading our mare unharnessed over the soft ground.
Never had they taken so many precautions to prevent me from waking up!
“Growing more and more surprised that Herbert did not come to our
room as was his custom after his return at night, I hastily slipped
on a dressing-gown and wandered into the darkness of the passage. My
steps turned quite naturally toward the little study of which I stood
in so much fear. And I had only just entered the corridor which led
to it when I heard my husband say in a rough, muffled voice to the
maid-servant who was mounting the stairs:
“‘Water! Bring me some water. Hot water of course. It won’t come off.’
“I stopped short and held my breath. Besides I could not breathe. I
was stifling. I was filled with the presentiment that some dreadful
misfortune had befallen us. Suddenly I was once more startled by my
husband’s voice:
“‘Ah, at last! That’s done it. It’s come off.’
“My husband and the old woman were still talking in low tones and I
heard his step. That brought me to myself and I fled to my bedroom and
locked myself in. Soon he knocked at the door and I went through the
form of pretending to be asleep and to wake up, and at last I opened
the door. I held a candle in my hand which fell to the floor when I
caught sight of the look on his face.
“‘What’s the matter?’ he asked. ‘Are you still asleep? Do go back to
bed.’
“I made a movement to light the candle again, but he stopped me and I
threw myself on the bed. I spent a cruel night.
“Herbert turned and tossed and sighed beside me and could not sleep. He
did not speak a word. At daybreak he rose, pressed an icy kiss on my
brow and left the room. When I got downstairs the old woman gave me a
note from him in which he stated that he was obliged to go away again
for a couple of days.
“At eight o’clock that morning I learned from workmen on their way
to Neustadt, that old Basckler had been found murdered in a small
cottage which he possessed at Höllenthal, where he sometimes spent
the night when his business of money-lending kept him too long among
his peasant-debtors. Basckler had received a terrible blow with an
axe which had split his head in two. It was undoubtedly the work of a
woodman.
“I returned to the house as best I could. And once more my feet led me
toward the little study. I could not explain exactly what was passing
in my mind, but after the words which I had overheard during the night
and the look on Herbert’s face, I felt a need to see what that room
contained. Just then the servant observed me and exclaimed maliciously:
“‘Leave that room alone. You know quite well that M. Gutmann has
forbidden you to touch it. A lot of good it would do you to know what’s
inside.’
“And she walked away with a fiendish laugh.
“I took my bed, suffering from high fever. I was ill for a fortnight.
Herbert looked after me with maternal solicitude. It seemed to me that
I had been the sport of some evil dream, and it was enough now to see
his good-natured face to confirm my impression that I was not in a
normal condition on the night when I fancied that I had seen and heard
so many extraordinary things. Moreover the murderer of Basckler had
been arrested. He was a woodman belonging to Bergen whom the old miser
had ‘bled’ too freely and who had taken his revenge by ‘bleeding’ his
persecutor in his turn.
“This woodman, a man named Mathis Müller, never ceased to protest his
innocence, but though not a single trace of blood was found on his
clothes and his axe was almost like new steel, there was, it seems,
sufficient evidence of his guilt to bring him to justice.
“Our circumstances were in no way affected, as we imagined they might
be, by old Basckler’s death, and Herbert looked in vain for a will
which did not exist.
“To my surprise its absence considerably upset him, and one day when I
questioned him about it he answered irritably:
“‘Well, yes, if you want to know, I was relying a great deal on that
will—a great deal.’
“And as he spoke a black look came over his face, and the terrible face
which I had seen on the mysterious night rose up before me, and after
that never left me. It was like a mask which I was always ready to
place over Herbert’s face even when it was naturally kind and sad.
“During Mathis Müller’s trial at Freiburg I eagerly read the
newspapers; and certain words which fell from the counsel for the
defense haunted me day and night:
“‘Until you have discovered the axe with which the deed was done and
the murderer’s blood-stained clothes, you cannot convict Mathis Müller.’
“Nevertheless Mathis Müller was found guilty and sentenced to death,
and I am bound to say that the verdict strangely affected my husband.
At night he dreamt of nothing but Mathis Müller. I was terrified of him
and my thoughts also terrified me.
“Oh, I longed to know the truth! I was determined to know the truth.
What was the meaning of those words ‘It won’t come off?’
“What was the nature of the work upon which he was engaged in the
mysterious little study during the night?
“One night I rose and groping in the dark stole his keys from him. I
crept into the corridors. I went to the kitchen to fetch a lantern.
With chattering teeth I reached the forbidden room ... I opened the
door and my eyes at once fell on the trunk—the oblong trunk which had
so greatly perplexed me.
“It was locked, but I had no difficulty in finding the small key on the
bunch ... I unlocked it and raised the lid. I went down on my knees in
order to see better, and the sight that met my eyes forced a cry of
horror from me....
“The trunk contained blood-stained clothes and the axe which had struck
the blow still spotted with rust....
* * * * *
“How I managed, after what I had seen, to live with Herbert through the
few weeks which preceded the convicted man’s execution I cannot tell....
“I was afraid that he might kill me....
“How was it that my attitude, the dread that possessed me, failed to
enlighten him? The fact is that at that time his mind was wholly a prey
to fears not less great than my own. The thought of Mathis Müller never
left him.
“To enable him to escape the obsession, apparently, he now shut himself
up in the little study, and I sometimes heard him delivering tremendous
blows, which made the floor and walls resound, as if he were fighting
with his axe against the ghosts and phantoms which beset him.
“Strange to say, and it seemed at first impossible to understand,
Herbert recovered his calmness a couple of days before Müller’s
execution—the calmness of marble, the calmness of a statue. That
evening he said:
“‘I am going away to-morrow morning early. I have some important
business to do near Freiburg. I shall probably be away for a couple of
days. Don’t worry.’
“It was at Freiburg that the execution was to take place, and I had the
impression that Herbert’s composure was the result of the resolution
that he had taken.
“He was going to give himself up!
“The thought was so much of a relief to me that for the first time for
many a night I fell into a sound sleep. It was broad daylight when I
awoke. My husband had already left the house.
“I dressed in haste and without saying a word to the old servant I
started for Todtnau. Here, I took a conveyance and drove to Freiburg.
I reached Freiburg when the light had begun to wane. I went at once to
the Court House, and the first person whom I saw entering the building
was my husband. I stood rooted to the spot. And as Herbert did not come
out again I felt sure that he had surrendered and was being held there
at the disposal of the authorities.
“The prison at that time was next the Court House. I walked round
it like a mad-woman. All that night I wandered about the streets,
returning every now and then to this gloomy building, and the first
gleams of day were beginning to break when my eyes encountered two men
clad in black frock-coats mounting the front steps of the Court.
“I ran up to them and said that I wanted to see the public prosecutor
as soon as possible, as I had a communication of the utmost gravity to
make to him about the Basckler murder.