Dream Story (8 page)

At the costume shop, Herr Gibiser himself opened the door. "I'm bringing back the costume I hired," said Fridolin, "and would like to pay my bill." The proprietor mentioned a moderate sum, took the money and made an entry in a large ledger. He looked up, evidently surprised, when Fridolin made no move to leave.

"I would also like," said Fridolin in the tone of a police magistrate, "to have a word with you about your daughter."

There was a peculiar expression about the nostrils of Herr Gibiser—it was difficult to say whether it was displeasure, scorn or annoyance.

"What did you say?" he asked in a perfectly indefinite voice.

"Yesterday you said," remarked Fridolin, one hand with outstretched fingers resting on the desk, "that your daughter was not quite normal mentally. The situation in which we discovered her actually indicates some such thing. And since I took part in it, or was at least a spectator, I would very much like to advise you to consult a doctor."

Gibiser surveyed Fridolin insolently, twirling an unnaturally long pen-holder in his hand.

"And I suppose the doctor himself would like to take charge of the treatment?"

"Please don't misunderstand me," replied Fridolin in a sharp voice.

At this moment the door which led to the inner rooms was opened, and a young man with an open top-coat over his evening clothes stepped out. Fridolin decided it could be none other than one of the vehmic judges of the night before. He undoubtedly came from Pierrette's room. He seemed taken aback when he caught sight of Fridolin, but he regained his composure at once. He waved his hand to Gibiser, lighted a cigarette with a match from the desk, and left the apartment.

"Oh, that's how it is," remarked Fridolin with a contemptuous twitch of his mouth and a bitter taste on his tongue.

"What did you say?" asked Gibiser with perfect equanimity.

"So you have changed your mind about notifying the police," said Fridolin as his eyes wandered significantly from the entrance door to that of Pierrette.

"We have come to another agreement," remarked Gibiser coldly, and got up as though this were the end of an interview. He obligingly opened the door as Fridolin turned to go and said, without changing his expression: "If the doctor should want anything again ... it needn't necessarily be a monk's costume."

Fridolin slammed the door behind him. So that is settled, he thought, as he hurried down the stairs with a feeling of annoyance which, even to him, seemed exaggerated. The first thing he did on arriving at the Polyclinic was to telephone home to inquire whether any patients had sent for him, if there was any mail, or any other news. The maid had scarcely answered him when Albertina herself came to the phone to answer Fridolin's call. She repeated everything the maid had already told him, and then said casually that she had just got up and was going to have breakfast with the child. "Give her a kiss for me," said Fridolin, "and I hope you enjoy your breakfast."

It had been pleasant to hear her voice but he quickly hung up the receiver. Although he had really wanted to know what she planned to do during the forenoon, what business was it of his? Down in the bottom of his heart he was through with her, no matter how their surface life continued. The blond nurse helped him to take off his coat and handed him his white linen one, smiling at him just as they all did, whether one paid attention to them or not.

A few minutes later he was in the ward. The physician in charge had suddenly sent word that he had to leave the city for a conference, and that the assistants should make the rounds without him. Fridolin felt almost happy as he walked from bed to bed, followed by the students, making examinations, writing prescriptions, and having professional conversations with the assistants and nurses. Various changes had taken place. The journeyman-locksmith, Karl Rodel, had died during the night and the autopsy was to take place at half past four in the afternoon. A bed had become vacant in the woman's ward, but was again occupied. The woman in bed seventeen had had to be transferred to the surgical division. Besides this, there was a lot of personal gossip. The appointment of a man for the ophthalmology division would be decided day after tomorrow. Hiigelmann, at present professor at the University of Marburg, had the best chances, although four years ago he had been merely a second assistant to Stellwag. That's quick promotion, thought Fridolin. I'll never be considered for the headship of a department, if for no other reason than that I've never been a Dozent. It's too late. But why should it be? I really ought to begin again to do scientific work or take up more seriously some of the things that I have already started. My private practice would leave me ample time for it. He asked Doctor Fuchstaler if he would please take charge of the dispensary. He confessed to himself that he would rather have stayed there than drive out to Galitzinberg. And yet, he must. He felt obliged, not only for his own sake, to investigate this matter further, but there were all sorts of other things to be settled that day. He decided to ask Doctor Fuchstaler to take charge of the afternoon rounds, too, so as to be prepared for all emergencies. The young girl, over there, with suspected tuberculosis was smiling at him. It was the same one who had recently pressed her breasts so confidingly against his cheek when he examined her. Fridolin gave her a cold look and turned away with a frown. They are all alike, he thought bitterly, and Albertina is like the rest of them —if not the worst. I won't live with her any longer. Things can never be the same again. On the stairs he spoke to a colleague from the surgical division. Well, how was the woman who had been transferred during the night getting along? As far as he was concerned, he didn't really think it was necessary to operate. They would, of course, tell him the result of the histological examination?

"Why certainly, doctor."

He took a cab at the corner, consulting his notebook and pretending to the cabman that he was making up his mind where to go. "To Ottakring" he then said, "take the street going out to Galitzinberg. I'll tell you where to stop."

When he was in the cab he suddenly became terribly restless. In fact, he almost had a guilty conscience, because, during the last few hours, he had nearly forgotten the beautiful woman who had saved him. Would he now find the house? Well, that shouldn't be particularly difficult. The only question was what to do when he had found it. Notify the police? That might have disastrous consequences for the woman who had sacrificed herself for him, or had, at least, been ready to do so. Should he go to a private detective agency? He thought that would be in rather bad taste and not particularly dignified. But what else could he possibly do? He hadn't the time or the skill to make the necessary investigations. A secret club? Well, yes, it certainly was secret, though they seemed to know each other. Were they aristocrats, or perhaps even members of the court? He thought of certain archdukes who might easily be capable of such behavior. And what about the women? Probably they were recruited from brothels. Well, that was not by any means certain, but at any rate, they seemed very attractive. But how about the woman who had sacrificed herself for him? Sacrificed? Why did he try, again and again, to make himself believe that it really was a sacrifice? It had been a joke, of course; the whole thing had been a joke and he ought to be grateful to have gotten out of the scrape so easily. Well, why not? He had preserved his dignity, and the cavaliers probably realized that he was nobody's fool. And she must have realized it also. Very likely she had cared more for him than for all those archdukes or whatever they were.

He got out at the end of Liebhartstal, where the road led sharply up-hill, and took the precaution of sending the cab away. There were white clouds in the pale-blue sky and the sun shone with the warmth of spring. He looked back—there was nothing suspicious in sight, no cab, no pedestrian. He walked slowly up the road. His coat became heavy. He took it off and threw it over his shoulder just as he came to the spot where he thought the side-street, in which the mysterious house stood, branched off to the right. He could not go wrong. The street went down-hill but not nearly so steeply as it had seemed during the night. It was a quiet little street. There were rosebushes carefully covered with straw in a front garden, and in the next yard stood a baby carriage. A boy in a blue jersey suit was romping about and a laughing young woman watched him from a ground-floor window. Next came an empty lot, then an uncultivated fenced-in garden, then a little villa, next a lawn, and finally—there was no doubt about it—the house he was looking for. It certainly did not seem large or magnificent. It was a one-story villa in modest Empire style and obviously renovated a comparatively short time before. The green blinds were down and there was nothing to show that anyone lived there. Fridolin looked around. There was no one in the street, except farther down where two boys with books under their arms were going in the opposite direction. He stopped in front of the garden gate. And what was he to do now? Simply walk back again? That would be too ridiculous, he thought, looking for the bell-button. Supposing someone answered it, what was he to say? Well, he would simply ask if the pretty country house was to let for the summer. But the house-door had already opened and an old servant in plain morning livery came out and slowly walked down the narrow path to the gate. He held a letter in his hand and silently pushed it through the iron bars to Fridolin whose heart was beating wildly.

"For me?" he asked, hesitantly. The servant nodded, went back to the house, and the door closed behind him. What does that mean? Fridolin asked himself. Can it possibly be from her? Does she, herself, own the house? He walked back up the street quickly and it was only then that he noticed his name on the envelope in large, dignified letters. He opened it, unfolded a sheet and read the following:

Give up your inquiries which are perfectly useless, and consider these words a second warning. We hope, for your own good, that this will be sufficient.

This message disappointed him in every respect, but at any rate it was different from what he had foolishly expected. Nevertheless, the tone of it was strangely reserved, even kindly, and seemed to show that the people who had sent it by no means felt secure.

Second warning—? How was that? Oh yes, he had received the first one during the night. But why second warning—and not the last? Did they want to try his courage once more? Was he to pass a test? And how did they know his name? Well, that wasn't difficult. They had probably forced Nachtigall to tell. And besides—he smiled at his absent-mindedness—his monogram and his full address were sewn into the lining of his fur coat.

But, though he had made no progress, the letter on the whole reassured him, just why he couldn't say. At any rate he was convinced that the woman he was so uneasy about was still alive, and that it would be possible to find her if he went about it cautiously and cleverly.

He went home, feeling rather tired but with a strange sense of security which somehow seemed deceptive. Albertina and the child had finished their dinner, but they kept him company while he ate his meal. There she sat opposite him, the woman who had calmly allowed him to be crucified the preceding night. She was sitting there with an angelic look, like a good housewife and mother, and to his surprise he did not hate her. He enjoyed his meal, being in an excited, cheerful mood, and, as he usually did, gave a very lively account of the little professional incidents of the day. He mentioned especially the gossip about the doctors, about whom he always kept Albertina well informed. He told her that the appointment of Hugelmann was as good as settled, and then spoke pf his own determination to take up scientific work again with greater energy. Albertina knew this mood. She also knew that it usually didn't last very long and betrayed her doubts by a slight smile. When Fridolin became quite warm on the subject, she gently smoothed his hair to calm him. He started slightly and turned to the child, so as to remove his forehead from the embarrassing touch. He took the little girl on his lap and was just beginning to dance her up and down, when the maid announced that several patients were waiting. Fridolin rose with a sigh of relief, suggesting to Albertina that she and the child ought to go for a walk on such a beautiful, sunny afternoon, and went to his consulting room.

During the next two hours he had to see six old patients and two new ones. In every single case he had his whole mind on the subject. He made examinations, jotted down notes and wrote prescriptions—and he was glad that he felt so unusually fresh and clear in mind after spending the last two nights almost without sleep.

At the end of his consultation period, he stopped to see his wife and little daughter once more. He noted with satisfaction that Albertina's mother was with her, and that the child was having a French lesson with her governess. It was only when he reached the front steps that he realized that all this order, this regularity, all the security of his existence, was nothing but deception and delusion.

Although he had excused himself from his afternoon duties at the hospital, he felt irresistibly drawn to his ward. There were two cases there of special importance to the piece of research he was planning. He was busy for some time making a more detailed study of them than he had yet done, and following that he still had to visit a patient in the heart of the city. It was already seven o'clock in the evening when he stood before the old house in Schreyvogel Strasse. As he looked up at Marianne's window, her image, which had completely faded from his mind, was revived—more clearly than that of all the others. Well— there was no chance of failure here. He could begin his work of vengeance without any special exertion and with little difficulty or danger. What might have deterred others, the betrayal of her fiance, only made him keener. Yes, to betray, to deceive, to lie, to play a part, before Marianne, before Albertina, before the good Doctor Roediger, before the whole world. To lead a sort of double life, to be the capable, reliable physician with a future before him, the upright husband and head of a family. And at the same time a libertine, a seducer, a cynic who played with people, with men and women, just as the spirit moved him— that seemed to him, at the time, very delightful. And the most delightful part was that at some future time, long after Albertina fancied herself secure in the peacefulness of marriage and of—family life—he would confess to her, with a superior smile, all of his sins, in retribution for the bitter and shameful things she had committed against him in a dream.