“Yes,” he said. “Forgive me …”
(Behind them, in a vault that was shaped like a pointed devil’s-ear, a man took himself away from the wall.
“You know what you have to do,” he said in a low voice.
“Yes,” came the voice of the other, idly, sleepily, out of the darkness. “But wait a bit, friend … I must ask you something …”
“Well?”
“Have you forgotten your own creed?”
For one second a lamp twinkled through the room, that was shaped like a pointed devil’s ear, impaling the face of the man, who had already turned to go, on the pointed needle of its brilliance.
“That sin and suffering are twin-sisters … you will be sinning against two people, friend …”
“What has that to do with you?”
“Nothing … Or—little. Freder is Hel’s son …”
“And mine …”
“Yes.”
“It is he whom I do not wish to lose.”
“Better to sin once more?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“To suffer. Yes.”
“Very well, friend,” and in the voice was an inaudible laugh of mockery: “May it happen to you according to your creed … !”)
The girl walked through the passages that were so familiar to her. The bright little lamp in her hand roved over the roof of stone and over the stone walls, where, in niches, the thousand-year-old dead slept.
The girl had never known fear of the dead; only reverence and gravity in face of their gravity. Today she saw neither wall nor dead. She walked on, smiling and not knowing she did it. She felt like singing. With an expression of happiness, which was still incredulous and yet complete, she said the name of her beloved over to herself.
Quite softly: “Freder …” And once more: “Freder …”
Then she raised her head, listening attentively, standing quite still …
It came back as a whisper: An echo?—No.
Almost inaudibly a word was breathed:
“Maria …”
She turned around, blissfully startled. Was it possible that he had come back.
“Freder—!” she called. She listened.
No answer.
“Freder—!”
Nothing.
But suddenly there came a cool draught of air which made the hair at her neck quiver, and a hand of snow ran down her back.
There came an agonized sigh—a sigh which would not come to an end …
The girl stood still. The bright little lamp which she held in her hand let its gleam play tremblingly about her feet.
“Freder … ?”
Now her voice, too, was only a whisper.
No answer. But, behind her, in the depths of the passage she would have to pass through, a gentle, gliding slink became perceptible: feet in soft shoes on rough stones …
That was … yes, that was strange. Nobody, apart from her, ever came this way. Nobody could be here. And, if somebody were here, then it was no friend …
Certainly nobody whom she wanted to meet.
Should she let him by?—yes.
A second passage opened to her left. She did not know it well. But she would not follow it up. She would only wait in it until the man outside—the man behind her—had gone by.
She pressed herself against the wall of the strange passage, keeping still and waiting quite silently. She did not breath. She had extinguished the lamp. She stood in utter darkness, immovable.
She listened: the gliding feet were approaching. They walked in darkness as she stood in darkness. Now they were here. Now they must … they must go past … But they did not go. They stood quite still. Before the opening to the passage in which she stood, the feet stopped still and seemed to wait.
For what … ? For her … ?
In the complete silence the girl suddenly heard her own heart … She heard her own heart, like pump-works, beating more and more quickly, throbbing more and more loudly. These loud throbbing heartbeats must also be heard by the man who kept the opening to the passage. And suppose he did not stay there any longer … suppose he came inside … she could not hear his coming, her heart throbbed so.
She groped, with fumbling hand, along the stone wall. Without breathing, she set her feet, one before the other … Only to get away from the entrance … Away from the place where the other was standing …
Was she wrong? Or were the feet really coming after her? Soft, slinking shoes on rough stones? Now the agonised, heavy breathing, heavier still, and nearer … cold breath on her neck … Then—
Nothing more. Silence. And waiting. And watching—keeping on the lookout …
Was it not as if a creature, such as the world had never seen: trunkless, nothing but arms, legs and head … but what a head! God—God in heaven! … was crouching on the floor before her, knees drawn up to chin, the damp arms supported right and left, against the walls, near her hips, so that she stood defenceless, caught? Did she not see the passage lighted by a pale shimmer—and did not the shimmer come from the being’s jellyfish head?
“Freder!” she thought. She bit the name tightly between her jaws, yet heard the scream with which her heart screamed it.
She threw herself forwards and felt—she was free—she was still free—and ran and stumbled, and pulled herself up again and staggered from wall to wall, knocking herself bloody, suddenly clutched into space, stumbled, fell to the ground, felt … Something lay there … what? No—No—No—!
The lamp had long since fallen from her hand. She raised herself to her knees and clapped her fists to her ears, in order not to hear the feet, the slinking feet coming nearer. She knew herself to be imprisoned in darkness and yet opened her eyes because she could no longer bear the circles of fire, the wheels of flame behind her closed lids—
And saw her own shadow thrown, gigantic, on the wall before her, and behind her was light, and before her lay a man—
A man?—That was not a man … That was the remains of a man, with his back half leaning against the wall, half slipped down, and on his skeleton feet, which almost touched the girl’s knees, were the slender shoes, pointed and purple-red …
With a shriek which tore her throat, the girl threw herself up, backwards—and then on and on, without looking round, pursued by the light which
