Then suddenly—suddenly—Freder turned his head. His hands, which were resting on the hips of the drink-mixer, lost hold of her, dropping down by his sides as if dead. The laughter ceased, not one of the friends moved. Not one of the little, brocaded, bare-limbed women moved hand or foot. They stood and looked.
The door of the Eternal Gardens had opened and through the door came a procession of children. They were all holding hands. They had dwarves’ faces, grey and ancient. They were little ghost-like skeletons, covered with faded rags and smocks. They had colourless hair and colourless eyes. They walked on emaciated bare feet. Noiselessly they followed their leader.
Their leader was a girl. The austere countenance of the Virgin. The sweet countenance of the mother. She held a skinny child by each hand. Now she stood still, regarding the young men and women one after another, with the deadly severity of purity. She was quite maid and mistress, inviolability—and was, too, graciousness itself, her beautiful brow in the diadem of goodness; her voice, pity; every word a song.
She released the children and stretched forward her hand, motioning towards the friends and saying to the children:
“Look, these are your brothers!”
And, motioning towards the children, she said to the friends:
“Look, these are your brothers!”
She waited. She stood still and her gaze rested upon Freder.
Then the servants came, the doorkeepers came. Between these walls of marble and glass, under the opal dome of the Eternal Gardens, there reigned, for a short time, an unprecedented confusion of noise, indignation and embarrassment. The girl appeared still to be waiting. Nobody dared to touch her, though she stood so defenceless, among the grey infant-phantoms, Her eyes rested perpetually on Freder.
Then she took her eyes from his and, stooping a little, took the children’s hands again, turned and led the procession out. The door swung to behind her; the servants disappeared with many apologies for not having been able to prevent the occurrence. All was emptiness and silence. Had not each of those before whom the girl had appeared, with her grey procession of children, so large a number of witnesses to the event they would have been inclined to put it down to hallucination.
Near Freder, upon the illuminated mosaic floor, cowered the little drink-mixer, sobbing uncontrolledly.
With a leisurely movement, Freder bent towards her and suddenly twitched the mask, the narrow black mask, from her eyes.
The drink-mixer shrieked out as though overtaken in stark nudity. Her hands flew up, clutching, and remained hanging stiffly in the air.
A little painted face stared, horror-stricken at the man. The eyes, thus exposed, were senseless, quite empty. The little face from which the charm of the mask had been taken away, was quite weird.
Freder dropped the black piece of stuff. The drink-mixer pounced quickly upon it, hiding her face. Freder looked around him.
The Eternal Gardens scintillated. The beautiful beings in it, even if, temporarily, thrown out of balance, shone in their well-cared-forness, their cleanly abundance. The odour of freshness, which pervaded everywhere, was like the breath of a dewy garden.
Freder looked down at himself. He wore, as all the youths in the “House of the Sons,” the white silk, which they wore but once—the soft, supple shoes, with the noiseless soles.
He looked at his friends. He saw these beings who never wearied, unless from sport—who never sweated, unless from sport—who were never out of breath, unless from sport. Beings requiring their joyous games in order that their food and drink might agree with them, in order to be able, to sleep well and digest easily.
The tables, at which they had all eaten, were laid, as beforehand, with untouched dishes. Wine, golden and purple, embedded in ice or warmth, was there, proffering itself, like the loving little women. Now the music was playing again. It had been silenced when the girlish voice spoke the five soft words:
“Look, these are your brothers!”
And once more, with her eyes resting on Freder:
“Look, these are your brothers!”
As one suffocating, Freder sprang up. The masked women stared at him. He dashed to the door. He ran along passages and down steps. He came to the entrance.
“Who was that girl?”
Perplexed shrugs. Apologies. The occurrence was inexcusable, the servants knew it. Dismissals, in plenty, would be distributed.
The Major Domo was pale with anger.
“I do not wish,” said Freder, gazing into space, “that anyone should suffer for what has happened. Nobody is to be dismissed … I do not wish it …”
The Major Domo bowed in silence. He was accustomed to whims in the “Club of the Sons.”
“Who is the girl … can nobody tell me?”
“No. Nobody. But if an inquiry is to be made?”
Freder remained silent. He thought of Slim. He shook his head. First slowly, then violently. “No—One does not set a bloodhound on the track of a sacred, white hind.
“Nobody is to inquire about her,” he said, tonelessly.
He felt the soulless glance of the strange, hired person upon his face. He felt himself poor and besmirched. In an ill-temper which rendered him as wretched as though he had poison in his veins, he left the club. He walked home as though going into exile. He shut himself up in his workroom and worked. At nights he clung to his instrument and forced the monstrous solitude of Jupiter and Saturn down to him.
Nothing could help him—nothing! In an agonising blissful omnipresence stood, before his vision the one, one countenance; the austere countenance of the virgin, the sweet countenance of the mother.
A voice spoke:
“Look, these are your brothers.”
And the glory of the heavens was nothing, and the intoxication of work was nothing. And the conflagration which wiped out the sea could not wipe out the soft voice of the girl:
“Look, these are your brothers!”
My God, my God—
With a painful, violent jerk, Freder turned around and walked up to his machine. Something like deliverance passed across his face as he considered this shining creation, waiting only for him, of which there was
