“Yes. When she saw that you, too, were a man, when your head was beating against the floor and you were crying out. But do you believe, Joh, that this one smile in her dying hour outweighs all that which brought about her death?”
“Leave me my belief, Mother …”
“Delusion …”
Joh Fredersen looked at his mother.
“I should very much like to know,” he said with darkened voice, “on what you feed your cruelty towards, me, mother.”
“On my fears for you, Joh—on my fears!”
“You need have no fears for me, mother …”
“Oh yes, Joh—oh yes! Your sin walks behind you like a good dog on the trail. It does not lose your scent, Joh—it remains always and always at your back. A friend is unarmed against his friend. He has no shield before his breast, nor armour before his heart. A friend who believes in his friend is a defenceless man. A defenceless man was it whom you betrayed, Joh.”
“I have paid for my sin, mother … Hel is dead. Now I have only Freder left. That is her legacy. I will not give up Hel’s legacy. I have come to you to beg of you, mother: help me to win Freder back.”
The old lady’s eyes were fixed on him, sparkingly.
“What did you answer me, Joh, when I wanted to stop you on your way to Hel?”
“I don’t remember.”
“But I do, Joh! I still remember every syllable. You said: ‘I don’t hear a word you say—I only hear Hel! If I were to be blinded—I should still see Hel! If I were to be paralysed—with paralysed feet, I should still find my way to Hel!—’ Freder is your son. What do you think, Joh, he would answer me were I to say to him: give up the girl you love … ?”
Joh Fredersen was silent.
“Take care, Joh,” said the old mother. “I know what it means when your eyes grow cold, as now, and when you grow as pale as one of the stones of the wall. You have forgotten that lovers are sacred. Even if they are mistaken, Joh, their mistake itself is sacred. Even if they are fools, Joh, their folly itself is sacred. For where lovers are, there is God’s garden, and no one has the right to drive them out. Not even God. Only their own sin.”
“I must have my son back,” said Joh Fredersen. “I had hoped you would help me, and you would certainly have been the gentlest means I could have chosen. But you will not, and now I must seek another means …”
“Freder is ill, you say …”
“He will get well again …”
“So you will continue in your way?”
“Yes.”
“I believe, Joh, that Hel would weep were she to hear you!”
“Perhaps. But Hel is dead.”
“Well, come here to me, Joh! I will give you a word to take with you on your way, which you cannot forget. It is easy to retain.”
Joh Fredersen hesitated. Then he walked up to his mother. She laid her hand on the bible which lay before her. Joh Fredersen read: … Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he reap …
Joh Fredersen turned around. He walked through the room. His mother’s eyes followed him. As he turned toward her, suddenly, violently, with a violent word on his lips he found the gaze of her eyes set upon him. They could hide themselves no longer, and neither did they wish to—such an almighty love—such an almighty love, in their tear-washed depths that Joh Fredersen believed himself to see his mother today for the first time.
They looked at each other for a long time, in silence.
Then the man stepped up to his mother.
“I am going, now, mother,” he said, “and I don’t believe I shall ever come to you again …”
She did not answer.
It seemed as though he wanted to stretch out his hand to her, but, halfway he let it drop again.
“For whom are you crying, mother,” he asked, “for Freder or for me?”
“For you both,” said the mother, “for you both, Joh …”
He stood in silence and the struggle of his heart was in his face. Then, without giving his mother another look, he turned around and went out of the house, over which the walnut tree rustled.
XIII
It was midnight and no light was burning. Only through the window there fell the radiance of the city, lying like a pale gleam upon the face of the girl who sat, leaning back against the wall, without moving, with closed eyelids, her hands in her lap.
“Will you never answer me?” asked the great inventor.
Stillness. Silence. Immobility.
“You are colder than stone, harder than any stone. The tip of your finger must cut through the diamond as though it were water … I do not implore your love. What does a girl know of love? Her unstormed fortresses—her unopened Paradises—her sealed-up books, whom no one knows but the god who wrote them—what do you know of love? Women know nothing of love either. What does light know of light? Flame of burning? What do the stars know of the laws by which they wander? You must ask chaos—coldness, darkness, the eternal unredeemed which wrestles for the redemption of itself. You must ask the man what love is. The hymn of Heaven is only composed in Hell … I do not implore your love, Maria. But your pity, you motherly one, with the virgin face …”
Stillness. Silence. Immobility.
“I hold you captive … Is that my fault? I do not hold you captive for myself, Maria. Above you and me there is a Will which forces me into being evil. Have pity on him who must be evil, Maria! All the springs of good within me are choked up. I thought them to be dead; but they are only buried alive. My being is a rock of darkness. But deep within the sad stone I hear the springs rushing … If I defy the Will which is above you and me … If I destroy the work I created after your image … It would only
