“Have you any objection to it?” asked the old lady, and she passed her beautiful, slender white hand lightly across the mosslike growth on her forehead.—It seemed as though she said this merely casually, as though she could not think of anything more commonplace to say for the moment. She at once added: “So to speak—?”
“No, I have no objection to it,” said Van der Qualen. “The rooms are fitted out rather—well, cleverly. I’ll take them.—I should like someone to fetch my things from the railway station—here is the check. Please see to it that the bed and the night-table are put in order—and let me have the front door key, as well as the key to the flat—and also a couple of towels. I should like to wash and dress a bit, then go and dine in the city and return later on.”
He drew a nickel-plated case from his pocket, took out a piece of soap, and began to wash his face and hands at the washstand. Meantime he peered through windowpanes which curved markedly outward, far down over the muddy suburban streets in the gaslight, on arc-lamps and villas.—Drying his hands, he crossed to the wardrobe. It was a foursquare, brown-stained thing, a little wobbly, with an absurdly ornate top, and stood in the middle of the right wall, exactly in the niche of a second white door, which must lead to the rooms to which the entrance was through the main and middle doors out on the landing. “A few things in this world are well arranged,” thought Van der Qualen. “This wardrobe fits into the niche of the door as though it had been made for it.”—He opened it.—The wardrobe was completely empty, with several rows of hooks in the upper part; but it was evident that this solid piece of furniture had no back whatever; it was shut off behind by a grey stuff, hard, common canvas, which was fastened to the four corners by nails or drawing-pins.
Van der Qualen closed the wardrobe, took up his hat, turned up the collar of his overcoat again, extinguished the candle, and went forth. As he passed through the front room, he thought he heard, between the sounds of his footsteps, in the adjoining rooms, a tinkling noise, a light, clear metallic tone—but it was altogether unsafe to say whether this was not an illusion. “It is as though a golden ring fell into a silver basin,” thought he, as he locked the door to the flat, descended the stairs, left the house, and found his way back to the city.
He entered a well-lighted restaurant in a lively street and sat down at one of the front tables, turning his back to everybody. He ate a vegetable soup with toasted bread, a beefsteak with an egg, stewed fruit, and wine, a bit of green Gorgonzola, and half a pear. As he paid and put on his overcoat, he gave a few puffs at a Russian cigarette, then lighted a cigar, and went out. He strolled about a bit, found his way to his suburb, and retraced it without haste.
The house with the plate-glass windows stood there wholly dark and silent, as Van der Qualen opened the house door and mounted the dark stairs. He lighted his way up with a match, and, at the third story, opened the brown door to the left which led to his room. After he had laid his overcoat and hat on the sofa, he lighted the lamp on the big desk and found there his travelling-bag, as well as the plaid rug and the umbrella. He unrolled the rug and drew forth a flask of brandy, took a small glass out of his bag, and, while he sat in an armchair and smoked his cigar to a finish, took a sip from time to time. “It’s pleasant,” he thought, “that there is still brandy to be had in the world.”—He then went into the bedroom, where he lighted the candle on the night-table, put out the lamp in the other room, and began to undress. He laid his grey, inconspicuous, and durable suit, piece by piece, on the red chair beside the bed; then, however, as he loosened his braces, he remembered his hat and overcoat, which still lay on the sofa; he fetched them, he opened the wardrobe—He made a step backwards and felt behind him for one of the large, dark-red mahogany balls which decorated the four corners of the bed.
The room with its bare, white walls, against which the red-lacquered chairs stood relieved like strawberries against whipped cream, stood revealed in the unsteady light of the candle. But there, the wardrobe, the door of which stood wide open, was not empty; someone stood within it, a figure, a creature, so lovely that Albrecht van der Qualen’s heart stood still for a moment and then resumed its beating with full, slow, gentle throbs.—She was quite naked and held up one of her small, delicate arms, for she was clutching one of the hooks in the top of the wardrobe with her forefinger. Ripples of her long, brown hair rested upon her childlike shoulders, which breathed forth a beauty which could be answered only by sobs. Her long, black eyes mirrored the light of the candle.—Her mouth was a trifle wide, but its expression was as sweet as the lips of sleep when they touch our forehead after days of suffering. She kept her heels close together, and her slender legs caressed each other.
Albrecht van der Qualen passed his hand across his eyes and saw—he saw that the grey canvas had been unloosened from the right corner of the wardrobe.
“How—” said he. “Won’t you come in?—or what should I say—come out? May I offer you a glass of brandy? Half a glass? …” But he expected no answer to these questions, and received none. Her small, shining eyes, so black that they
