But she was not to be allowed to indulge in hope. Another note arrived the very next day, another whiplash reviving her exhausted fear. This time the blackmailer was demanding two hundred crowns, and she handed them over meekly. The sudden steep rise in the sum of blackmail extorted was terrible. Nor did she now feel financially capable of satisfying it, for although her own family was prosperous she was not in any situation to get her hands on large sums without attracting attention. And then, what use would it be? She knew that tomorrow the demand would be for four hundred crowns, soon it would be a thousand, the more she gave the more would be asked, and finally, as soon as her money ran out, the anonymous letter would arrive and it would all be over. What she was buying was only time, a breathing space, two days of rest, or three, maybe a week, but time that was worthless in itself, full of torment and suspense. She had been sleeping poorly for weeks now, and her dreams were worse than waking; she felt the lack of fresh air, exercise, rest, occupation. She could not read any more, could not do anything, hunted as she was by the demons of her own fear. She did not feel well. Sometimes she had to sit down suddenly when her heart palpitated too vigorously, and a restless heaviness filled her limbs with almost painful weariness, like some viscous liquid, but that weariness still fought against sleep. Her whole life was undermined by her devouring fear, her body was poisoned, and in her heart she really longed for her sickness to break out in visible pain, some kind of obvious, perceptible clinical condition, something that those around her would understand and pity. In these hours of secret torment, she envied the sick. How good it must be to lie in a sanatorium, in a white bed between white walls, surrounded by sympathy and flowers. Visitors would come, everyone would be kind to her, and behind the clouds of suffering the great, kindly sun of restoration to health would already be dawning in the distance. If you were in physical pain at least you could groan out loud, but she had to keep acting the tragi-comic part of a woman in good health and good spirits. Every day, almost every hour, faced her with new and terrible situations. She had to smile and look happy while all her nerves were on edge, and no one could even guess at the constant strain of this assumed cheerfulness, the heroic strength that she exerted in the daily yet useless violence she did herself.
Only one of all the people around her seemed, she vaguely felt, to guess something of the terrors she was suffering, and he did so only because he was watching her. She felt sure, and that certainty forced her to be doubly careful, that her husband was thinking about her all the time, just as she was thinking about him. They manoeuvred day and night as if circling around one another, each trying to guess the other’s secret while keeping their own safe. He too had changed recently. His menacing severity in those first few days of inquisition had given way to his own manner of showing kindness and concern, and she was instinctively reminded of the days when they had first been engaged. He was treating her like an invalid, with a care and anxiety on her behalf that bewildered her, because such undeserved love made her feel ashamed. On the other hand she also feared it, because it could be just a trick to get her secret out of her at some sudden, unexpected moment. Since the night when he had heard her call out in her sleep, and the day when he had seen the letter in her hands, his distrust had seemed to turn to sympathy. He was trying to win her confidence with a tenderness that sometimes reassured her and made her feel like yielding to him, only to return to her suspicions of him the next moment. Was it just a trick, the tempting trap set by an investigating judge for the defendant, a snare to catch her confidence? If she confessed, would it be like setting out along a drawbridge which was then suddenly raised, leaving her defenceless in his power. Or did he too feel that this state of heightened watchfulness, waiting and listening, was unendurable, was his sympathy strong enough for him to suffer secretly because of her own suffering, which must be getting more visible daily? She felt, with a strange tremor, that at times he was almost offering her the words that would bring release, making it enticingly easy for her to confess. She understand his intentions, and was grateful for his kindness. But she also felt that with her stronger liking for him, her sense of shame was also growing, and it kept a sterner guard on her tongue than his distrust had done before.
Just once at this time he spoke to her very clearly, looking her in the eye. She had come home to hear loud voices as she entered the front hall—her husband’s, firm and energetic, and the scolding, loquacious voice of the governess, as well as tears and sobbing from the children. Her first feeling was one of alarm. She was always apprehensive when she heard voices raised, or there was some kind of domestic upset in the household. Fear was her reaction to everything out of the ordinary, and this time it was fear that the letter had already arrived and her secret was out. Whenever she opened the door and came in these days, she looked round at the faces she saw and wondered whether something had happened in her absence; had the catastrophe come down on her while she was out? This time, as she soon realised, much to her relief, it was only a quarrel between the children, and a small improvised trial was in progress. A few days ago an aunt had brought the boy a toy, a brightly painted little horse. His envious younger sister didn’t like her own present so much, and was incensed. She had tried in vain to stake a claim to the little horse, behaving so wilfully that the boy had said she wasn’t even to touch his toy. That had led first to loud protests from the child and then to a cowed, sullen, obstinate silence. Next morning, however, the little horse had disappeared without trace, and all the boy’s efforts to find it were in vain, until by chance the lost toy was finally discovered in pieces in the stove, its wooden parts broken, its skin ripped off and its stuffing removed. Suspicion naturally fell on the little girl—the boy had run to his father in tears to complain of his naughty sister, who couldn’t help trying to justify herself, and so the interrogation began.
Irene felt a pang of envy. Why did the children always take their troubles to her husband, never to her? They had always confided their quarrels and complaints to him, and until now she had been happy to be free of these petty squabbles, but suddenly she wanted to be told about them, because she sensed that there was love and trust in such confidences.
The little trial was soon over. The girl denied the charge at first, although with her eyes timidly lowered, and the way her shoulders were shaking gave her away. The governess gave evidence against her—she had heard the child threatening angrily to throw the horse out of the window, and it was useless for the girl to try denying it any further. There was a small outburst of tears and despair. Irene looked at her husband. It was as if he were sitting in judgement not on the child but on herself and her own fate. She might be facing him like that tomorrow, her own shoulders shaking with sobs, the same break in her voice. Her husband looked stern as long as the child stuck to her lie, and then broke her resistance down word by word, without ever letting one of her denials anger him. But once denial had given way to a fit of the sulks he spoke kindly to her, showing but at the same time to some extent excusing the inevitability of her actions, pointing out that she had done her shocking deed in her first, unreasoning anger, never stopping to think that it would really hurt her brother. Then he explained to the child, who was getting less and less sure of herself, that he could understand what she had done, but it was reprehensible all the same, and he spoke so warmly yet so forcefully that in the end she burst into tears and began crying frantically. And finally, through her torrent of tears, she stammered out her confession.
Irene hurried over to embrace the weeping child, but the little girl angrily pushed her away. Her husband, too, shook his head, a warning to her not to show pity too soon, for he did not want the offence to go unpunished, and the punishment he decreed, which was slight in itself but went to the child’s heart, was that she could not go to a children’s party next day, after she had been looking forward to it for weeks. The child was still in tears as she heard sentence passed, and her brother began crowing over her, but his premature show of malice instantly
brought retribution down on his own head. The upshot was that he too was refused permission to go to the party because of the malice he had shown his sister. Sadly, comforted only by the fact that they were both being punished, the two of them finally went away, and Irene was left alone with her husband.
Here at last, she suddenly felt, was an opportunity for them to stop conversing through insinuations, a chance for her make her own confession under cover of a discussion of the little girl’s guilt and her admission of it. A sense of relief came over her at the idea of being able to confess and ask for compassion, at least in veiled form. If he looked kindly on her plea for the child, it would be like a sign and an omen, and she knew that then she might be able to summon up the courage to speak on her own behalf.
“Oh, Fritz,” she began, “Are you really going to stop the children going to their party tomorrow? They’ll be very unhappy, especially Helene. After all, what she did wasn’t so very bad. Why are you so hard on her? Don’t you feel sorry for the poor child?”
He looked at her. Then he sat down at his leisure. Yes, he obviously seemed willing to discuss the subject at greater length, and a foreboding, both pleasant and unnerving, made her suspect that he was prepared to argue it point-by-point with her. Everything in her was waiting for his long pause to end. But perhaps intentionally, perhaps because he was deep in thought, he let it go on for a long time before continuing.
“Don’t I feel sorry for her, you ask? Well, I won’t say any more about that today. She feels better now that she’s been punished, although her punishment seems bitter too. She was unhappy yesterday when she put the broken bits of the poor little horse in the stove. Everyone in the house was looking for it, and she was afraid all day that it was sure to be found. That fear was worse than the punishment, which after all is something definite, and whether it’s hard on her or not, it’s still better than the terrible uncertainty and cruel suspense she was feeling earlier. As soon as she knew her punishment she felt all right. Don’t let her tears lead you astray; yes, they came pouring out, but they’d been dammed up inside her before, and they hurt worse there than on the surface. If she weren’t a child, or if we could somehow see right into her mind, I think we’d discover that she is really glad to have been found out, in spite of her punishment and her tears. She’s certainly happier than she was yesterday, when she appeared not to have a care in the world, and no one suspected her.”
Irene looked up. She felt as if every word were directed at her. But he seemed to take no notice of her, perhaps misinterpreting her movement, and only went on in a firm voice:
“It really is so, you can believe me. I’ve seen this kind of thing in court and from legal investigations. Defendants in court suffer most from the secrecy, the threat of discovery, the cruel pressure on them to maintain a lie against thousands of little surreptitious attacks. It’s terrible to see a case where the judge already has everything in his hands—the defendant’s guilt, the proof of it, perhaps he even has his verdict ready, only there’s no confession yet, it’s still locked inside the defendant, and however he tries he can’t get it out. I hate to see a defendant writhing and squirming while his ‘Yes, I did it’ has to be torn out of his resisting flesh as if it were on a fish hook. Sometimes it gets stuck high in his throat, and still there’s an irresistible force inside him trying to bring it to the light of day. Defendants retch on it, the words are almost spoken, and then the evil power comes over them, that extraordinary sense of mingled defiance and fear, and they swallow it down again. And the struggle begins all over again. Sometimes the judges are suffering more than the prisoner in the dock. The criminal always sees the judge as his enemy, whereas in fact he is trying to help. As a defending lawyer I’m really supposed to warn my clients against confessing, I’m expected to shore up their lies, consolidate them, but in my heart I often can’t bring myself to do it, because not confessing makes them suffer worse than confessing to their crime and paying the penalty. I still don’t really understand how someone can commit a crime, in full knowledge of the danger, and then not find the courage to confess. It seems to me that their petty fear of a few little words is more pitiful than any crime.”
“Do you think it’s … it’s always just fear that … that keeps people from speaking out? Couldn’t it be … well, couldn’t it be shame? Suppose they’re ashamed to talk about it and expose themselves in front of so many people?”
He looked up in surprise. He was not used to getting answers from her. But the word she had used evidently fascinated him.
“Shame, you say … well, shame is only a kind of fear, but a better one, a fear not of the punishment but … yes. Yes, I see what you mean.”
He had risen to his feet, strangely agitated, and was walking up and down. The idea seemed to have struck a chord, bringing something in him to vigorous life. He suddenly stopped.
“I’ll admit, yes, shame in front of other people, strangers … the hoi polloi who devour other people’s troubles in newspaper stories like a sandwich … but for that very reason they could at least tell those who are close to them. Do you remember that arsonist, the one I was defending last year? The one who took such a curious liking to me? He told me everything, little stories about his childhood, incidents even more intimate than that. You see, he had certainly committed the crime, and he was found guilty, but he wouldn’t confess it even to me. That was because he was afraid I might give him away. It wasn’t shame, because he trusted me … I think I was the only person for whom he’d ever felt anything like friendship in his life. So it wasn’t a sense of shame in front of strangers … what would that mean when he knew he could trust me?”
“Perhaps—” She had to turn away because he was looking at her so intently, and she heard a tremor in his voice. “Perhaps you’d feel most ashamed with … with those you’re closest to.”
He stopped suddenly, as if a powerful idea had seized on him.
“Then you think … you think …” And suddenly his voice changed, became soft and low. “You think little Helene might have confessed more easily to someone else? The governess, perhaps. You think she …”
“I’m sure of it. She put up such resistance to you only because … well, what you think matters more than anything to her. Because … because she loves you best.”
He stopped again.
“You … you may be right. Yes, I’m sure you are. How strange that I never thought of that before … yet it’s so simple. Yes, I may have been too hard on her. You know me—I don’t mean it like that. But I’ll go in and see her now … and of course she can go to the party, I only wanted to punish her for her defiance, her resistance and … well, I suppose for not trusting me. But you’re quite right, I don’t want you to think I can’t forgive … Irene, I wouldn’t like you, of all people, to think such a thing.”
He was looking at her, and she felt herself blushing under his gaze. Was he saying these things on purpose, or was it coincidence, a dangerous, insidious coincidence? She still felt so dreadfully undecided.
“Well, the sentence is quashed.” A certain cheerfulness seemed to come back into his voice. “Helene is free to go to the party, and I’ll tell her so myself. Are you satisfied with me now? Or is there anything else you want? You … you see … you see I’m in a magnanimous mood today … maybe because I’m glad to have seen an injustice in time. That always brings relief, Irene, always …”
She thought she understood what the emphasis in his words meant. Instinctively she moved closer to him, she already felt the words rising in her, and he too stepped forwards as if he was in haste to take from her whatever so obviously troubled her. Then she met his eyes, and saw in them an eager desire for her confession, for some part of herself, a burning impatience, and all at once everything she had been feeling collapsed. Her hand fell wearily to her side, and she turned away. It was useless, she felt, she would never be able to say the one thing that would set her free, the one thing that was burning inside her and consuming her peace of mind
. She sensed a warning in the air, like thunder coming closer, but she knew she could not escape. And in the secret depths of her heart she longed, now, for what she had feared so long, the lightning flash of discovery that would come as a release.
Her wish was to be granted sooner than she guessed. The struggle had been going on for fourteen days now, and Irene felt she had exhausted her strength. It was four days since she had heard from the woman, and fear had lodged so deep in her body, was so much at one with her blood, that she started up abruptly whenever the doorbell rang so that she would be in time to intercept the next blackmail letter herself. There was impatience, almost even longing in her avid expectation, for with every payment she bought an evening of peace, a few hours with the children, a walk. For an evening, for a day she could breathe easily, go out into the street, visit friends. Although to be sure sleep, in its wisdom, would not let such a poor sort of comfort blind her deceitfully to certain knowledge of the danger always close at hand. Her sleep brought dreams of fear to consume her by night.
Once again, she had run to answer the door when the bell rang, even though she realised that her restless desire to get there ahead of the servants was bound to be noticed, and could easily arouse hostile suspicions. But while sober circumspection might put up little acts of resistance, it weakened when, at the sound of the telephone ringing, a step in the street behind her, or the summons of the doorbell her whole body was on the alert, as if it had felt the lash of a whip. And now the sound of the bell had brought her out of her room and running to the door again. She opened it only to find herself looking in surprise, for a moment, at a strange lady. Then, retreating in alarm, she recognised the hated face of the blackmailer, who was wearing a new outfit and an elegant hat.