19

Therese had not even approached the environs of the University since Eric Reinhardt’s death, though before that she had been a frequent visitor. There was so much there of sanctity, age, urbanity, wisdom, peace and promise, so much of hope and tranquillity. She had seen the libraries of New York, Washington, Paris and Vienna, but the library at this University, even allowing for the partisanship of a national, seemed to her to be vastly superior, Everything that was good in Germany, the very soul of Germany, was in those quiet corridors, the lofty still rooms armored with books. No matter what storms raged in the souls of men, here was sanctuary, here was the voice of enduring greatness.

But today, it was like a house of pestilence to her, a mockery of health and life, a graveyard. The voices of the dead stood mute on their shelves, and there were holes in their ranks, burned out by the fire of hatred, ignorance and bestiality. Heine, Wasserman, Mann: they were absent, and so many more! All at once, even in her distraction, there rose the fierce hope in her, that some day Karl would be so honored by his absence, and that in the public squares the Germany of today would pay him the supreme honor of burning his books! In that way the very soul of his writings would ascend to heaven, would blow over the world, impregnating the minds of men with immortal ashes of thought and nobility. She thought of the funeral pyres of the past, both of men and books. How their incandescence had lighted the dark places of the world with everlasting flame, showing the pits and caverns, and the bridges of progress winding thinly over the abyss! Only by heroic death, selfless, pure and unafraid, could the masses of confused mankind find their way, safely and strongly, to the fields of peace. “Greater love hath no man …” Through her exhausted and incoherent thoughts, it was strange how often these days the quotations of her father (who had been so banal, so gross, so inept and so stupid) would cry out like trumpets. Perhaps it was because not even the tarnish of selfish, narrow and circumscribed minds could forever blacken the shining silver of truth.

She waited in the library, feeling that here was not life, but death. She waited for Kurt Erlich. She remembered, with loathing, that he was a member of the Party. He might be able to help Herman Muehler. She had left Elizabeth Muehler more composed, after that one heart-breaking and agonized cry. Strange, the composure and fortitude of the British! Once, she had believed they came from lack of imagination. Now, she believed they came from some rocky core that could not be shaken.

The library was dim and hushed. She sat in a leather chair, watching the doorway, unconscious of the bent heads of students at distant tables. An old man entered uncertainly, shadowy in the dusk. His steps were faltering; he peered about him, fingering his spectacles. He was bent and tired, and moved as though he could barely see. There was an air about him of distraction and hopelessness, of engrossment with private suffering and despair. Therese watched him with sympathy. Suddenly, a shock forced her upright in her chair, her heart beating with dread and fear. For she saw that the old man was Kurt Erlich.

Incredulous, disbelieving, she stared at him. What a dreadful change had taken place in the burly and vital man! She could hardly recognize him. Even when he saw her, and came towards her, smiling a little, she repudiated his identity. She had not seen him since that night he had visited her home, demanding to see his brother. That had not been so long ago—surely, O God! not more than a week or so ago! But years had passed over him in the interval. His flesh had shrunk, his hair whitened. Furrows were cloven deep in his gray, fallen face. His clothes hung upon him like the clothing of a scarecrow. About his watery and blinking eyes were wrinkles of suffering and sleeplessness. His shaking lips were dry and colorless. He had not shaved recently; she saw the glimmer of silver on his sunken cheeks, his bony chin.

“Kurt!” she gasped, staring at him with distended eyes.

He sat down beside her. The mere effort of walking had made him breathless. In his left temple there was a large bruised spot, purple and suffused. She saw it. The horrible sickness so familiar to her lately struck at her heart. Her legs relaxed suddenly with it, and she could taste salt in her mouth.

“Kurt!” she gasped again, and closed her eyes against the sight of him.

He leaned towards her, and took her hand. “Therese,” he said. His voice was hoarse. His breath in her face was fetid, like the breath of the dying. She had a sudden paralyzing fear that she would be sick, right there before him, in the library. She struggled to control herself, to still the tremors of her revolted stomach. She swallowed the flood of salt water in her mouth. Her leaden face was covered with a film of cold sweat.

She forced herself to open her eyes. Everything swam before her. She tried to smile. For a moment she had forgotten, in her extremity of physical illness, why she had come. She forced herself to remember, forced herself to shut out his face, his dying aspect.

“Kurt, something dreadful has happened.” Her whispered voice could hardly be heard. “They have arrested Herman Muehler—they said he was a Communist—subversive. I do not know. But you can do something, Kurt?”

He bent his head. She saw his skull through his whitening hair. It gleamed a little through the dusk. She saw that it was bony and narrowed. The veins pulsed in his sunken temples, as though he were enduring physical agony. His jaw had dropped open, like the jaw of the dead. This gave him a preoccupied but somewhat imbecile expression.

“What can I do?” he whispered in return. But he seemed to be speaking to himself, and not to her. She seized his arm. She was horrified, even then, at the thinness of it, through his clothing.

“But you are a member of the Party! You can surely speak. They will listen to you? You know Herman well. You know he is no Communist. He has been often at your home.… Kurt, you must do something!”

He looked at her from the caverns of his eyes. “I know nothing,” he whispered. “I know nothing at all.” All at once a wild thin fierceness animated him. “Nothing at all!” He put his trembling hands to his temples. “I have never known anything! Now, I do not want to know!” He seemed galvanized with terror. “Go away, Therese! Let me alone. I can stand no more.”

A moment before she understood she exclaimed: “How can you be so base!”

And then, looking into his nightmare-dull eyes, looking into his dying man’s face, she understood. The horror had him too. Realization had not brought him clarity. It had brought him frenzied insanity and despair. It was a man in extremis who glared back at her blindly. He was not seeing her; he was seeing the Thing she saw in these unspeakable days. He had awakened, like a thousand, thousand others, only to be unable to bear the light of understanding, only to die, not by violence, but only by horror.

She fled from him, as one flees from a corpse. She heard a whimpering sound behind her: “Karl? My brother?” Her feet carried her like wings. She reached the shining afternoon light. She breathed deeply. Her heart was rolling in her chest. She stumbled down the stairs. She was impelled by the wild conviction of pursuit. She reached her car, and literally fell in it. The chauffeur watched her intently as he closed the door.

There was nothing, now, that she could do for Herman Muehler. She was certain of it. But slowly, as her heart and her terror calmed, she began to cast about for help.

There was the General! He was still Germany. He was still potent. She would go to him. She glanced at her watch. It was almost evening. She would go to him tomorrow. In the meantime, she would return to Elizabeth Muehler, and give her what comfort and hope she could.

The car stopped. She was at her tomb of her home. She looked at it in the evening sunlight. All at once, she could not endure it. She tapped on the window. “Frederick, I did not want to come home. Drive me at once to the Muehler house.”