Part 50 (1/2)
”My dear patron, Herr von Lohm, who by some incomprehensible and appalling mistake----”
”You must go to the judge who conducted the preliminary inquiries.”
”But who is he, and where is he to be found?”
The official looked at his watch. ”If you hurry you may still find him at the Law Courts. In the next street. Examining Judge Schultz.”
And the door was shut.
So they went to the Law Courts, and hurried up and down staircases and along endless corridors, vainly looking for someone to direct them to Examining Judge Schultz. The building was empty; they did not meet a soul, and they went down one pa.s.sage after the other, anguish in Anna's heart, and misery hardly less acute in Manske's. At last they heard distant voices echoing through the emptiness. They followed the sound, and found two women cleaning.
”Can you direct me to the room of the Examining Judge Schultz?” asked Manske, bowing politely.
”The gentlemen have all gone home. Business hours are over,” was the answer. Could they perhaps give his private address? No, they could not; perhaps the porter knew. Where was the porter? Somewhere about.
They hurried downstairs again in search of the porter. Another ten minutes was wasted looking for him. They saw him at last through the gla.s.s of the entrance door, airing himself on the steps.
The porter gave them the address, and they lost some more minutes trying to find their _Droschke_, for they had come out at a different entrance to the one they had gone in by. By this time Manske was speechless, and Anna was half dead.
They climbed three flights of stairs to the Examining Judge's flat, and after being kept waiting a long while--”_Der Herr Untersuchungsrichter ist bei Tisch_,” the slovenly girl had announced--were told by him very curtly that they must go to the Public Prosecutor for the order. Anna went out without a word. Manske bowed and apologised profusely for having disturbed the _Herr Untersuchungsrichter_ at his repast; he felt the necessity of grovelling before these persons whose power was so almighty. The Examining Judge made no reply whatever to these piteous amiabilities, but turned on his heel, leaving them to find the door as best they could.
The Public Prosecutor lived at the other end of the town. They neither of them spoke a word on the way there. In answer to their anxious inquiry whether they could speak to him, the woman who opened the door said that her master was asleep; it was his hour for repose, having just supped, and he could not possibly be disturbed.
Anna began to cry. Manske gripped hold of her hand and held it fast, patting it while he continued to question the servant. ”He will see no one so late,” she said. ”He will sleep now till nine, and then go out.
You must come to-morrow.”
”At what time?”
”At ten he goes to the Law Courts. You must come before then.”
”Thank you,” said Manske, and drew Anna away. ”Do not cry, _liebes Kind_,” he implored, his own eyes br.i.m.m.i.n.g with miserable tears. ”Do not let the coachman see you like this. We must go home now. There is nothing to be done. We will come early to-morrow, and have more success.”
They stopped a moment in the dark entrance below, trying to compose their faces before going out. They did not dare look at each other. Then they went out and drove away.
The stars were s.h.i.+ning as they pa.s.sed along the quiet country road, and all the way was drenched with the fragrance of clover and freshly-cut hay. The sky above the rye fields on the left was still rosy. Not a leaf stirred. Once, when the coachman stopped to take a stone out of a horse's shoe, they could hear the crickets, and the cheerful humming of a column of gnats high above their heads.
CHAPTER x.x.xI
Gustav von Lohm found Manske's telegram on his table when he came in with his wife from his afternoon ride in the Thiergarten.
”What is it?” she inquired, seeing him turn pale; and she took it out of his hand and read it. ”Disgraceful,” she murmured.
”I must go at once,” he said, looking round helplessly.
”Go?”
When a wife says ”Go?” in that voice, if she is a person of determination and her husband is a person of peace, he does not go; he stays. Gustav stayed. It is true that at first he decided to leave Berlin by the early train next morning; but his wife employed the hours of darkness addressing him, as he lay sleepless, in the language of wisdom; and the wisdom being of that robust type known as worldly, it inevitably produced its effect on a mind naturally receptive.
”Relations,” she said, ”are at all times bad enough. They do less for you and expect more from you than anyone else. They are the last to congratulate if you succeed, and the first to abandon if you fail. They are at one and the same time abnormally truthful, and abnormally sensitive. They regard it as infinitely more blessed to administer home-truths than to receive them back again. But, so long as they do not actually break the laws, prejudice demands that they shall be borne with. In my family, no one ever broke the laws. It has been reserved for my married life, this connection with criminals.”