am going to tell you something now, sir,” said Christoph after a while. “When everything had come to an end at that time, we drove westward. We could not bury the dead, because the earth was frozen a meter deep. Snow had already covered them, when we had harnessed the four horses. We drove only by night; by day we camped in the woods and lit a small fire.
“We drove around the villages, because there was death in the villages. Once under the full moon we came to a village which was burned and deserted. It lay low, where there were only woods and lakes and marshes. One could think that it was the world’s end.
“But it was not altogether deserted, for a dog was howling around the chimneys which were left standing. It was terrible to hear it, Herr Baron. The sky was crimson all around, and there was no living being on the earth, not a vestige of life. Only the dog was howling. The echo resounded from the wood and you might fancy that another, a second dog was howling there. And these two were all that God had left alive.
“We had no more oats for the horses and I left the others on the outskirts behind a wall and went into the village. I and my shadow – a big shadow, for I was wearing the wolfskin coat. I thought the shadow was too big for myself and for the burned village. I was afraid of my shadow.
“I found nothing; all was burned down to the foundations – except the church. It stood a little off the road on a hillock and was not burned. Perhaps they had not had time to climb up the hillock.
“I went up there. I had not found the dog, it always crept away when I came near. It may have been afraid of my big shadow.
“The church was built of wood, and I stopped in front of the door which lay in deep shadow.
“Then I got a shock, sir, yes. I was frightened to death. For somebody was sitting on the threshold. So wrapped up that I could not recognize whether it was a man or a woman. But it was a woman. At least it had been one. Now she was nothing but a ghost. She held something in her hand that looked like a child’s toy, a rattle or some such thing. She raised this hand toward me. I believe lepers must stretch out their hands like that.
“But she was not a leper. She was only distraught. Something had crushed her, and she had been left lying in the snow. I only saw something white where her face was. I did not know whether she was alive, and yet she had raised the hand with the toy.
“I asked her many questions, but at first she did not answer. Then she told me everything. She may have been afraid of my coat, until I told her who we were.
“She told me everything. ‘I am the only one left,’ she said, ‘I alone, I and the dog. We had done nothing to them. They killed men and women. The women screamed before they were killed. I heard them, because I did not scream. The girls had poisoned themselves beforehand. The doctor had given them poison. We had a great doctor in our village. He defended himself and they shot him dead.’
“ ‘And the children?’ I asked.
“ ‘They drowned the children in the cesspool. They had to break the ice first, and then they drowned them.’
“Oh, sir, the words came from her white face as from the face of a dead woman; and all the time the dog was howling.
“ ‘Come along with us,’ I said. ‘You cannot stay here. There will be room for you on the sleigh.’
“I saw that she shook her head. ‘I cannot come,’ she said, ‘for I am with child. By those who have slain. Many children. I don’t know how many. It shall grow up under the cross, it cannot grow up otherwise, or it will be cursed.’
“ ‘What cross?’ I asked.
“She lifted her hand out of the black shawl and pointed to the church door. It was in the shadow. ‘Are your eyes blind?’ she asked.
“I raised my eyes, sir, and I saw. A man was nailed on the church door and his head was bent. I may have cried out, for she shook her head. ‘You must not cry,’ she said. ‘He did not cry either. He is our vicar. I cannot take him down, for he is frozen fast.’
“The dog was howling and I trembled, sir. I trembled in my wolfskin coat.
“ ‘Now go,’ she said. ‘It shall grow up under this cross. A village must have children, or God wipes it out.’
“ ‘Come along with me,’ I pleaded, ‘for Christ’s sake, come.’ But she drew the black shawl around her again. Nothing was to be seen of her face after that. The dog was howling.
“Then I went off, sir, I and my shadow.” He was silent, and his bright eyes stared into the dying fire.
“Thus it is written in the Bible,” he went on gently after a while: “In the same night two will lie on a bed; one is taken, the other is left. Two will grind grain together; one is taken, the other is left. Two will be in the field; one is taken, the other is left. Thus it is written, sir.
“I asked her for the name of the village, but I have forgotten it. It may have been the village Nameless or Nowhere.
“Then we came into a district which Worgulla knew well. There were three burned villages one after another, but the signboards with the names on were not burned. The name of the first was Adamsverdruss, and I gazed at this name for a long time. The second was called Beschluss, and the women were afraid of it. But the third was called Amen, and it was there that we lost the wolves’ track. Then we could drive by day, if the airplanes did not come.
“And now ask me once more whether I am afraid, sir,” said Christoph. He got up and dusted the ashes of his pipe from his long coat. “Was the woman afraid who remained sitting there below the crucified man? And are we to be less than a cottager’s wife in the village Nameless?”
But Amadeus did not answer this question either. He looked at the child’s doll with its yellow, half-torn eyes that was propped in the corner of the hearth, and he did not hear that Christoph went out and gently closed the door behind himself.
The next morning one of the children stood at the door of the hut, a girl about six years old, timid and silent, her right forefinger in her mouth, and stared at the doll on the hearth.
“Is that yours?” asked Amadeus.
The girl nodded.
“What’s her name?” asked Amadeus.
“Skota,” answered the child. And Skota meant Goldie. Amadeus took “Goldie” from the hearth and gave it to the little girl. The girl wrapped it in her shawl and pressed it to her. Then she left without saying goodbye. Always from now on when Amadeus entered his room, he looked first at the comer of the hearth. But it was always empty. Goldie was gone.
Aegidius came the third day after the arrival of the cottagers. He had not been able to leave the wheat harvest. He sat on a bundle of straw in the barn of the forester’s house and distributed the food and the clothes he had brought with him. He suggested that he should take them all the next evening to the estate of which he was now the bailiff. They needed workers as they needed their daily bread, and he would be a kind master to them. They would be responsible to him alone, only to him.
His face tanned by the harvest sun was beaming, and he looked from one to the other as they stood in front of him with their faces marked by fear and privation.
But then something strange happened – they did not want to come. Donelaitis spoke for
