Part 38

“I got it from the breast of a woman,” answered the baby voice.

“Do you love that breast?”

Then the girl grew deathly white, and into the childish voice there crept a piercing and angry note, “No.”

“What did you want to do?”

“I wanted to bite it with my gums!”

“Why?”

Then the girl was seized with trembling, which passed over her whole body, and Mabuse said, “Every minute that prolongs this endangers her life. I must bring the experiment to an end!”

He laid the girl down on a sofa, and with reassuring movements he released her from sleep and bathed her face, and when she came to herself again recommended her being put to bed.

The conversation now turned upon Mabuse’s experiment, and everyone was asking questions, speculating on what she would have said.

“That was a fairy-tale,” said Told; “a fable of the preconscious existence! Doctor, you are a genius. But what did she want to say that made her tremble so?”

A lady came forward with the same question on her lips, but Mabuse’s eyes sought the Countess, and she, too, came forward to ask. Then Mabuse answered, “She wanted to say, ‘Because I hated her so!’”

The Countess shrank back and the others were silent, painfully affected. Then the Countess leaned forward, saying coldly, “A baby cannot hate!”

“How do you know that?” asked Mabuse roughly.

“I know it ... of myself,” she replied.

“Then you can rejoice over yourself, for you are not only a genius at recollection, but also an angel in disposition!” retorted Mabuse sarcastically.

Conversation broke the company up into little groups. Count Told alone remained silent. There was still that unnatural warmth at the back of his head. He looked behind him, and he felt his head; there was nothing there. He went to a mirror, but nothing was to be seen. He sat down again and it seemed as if he were falling asleep, yet he saw them all and heard everything. He wanted to say something, but it seemed as if the words were plucked from his mouth like ripened fruit ready to fall.

After a short time had passed thus, he rose and went to the group wherein Dr. Mabuse was standing, saying, “We were going to play baccarat!”

“So we were!” answered Mabuse. “Shall we be likely to find enough players?”

Then Told grew wide awake and eager. “It will be fine, playing baccarat with you. Herr Wendel, will you join us, eh?”

“I must attend to my social duties among the ladies,” answered the Privy Councillor, “but you will soon be able to find partners!”

Six gentlemen quickly gathered round the card-table which stood in a part of the room leading to the conservatory. The lamp with its enormous shade hung low over the table, leaving the rest of the room in the half-light. In the conservatory, to which a glass door led, the ghostly branches of foreign palms could be seen outlined against the glass, and in the moonlight they looked like stiff forms stretching their dark limbs heavenwards.

They cut the cards to see who should be the first to hold the stakes. The visitors crowded round the card-table and Countess Told stood in the dim light, looking down upon it. Mabuse saw her smooth white skin gleaming from the rich dark red dress she wore. His bearing was cold and gloomy, and scarcely a word escaped his lips. The feelings that arose within him were sternly suppressed, and his thoughts were busy with Count Told alone. When anyone addressed him, he answered abruptly. He seemed to pay great attention to the game, but he played by leaps and bounds.

Soon the gentlemen who had begun their game with modest stakes began to imitate his example, and there was no unanimity in the value of the stakes. Beside a stake of a mark or two there stood a fifty-mark note, and then one for two hundred. The small stake seemed to feel ashamed; it rapidly became twenty, and still faster it grew to a hundred, to two hundred.... Very soon there was no player who ventured less than a hundred marks. When they began they found time for conversation between the end of the hand and the fresh deal, but after a time the talk grew less, and then ceased. The onlookers, too, became silent. The contest between the players grew more pronounced, the game feverish, and this excitement spread to the spectators.

The Countess noted the high stakes her husband wagered. “He has never played before,” she thought. “What is the matter with him?”

The Count was winning. He let his winnings accumulate. It seemed as if he were a horse, urged and threatened onward by an eager rider. He threw his money down. It was now his turn to hold the stakes. It seemed to him as if the moment in which he should deal the cards and undertake the manifold risks of gain or loss would be a supreme experience for him, yielding rich secrets of wonderful joy. He grew excited, and his phantasies played about the room.

The Countess turned aside in the half-light, constrained at her husband’s incomprehensible actions. Suddenly the full light of the lamp fell upon her, revealing where her slender breast rose white and stately from the enclosing circle of her gown.

“North and south!” said Mabuse, as he contemplated her lovely figure, “north and south, your turn is coming,” and his tone was sinister and threatening. Then he turned his glance away, and it fell upon Count Told’s hands as he took over the bank at this moment. He dealt the cards out, and hesitated a moment as if perplexed at some strange occurrence. He was relieved when he had distributed the pack. He won considerable sums, and it was singular that the same feeling of perplexity recurred. He won a second time, and now this seemed to happen continually. Players and spectators alike were astonished at the run of luck the Count’s game exhibited.

“Look at your husband,” said someone, turning to the Countess; “he is winning every hand.”