The Scarecrow and Other Stories Part 8

He saw Kurz's ma.s.sive shoulders jerking.

"How--can--I--tell--you--? I do not think you understand. I do not even know if it is what I think it is. I cannot reason it out to myself. The power of reasoning has left me. I had no other knowledge than my reasoning. I do not know. Now, I do not know where I am--or--what--I--am--"

The maddened urge of Kurz's words struck him.

"You're here, old Otto;" he said it rea.s.suringly. "Here with me. In my room. In England. You're with me, Otto!"

"Yes--with--you." And then beneath his breath he whispered: "Where--are--you--?"

He caught the smothered insistence of that last sentence. He smiled, forcing his lips to smile.

"Standing right in front of you, old man. Waiting for you to say what you came to--"

Kurz interrupted him.

"I--had--to come. I felt that I must come. I--came, Charlie. I got myself here, Charlie."

"Quite right, Otto."

"I want you to know first that I thought of you. That I was, as you say you were, afraid I might in some way injure you. I want to tell you that first."

"Good old sentimental Otto!"

"Sentimental?--Ach!--I am not sentimental. But I do not think you can understand how much you were to me back there at the university. I do not think you yourself knew how much you joyed in things. How happy your kind of thought made you."

He laughed.

"I always managed to have a rather corking time of it," he admitted.

"You loved everything so," Kurz went on. "At night when we talked it was you who believed in what you said. It was you who saw so clearly how well all things of life were meant. It was always I who questioned."

"But, I say, old Otto, your mind was so quick; so brilliant. You could pick flaws where I never knew they existed."

"It was you who had so much of faith, Charlie."

"How we did talk;" he said it to himself. "Talk and talk until old Mutter Schwegel, who was so keen for us, grew tired of listening and came and turned out the lamp."

"And how you spoke ever of your beliefs," Kurz's voice was hoa.r.s.e. "It was so easy for you to know. You never questioned. You believed. It ended there, with your belief. You were so near to what you thought. It was a part of you. I--I stood away from all things and from myself. I would tell you that the mind should reason. I stayed outside with my criticism, while you--ach, Charlie!--How you did know!"

"And how you laughed at me for that!"

"But now, I do not laugh!" Kurz protested with wearied eagerness. "Now I come to you. I ask you if you know those things--now?"

"What things, Otto?"

"The things of life. The things of death."

"I know what I always knew," he said slowly. "I know that life is meant to live fully and understandingly and that death is meant to live on; fully and understandingly."

"And--you--do--understand--_now_?"

"I understand that always."

"You would not be afraid?"

"Of what?"

"Of--death?"

"No."

He stared out of the window.

The dense, opaque shadows pressing down on the garden. The shadows hanging loose and thick on the high, boxwood hedges. The dark, smooth, night sky.

And suddenly a faint tremor ran through him from head to foot. He pressed his face close to the gla.s.s. His hands went up screening a small s.p.a.ce for his eyes.

In the still block of shadows, in the black ma.s.s of them, he had seen something; something had moved against the quiet clumping shadows.

"I say," he whispered. "There's some one coming up through the garden."

"Yes--yes."

They were silent for a long time.

Once he looked at Kurz huddled in the armchair; his face white and drawn; his eyes staring before him.

He thought he heard footsteps coming softly up the stairs; footsteps that came lightly and hesitated and then came on again.

"Charlie--!" Kurz stammered. "Charlie--!"

He felt that some one was standing in the open doorway.

He turned.

His eyes took in the well known figure. The sweet face with its red cheeks and its framing white hair. The short body. The blue eyes that were fixed on him.

"Mutter Schwegel!" He shouted.

Kurz leaped to his feet.

"What!"

He started for the door.

"Mutter Schwegel, who would have thought of your coming here. It has been a long time. I say!--But I am glad."

"Stop--!" Kurz's voice thundered behind him.