But one has to live—so now there are notes and other debts—five thousand thaler. You don’t know the hole I’m in. And on top of everything else, this agony—”
“Oh, so you just sat still, did you?” cried the Consul, beside himself. His self-control was gone now. “You let the wagon stick in the mud and went off to enjoy yourself! You think I don’t know the kind of life you’ve been living—theatres and circus and clubs—and women—”
“You mean Aline. Yes, Thomas, you have very little understanding for that sort of thing, and it’s my misfortune, perhaps, that I have so much. You are right when you say it has cost me too much; and it will cost me a goodish bit more, for—I’ll tell you something, just here between two brothers—the third child, the little girl, six months old, she is my child.”
“You fool, you!”
“Don’t say that, Thomas. You should be just, even if you are angry, to her and to—why shouldn’t it be my child? And as for Aline, she isn’t in the least worthless, and you ought not to say she is. She is not at all promiscuous; she broke with Consul Holm on my account, and he has much more money than I have. That’s how decent she is. No, Thomas, you simply can’t understand what a splendid creature she is—and healthy—she is as healthy—!” He repeated the word, and held up one hand before his face with the fingers crooked, in the same gesture as when he used to tell about “Maria” and the depravity of London. “You should see her teeth when she laughs. I’ve never found any other teeth to compare with them, not in Valparaiso, or London, or anywhere else in the world. I'll never forget the evening I first met her, in the oyster-room, at Uhlich’s. She was living with Consul Holm then. Well, I told her a story or so, and was a bit friendly; and when I went home with her afterwards—well, Thomas, that’s a different sort of feeling from the one you have when you do a good stroke of business! But you don’t like to hear about such things—I can see that already—and anyhow, it’s over with. I’m saying good-bye to her, though I shall keep
13
