The Burning Secret Chapter 11 by Stefan Zweig
CHAPTER XI
THE SURPRISE ATTACK
EDGAR moved away from the window, breathing heavily, in a shiver of horror. A gruesome mystery of this sort had never touched his life before, the bookish world of thrilling adventure, excitement, deception and murder having always belonged to the same realm as the wonderland of fairy tales, the realm of dreams, far away, in the unreal and unattainable. Now he was plunged right into the midst of this fascinatingly awful world, and his whole being quivered deliriously. Who was this mysterious being who had stepped into his quiet life? Was he really a murderer? If not, why did he always try to drag his mother to a remote, dark spot? Something dreadful, Edgar felt certain, was about to happen. He did not know what to do. In the morning he would surely write or telegraph his father—or why not that very moment? His mother was not in her room yet, but was still with that horrid person.
The outside of the door to Edgar’s room was hung with a portière, and he opened his door softly now, closed it behind him, and stuck himself between the door and the portière, listening for his mother’s steps in the corridor, determined not to let her stay by herself a single instant.
The corridor, at this midnight hour, was quiet and empty and lighted faintly by a single gas jet. The minutes stretched themselves into hours, it seemed, before he heard cautious footsteps coming up the stairs. He strained his ears to listen. The steps did not move forward with the quick, regular beat of someone making straight for his room, but sounded hesitating and dragging as though up a steep, difficult climb. Edgar also caught the sound of whispering, a pause, then whispering again. He was a-quiver with excitement. Was it both of them coming up together? Was the creature still sticking to her? The whispering was too low and far away for him to catch what they were saying. But the footsteps, though slowly and with pauses between, were drawing nearer. And now he could hear the baron’s voice—oh, how he hated the sound of it!—saying something in a low, hoarse tone, which he could not get, and then his mother answering as though to ward something off:
Edgar’s excitement rose to fever heat. As they came nearer he would be bound to catch everything they said. Each inch closer that they drew was like a physical hurt in his breast, and the baron’s voice, how ugly it seemed, that greedy, grasping disgusting voice.
“Don’t be cruel. You were so lovely this evening.”
“No, no, I mustn’t. I can’t. Let me go!”
There was such alarm in his mother’s voice that the child was terrified. What did the baron want her to do? Why was she afraid?
They were quite close up to him now, apparently right in front of the portière. A foot or two away from them was he, trembling, invisible, with a bit of drapery for his only protection.
Edgar heard his mother give a faint groan as though her powers of resistance were weakening.
But what was that? Edgar could hear that they had passed his mother’s door and had kept on walking down the corridor. Where was he dragging her off to? Why was she not replying any more? Had he stuffed his hand kerchief into her mouth and was he squeezing her throat?
Wild with this thought, Edgar pushed the portière aside and peeped out at the two figures in the dim corridor. The baron had his arm round the woman’s waist and was forcing her along gently, evidently with little resistance from her. He stopped at his own door.
“He wants to drag her in and commit the foul deed,” though the child, and dashing the portière aside he rushed down the hall upon them.
His mother screamed; something came leaping at her out of the dark, and she seemed to fall in a faint. The baron held her up with difficulty. The next instant he felt a little fist dealing him a blow that smashed his lips against his teeth, and a little body clawing at him catlike. He released the terrified woman, who quickly made her escape, and, without knowing against whom, he struck out blindly.
The child knew he was the weaker of the two, yet he never yielded. At last, at last the great moment had come when he could unburden himself of all his betrayed love and accumulated hate. With set lips and a look of frenzy on his face he pounded away at the baron with his two small fists.
By this time the baron had recognized his assailant. He, too, was primed with hate of the little spy who had been dogging him and interfering with his sport, and he hit back, striking out blindly. Edgar groaned once or twice, but did not let go, and did not cry for help. They wrestled a fraction of a minute in the dark corridor grimly and sullenly without the exchange of a single word. But pretty soon the baron came to his senses and realizing how absurd was this duel with a half-grown boy he caught hold of Edgar to throw him off. But Edgar, feeling his muscles weakening and conscious that the next moment he would be beaten, snapped, in a fury, at the strong, firm hand gripping at the nape of his neck. The baron could not restrain a slight outcry, and let go of Edgar, who seized the opportunity to run to his room and draw the bolt.
The midnight struggle had lasted no more than a minute. No one in any of the rooms along the corridor had caught a sound of it. Everything was silent, wrapped in sleep.
The baron wiped his bleeding hand with his handkerchief and peered into the dark uneasily to make sure no one had been watching or listening. All he saw was the one gas jet winking at him, he thought, sarcastically.