Then Uzdy spoke up, with a submissiveness Adrienne had never seen before. Stooping slightly, he shifted his weight from one foot to the other and looked first at the doctor and then at his mother. He was like some huge, skinny wolfhound who senses trouble and tries to avoid the inevitable beating by cringing subdued at his master’s feet. When he spoke his manner was strangely sweet and obsequious. ‘Perhaps the doctor ought to have a look at me too? All right, why not? Let’s do it now, right away. That would be best, wouldn’t it, Mama?’ Then he turned directly to Dr Palkowitz and said, ‘Come along then, down to my room if that suits you. And Adrienne too, of course, if she’ll come. Yes, she too, of course,’
With somewhat exaggerated waving of his arms he gestured them towards the front door and into the house, making the doctor go in first. In the corridor he kept Adrienne beside him, holding her hand as tightly as if in a vice. The smile never left his face.
Old Maier was waiting for them. To him Uzdy said, ‘Tell them to harness up the other pair of horses in half an hour.’ Then he turned to the doctor and explained, ‘That way you’ll be home by early afternoon. That’d be best, wouldn’t it? We don’t want to take up too much of your valuable time, do we?’
At the angle of the corridor they turned right towards the stair that led to the ground floor. Adrienne would have preferred to turn back there for she hated those stairs which her husband had used every time he came to his wife’s room. The treads creaked and it was a sound to which she never became accustomed however often she heard it. And every time she heard it, she shuddered. She herself never used that stairway. But now, as she had given her promise to Uzdy, and as the doctor was with them, she could hardly turn back. Uzdy led them to his room where all the windows were heavily barred, like all the others in that wing of the house because it was there that Uzdy’s mad father had lived out the last years of his life. It was small and unpretentious, furnished only with the bare necessities. A narrow iron bed was set against one wall. Uzdy made the doctor sit down on a chair while he himself sat on the bed, drawing his wife to sit beside him. He was all politeness and humility, and made little bows as he spoke.
‘Here we are! Please sit down! Now, ask your questions — in your own time, of course.’
The doctor gave a embarrassed little cough, and then began nervously, ‘Er-er-well, in her ladyship’s presence. Well, it’s a little unusual.’
He was unable to say more because Uzdy at once interrupted him, at the same time clinging tightly onto his wife’s arm, saying, ‘We have no secrets from each other, do we, Addy? We are absolutely one, one! Isn’t that so, Addy? Please start your examination, doctor.’
The usual questions followed, about sleep, capacity for work, and even some more intimate matters. Uzdy answered everything calmly and apparently quite satisfactorily. He spoke slowly, seeming to weigh each word carefully, but Adrienne sensed that he had rehearsed it all and wondered if the doctor, who was now meeting Uzdy for the first time, had noticed it too. Next came the testing of the reflexes — knees, eyes, walking about with closed eyes — followed by listening to the heart and lungs with a stethoscope. Uzdy went through it all patiently, and only Adrienne noticed how fiercely he looked at the doctor’s hands whenever he touched his head or put the stethoscope to his heart.
The examination was a long one. Finally Dr Palkowitz drew himself up and declared, ‘I congratulate your Lordship. You are in perfect health, a trifle nervous perhaps, but that is quite usual for all intellectual people. I’ll just prescribe a light sedative which you might take for a while. I can’t think of anything else!’
He took out his fountain-pen and swiftly wrote some words on a paper. There was no time for Adrienne, but as the doctor knew he had been called in only to examine her husband, he did not press the matter.
‘The carriage will be ready and waiting,’ said Uzdy. ‘You’d better leave at once so as to catch the train!’ and he led them straight out through the service door, through a store filled with stacks of wood, and into the stables. The carriage was standing ready at the stable doors and the doctor climbed in and sat down. All the time Uzdy kept up a stream of obsequious thanks, saying, ‘I really am most flattered by your visit, honoured indeed! Thank you! Thank you!’
When the carriage had disappeared through the gates of the stable yard, then Uzdy straightened himself up to his full height.
Slowly he and Adrienne walked back to the house.
When they were half-way there Uzdy stopped. His face shone with triumph as he looked down at her and said, ‘I’m most grateful, Addy, I really am. Now you’d better go in … go to your own room.’
Adrienne turned and went swiftly into the house. She felt far more at ease and had been reassured by the doctor’s opinion. She was glad to be alone now, for that hour and a half in her husband’s room had been an ordeal; and as soon as she had sensed that terrible suppressed excitement rising again in him she had been terrified he might suddenly lose control of himself. It had been a great relief when all had passed off so well. Perhaps there really wasn’t anything seriously wrong after all? But if this were so why, as she was about to enter the house, did he call out after her, ‘Remain in your own room! Don’t move from there, do you understand!’ in almost menacing tones? And why was his face so distorted, with swollen veins, and dark red in colour? Suddenly her composure was shattered by the thought that nothing had changed and that his controlled manner during the doctor’s visit was nothing but a charade. And why should he order her to stay in her room?
Though she did not understand she still did what she was told, though once there she found no peace. She was haunted by that strange transformation she had seen in her husband in the course of a mere hour and a half. What did it mean, that humbleness towards the doctor, for humbleness was utterly alien to his character? Also the memory of his terror when he came to seek her out in the wood filled her with pity and anguish. No matter how hard she tried to remain calm, her agitation increased and she felt that some unknown horror was creeping up to take her unawares. Without knowing why, she started to listen for some unusual sound. It was instinctive and lasted perhaps a few minutes only, perhaps a bare quarter of an hour. And, as she listened, her heart beat ever louder and louder.
Then, as if in answer to her waiting, there came a long drawn-out howl from some distant part of the house.
Adrienne ran swiftly out into the corridor. There was nobody there, nor anywhere else, it seemed. The castle might have been deserted with no one outside in the courtyard and no one in the halls either. The door to the drawing-room was open and she ran quickly in.
There on the floor, most unexpectedly, she saw her husband lying with old Maier kneeling beside him, trying to loosen his collar. An armchair was overturned and beside it was lying a long bare oak-log. Adrienne at once wondered how it had got there from the woodpile in the storeroom. Standing behind the sofa was old Countess Clémence and her face seemed paler even than the ash-grey colour of the wall against which she was leaning. Adrienne took all this in at once, and also that the old butler was saying to her, ‘Bitte einen Diener rufen, bitte schnell! Der Herr ist ohnmächtig—Please call for a servant, quickly please! The Master has fainted!’
That old Maier had unconsciously reverted to German meant that he was deeply worried. Adrienne ran out and called the footman. Then she ran to the pantry and fetched a glass of water. When she got back to the drawing-room Maier had lifted Uzdy’s head and shoulders onto his lap and the footman had put his arms under Uzdy’s knees. Together they raised him from the floor and started to carry him out.