I thanked my good fortune and my stubbornness for not appearing in those ravishingly beautiful photographs, taken by poor Gyllenborg, that showed the young countess partially clad and the valet completely nude— photographs that might at any moment come into the hands of policemen who were just then rummaging through his belongings — even though my ill-fated friend had repeatedly asked me to pose, indeed beseeched me piteously, with tears in his eyes, saying that a triad was needed: next to the rough-hewn robustness of the valet's body, my own more delicate angularity, so that, as he put it, "these two extreme poles of health would flank what is so alluringly ill."
I was able to reject categorically all allegations, couched in polite, convoluted legal phrases, according to which my relationship with the valet and Fräulein Stollberg was reprehensibly intimate and my knowledge of the motives behind the crime a virtual certainty; but there was not a shred of evidence that could be used against me; in point of fact, during the two months of our friendship, as if all along anticipating a possible discovery, I always used the terrace door to reach Gyllenborg's room, converted of late into a studio, just as Father, twenty years earlier, in pursuit of his nocturnal secret delights, used to slip into Fräulein Wohlgast's room; consequently, no one could have witnessed my afternoon or nighttime visits there; without making much of a fuss, or even being especially cautious, I characterized the allegations as slander, pure and simple, and with a nonchalant shrug of my shoulders assured the inspector that I had absolutely no idea whether the murdered gentleman carried on any intimate liaisons with the persons in question.
It is true, I added, that I wasn't a close enough friend of the victim to have knowledge of the more intimate aspects of his private life, but I knew him to be a man of taste and breeding for whom it would have been unthinkable — howsoever he may have been inclined to behave — to enter into such a dubious relationship with a mere servant; I played the innocent, almost to the point of idiocy, but I had to be sure to avoid the dreadful snare, for, the valet not being of age, I could have been charged not only with indulging in perverse sexual acts but also with corrupting a minor; to give my professed naïveté some psychological support, I lowered my voice to a confidential whisper, shrugged my shoulders again, and asked the inspector whether he had had a chance to see Fräulein Stollberg's hands without gloves.
The inspector's unblinking eyes were staring at me steadfastly, and they were the strangest pair of eyes I have ever seen: light and transparent, cold and with almost no color, a curious transition between vaguely blue and hazily gray; the two eyeballs were large and, because of some weakness or chronic ailment perhaps, constantly swimming in a bowl of tears, and this made it appear as if all his ostensibly plainspoken, unassuming questions, as well as my supposedly innocent replies, had filled him with profound sadness, as if everything had pained him — the crime committed, the lies, even the hidden truths — and all the while his face, and the eyeballs themselves, remained totally impassive and cold.
Using only his eyes, the inspector now indicated that he did not understand my remark and would be grateful for an explanation.
Naturally enough, I assumed that Fräulein Stollberg would not betray me, would hold her peace, perhaps even deny everything, although she herself was somewhat implicated by the photographs Gyllenborg had left behind.
The inspector's silent request prompted me to remain silent myself, and I proceeded to show on my own hand how Fräulein Stollberg's fingers were fused together; that is why she had to wear gloves all the time; like hooves they were, I finally said.
The inspector was a large, jovial man with an air of quiet, commanding professionalism; his powerful build must have been an asset in his line of work; he stood in the terrace doorway with his arms folded; we were both standing as we talked, which meant that this was not yet an interrogation, but no idle chitchat either; he broke into a smile, which his tearing eyes made look almost painful; and then lightly, as if tossing back my argument, he remarked that from his experience he knew that certain people, usually emotionally troubled or weak, not only did not find physical malformations or deformities repulsive but, on the contrary, were often attracted by them.
I felt myself blushing all over and could tell from the teary glint in his eyes that the telltale change in my complexion did not escape his notice, though the sudden rush of emotion he unwittingly elicited in me affected him, too; the satisfaction he must have felt at having unmasked me for a moment caused such an abundant welling up of tears in his eyes that if he hadn't quickly pulled out a handkerchief from the pocket of his baggy trousers, with a movement that for him seemed almost too abrupt, the tears would have rolled down his plump, ruddy cheeks.
I must be one of those emotionally weak people, then, I thought to myself, suddenly recalling the moment in that compartment when in the silence punctuated only by the clatter of the train, under the light of the swaying ceiling lamp, she pulled off her gloves, slowly and mercilessly, and, looking deep into my eyes, revealed the secret of her hands to me.
Frozen, without breathing, I stared at the weirdly inhuman sight: on both her hands — nature's cruelty in her was symmetrical! — she had only four fingers; the middle and ring fingers on each hand were fused together in a single, thick digit ending in flat, hard nails; yet I must admit that the peculiar deformity did not really come as a surprise, and the inspector was right: I wasn't repulsed; if anything, the sight gave an attractive if cruel explanation of her delicate and vulnerable beauty, which during the long journey I had kept scrutinizing, entranced and mesmerized, and whose secret I had been unable to puzzle out.
By revealing her defect, she seemed to be telling me that we carry all our physical qualities, abilities, gifts, faults, blemishes, and passions in the features of our face; modesty had but one duty: to cast a gentle veil over what was self-evident; her face, after all, was perfectly formed, exquisite, each of its fine lines and charming curves complemented other, equally fine and charming features, yet even before I saw those awful hands I felt as if all this perfection hung suspended over the chasm of its own uncertainty, at any moment the finely cut features could unravel and become deformed; it seems incredible, but I felt that a law of nature was being embodied right before my eyes, I thought I could almost see how beauty could mature into itself only by going through the malformed and the ugly, that perfection was but the degeneration of the imperfect, and that is why beauty was engaged in a constant game of hide-and-seek with ugliness and degeneration; her lips were full, sensuous, yet quivering with gentle, soft currents, as if she had to stop some terrible violence or pain with them; and her eyes were wide-open and round, penetrating but also haughty, as if with each glance she were challenging, and at the same time trying to forestall, some imminent disaster; on her face I saw the dread of, as well as the longing for, annihilation; it was madness in the guise of beauty that excited me, so the gesture itself, the slowness and cruel dignity of the gesture with which she exposed the secret of her hands and that of her whole body racked with desire and the dread of desire, moved me to respond with a very rash, extreme gesture of my own: I seized the strange hand and, finding the root of my desires in this no doubt repugnant sight, kissed it.
Not only did she tolerate my humble kiss but I could feel that for that brief moment she yielded her hand totally to it and then slowly, savoring the warm touch of my lips, she began to pull it away, yet I felt she did not really want to, she wanted something else, something more cruel, more extreme; in our clumsiness we let the gloves drop to the floor, but then she shoved her unspeakable, hoof-like fingers between my lips, and while we both remained silent, like thieves — with eyes not quite closed, her mother was sleeping right next to her and being bounced around by the moving train — she deliberately bruised my lips and my tongue with the sharp tips of her broad, flat nails, turning my quiet humility into my humiliation.