Minna/Book 2, Chapter 7
We had, at last, to make up our minds to look for our hotel. It was not one of those which faced the river, but lay with its front towards the same square on which their nobler brothers turned their backs, an oblong place, half overshadowed by the church on the short eastward side. Twelve strokes had just boomed from its tower, the small tiles of which shone like wet scales.
The porch was lighted by a dim lantern, and the stairs were in darkness. A waiter, whose ears projected and whose face was covered with pimples, scowled at us, and seemed to be looking both for a tip and for our luggage, the latter of which was, of course, entirely lacking. Then he scratched his carrot-coloured hair and answered, while he winked one of his pig-eyes in an especially impertinent way—
"Two rooms? And I suppose they must join? Well, I'm not quite sure"
"Then make sure, on different floors, it does not matter; but be quick, there are plenty of other hotels in Schandau," I said roughly, controlling a violent desire to pull one of his ears. Minna had turned quite crimson at his rudeness, and looked terrified.
A woman's face, in Rembrandt light, peered over the second landing. We heard the woman on the landing calling out various numbers to the waiter; and then the man suddenly took up a diplomatic position and invited us, with a gracious wave of the hand, to go up the stairs which were covered with well-worn cocoa-matting. Then he handed us over to the woman-genius with the light, who dropped big streaks of candle grease down upon the somewhat red-grey shoulder of his tailcoat, while in a deep guttural voice he announced the numbers of the rooms which had been chosen for us. And, after peremptory orders to wake us in time to catch the first train in the morning, we obeyed his summons.
The rooms were next to each other, and even communicated, and though I had so promptly declared that they might be on different floors, I must admit that I was well pleased to be Minna's immediate neighbour. I do not know if it was by accident that we at the same moment put our shoes out into the corridor, which was empty and dark, and only lighted by a distant lamp. Silently we crept out to the neutral ground, and gave each other a long good-night kiss.
When I was again in my room, and was pulling off my coat and waistcoat, I noticed that the key was in the door on her side. This discovery put me at once into a pleasantly agitated state, but brought at the same time annoyance and anger when I recollected the nasty leer of the waiter with the winking pig-eye. And then I called to remembrance how crimson Minna had turned at the time, and saw quite distinctly her dignified and alarmed air, and this picture gave me intense delight. I fell into a reverie, with my waistcoat hanging over one arm, and continued to stare at the important keyhole. Was the key turned or not? Creeping towards the door I touched the handle, but dared not turn it, for fear of frightening her.
Then I went back into the room and continued to undress; still, however, peeping at the key in the same way that I had peeped at her letter two evenings before. But I had left that untouched, and this very day I had received it with the right to read it. Such a clear proof of the reward of virtue strengthened my conscience. "This barrier also will some day fall away, if only I have patience, and we shall have nothing with which to reproach ourselves."
Just as I had put out the light and laid my head on the pillow, a gentle rapping startled me. I was on the point of jumping out of bed, when it struck me that the tapping was on the wall just by my head, and I remembered that her bed stood by the same wall. I quickly answered, and she responded, alternately in softer and stronger tones, with the knuckles and the palms. Through all tempos and in different rhythms the telegraph was continued, as if two "rapping spirits" were communicating with one another; and this conversation without words, which expressed clearer than any words could have done our separated nearness, our longing and our hope, left me in a quiet, happy frame of mind.
I knew that on both sides of this wall, which was under no conventual scrutiny, had moved the same moods, feelings, and thoughts,—even if they had not in her taken such a tempting and decided form. This hour seemed to me in a mysterious way to have brought us closer to each other; and while my joy so far had been the consciousness of being allowed to love, I now was overcome by the blessed feeling of being loved, of being myself the object of another's longing and secret wishes.