“Well,” said Adamowski, turning to George, “I think this is a sad end to our journey.”
George nodded but said nothing. Then they all went back into their compartment and took their former seats.
But it seemed strange and empty now. The ghost of absence sat there ruinously. The little man had left his coat and hat; in his anguish he had forgotten them. Adamowski rose and took them; and would have given them to the conductor, but the woman said:
“You’d better look into the pockets first. There may be something in them. Perhaps”—quickly, eagerly, as the idea took her—“perhaps he has left money there,” she whispered.
Adamowski searched the pockets. There was nothing of any value in them. He shook his head. The woman began to search the cushions of the seats, thrusting her hands down around the sides.
“It might just be, you know,” she said, “that he hid money here.” She laughed excitedly, almost gleefully. “Perhaps we’ll all be rich!”
The young Pole shook his head. “I think they would have found it if he had.” He paused, peered out of the window, and thrust his his hand into his pocket. “I suppose we’re in Belgium now,” he said. “Here’s your money.” And he returned to her the twenty-three marks she had given him.
She took the money and put it in her purse. George still had the little man’s ten marks in his hand and was looking at them. The woman glanced up, saw his face, then said quickly, warmly: “But you’re upset about this thing! You look so troubled.”
George put the money away. Then he said:
“I feel exactly as if I had blood-money in my pocket.”
“No,” she said. She leaned over, smiling, and put her hand reassuringly upon his arm. “Not blood-money—Jew-money!” she whispered. “Don’t worry about it. He had plenty more!” George’s eyes met Adamowski’s. Both were grave.
“This is a sad ending to our trip,” Adamowski said again, in a low voice, almost to himself.
The woman tried to talk them out of their depression, to talk herself into forgetfulness. She made an effort to laugh and joke.
“These Jews!” she cried. “Such things would never happen if it were not for them! They make all the trouble. Germany has had to protect herself. The Jews were taking all the money from the country. Thousands of them escaped, taking millions of marks with them. And now, when it’s too late, we wake up to it! It’s too bad that foreigners must see these things—that they’ve got to go through these painful experiences—it makes a bad impression. They don’t understand the reason. But it’s the Jews!” she whispered.
The others said nothing, and the woman went on talking, eagerly, excitedly, earnestly, persuasively. But it was as if she were trying to convince herself, as if every instinct of race and loyalty were now being used in an effort to excuse or justify something that had filled her with sorrow and deep shame. For even as she talked and laughed, her clear blue eyes were sad and full of trouble. And at length she gave it up and stopped. There was a heavy silence. Then, gravely, quietly, the woman said:
“He must have wanted very badly to escape.”
They remembered, then, all that he had said and done throughout the journey. They recalled how nervous he had been, how he had kept opening and shutting the door, how he had kept getting up to pace along the corridor. They spoke of the suspicion and distrust with which he had peered round at them when he first came in, and of the eagerness with which he had asked Adamowski to change places with him when the Pole had got up to go into the dining-car with George. They recalled his explanations about the ticket, about having to buy passage from the frontier to Paris. All of these things, every act and word and gesture of the little man, which they had dismissed at the time as trivial or as evidence simply of an irascible temper, now became invested with a new and terrible meaning.
“But the ten marks!” the woman cried at length, turning to George. “Since he had all this other money, why, in God’s name, did he give ten marks to you? It was so stupid!” she exclaimed in an exasperated tone. “There was no reason for it!”