Bernard

Bernard is Ester’s husband and a central presence at Hellhaus Hotel, where his polished public manner sits beside a private life marked by jealousy, pressure, and violence. His marriage begins in the shadow of his brother Conrad and remains entangled with Bernard’s mother, Ida; in the hotel, the authority he exercises over Ester becomes unmistakable when he attacks her lover and warns her against another encounter.

Identity and Presence

Nearly twenty years into his marriage, Bernard is a large, physically fit man who lifts weights and takes pride in being well groomed. His polished shoes have segs in their soles and heels to make them last, and their light tapping across the wooden floorboards gives his arrival a distinctive sound. He also makes camphor part of his daily routine, adding the oil to his bathwater. Its uses include disinfection, decongestion, anaesthesia, and stimulation; the scent becomes a recurring trace of him in the shared bedroom.

Bernard’s controlled appearance contrasts with the strain surrounding his private relationships. In the bar, he is carefully dressed and attentive to his work, but the same composed presence can become physically imposing: when he confronts Ester about the apartment, he leans close enough to place his arm between her and her drink. Later, as he passes her after attacking a guest, she feels the heat of him through his shirt and his breath against her cheek. The text presents his bodily proximity as both part of his cultivated presence and a means of intimidation.

Work at Hellhaus Hotel

Bernard works at the hotel bar and takes on other duties around the establishment. One evening, he returns the rubber gloves Ester left beside her tonic bottle. He finds her in the corridor, holds up the gloves, and waits while she walks over and thanks him. She then takes the cleaning cart to room six; Bernard watches her before going back downstairs to the bar. The brief exchange links his work to Ester’s cleaning labor, which continues around the hotel even when their personal relationship is tense.

The bar is also where his authority over hotel routines and his domestic expectations meet. He reads his paper at the far end of the bar during a lull between breakfast and lunch, while Ester takes a break. At eleven, a new employee arrives to relieve him, and Bernard goes off to do other work. He later sits at a table to eat the lunch he has prepared in the private kitchen upstairs. He has a strong preference that other people not handle his food, and he leaves his plate behind when he approaches Ester.

That approach is not a neutral reminder about housekeeping. Leaning in front of her and blocking the drink she has fetched, he tells her again that she should not leave the apartment unlocked: “You’re asking for trouble.” His warning frames the hotel’s private space as a matter of danger, while his closeness makes clear that he is also asserting pressure over Ester herself.

Marriage, Conrad, and Ida

Bernard married Ester quickly. She believed he was afraid she might change her mind and return to Conrad, his brother, or choose another man. After the wedding, she moved with Bernard to the small town where he lived. Ester suspected that he wanted to keep her away from Conrad, her former boyfriends, and everyone else she knew, as though isolation could ensure her fidelity. This is her understanding of Bernard’s conduct rather than a motive he openly explains.

Ida’s home keeps that old rivalry active. Bernard visits his mother once a month. When Ester accompanied him during the early years of the marriage, she hoped to see Conrad, who still lived there, but he repeatedly made himself scarce. On one drive, she asked Bernard whether he expected his brother to be there. He did not answer for much of the journey. Near Ida’s house, he challenged her: “Why do you care whether he’s there or not? You’re with me now. Or have you changed your mind again?” Ester denied that she had, though she admits that she sometimes wondered whether marrying Bernard had been a mistake. After that exchange, she stopped asking about Conrad, and Bernard did not mention him.

Ester’s visits to Ida also carry a history of unease. Ida could be hospitable, taking flowers Ester brought, serving coffee, and insisting that Ester remain seated rather than help. She brought breakfast to the bedroom and gave Ester a magazine while lunch was prepared. Yet she also pressed the question of grandchildren and, on a later visit, introduced Liese, a twenty-year-old nursery nurse whom she described as fond of children. Ida pointedly added that she herself had been pregnant with Bernard at twenty. The visits thus combine domestic welcome with reminders of Ester’s childlessness and her place in the family.

Ester and Bernard argued on every drive back to Hellhaus. Eventually she suggested that he visit Ida alone; after making excuses at first, she stopped giving reasons, and Bernard stopped asking. He continued to return in a bad mood, carrying ironed underpants and paired socks. Ester imagines Ida criticizing her absence and proposing that a cheap cleaner could do the work Ester normally did. Bernard’s visits therefore preserve his connection to his mother while leaving Ester outside it, with the household labor still waiting for her at the hotel.

Violence and Control

The most consequential rupture comes when Bernard catches Ester with a hotel guest. While she is cleaning room ten, Bernard appears at the door after the encounter. He is already walking away from the bed and from the injured man, whom the narrative describes as the man who did not leave in time. Bernard pauses beside Ester and tells her, “Don’t let there be a next time.” The warning makes the assault part of the marriage’s ongoing coercion: Bernard has used violence against the guest, then addresses Ester as he passes her at close range.

The aftermath is folded back into hotel work. Ester has to collect fresh bedding and return to the room with her cleaning trolley and gloves. The practical task of replacing the sheets follows directly upon Bernard’s attack, making the hotel’s routine labor the setting in which its concealed violence must be managed. Bernard’s warning does not resolve the affair or the marriage; it establishes the threat that governs what Ester may do next.

Narrative Role

Bernard is drawn through repeated contrasts between surface order and private harm. His careful grooming, polished shoes, camphor-scented baths, bar work, and insistence on handling his own food suggest a man attentive to control and presentation. Set against these details are his silences about Conrad, his accusation that Ester might change her mind, the pressure surrounding visits to Ida, and his assault on her guest. The contrast does not require a hidden explanation: the ordinary details of hotel and family life show how his authority is maintained through proximity, expectation, and, finally, violence.

Camphor also makes Bernard present when he is absent. Ester wakes, smells it, and moves toward his side of the bed, resting her head at the edge of his pillow. The scent attaches his everyday bodily presence to the room she shares with him, even while his monthly visits to Ida leave her alone at the hotel. In this way, Bernard’s character is defined not only by what he does in confrontation but by the routines and traces through which the marriage continues.