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diff --git a/1472-h/1472-h.htm b/1472-h/1472-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..34fa32c --- /dev/null +++ b/1472-h/1472-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,5948 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" +"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=UTF-8" /> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of In a German Pension, by Katherine Mansfield</title> +<link rel="coverpage" href="images/cover.jpg" /> +<style type="text/css"> + +body { margin-left: 20%; + margin-right: 20%; + text-align: justify; } + +h1, h2, h3, h4, h5 {text-align: center; font-style: normal; font-weight: +normal; line-height: 1.5; margin-top: .5em; margin-bottom: .5em;} + +h1 {font-size: 300%; + margin-top: 0.6em; + margin-bottom: 0.6em; + letter-spacing: 0.12em; + word-spacing: 0.2em; + text-indent: 0em;} +h2 {font-size: 150%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 1em;} +h3 {font-size: 130%; margin-top: 1em;} +h4 {font-size: 120%;} +h5 {font-size: 110%;} + +.no-break {page-break-before: avoid;} /* for epubs */ + +div.chapter {page-break-before: always; margin-top: 4em;} + +hr {width: 80%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em;} + +p {text-indent: 1em; + margin-top: 0.25em; + margin-bottom: 0.25em; } + +.p2 {margin-top: 2em;} + +p.poem {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + font-size: 90%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +p.letter {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +p.noindent {text-indent: 0% } + +div.fig { display:block; + margin:0 auto; + text-align:center; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em;} + +a:link {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:visited {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:hover {color:red} + +</style> + +</head> + +<body> +<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 1472 ***</div> + +<div class="fig" style="width:55%;"> +<img src="images/cover.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="cover" /> +</div> + +<h1>In a German Pension</h1> + +<h2 class="no-break">by Katherine Mansfield</h2> + +<hr /> + +<h2>Contents</h2> + +<table summary="" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto"> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap01">GERMANS AT MEAT</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap02">THE BARON</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap03">THE SISTER OF THE BARONESS</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap04">FRAU FISCHER</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap05">FRAU BRECHENMACHER ATTENDS A WEDDING</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap06">THE MODERN SOUL</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap07">AT “LEHMANN’S”</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap08">THE LUFT BAD</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap09">A BIRTHDAY</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap10">THE CHILD-WHO-WAS-TIRED</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap11">THE ADVANCED LADY</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap12">THE SWING OF THE PENDULUM</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap13">A BLAZE</a></td> +</tr> + +</table> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap01"></a>GERMANS AT MEAT</h2> + +<p> +Bread soup was placed upon the table. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah,” said the Herr Rat, leaning upon the table as he peered into +the tureen, “that is what I need. My ‘magen’ has not been in +order for several days. Bread soup, and just the right consistency. I am a good +cook myself”—he turned to me. +</p> + +<p> +“How interesting,” I said, attempting to infuse just the right +amount of enthusiasm into my voice. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes—when one is not married it is necessary. As for me, I have +had all I wanted from women without marriage.” He tucked his napkin into +his collar and blew upon his soup as he spoke. “Now at nine o’clock +I make myself an English breakfast, but not much. Four slices of bread, two +eggs, two slices of cold ham, one plate of soup, two cups of tea—that is +nothing to you.” +</p> + +<p> +He asserted the fact so vehemently that I had not the courage to refute it. +</p> + +<p> +All eyes were suddenly turned upon me. I felt I was bearing the burden of the +nation’s preposterous breakfast—I who drank a cup of coffee while +buttoning my blouse in the morning. +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing at all,” cried Herr Hoffmann from Berlin. “Ach, when +I was in England in the morning I used to eat.” +</p> + +<p> +He turned up his eyes and his moustache, wiping the soup drippings from his +coat and waistcoat. +</p> + +<p> +“Do they really eat so much?” asked Fräulein Stiegelauer. +“Soup and baker’s bread and pig’s flesh, and tea and coffee +and stewed fruit, and honey and eggs, and cold fish and kidneys, and hot fish +and liver? All the ladies eat, too, especially the ladies.” +</p> + +<p> +“Certainly. I myself have noticed it, when I was living in a hotel in +Leicester Square,” cried the Herr Rat. “It was a good hotel, but +they could not make tea—now—” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, that’s one thing I <i>can</i> do,” said I, laughing +brightly. “I can make very good tea. The great secret is to warm the +teapot.” +</p> + +<p> +“Warm the teapot,” interrupted the Herr Rat, pushing away his soup +plate. “What do you warm the teapot for? Ha! ha! that’s very good! +One does not eat the teapot, I suppose?” +</p> + +<p> +He fixed his cold blue eyes upon me with an expression which suggested a +thousand premeditated invasions. +</p> + +<p> +“So that is the great secret of your English tea? All you do is to warm +the teapot.” +</p> + +<p> +I wanted to say that was only the preliminary canter, but could not translate +it, and so was silent. +</p> + +<p> +The servant brought in veal, with “sauerkraut” and potatoes. +</p> + +<p> +“I eat sauerkraut with great pleasure,” said the Traveller from +North Germany, “but now I have eaten so much of it that I cannot retain +it. I am immediately forced to—” +</p> + +<p> +“A beautiful day,” I cried, turning to Fräulein Stiegelauer. +“Did you get up early?” +</p> + +<p> +“At five o’clock I walked for ten minutes in the wet grass. Again +in bed. At half-past five I fell asleep, and woke at seven, when I made an +‘overbody’ washing! Again in bed. At eight o’clock I had a +cold-water poultice, and at half past eight I drank a cup of mint tea. At nine +I drank some malt coffee, and began my ‘cure.’ Pass me the +sauerkraut, please. You do not eat it?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, thank you. I still find it a little strong.” +</p> + +<p> +“Is it true,” asked the Widow, picking her teeth with a hairpin as +she spoke, “that you are a vegetarian?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, yes; I have not eaten meat for three years.” +</p> + +<p> +“Im—possible! Have you any family?” +</p> + +<p> +“No.” +</p> + +<p> +“There now, you see, that’s what you’re coming to! Who ever +heard of having children upon vegetables? It is not possible. But you never +have large families in England now; I suppose you are too busy with your +suffragetting. Now I have had nine children, and they are all alive, thank God. +Fine, healthy babies—though after the first one was born I had +to—” +</p> + +<p> +“How <i>wonderful!</i>” I cried. +</p> + +<p> +“Wonderful,” said the Widow contemptuously, replacing the hairpin +in the knob which was balanced on the top of her head. “Not at all! A +friend of mine had four at the same time. Her husband was so pleased he gave a +supper-party and had them placed on the table. Of course she was very +proud.” +</p> + +<p> +“Germany,” boomed the Traveller, biting round a potato which he had +speared with his knife, “is the home of the Family.” +</p> + +<p> +Followed an appreciative silence. +</p> + +<p> +The dishes were changed for beef, red currants and spinach. They wiped their +forks upon black bread and started again. +</p> + +<p> +“How long are you remaining here?” asked the Herr Rat. +</p> + +<p> +“I do not know exactly. I must be back in London in September.” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course you will visit München?” +</p> + +<p> +“I am afraid I shall not have time. You see, it is important not to break +into my ‘cure.’” +</p> + +<p> +“But you <i>must</i> go to München. You have not seen Germany if you have +not been to München. All the Exhibitions, all the Art and Soul life of Germany +are in München. There is the Wagner Festival in August, and Mozart and a +Japanese collection of pictures—and there is the beer! You do not know +what good beer is until you have been to München. Why, I see fine ladies every +afternoon, but fine ladies, I tell you, drinking glasses so high.” He +measured a good washstand pitcher in height, and I smiled. +</p> + +<p> +“If I drink a great deal of München beer I sweat so,” said Herr +Hoffmann. “When I am here, in the fields or before my baths, I sweat, but +I enjoy it; but in the town it is not at all the same thing.” +</p> + +<p> +Prompted by the thought, he wiped his neck and face with his dinner napkin and +carefully cleaned his ears. +</p> + +<p> +A glass dish of stewed apricots was placed upon the table. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, fruit!” said Fräulein Stiegelauer, “that is so necessary +to health. The doctor told me this morning that the more fruit I could eat the +better.” +</p> + +<p> +She very obviously followed the advice. +</p> + +<p> +Said the Traveller: “I suppose you are frightened of an invasion, too, +eh? Oh, that’s good. I’ve been reading all about your English play +in a newspaper. Did you see it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” I sat upright. “I assure you we are not afraid.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, then, you ought to be,” said the Herr Rat. “You have +got no army at all—a few little boys with their veins full of nicotine +poisoning.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t be afraid,” Herr Hoffmann said. “We don’t +want England. If we did we would have had her long ago. We really do not want +you.” +</p> + +<p> +He waved his spoon airily, looking across at me as though I were a little child +whom he would keep or dismiss as he pleased. +</p> + +<p> +“We certainly do not want Germany,” I said. +</p> + +<p> +“This morning I took a half bath. Then this afternoon I must take a knee +bath and an arm bath,” volunteered the Herr Rat; “then I do my +exercises for an hour, and my work is over. A glass of wine and a couple of +rolls with some sardines—” +</p> + +<p> +They were handed cherry cake with whipped cream. +</p> + +<p> +“What is your husband’s favourite meat?” asked the Widow. +</p> + +<p> +“I really do not know,” I answered. +</p> + +<p> +“You really do not know? How long have you been married?” +</p> + +<p> +“Three years.” +</p> + +<p> +“But you cannot be in earnest! You would not have kept house as his wife +for a week without knowing that fact.” +</p> + +<p> +“I really never asked him; he is not at all particular about his +food.” +</p> + +<p> +A pause. They all looked at me, shaking their heads, their mouths full of +cherry stones. +</p> + +<p> +“No wonder there is a repetition in England of that dreadful state of +things in Paris,” said the Widow, folding her dinner napkin. “How +can a woman expect to keep her husband if she does not know his favourite food +after three years?” +</p> + +<p> +“Mahlzeit!” +</p> + +<p> +“Mahlzeit!” +</p> + +<p> +I closed the door after me. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap02"></a>THE BARON</h2> + +<p> +“Who is he?” I said. “And why does he sit always alone, with +his back to us, too?” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah!” whispered the Frau Oberregierungsrat, “he is a +<i>Baron</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +She looked at me very solemnly, and yet with the slightest possible +contempt—a “fancy-not-recognising-that-at-the-first-glance” +expression. +</p> + +<p> +“But, poor soul, he cannot help it,” I said. “Surely that +unfortunate fact ought not to debar him from the pleasures of intellectual +intercourse.” +</p> + +<p> +If it had not been for her fork I think she would have crossed herself. +</p> + +<p> +“Surely you cannot understand. He is one of the First Barons.” +</p> + +<p> +More than a little unnerved, she turned and spoke to the Frau Doktor on her +left. +</p> + +<p> +“My omelette is empty—<i>empty</i>,” she protested, +“and this is the third I have tried!” +</p> + +<p> +I looked at the First of the Barons. He was eating salad—taking a whole +lettuce leaf on his fork and absorbing it slowly, rabbit-wise—a +fascinating process to watch. +</p> + +<p> +Small and slight, with scanty black hair and beard and yellow-toned complexion, +he invariably wore black serge clothes, a rough linen shirt, black sandals, and +the largest black-rimmed spectacles that I had ever seen. +</p> + +<p> +The Herr Oberlehrer, who sat opposite me, smiled benignantly. +</p> + +<p> +“It must be very interesting for you, gnädige Frau, to be able to +watch... of course this is a <i>very fine house</i>. There was a lady from the +Spanish Court here in the summer; she had a liver. We often spoke +together.” +</p> + +<p> +I looked gratified and humble. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, in England, in your ‘boarding ’ouse’, one does +not find the First Class, as in Germany.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, indeed,” I replied, still hypnotised by the Baron, who looked +like a little yellow silkworm. +</p> + +<p> +“The Baron comes every year,” went on the Herr Oberlehrer, +“for his nerves. He has never spoken to any of the +guests—<i>yet</i>.” A smile crossed his face. I seemed to see his +visions of some splendid upheaval of that silence—a dazzling exchange of +courtesies in a dim future, a splendid sacrifice of a newspaper to this Exalted +One, a “danke schön” to be handed down to future generations. +</p> + +<p> +At that moment the postman, looking like a German army officer, came in with +the mail. He threw my letters into my milk pudding, and then turned to a +waitress and whispered. She retired hastily. The manager of the pension came in +with a little tray. A picture post card was deposited on it, and reverently +bowing his head, the manager of the pension carried it to the Baron. +</p> + +<p> +Myself, I felt disappointed that there was not a salute of twenty-five guns. +</p> + +<p> +At the end of the meal we were served with coffee. I noticed the Baron took +three lumps of sugar, putting two in his cup and wrapping up the third in a +corner of his pocket-handkerchief. He was always the first to enter the +dining-room and the last to leave; and in a vacant chair beside him he placed a +little black leather bag. +</p> + +<p> +In the afternoon, leaning from my window, I saw him pass down the street, +walking tremulously and carrying the bag. Each time he passed a lamp-post he +shrank a little, as though expecting it to strike him, or maybe the sense of +plebeian contamination.... +</p> + +<p> +I wondered where he was going, and why he carried the bag. Never had I seen him +at the Casino or the Bath Establishment. He looked forlorn, his feet slipped in +his sandals. I found myself pitying the Baron. +</p> + +<p> +That evening a party of us were gathered in the salon discussing the +day’s “kur” with feverish animation. The Frau +Oberregierungsrat sat by me knitting a shawl for her youngest of nine +daughters, who was in that very interesting, frail condition.... “But it +is bound to be quite satisfactory,” she said to me. “The dear +married a banker—the desire of her life.” +</p> + +<p> +There must have been eight or ten of us gathered together, we who were married +exchanging confidences as to the underclothing and peculiar characteristics of +our husbands, the unmarried discussing the over-clothing and peculiar +fascinations of Possible Ones. +</p> + +<p> +“I knit them myself,” I heard the Frau Lehrer cry, “of thick +grey wool. He wears one a month, with two soft collars.” +</p> + +<p> +“And then,” whispered Fräulein Lisa, “he said to me, +‘Indeed you please me. I shall, perhaps, write to your +mother.’” +</p> + +<p> +Small wonder that we were a little violently excited, a little expostulatory. +</p> + +<p> +Suddenly the door opened and admitted the Baron. +</p> + +<p> +Followed a complete and deathlike silence. +</p> + +<p> +He came in slowly, hesitated, took up a toothpick from a dish on the top of the +piano, and went out again. +</p> + +<p> +When the door was closed we raised a triumphant cry! It was the first time he +had ever been known to enter the salon. Who could tell what the Future held? +</p> + +<p> +Days lengthened into weeks. Still we were together, and still the solitary +little figure, head bowed as though under the weight of the spectacles, haunted +me. He entered with the black bag, he retired with the black bag—and that +was all. +</p> + +<p> +At last the manager of the pension told us the Baron was leaving the next day. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh,” I thought, “surely he cannot drift into +obscurity—be lost without one word! Surely he will honour the Frau +Oberregierungsrat or the Frau Feldleutnantswitwe <i>once</i> before he +goes.” +</p> + +<p> +In the evening of that day it rained heavily. I went to the post office, and as +I stood on the steps, umbrellaless, hesitating before plunging into the slushy +road, a little, hesitating voice seemed to come from under my elbow. +</p> + +<p> +I looked down. It was the First of the Barons with the black bag and an +umbrella. Was I mad? Was I sane? He was asking me to share the latter. But I +was exceedingly nice, a trifle diffident, appropriately reverential. Together +we walked through the mud and slush. +</p> + +<p> +Now, there is something peculiarly intimate in sharing an umbrella. +</p> + +<p> +It is apt to put one on the same footing as brushing a man’s coat for +him—a little daring, naïve. +</p> + +<p> +I longed to know why he sat alone, why he carried the bag, what he did all day. +But he himself volunteered some information. +</p> + +<p> +“I fear,” he said, “that my luggage will be damp. I +invariably carry it with me in this bag—one requires so little—for +servants are untrustworthy.” +</p> + +<p> +“A wise idea,” I answered. And then: “Why have you denied us +the pleasure—” +</p> + +<p> +“I sit alone that I may eat more,” said the Baron, peering into the +dusk; “my stomach requires a great deal of food. I order double portions, +and eat them in peace.” +</p> + +<p> +Which sounded finely Baronial. +</p> + +<p> +“And what do you do all day?” +</p> + +<p> +“I imbibe nourishment in my room,” he replied, in a voice that +closed the conversation and almost repented of the umbrella. +</p> + +<p> +When we arrived at the pension there was very nearly an open riot. +</p> + +<p> +I ran half way up the stairs, and thanked the Baron audibly from the landing. +</p> + +<p> +He distinctly replied: “Not at all!” +</p> + +<p> +It was very friendly of the Herr Oberlehrer to have sent me a bouquet that +evening, and the Frau Oberregierungsrat asked me for my pattern of a +baby’s bonnet! +</p> + +<hr /> + +<p> +Next day the Baron was gone. +</p> + +<p> +Sic transit gloria German mundi. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap03"></a>THE SISTER OF THE BARONESS</h2> + +<p> +“There are two new guests arriving this afternoon,” said the +manager of the pension, placing a chair for me at the breakfast-table. “I +have only received the letter acquainting me with the fact this morning. The +Baroness von Gall is sending her little daughter—the poor child is +dumb—to make the ‘cure.’ She is to stay with us a month, and +then the Baroness herself is coming.” +</p> + +<p> +“Baroness von Gall,” cried the Frau Doktor, coming into the room +and positively scenting the name. “Coming here? There was a picture of +her only last week in <i>Sport and Salon</i>. She is a friend of the Court: I +have heard that the Kaiserin says ‘du’ to her. But this is +delightful! I shall take my doctor’s advice and spend an extra six weeks +here. There is nothing like young society.” +</p> + +<p> +“But the child is dumb,” ventured the manager apologetically. +</p> + +<p> +“Bah! What does that matter? Afflicted children have such pretty +ways.” +</p> + +<p> +Each guest who came into the breakfast-room was bombarded with the wonderful +news. “The Baroness von Gall is sending her little daughter here; the +Baroness herself is coming in a month’s time.” Coffee and rolls +took on the nature of an orgy. We positively scintillated. Anecdotes of the +High Born were poured out, sweetened and sipped: we gorged on scandals of High +Birth generously buttered. +</p> + +<p> +“They are to have the room next to yours,” said the manager, +addressing me. “I was wondering if you would permit me to take down the +portrait of the Kaiserin Elizabeth from above your bed to hang over their +sofa.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, indeed, something homelike”—the Frau Oberregierungsrat +patted my hand—“and of no possible significance to you.” +</p> + +<p> +I felt a little crushed. Not at the prospect of losing that vision of diamonds +and blue velvet bust, but at the tone—placing me outside the +pale—branding me as a foreigner. +</p> + +<p> +We dissipated the day in valid speculations. Decided it was too warm to walk in +the afternoon, so lay down on our beds, mustering in great force for afternoon +coffee. And a carriage drew up at the door. A tall young girl got out, leading +a child by the hand. They entered the hall, were greeted and shown to their +room. Ten minutes later she came down with the child to sign the +visitors’ book. She wore a black, closely fitting dress, touched at +throat and wrists with white frilling. Her brown hair, braided, was tied with a +black bow—unusually pale, with a small mole on her left cheek. +</p> + +<p> +“I am the Baroness von Gall’s sister,” she said, trying the +pen on a piece of blotting-paper, and smiling at us deprecatingly. Even for the +most jaded of us life holds its thrilling moments. Two Baronesses in two +months! The manager immediately left the room to find a new nib. +</p> + +<p> +To my plebeian eyes that afflicted child was singularly unattractive. She had +the air of having been perpetually washed with a blue bag, and hair like grey +wool—dressed, too, in a pinafore so stiffly starched that she could only +peer at us over the frill of it—a social barrier of a pinafore—and +perhaps it was too much to expect a noble aunt to attend to the menial +consideration of her niece’s ears. But a dumb niece with unwashed ears +struck me as a most depressing object. +</p> + +<p> +They were given places at the head of the table. For a moment we all looked at +one another with an eena-deena-dina-do expression. Then the Frau +Oberregierungsrat: +</p> + +<p> +“I hope you are not tired after your journey.” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said the sister of the Baroness, smiling into her cup. +</p> + +<p> +“I hope the dear child is not tired,” said the Frau Doktor. +</p> + +<p> +“Not at all.” +</p> + +<p> +“I expect, I hope you will sleep well to-night,” the Herr +Oberlehrer said reverently. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +The poet from Munich never took his eyes off the pair. He allowed his tie to +absorb most of his coffee while he gazed at them exceedingly soulfully. +</p> + +<p> +Unyoking Pegasus, thought I. Death spasms of his Odes to Solitude! There were +possibilities in that young woman for an inspiration, not to mention a +dedication, and from that moment his suffering temperament took up its bed and +walked. +</p> + +<p> +They retired after the meal, leaving us to discuss them at leisure. +</p> + +<p> +“There is a likeness,” mused the Frau Doktor. “Quite. What a +manner she has. Such reserve, such a tender way with the child.” +</p> + +<p> +“Pity she has the child to attend to,” exclaimed the student from +Bonn. He had hitherto relied upon three scars and a ribbon to produce an +effect, but the sister of a Baroness demanded more than these. +</p> + +<p> +Absorbing days followed. Had she been one whit less beautifully born we could +not have endured the continual conversation about her, the songs in her praise, +the detailed account of her movements. But she graciously suffered our worship +and we were more than content. +</p> + +<p> +The poet she took into her confidence. He carried her books when we went +walking, he jumped the afflicted one on his knee—poetic licence, +this—and one morning brought his notebook into the salon and read to us. +</p> + +<p> +“The sister of the Baroness has assured me she is going into a +convent,” he said. (That made the student from Bonn sit up.) “I +have written these few lines last night from my window in the sweet night +air—” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, your <i>delicate</i> chest,” commented the Frau Doktor. +</p> + +<p> +He fixed a stony eye on her, and she blushed. +</p> + +<p> +“I have written these lines: +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“‘Ah, will you to a convent fly,<br/> + So young, so fresh, so fair?<br/> +Spring like a doe upon the fields<br/> + And find your beauty there.’” +</p> + +<p> +Nine verses equally lovely commanded her to equally violent action. I am +certain that had she followed his advice not even the remainder of her life in +a convent would have given her time to recover her breath. +</p> + +<p> +“I have presented her with a copy,” he said. “And to-day we +are going to look for wild flowers in the wood.” +</p> + +<p> +The student from Bonn got up and left the room. I begged the poet to repeat the +verses once more. At the end of the sixth verse I saw from the window the +sister of the Baroness and the scarred youth disappearing through the front +gate, which enabled me to thank the poet so charmingly that he offered to write +me out a copy. +</p> + +<p> +But we were living at too high pressure in those days. Swinging from our humble +pension to the high walls of palaces, how could we help but fall? Late one +afternoon the Frau Doktor came upon me in the writing-room and took me to her +bosom. +</p> + +<p> +“She has been telling me all about her life,” whispered the Frau +Doktor. “She came to my bedroom and offered to massage my arm. You know, +I am the greatest martyr to rheumatism. And, fancy now, she has already had six +proposals of marriage. Such beautiful offers that I assure you I wept—and +every one of noble birth. My dear, the most beautiful was in the wood. Not that +I do not think a proposal should take place in a drawing-room—it is more +fitting to have four walls—but this was a private wood. He said, the +young officer, she was like a young tree whose branches had never been touched +by the ruthless hand of man. Such delicacy!” She sighed and turned up her +eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“Of course it is difficult for you English to understand when you are +always exposing your legs on cricket-fields, and breeding dogs in your back +gardens. The pity of it! Youth should be like a wild rose. For myself I do not +understand how your women ever get married at all.” +</p> + +<p> +She shook her head so violently that I shook mine too, and a gloom settled +round my heart. It seemed we were really in a very bad way. Did the spirit of +romance spread her rose wings only over aristocratic Germany? +</p> + +<p> +I went to my room, bound a pink scarf about my hair, and took a volume of +Mörike’s lyrics into the garden. A great bush of purple lilac grew behind +the summer-house. There I sat down, finding a sad significance in the delicate +suggestion of half mourning. I began to write a poem myself. +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“They sway and languish dreamily,<br/> +And we, close pressed, are kissing there.” +</p> + +<p> +It ended! “Close pressed” did not sound at all fascinating. +Savoured of wardrobes. Did my wild rose then already trail in the dust? I +chewed a leaf and hugged my knees. Then—magic moment—I heard voices +from the summer-house, the sister of the Baroness and the student from Bonn. +</p> + +<p> +Second-hand was better than nothing; I pricked up my ears. +</p> + +<p> +“What small hands you have,” said the student from Bonn. +“They are like white lilies lying in the pool of your black dress.” +This certainly sounded the real thing. Her high-born reply was what interested +me. Sympathetic murmur only. +</p> + +<p> +“May I hold one?” +</p> + +<p> +I heard two sighs—presumed they held—he had rifled those dark +waters of a noble blossom. +</p> + +<p> +“Look at my great fingers beside yours.” +</p> + +<p> +“But they are beautifully kept,” said the sister of the Baroness +shyly. +</p> + +<p> +The minx! Was love then a question of manicure? +</p> + +<p> +“How I should adore to kiss you,” murmured the student. “But +you know I am suffering from severe nasal catarrh, and I dare not risk giving +it to you. Sixteen times last night did I count myself sneezing. And three +different handkerchiefs.” +</p> + +<p> +I threw Mörike into the lilac bush, and went back to the house. A great +automobile snorted at the front door. In the salon great commotion. The +Baroness was paying a surprise visit to her little daughter. Clad in a yellow +mackintosh she stood in the middle of the room questioning the manager. And +every guest the pension contained was grouped about her, even the Frau Doktor, +presumably examining a timetable, as near to the august skirts as possible. +</p> + +<p> +“But where is my maid?” asked the Baroness. +</p> + +<p> +“There was no maid,” replied the manager, “save for your +gracious sister and daughter.” +</p> + +<p> +“Sister!” she cried sharply. “Fool, I have no sister. My +child travelled with the daughter of my dressmaker.” +</p> + +<p> +Tableau grandissimo! +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap04"></a>FRAU FISCHER</h2> + +<p> +Frau Fischer was the fortunate possessor of a candle factory somewhere on the +banks of the Eger, and once a year she ceased from her labours to make a +“cure” in Dorschausen, arriving with a dress-basket neatly covered +in a black tarpaulin and a hand-bag. The latter contained amongst her +handkerchiefs, eau de Cologne, toothpicks, and a certain woollen muffler very +comforting to the “magen,” samples of her skill in candle-making, +to be offered up as tokens of thanksgiving when her holiday time was over. +</p> + +<p> +Four of the clock one July afternoon she appeared at the Pension Müller. I was +sitting in the arbour and watched her bustling up the path followed by the +red-bearded porter with her dress-basket in his arms and a sunflower between +his teeth. The widow and her five innocent daughters stood tastefully grouped +upon the steps in appropriate attitudes of welcome; and the greetings were so +long and loud that I felt a sympathetic glow. +</p> + +<p> +“What a journey!” cried the Frau Fischer. “And nothing to eat +in the train—nothing solid. I assure you the sides of my stomach are +flapping together. But I must not spoil my appetite for dinner—just a cup +of coffee in my room. Bertha,” turning to the youngest of the five, +“how changed! What a bust! Frau Hartmann, I congratulate you.” +</p> + +<p> +Once again the Widow seized Frau Fischer’s hands. “Kathi, too, a +splendid woman; but a little pale. Perhaps the young man from Nürnberg is here +again this year. How you keep them all I don’t know. Each year I come +expecting to find you with an empty nest. It’s surprising.” +</p> + +<p> +Frau Hartmann, in an ashamed, apologetic voice: “We are such a happy +family since my dear man died.” +</p> + +<p> +“But these marriages—one must have courage; and after all, give +them time, they all make the happy family bigger—thank God for that.... +Are there many people here just now?” +</p> + +<p> +“Every room engaged.” +</p> + +<p> +Followed a detailed description in the hall, murmured on the stairs, continued +in six parts as they entered the large room (windows opening upon the garden) +which Frau Fischer occupied each successive year. I was reading the +“Miracles of Lourdes,” which a Catholic priest—fixing a +gloomy eye upon my soul—had begged me to digest; but its wonders were +completely routed by Frau Fischer’s arrival. Not even the white roses +upon the feet of the Virgin could flourish in that atmosphere. +</p> + +<p> +“... It was a simple shepherd-child who pastured her flocks upon the +barren fields....” +</p> + +<p> +Voices from the room above: “The washstand has, of course, been scrubbed +over with soda.” +</p> + +<p> +“... Poverty-stricken, her limbs with tattered rags half +covered....” +</p> + +<p> +“Every stick of the furniture has been sunning in the garden for three +days. And the carpet we made ourselves out of old clothes. There is a piece of +that beautiful flannel petticoat you left us last summer.” +</p> + +<p> +“... Deaf and dumb was the child; in fact, the population considered her +half idiot....” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, that is a new picture of the Kaiser. We have moved the +thorn-crowned one of Jesus Christ out into the passage. It was not cheerful to +sleep with. Dear Frau Fischer, won’t you take your coffee out in the +garden?” +</p> + +<p> +“That is a very nice idea. But first I must remove my corsets and my +boots. Ah, what a relief to wear sandals again. I am needing the +‘cure’ very badly this year. My nerves! I am a mass of them. During +the entire journey I sat with my handkerchief over my head, even while the +guard collected the tickets. Exhausted!” +</p> + +<p> +She came into the arbour wearing a black and white spotted dressing-gown, and a +calico cap peaked with patent leather, followed by Kathi, carrying the little +blue jugs of malt coffee. We were formally introduced. Frau Fischer sat down, +produced a perfectly clean pocket handkerchief and polished her cup and saucer, +then lifted the lid of the coffee-pot and peered in at the contents mournfully. +</p> + +<p> +“Malt coffee,” she said. “Ah, for the first few days I wonder +how I can put up with it. Naturally, absent from home one must expect much +discomfort and strange food. But as I used to say to my dear husband: with a +clean sheet and a good cup of coffee I can find my happiness anywhere. But now, +with nerves like mine, no sacrifice is too terrible for me to make. What +complaint are you suffering from? You look exceedingly healthy!” +</p> + +<p> +I smiled and shrugged my shoulders. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, that is so strange about you English. You do not seem to enjoy +discussing the functions of the body. As well speak of a railway train and +refuse to mention the engine. How can we hope to understand anybody, knowing +nothing of their stomachs? In my husband’s most severe illness—the +poultices—” +</p> + +<p> +She dipped a piece of sugar in her coffee and watched it dissolve. +</p> + +<p> +“Yet a young friend of mine who travelled to England for the funeral of +his brother told me that women wore bodices in public restaurants no waiter +could help looking into as he handed the soup.” +</p> + +<p> +“But only German waiters,” I said. “English ones look over +the top of your head.” +</p> + +<p> +“There,” she cried, “now you see your dependence on Germany. +Not even an efficient waiter can you have by yourselves.” +</p> + +<p> +“But I prefer them to look over your head.” +</p> + +<p> +“And that proves that you must be ashamed of your bodice.” +</p> + +<p> +I looked out over the garden full of wall-flowers and standard rose-trees +growing stiffly like German bouquets, feeling I did not care one way or the +other. I rather wanted to ask her if the young friend had gone to England in +the capacity of waiter to attend the funeral baked meats, but decided it was +not worth it. The weather was too hot to be malicious, and who could be +uncharitable, victimised by the flapping sensations which Frau Fischer was +enduring until six-thirty? As a gift from heaven for my forbearance, down the +path towards us came the Herr Rat, angelically clad in a white silk suit. He +and Frau Fischer were old friends. She drew the folds of her dressing-gown +together, and made room for him on the little green bench. +</p> + +<p> +“How cool you are looking,” she said; “and if I may make the +remark—what a beautiful suit!” +</p> + +<p> +“Surely I wore it last summer when you were here? I brought the silk from +China—smuggled it through the Russian customs by swathing it round my +body. And such a quantity: two dress lengths for my sister-in-law, three suits +for myself, a cloak for the housekeeper of my flat in Munich. How I perspired! +Every inch of it had to be washed afterwards.” +</p> + +<p> +“Surely you have had more adventures than any man in Germany. When I +think of the time that you spent in Turkey with a drunken guide who was bitten +by a mad dog and fell over a precipice into a field of attar of roses, I lament +that you have not written a book.” +</p> + +<p> +“Time—time. I am getting a few notes together. And now that you are +here we shall renew our quiet little talks after supper. Yes? It is necessary +and pleasant for a man to find relaxation in the company of women +occasionally.” +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed I realise that. Even here your life is too strenuous—you +are so sought after—so admired. It was just the same with my dear +husband. He was a tall, beautiful man, and sometimes in the evening he would +come down into the kitchen and say: ‘Wife, I would like to be stupid for +two minutes.’ Nothing rested him so much then as for me to stroke his +head.” +</p> + +<p> +The Herr Rat’s bald pate glistening in the sunlight seemed symbolical of +the sad absence of a wife. +</p> + +<p> +I began to wonder as to the nature of these quiet little after-supper talks. +How could one play Delilah to so shorn a Samson? +</p> + +<p> +“Herr Hoffmann from Berlin arrived yesterday,” said the Herr Rat. +</p> + +<p> +“That young man I refuse to converse with. He told me last year that he +had stayed in France in an hotel where they did not have serviettes; what a +place it must have been! In Austria even the cabmen have serviettes. Also I +have heard that he discussed ‘free love’ with Bertha as she was +sweeping his room. I am not accustomed to such company. I had suspected him for +a long time.” +</p> + +<p> +“Young blood,” answered the Herr Rat genially. “I have had +several disputes with him—you have heard them—is it not so?” +turning to me. +</p> + +<p> +“A great many,” I said, smiling. +</p> + +<p> +“Doubtless you too consider me behind the times. I make no secret of my +age; I am sixty-nine; but you must have surely observed how impossible it was +for him to speak at all when I raised my voice.” +</p> + +<p> +I replied with the utmost conviction, and, catching Frau Fischer’s eye, +suddenly realised I had better go back to the house and write some letters. +</p> + +<p> +It was dark and cool in my room. A chestnut-tree pushed green boughs against +the window. I looked down at the horsehair sofa so openly flouting the idea of +curling up as immoral, pulled the red pillow on to the floor and lay down. And +barely had I got comfortable when the door opened and Frau Fischer entered. +</p> + +<p> +“The Herr Rat had a bathing appointment,” she said, shutting the +door after her. “May I come in? Pray do not move. You look like a little +Persian kitten. Now, tell me something really interesting about your life. When +I meet new people I squeeze them dry like a sponge. To begin with—you are +married.” +</p> + +<p> +I admitted the fact. +</p> + +<p> +“Then, dear child, where is your husband?” +</p> + +<p> +I said he was a sea-captain on a long and perilous voyage. +</p> + +<p> +“What a position to leave you in—so young and so +unprotected.” +</p> + +<p> +She sat down on the sofa and shook her finger at me playfully. +</p> + +<p> +“Admit, now, that you keep your journeys secret from him. For what man +would think of allowing a woman with such a wealth of hair to go wandering in +foreign countries? Now, supposing that you lost your purse at midnight in a +snowbound train in North Russia?” +</p> + +<p> +“But I haven’t the slightest intention—” I began. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t say that you have. But when you said good-bye to your dear +man I am positive that you had no intention of coming here. My dear, I am a +woman of experience, and I know the world. While he is away you have a fever in +your blood. Your sad heart flies for comfort to these foreign lands. At home +you cannot bear the sight of that empty bed—it is like widowhood. Since +the death of my dear husband I have never known an hour’s peace.” +</p> + +<p> +“I like empty beds,” I protested sleepily, thumping the pillow. +</p> + +<p> +“That cannot be true because it is not natural. Every wife ought to feel +that her place is by her husband’s side—sleeping or waking. It is +plain to see that the strongest tie of all does not yet bind you. Wait until a +little pair of hands stretches across the water—wait until he comes into +harbour and sees you with the child at your breast.” +</p> + +<p> +I sat up stiffly. +</p> + +<p> +“But I consider child-bearing the most ignominious of all +professions,” I said. +</p> + +<p> +For a moment there was silence. Then Frau Fischer reached down and caught my +hand. +</p> + +<p> +“So young and yet to suffer so cruelly,” she murmured. “There +is nothing that sours a woman so terribly as to be left alone without a man, +especially if she is married, for then it is impossible for her to accept the +attention of others—unless she is unfortunately a widow. Of course, I +know that sea-captains are subject to terrible temptations, and they are as +inflammable as tenor singers—that is why you must present a bright and +energetic appearance, and try and make him proud of you when his ship reaches +port.” +</p> + +<p> +This husband that I had created for the benefit of Frau Fischer became in her +hands so substantial a figure that I could no longer see myself sitting on a +rock with seaweed in my hair, awaiting that phantom ship for which all women +love to suppose they hunger. Rather, I saw myself pushing a perambulator up the +gangway, and counting up the missing buttons on my husband’s uniform +jacket. +</p> + +<p> +“Handfuls of babies, that is what you are really in need of,” mused +Frau Fischer. “Then, as the father of a family he cannot leave you. Think +of his delight and excitement when he saw you!” +</p> + +<p> +The plan seemed to me something of a risk. To appear suddenly with handfuls of +strange babies is not generally calculated to raise enthusiasm in the heart of +the average British husband. I decided to wreck my virgin conception and send +him down somewhere off Cape Horn. +</p> + +<p> +Then the dinner-gong sounded. +</p> + +<p> +“Come up to my room afterwards,” said Frau Fischer. “There is +still much that I must ask you.” +</p> + +<p> +She squeezed my hand, but I did not squeeze back. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap05"></a>FRAU BRECHENMACHER ATTENDS A WEDDING</h2> + + +<p> +Getting ready was a terrible business. After supper Frau Brechenmacher packed +four of the five babies to bed, allowing Rosa to stay with her and help to +polish the buttons of Herr Brechenmacher’s uniform. Then she ran over his +best shirt with a hot iron, polished his boots, and put a stitch or two into +his black satin necktie. +</p> + +<p> +“Rosa,” she said, “fetch my dress and hang it in front of the +stove to get the creases out. Now, mind, you must look after the children and +not sit up later than half-past eight, and not touch the lamp—you know +what will happen if you do.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, Mamma,” said Rosa, who was nine and felt old enough to manage +a thousand lamps. “But let me stay up—the ‘Bub’ may +wake and want some milk.” +</p> + +<p> +“Half-past eight!” said the Frau. “I’ll make the father +tell you too.” +</p> + +<p> +Rosa drew down the corners of her mouth. +</p> + +<p> +“But... but....” +</p> + +<p> +“Here comes the father. You go into the bedroom and fetch my blue silk +handkerchief. You can wear my black shawl while I’m out—there +now!” +</p> + +<p> +Rosa dragged it off her mother’s shoulders and wound it carefully round +her own, tying the two ends in a knot at the back. After all, she reflected, if +she had to go to bed at half past eight she would keep the shawl on. Which +resolution comforted her absolutely. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, then, where are my clothes?” cried Herr Brechenmacher, +hanging his empty letter-bag behind the door and stamping the snow out of his +boots. “Nothing ready, of course, and everybody at the wedding by this +time. I heard the music as I passed. What are you doing? You’re not +dressed. You can’t go like that.” +</p> + +<p> +“Here they are—all ready for you on the table, and some warm water +in the tin basin. Dip your head in. Rosa, give your father the towel. +Everything ready except the trousers. I haven’t had time to shorten them. +You must tuck the ends into your boots until we get there.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nu,” said the Herr, “there isn’t room to turn. I want +the light. You go and dress in the passage.” +</p> + +<p> +Dressing in the dark was nothing to Frau Brechenmacher. She hooked her skirt +and bodice, fastened her handkerchief round her neck with a beautiful brooch +that had four medals to the Virgin dangling from it, and then drew on her cloak +and hood. +</p> + +<p> +“Here, come and fasten this buckle,” called Herr Brechenmacher. He +stood in the kitchen puffing himself out, the buttons on his blue uniform +shining with an enthusiasm which nothing but official buttons could possibly +possess. “How do I look?” +</p> + +<p> +“Wonderful,” replied the little Frau, straining at the waist buckle +and giving him a little pull here, a little tug there. “Rosa, come and +look at your father.” +</p> + +<p> +Herr Brechenmacher strode up and down the kitchen, was helped on with his coat, +then waited while the Frau lighted the lantern. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, then—finished at last! Come along.” +</p> + +<p> +“The lamp, Rosa,” warned the Frau, slamming the front door behind +them. +</p> + +<p> +Snow had not fallen all day; the frozen ground was slippery as an icepond. She +had not been out of the house for weeks past, and the day had so flurried her +that she felt muddled and stupid—felt that Rosa had pushed her out of the +house and her man was running away from her. +</p> + +<p> +“Wait, wait!” she cried. +</p> + +<p> +“No. I’ll get my feet damp—you hurry.” +</p> + +<p> +It was easier when they came into the village. There were fences to cling to, +and leading from the railway station to the Gasthaus a little path of cinders +had been strewn for the benefit of the wedding guests. +</p> + +<p> +The Gasthaus was very festive. Lights shone out from every window, wreaths of +fir twigs hung from the ledges. Branches decorated the front doors, which swung +open, and in the hall the landlord voiced his superiority by bullying the +waitresses, who ran about continually with glasses of beer, trays of cups and +saucers, and bottles of wine. +</p> + +<p> +“Up the stairs—up the stairs!” boomed the landlord. +“Leave your coats on the landing.” +</p> + +<p> +Herr Brechenmacher, completely overawed by this grand manner, so far forgot his +rights as a husband as to beg his wife’s pardon for jostling her against +the banisters in his efforts to get ahead of everybody else. +</p> + +<p> +Herr Brechenmacher’s colleagues greeted him with acclamation as he +entered the door of the Festsaal, and the Frau straightened her brooch and +folded her hands, assuming the air of dignity becoming to the wife of a postman +and the mother of five children. Beautiful indeed was the Festsaal. Three long +tables were grouped at one end, the remainder of the floor space cleared for +dancing. Oil lamps, hanging from the ceiling, shed a warm, bright light on the +walls decorated with paper flowers and garlands; shed a warmer, brighter light +on the red faces of the guests in their best clothes. +</p> + +<p> +At the head of the centre table sat the bride and bridegroom, she in a white +dress trimmed with stripes and bows of coloured ribbon, giving her the +appearance of an iced cake all ready to be cut and served in neat little pieces +to the bridegroom beside her, who wore a suit of white clothes much too large +for him and a white silk tie that rose halfway up his collar. Grouped about +them, with a fine regard for dignity and precedence, sat their parents and +relations; and perched on a stool at the bride’s right hand a little girl +in a crumpled muslin dress with a wreath of forget-me-nots hanging over one +ear. Everybody was laughing and talking, shaking hands, clinking glasses, +stamping on the floor—a stench of beer and perspiration filled the air. +</p> + +<p> +Frau Brechenmacher, following her man down the room after greeting the bridal +party, knew that she was going to enjoy herself. She seemed to fill out and +become rosy and warm as she sniffed that familiar festive smell. Somebody +pulled at her skirt, and, looking down, she saw Frau Rupp, the butcher’s +wife, who pulled out an empty chair and begged her to sit beside her. +</p> + +<p> +“Fritz will get you some beer,” she said. “My dear, your +skirt is open at the back. We could not help laughing as you walked up the room +with the white tape of your petticoat showing!” +</p> + +<p> +“But how frightful!” said Frau Brechenmacher, collapsing into her +chair and biting her lip. +</p> + +<p> +“Na, it’s over now,” said Frau Rupp, stretching her fat hands +over the table and regarding her three mourning rings with intense enjoyment; +“but one must be careful, especially at a wedding.” +</p> + +<p> +“And such a wedding as this,” cried Frau Ledermann, who sat on the +other side of Frau Brechenmacher. “Fancy Theresa bringing that child with +her. It’s her own child, you know, my dear, and it’s going to live +with them. That’s what I call a sin against the Church for a free-born +child to attend its own mother’s wedding.” +</p> + +<p> +The three women sat and stared at the bride, who remained very still, with a +little vacant smile on her lips, only her eyes shifting uneasily from side to +side. +</p> + +<p> +“Beer they’ve given it, too,” whispered Frau Rupp, “and +white wine and an ice. It never did have a stomach; she ought to have left it +at home.” +</p> + +<p> +Frau Brechenmacher turned round and looked towards the bride’s mother. +She never took her eyes off her daughter, but wrinkled her brown forehead like +an old monkey, and nodded now and again very solemnly. Her hands shook as she +raised her beer mug, and when she had drunk she spat on the floor and savagely +wiped her mouth with her sleeve. Then the music started and she followed +Theresa with her eyes, looking suspiciously at each man who danced with her. +</p> + +<p> +“Cheer up, old woman,” shouted her husband, digging her in the +ribs; “this isn’t Theresa’s funeral.” He winked at the +guests, who broke into loud laughter. +</p> + +<p> +“I <i>am</i> cheerful,” mumbled the old woman, and beat upon the +table with her fist, keeping time to the music, proving she was not out of the +festivities. +</p> + +<p> +“She can’t forget how wild Theresa has been,” said Frau +Ledermann. “Who could—with the child there? I heard that last +Sunday evening Theresa had hysterics and said that she would not marry this +man. They had to get the priest to her.” +</p> + +<p> +“Where is the other one?” asked Frau Brechenmacher. “Why +didn’t he marry her?” +</p> + +<p> +The woman shrugged her shoulders. +</p> + +<p> +“Gone—disappeared. He was a traveller, and only stayed at their +house two nights. He was selling shirt buttons—I bought some myself, and +they were beautiful shirt buttons—but what a pig of a fellow! I +can’t think what he saw in such a plain girl—but you never know. +Her mother says she’s been like fire ever since she was sixteen!” +</p> + +<p> +Frau Brechenmacher looked down at her beer and blew a little hole in the froth. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s not how a wedding should be,” she said; +“it’s not religion to love two men.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nice time she’ll have with this one,” Frau Rupp exclaimed. +“He was lodging with me last summer and I had to get rid of him. He never +changed his clothes once in two months, and when I spoke to him of the smell in +his room he told me he was sure it floated up from the shop. Ah, every wife has +her cross. Isn’t that true, my dear?” +</p> + +<p> +Frau Brechenmacher saw her husband among his colleagues at the next table. He +was drinking far too much, she knew—gesticulating wildly, the saliva +spluttering out of his mouth as he talked. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” she assented, “that’s true. Girls have a lot to +learn.” +</p> + +<p> +Wedged in between these two fat old women, the Frau had no hope of being asked +to dance. She watched the couples going round and round; she forgot her five +babies and her man and felt almost like a girl again. The music sounded sad and +sweet. Her roughened hands clasped and unclasped themselves in the folds of her +skirt. While the music went on she was afraid to look anybody in the face, and +she smiled with a little nervous tremor round the mouth. +</p> + +<p> +“But, my God,” Frau Rupp cried, “they’ve given that +child of Theresa’s a piece of sausage. It’s to keep her quiet. +There’s going to be a presentation now—your man has to +speak.” +</p> + +<p> +Frau Brechenmacher sat up stiffly. The music ceased, and the dancers took their +places again at the tables. +</p> + +<p> +Herr Brechenmacher alone remained standing—he held in his hands a big +silver coffee-pot. Everybody laughed at his speech, except the Frau; everybody +roared at his grimaces, and at the way he carried the coffee-pot to the bridal +pair, as if it were a baby he was holding. +</p> + +<p> +She lifted the lid, peeped in, then shut it down with a little scream and sat +biting her lips. The bridegroom wrenched the pot away from her and drew forth a +baby’s bottle and two little cradles holding china dolls. As he dandled +these treasures before Theresa the hot room seemed to heave and sway with +laughter. +</p> + +<p> +Frau Brechenmacher did not think it funny. She stared round at the laughing +faces, and suddenly they all seemed strange to her. She wanted to go home and +never come out again. She imagined that all these people were laughing at her, +more people than there were in the room even—all laughing at her because +they were so much stronger than she was. +</p> + +<hr /> + +<p> +They walked home in silence. Herr Brechenmacher strode ahead, she stumbled +after him. White and forsaken lay the road from the railway station to their +house—a cold rush of wind blew her hood from her face, and suddenly she +remembered how they had come home together the first night. Now they had five +babies and twice as much money; <i>but</i>— +</p> + +<p> +“Na, what is it all for?” she muttered, and not until she had +reached home, and prepared a little supper of meat and bread for her man did +she stop asking herself that silly question. +</p> + +<p> +Herr Brechenmacher broke the bread into his plate, smeared it round with his +fork and chewed greedily. +</p> + +<p> +“Good?” she asked, leaning her arms on the table and pillowing her +breast against them. +</p> + +<p> +“But fine!” +</p> + +<p> +He took a piece of the crumb, wiped it round his plate edge, and held it up to +her mouth. She shook her head. +</p> + +<p> +“Not hungry,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“But it is one of the best pieces, and full of the fat.” +</p> + +<p> +He cleared the plate; then pulled off his boots and flung them into a corner. +</p> + +<p> +“Not much of a wedding,” he said, stretching out his feet and +wriggling his toes in the worsted socks. +</p> + +<p> +“N—no,” she replied, taking up the discarded boots and +placing them on the oven to dry. +</p> + +<p> +Herr Brechenmacher yawned and stretched himself, and then looked up at her, +grinning. +</p> + +<p> +“Remember the night that we came home? You were an innocent one, you +were.” +</p> + +<p> +“Get along! Such a time ago I forget.” Well she remembered. +</p> + +<p> +“Such a clout on the ear as you gave me.... But I soon taught you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, don’t start talking. You’ve too much beer. Come to +bed.” +</p> + +<p> +He tilted back in his chair, chuckling with laughter. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s not what you said to me that night. God, the trouble you +gave me!” +</p> + +<p> +But the little Frau seized the candle and went into the next room. The children +were all soundly sleeping. She stripped the mattress off the baby’s bed +to see if he was still dry, then began unfastening her blouse and skirt. +</p> + +<p> +“Always the same,” she said—“all over the world the +same; but, God in heaven—but <i>stupid</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +Then even the memory of the wedding faded quite. She lay down on the bed and +put her arm across her face like a child who expected to be hurt as Herr +Brechenmacher lurched in. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap06"></a>THE MODERN SOUL</h2> + +<p> +“Good-evening,” said the Herr Professor, squeezing my hand; +“wonderful weather! I have just returned from a party in the wood. I have +been making music for them on my trombone. You know, these pine-trees provide +most suitable accompaniment for a trombone! They are sighing delicacy against +sustained strength, as I remarked once in a lecture on wind instruments in +Frankfort. May I be permitted to sit beside you on this bench, gnädige +Frau?” +</p> + +<p> +He sat down, tugging at a white-paper package in the tail pocket of his coat. +</p> + +<p> +“Cherries,” he said, nodding and smiling. “There is nothing +like cherries for producing free saliva after trombone playing, especially +after Grieg’s ‘Ich Liebe Dich.’ Those sustained blasts on +‘liebe’ make my throat as dry as a railway tunnel. Have +some?” He shook the bag at me. +</p> + +<p> +“I prefer watching you eat them.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, ha!” He crossed his legs, sticking the cherry bag between his +knees, to leave both hands free. “Psychologically I understood your +refusal. It is your innate feminine delicacy in preferring etherealised +sensations.... Or perhaps you do not care to eat the worms. All cherries +contain worms. Once I made a very interesting experiment with a colleague of +mine at the university. We bit into four pounds of the best cherries and did +not find one specimen without a worm. But what would you? As I remarked to him +afterwards—dear friend, it amounts to this: if one wishes to satisfy the +desires of nature one must be strong enough to ignore the facts of nature.... +The conversation is not out of your depth? I have so seldom the time or +opportunity to open my heart to a woman that I am apt to forget.” +</p> + +<p> +I looked at him brightly. +</p> + +<p> +“See what a fat one!” cried the Herr Professor. “That is +almost a mouthful in itself; it is beautiful enough to hang from a +watch-chain.” He chewed it up and spat the stone an incredible +distance—over the garden path into the flower bed. He was proud of the +feat. I saw it. “The quantity of fruit I have eaten on this bench,” +he sighed; “apricots, peaches and cherries. One day that garden bed will +become an orchard grove, and I shall allow you to pick as much as you please, +without paying me anything.” +</p> + +<p> +I was grateful, without showing undue excitement. +</p> + +<p> +“Which reminds me”—he hit the side of his nose with one +finger—“the manager of the pension handed me my weekly bill after +dinner this evening. It is almost impossible to credit. I do not expect you to +believe me—he has charged me extra for a miserable little glass of milk I +drink in bed at night to prevent insomnia. Naturally, I did not pay. But the +tragedy of the story is this: I cannot expect the milk to produce somnolence +any longer; my peaceful attitude of mind towards it is completely destroyed. I +know I shall throw myself into a fever in attempting to plumb this want of +generosity in so wealthy a man as the manager of a pension. Think of me +to-night”—he ground the empty bag under his heel—“think +that the worst is happening to me as your head drops asleep on your +pillow.” +</p> + +<p> +Two ladies came on the front steps of the pension and stood, arm in arm, +looking over the garden. The one, old and scraggy, dressed almost entirely in +black bead trimming and a satin reticule; the other, young and thin, in a white +gown, her yellow hair tastefully garnished with mauve sweet peas. +</p> + +<p> +The Professor drew in his feet and sat up sharply, pulling down his waistcoat. +</p> + +<p> +“The Godowskas,” he murmured. “Do you know them? A mother and +daughter from Vienna. The mother has an internal complaint and the daughter is +an actress. Fräulein Sonia is a very modern soul. I think you would find her +most sympathetic. She is forced to be in attendance on her mother just now. But +what a temperament! I have once described her in her autograph album as a +tigress with a flower in the hair. Will you excuse me? Perhaps I can persuade +them to be introduced to you.” +</p> + +<p> +I said, “I am going up to my room.” But the Professor rose and +shook a playful finger at me. “Na,” he said, “we are friends, +and, therefore, I shall speak quite frankly to you. I think they would consider +it a little ‘marked’ if you immediately retired to the house at +their approach, after sitting here alone with me in the twilight. You know this +world. Yes, you know it as I do.” +</p> + +<p> +I shrugged my shoulders, remarking with one eye that while the Professor had +been talking the Godowskas had trailed across the lawn towards us. They +confronted the Herr Professor as he stood up. +</p> + +<p> +“Good-evening,” quavered Frau Godowska. “Wonderful weather! +It has given me quite a touch of hay fever!” Fräulein Godowska said +nothing. She swooped over a rose growing in the embryo orchard, then stretched +out her hand with a magnificent gesture to the Herr Professor. He presented me. +</p> + +<p> +“This is my little English friend of whom I have spoken. She is the +stranger in our midst. We have been eating cherries together.” +</p> + +<p> +“How delightful,” sighed Frau Godowska. “My daughter and I +have often observed you through the bedroom window. Haven’t we, +Sonia?” +</p> + +<p> +Sonia absorbed my outward and visible form with an inward and spiritual glance, +then repeated the magnificent gesture for my benefit. The four of us sat on the +bench, with that faint air of excitement of passengers established in a railway +carriage on the qui vive for the train whistle. Frau Godowska sneezed. “I +wonder if it is hay fever,” she remarked, worrying the satin reticule for +her handkerchief, “or would it be the dew. Sonia, dear, is the dew +falling?” +</p> + +<p> +Fräulein Sonia raised her face to the sky, and half closed her eyes. “No, +mamma, my face is quite warm. Oh, look, Herr Professor, there are swallows in +flight; they are like a little flock of Japanese thoughts—nicht +wahr?” +</p> + +<p> +“Where?” cried the Herr Professor. “Oh yes, I see, by the +kitchen chimney. But why do you say ‘Japanese’? Could you not +compare them with equal veracity to a little flock of German thoughts in +flight?” He rounded on me. “Have you swallows in England?” +</p> + +<p> +“I believe there are some at certain seasons. But doubtless they have not +the same symbolical value for the English. In Germany—” +</p> + +<p> +“I have never been to England,” interrupted Fräulein Sonia, +“but I have many English acquaintances. They are so cold!” She +shivered. +</p> + +<p> +“Fish-blooded,” snapped Frau Godowska. “Without soul, without +heart, without grace. But you cannot equal their dress materials. I spent a +week in Brighton twenty years ago, and the travelling cape I bought there is +not yet worn out—the one you wrap the hot-water bottle in, Sonia. My +lamented husband, your father, Sonia, knew a great deal about England. But the +more he knew about it the oftener he remarked to me, ‘England is merely +an island of beef flesh swimming in a warm gulf sea of gravy.’ Such a +brilliant way of putting things. Do you remember, Sonia?” +</p> + +<p> +“I forget nothing, mamma,” answered Sonia. +</p> + +<p> +Said the Herr Professor: “That is the proof of your calling, gnädiges +Fräulein. Now I wonder—and this is a very interesting +speculation—is memory a blessing or—excuse the word—a +curse?” +</p> + +<p> +Frau Godowska looked into the distance, then the corners of her mouth dropped +and her skin puckered. She began to shed tears. +</p> + +<p> +“Ach Gott! Gracious lady, what have I said?” exclaimed the Herr +Professor. +</p> + +<p> +Sonia took her mother’s hand. “Do you know,” she said, +“to-night it is stewed carrots and nut tart for supper. Suppose we go in +and take our places,” her sidelong, tragic stare accusing the Professor +and me the while. +</p> + +<p> +I followed them across the lawn and up the steps. Frau Godowska was murmuring, +“Such a wonderful, beloved man”; with her disengaged hand Fräulein +Sonia was arranging the sweet-pea “garniture.” +</p> + +<hr /> + +<p> +“A concert for the benefit of afflicted Catholic infants will take place +in the salon at eight-thirty P.M. Artists: Fräulein Sonia Godowska, from +Vienna; Herr Professor Windberg and his trombone; Frau Oberlehrer Weidel, and +others.” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +This notice was tied round the neck of the melancholy stag’s head in the +dining-room. It graced him like a red and white “dinner bib” for +days before the event, causing the Herr Professor to bow before it and say +“good appetite” until we sickened of his pleasantry and left the +smiling to be done by the waiter, who was paid to be pleasing to the guests. +</p> + +<p> +On the appointed day the married ladies sailed about the pension dressed like +upholstered chairs, and the unmarried ladies like draped muslin dressing-table +covers. Frau Godowska pinned a rose in the centre of her reticule; another +blossom was tucked in the mazy folds of a white antimacassar thrown across her +breast. The gentlemen wore black coats, white silk ties and ferny buttonholes +tickling the chin. +</p> + +<p> +The floor of the salon was freshly polished, chairs and benches arranged, and a +row of little flags strung across the ceiling—they flew and jigged in the +draught with all the enthusiasm of family washing. It was arranged that I +should sit beside Frau Godowska, and that the Herr Professor and Sonia should +join us when their share of the concert was over. +</p> + +<p> +“That will make you feel quite one of the performers,” said the +Herr Professor genially. “It is a great pity that the English nation is +so unmusical. Never mind! To-night you shall hear something—we have +discovered a nest of talent during the rehearsals.” +</p> + +<p> +“What do you intend to recite, Fräulein Sonia?” +</p> + +<p> +She shook back her hair. “I never know until the last moment. When I come +on the stage I wait for one moment and then I have the sensation as though +something struck me here,”—she placed her hand upon her collar +brooch—“and... words come!” +</p> + +<p> +“Bend down a moment,” whispered her mother. “Sonia, love, +your skirt safety-pin is showing at the back. Shall I come outside and fasten +it properly for you, or will you do it yourself?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, mamma, please don’t say such things,” Sonia flushed and +grew very angry. “You know how sensitive I am to the slightest +unsympathetic impression at a time like this.... I would rather my skirt +dropped off my body—” +</p> + +<p> +“Sonia—my heart!” +</p> + +<p> +A bell tinkled. +</p> + +<p> +The waiter came in and opened the piano. In the heated excitement of the moment +he entirely forgot what was fitting, and flicked the keys with the grimy table +napkin he carried over his arm. The Frau Oberlehrer tripped on the platform +followed by a very young gentleman, who blew his nose twice before he hurled +his handkerchief into the bosom of the piano. +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“Yes, I know you have no love for me,<br/> +And no forget-me-not.<br/> +No love, no heart, and no forget-me-not.” +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +sang the Frau Oberlehrer, in a voice that seemed to issue from her forgotten +thimble and have nothing to do with her. +</p> + +<p> +“Ach, how sweet, how delicate,” we cried, clapping her soothingly. +She bowed as though to say, “Yes, isn’t it?” and retired, the +very young gentleman dodging her train and scowling. +</p> + +<p> +The piano was closed, an arm-chair was placed in the centre of the platform. +Fräulein Sonia drifted towards it. A breathless pause. Then, presumably, the +winged shaft struck her collar brooch. She implored us not to go into the woods +in trained dresses, but rather as lightly draped as possible, and bed with her +among the pine needles. Her loud, slightly harsh voice filled the salon. She +dropped her arms over the back of the chair, moving her lean hands from the +wrists. We were thrilled and silent. The Herr Professor, beside me, abnormally +serious, his eyes bulging, pulled at his moustache ends. Frau Godowska adopted +that peculiarly detached attitude of the proud parent. The only soul who +remained untouched by her appeal was the waiter, who leaned idly against the +wall of the salon and cleaned his nails with the edge of a programme. He was +“off duty” and intended to show it. +</p> + +<p> +“What did I say?” shouted the Herr Professor under cover of +tumultuous applause, “tem-per-ament! There you have it. She is a flame in +the heart of a lily. I know I am going to play well. It is my turn now. I am +inspired. Fräulein Sonia”—as that lady returned to us, pale and +draped in a large shawl—“you are my inspiration. To-night you shall +be the soul of my trombone. Wait only.” +</p> + +<p> +To right and left of us people bent over and whispered admiration down Fräulein +Sonia’s neck. She bowed in the grand style. +</p> + +<p> +“I am always successful,” she said to me. “You see, when I +act <i>I am</i>. In Vienna, in the plays of Ibsen we had so many bouquets that +the cook had three in the kitchen. But it is difficult here. There is so little +magic. Do you not feel it? There is none of that mysterious perfume which +floats almost as a visible thing from the souls of the Viennese audiences. My +spirit starves for want of that.” She leaned forward, chin on hand. +“Starves,” she repeated. +</p> + +<p> +The Professor appeared with his trombone, blew into it, held it up to one eye, +tucked back his shirt cuffs and wallowed in the soul of Sonia Godowska. Such a +sensation did he create that he was recalled to play a Bavarian dance, which he +acknowledged was to be taken as a breathing exercise rather than an artistic +achievement. Frau Godowska kept time to it with a fan. +</p> + +<p> +Followed the very young gentleman who piped in a tenor voice that he loved +somebody, “with blood in his heart and a thousand pains.” Fräulein +Sonia acted a poison scene with the assistance of her mother’s pill vial +and the arm-chair replaced by a “chaise longue”; a young girl +scratched a lullaby on a young fiddle; and the Herr Professor performed the +last sacrificial rites on the altar of the afflicted children by playing the +National Anthem. +</p> + +<p> +“Now I must put mamma to bed,” whispered Fräulein Sonia. “But +afterwards I must take a walk. It is imperative that I free my spirit in the +open air for a moment. Would you come with me as far as the railway station and +back?” +</p> + +<p> +“Very well, then, knock on my door when you’re ready.” +</p> + +<p> +Thus the modern soul and I found ourselves together under the stars. +</p> + +<p> +“What a night!” she said. “Do you know that poem of Sappho +about her hands in the stars.... I am curiously sapphic. And this is so +remarkable—not only am I sapphic, I find in all the works of all the +greatest writers, especially in their unedited letters, some touch, some sign +of myself—some resemblance, some part of myself, like a thousand +reflections of my own hands in a dark mirror.” +</p> + +<p> +“But what a bother,” said I. +</p> + +<p> +“I do not know what you mean by ‘bother’; is it rather the +curse of my genius....” She paused suddenly, staring at me. “Do you +know my tragedy?” she asked. +</p> + +<p> +I shook my head. +</p> + +<p> +“My tragedy is my mother. Living with her I live with the coffin of my +unborn aspirations. You heard that about the safety-pin to-night. It may seem +to you a little thing, but it ruined my three first gestures. They +were—” +</p> + +<p> +“Impaled on a safety-pin,” I suggested. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, exactly that. And when we are in Vienna I am the victim of moods, +you know. I long to do wild, passionate things. And mamma says, ‘Please +pour out my mixture first.’ Once I remember I flew into a rage and threw +a washstand jug out of the window. Do you know what she said? ‘Sonia, it +is not so much throwing things out of windows, if only you +would—’” +</p> + +<p> +“Choose something smaller?” said I. +</p> + +<p> +“No... ‘tell me about it beforehand.’ Humiliating! And I do +not see any possible light out of this darkness.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why don’t you join a touring company and leave your mother in +Vienna?” +</p> + +<p> +“What! Leave my poor, little, sick, widowed mother in Vienna! Sooner than +that I would drown myself. I love my mother as I love nobody else in the +world—nobody and nothing! Do you think it is impossible to love +one’s tragedy? ‘Out of my great sorrows I make my little +songs,’ that is Heine or myself.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, well, that’s all right,” I said cheerfully. +</p> + +<p> +“But it is not all right!” +</p> + +<p> +I suggested we should turn back. We turned. +</p> + +<p> +“Sometimes I think the solution lies in marriage,” said Fräulein +Sonia. “If I find a simple, peaceful man who adores me and will look +after mamma—a man who would be for me a pillow—for genius cannot +hope to mate—I shall marry him.... You know the Herr Professor has paid +me very marked attentions.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Fräulein Sonia,” I said, very pleased with myself, “why +not marry him to your mother?” We were passing the hairdresser’s +shop at the moment. Fräulein Sonia clutched my arm. +</p> + +<p> +“You, you,” she stammered. “The cruelty. I am going to faint. +Mamma to marry again before I marry—the indignity. I am going to faint +here and now.” +</p> + +<p> +I was frightened. “You can’t,” I said, shaking her. +</p> + +<p> +“Come back to the pension and faint as much as you please. But you +can’t faint here. All the shops are closed. There is nobody about. Please +don’t be so foolish.” +</p> + +<p> +“Here and here only!” She indicated the exact spot and dropped +quite beautifully, lying motionless. +</p> + +<p> +“Very well,” I said, “faint away; but please hurry over +it.” +</p> + +<p> +She did not move. I began to walk home, but each time I looked behind me I saw +the dark form of the modern soul prone before the hairdresser’s window. +Finally I ran, and rooted out the Herr Professor from his room. “Fräulein +Sonia has fainted,” I said crossly. +</p> + +<p> +“Du lieber Gott! Where? How?” +</p> + +<p> +“Outside the hairdresser’s shop in the Station Road.” +</p> + +<p> +“Jesus and Maria! Has she no water with her?”—he seized his +carafe—“nobody beside her?” +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing.” +</p> + +<p> +“Where is my coat? No matter, I shall catch a cold on the chest. +Willingly, I shall catch one.... You are ready to come with me?” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” I said; “you can take the waiter.” +</p> + +<p> +“But she must have a woman. I cannot be so indelicate as to attempt to +loosen her stays.” +</p> + +<p> +“Modern souls oughtn’t to wear them,” said I. He pushed past +me and clattered down the stairs. +</p> + +<hr /> + +<p> +When I came down to breakfast next morning there were two places vacant at +table. Fräulein Sonia and Herr Professor had gone off for a day’s +excursion in the woods. +</p> + +<p> +I wondered. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap07"></a>AT “LEHMANN’S”</h2> + +<p> +Certainly Sabina did not find life slow. She was on the trot from early morning +until late at night. At five o’clock she tumbled out of bed, buttoned on +her clothes, wearing a long-sleeved alpaca pinafore over her black frock, and +groped her way downstairs into the kitchen. +</p> + +<p> +Anna, the cook, had grown so fat during the summer that she adored her bed +because she did not have to wear her corsets there, but could spread as much as +she liked, roll about under the great mattress, calling upon Jesus and Holy +Mary and Blessed Anthony himself that her life was not fit for a pig in a +cellar. +</p> + +<p> +Sabina was new to her work. Pink colour still flew in her cheeks; there was a +little dimple on the left side of her mouth that even when she was most +serious, most absorbed, popped out and gave her away. And Anna blessed that +dimple. It meant an extra half-hour in bed for her; it made Sabina light the +fire, turn out the kitchen and wash endless cups and saucers that had been left +over from the evening before. Hans, the scullery boy, did not come until seven. +He was the son of the butcher—a mean, undersized child very much like one +of his father’s sausages, Sabina thought. His red face was covered with +pimples, and his nails indescribably filthy. When Herr Lehmann himself told +Hans to get a hairpin and clean them he said they were stained from birth +because his mother had always got so inky doing the accounts—and Sabina +believed him and pitied him. +</p> + +<p> +Winter had come very early to Mindelbau. By the end of October the streets were +banked waist-high with snow, and the greater number of the “Cure +Guests,” sick unto death of cold water and herbs, had departed in nothing +approaching peace. So the large salon was shut at Lehmann’s and the +breakfast-room was all the accommodation the café afforded. Here the floor had +to be washed over, the tables rubbed, coffee-cups set out, each with its little +china platter of sugar, and newspapers and magazines hung on their hooks along +the walls before Herr Lehmann appeared at seven-thirty and opened business. +</p> + +<p> +As a rule his wife served in the shop leading into the café, but she had chosen +the quiet season to have a baby, and, a big woman at the best of times, she had +grown so enormous in the process that her husband told her she looked +unappetising, and had better remain upstairs and sew. +</p> + +<p> +Sabina took on the extra work without any thought of extra pay. She loved to +stand behind the counter, cutting up slices of Anna’s marvellous +chocolate-spotted confections, or doing up packets of sugar almonds in pink and +blue striped bags. +</p> + +<p> +“You’ll get varicose veins, like me,” said Anna. +“That’s what the Frau’s got, too. No wonder the baby +doesn’t come! All her swelling’s got into her legs.” And Hans +was immensely interested. +</p> + +<p> +During the morning business was comparatively slack. Sabina answered the shop +bell, attended to a few customers who drank a liqueur to warm their stomachs +before the midday meal, and ran upstairs now and again to ask the Frau if she +wanted anything. But in the afternoon six or seven choice spirits played cards, +and everybody who was anybody drank tea or coffee. +</p> + +<p> +“Sabina... Sabina....” +</p> + +<p> +She flew from one table to the other, counting out handfuls of small change, +giving orders to Anna through the “slide,” helping the men with +their heavy coats, always with that magical child air about her, that +delightful sense of perpetually attending a party. +</p> + +<p> +“How is the Frau Lehmann?” the women would whisper. +</p> + +<p> +“She feels rather low, but as well as can be expected,” Sabina +would answer, nodding confidentially. +</p> + +<p> +Frau Lehmann’s bad time was approaching. Anna and her friends referred to +it as her “journey to Rome,” and Sabina longed to ask questions, +yet, being ashamed of her ignorance, was silent, trying to puzzle it out for +herself. She knew practically nothing except that the Frau had a baby inside +her, which had to come out—very painful indeed. One could not have one +without a husband—that she also realised. But what had the man got to do +with it? So she wondered as she sat mending tea towels in the evening, head +bent over her work, light shining on her brown curls. Birth—what was it? +wondered Sabina. Death—such a simple thing. She had a little picture of +her dead grandmother dressed in a black silk frock, tired hands clasping the +crucifix that dragged between her flattened breasts, mouth curiously tight, yet +almost secretly smiling. But the grandmother had been born once—that was +the important fact. +</p> + +<p> +As she sat there one evening, thinking, the Young Man entered the café, and +called for a glass of port wine. Sabina rose slowly. The long day and the hot +room made her feel a little languid, but as she poured out the wine she felt +the Young Man’s eyes fixed on her, looked down at him and dimpled. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s cold out,” she said, corking the bottle. +</p> + +<p> +The Young Man ran his hands through his snow-powdered hair and laughed. +</p> + +<p> +“I wouldn’t call it exactly tropical,” he said. “But +you’re very snug in here—look as though you’ve been +asleep.” +</p> + +<p> +Very languid felt Sabina in the hot room, and the Young Man’s voice was +strong and deep. She thought she had never seen anybody who looked so +strong—as though he could take up the table in one hand—and his +restless gaze wandering over her face and figure gave her a curious thrill deep +in her body, half pleasure, half pain.... She wanted to stand there, close +beside him, while he drank his wine. A little silence followed. Then he took a +book out of his pocket, and Sabina went back to her sewing. Sitting there in +the corner, she listened to the sound of the leaves being turned and the loud +ticking of the clock that hung over the gilt mirror. She wanted to look at him +again—there was a something about him, in his deep voice, even in the way +his clothes fitted. From the room above she heard the heavy dragging sound of +Frau Lehmann’s footsteps, and again the old thoughts worried Sabina. If +she herself should one day look like that—feel like that! Yet it would be +very sweet to have a little baby to dress and jump up and down. +</p> + +<p> +“Fräulein—what’s your name—what are you smiling +at?” called the Young Man. +</p> + +<p> +She blushed and looked up, hands quiet in her lap, looked across the empty +tables and shook her head. +</p> + +<p> +“Come here, and I’ll show you a picture,” he commanded. +</p> + +<p> +She went and stood beside him. He opened the book, and Sabina saw a coloured +sketch of a naked girl sitting on the edge of a great, crumpled bed, a +man’s opera hat on the back of her head. +</p> + +<p> +He put his hand over the body, leaving only the face exposed, then scrutinised +Sabina closely. +</p> + +<p> +“Well?” +</p> + +<p> +“What do you mean?” she asked, knowing perfectly well. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, it might be your own photograph—the face, I +mean—that’s as far as I can judge.” +</p> + +<p> +“But the hair’s done differently,” said Sabina, laughing. She +threw back her head, and the laughter bubbled in her round white throat. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s rather a nice picture, don’t you think?” he +asked. But she was looking at a curious ring he wore on the hand that covered +the girl’s body, and only nodded. +</p> + +<p> +“Ever seen anything like it before?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, there’s plenty of those funny ones in the illustrated +papers.” +</p> + +<p> +“How would you like to have your picture taken that way?” +</p> + +<p> +“Me? I’d never let anybody see it. Besides, I haven’t got a +hat like that!” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s easily remedied.” +</p> + +<p> +Again a little silence, broken by Anna throwing up the slide. +</p> + +<p> +Sabina ran into the kitchen. +</p> + +<p> +“Here, take this milk and egg up to the Frau,” said Anna. +“Who’ve you got in there?” +</p> + +<p> +“Got such a funny man! I think he’s a little gone here,” +tapping her forehead. +</p> + +<p> +Upstairs in the ugly room the Frau sat sewing, a black shawl round her +shoulders, her feet encased in red woollen slippers. The girl put the milk on a +table by her, then stood, polishing a spoon on her apron. +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing else?” +</p> + +<p> +“Na,” said the Frau, heaving up in her chair. “Where’s +my man?” +</p> + +<p> +“He’s playing cards over at Snipold’s. Do you want +him?” +</p> + +<p> +“Dear heaven, leave him alone. I’m nothing. I don’t +matter.... And the whole day waiting here.” +</p> + +<p> +Her hand shook as she wiped the rim of the glass with her fat finger. +</p> + +<p> +“Shall I help you to bed?” +</p> + +<p> +“You go downstairs, leave me alone. Tell Anna not to let Hans grub the +sugar—give him one on the ear.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ugly—ugly—ugly,” muttered Sabina, returning to the +café where the Young Man stood coat-buttoned, ready for departure. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll come again to-morrow,” said he. “Don’t +twist your hair back so tightly; it will lose all its curl.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, you are a funny one,” she said. “Good-night.” +</p> + +<p> +By the time Sabina was ready for bed Anna was snoring. She brushed out her long +hair and gathered it in her hands.... Perhaps it would be a pity if it lost all +its curl. Then she looked down at her straight chemise, and drawing it off, sat +down on the side of the bed. +</p> + +<p> +“I wish,” she whispered, smiling sleepily, “there was a great +big looking-glass in this room.” +</p> + +<p> +Lying down in the darkness, she hugged her little body. +</p> + +<p> +“I wouldn’t be the Frau for one hundred marks—not for a +thousand marks. To look like that.” +</p> + +<p> +And half-dreaming, she imagined herself heaving up in her chair with the port +wine bottle in her hand as the Young Man entered the café. +</p> + +<p> +Cold and dark the next morning. Sabina woke, tired, feeling as though something +heavy had been pressing under her heart all night. There was a sound of +footsteps shuffling along the passage. Herr Lehmann! She must have overslept +herself. Yes, he was rattling the door-handle. +</p> + +<p> +“One moment, one moment,” she called, dragging on her stockings. +</p> + +<p> +“Bina, tell Anna to go to the Frau—but quickly. I must ride for the +nurse.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, yes!” she cried. “Has it come?” +</p> + +<p> +But he had gone, and she ran over to Anna and shook her by the shoulder. +</p> + +<p> +“The Frau—the baby—Herr Lehmann for the nurse,” she +stuttered. +</p> + +<p> +“Name of God!” said Anna, flinging herself out of bed. +</p> + +<p> +No complaints to-day. Importance—enthusiasm in Anna’s whole +bearing. +</p> + +<p> +“You run downstairs and light the oven. Put on a pan of +water”—speaking to an imaginary sufferer as she fastened her +blouse—“Yes, yes, I know—we must be worse before we are +better—I’m coming—patience.” +</p> + +<p> +It was dark all that day. Lights were turned on immediately the café opened, +and business was very brisk. Anna, turned out of the Frau’s room by the +nurse, refused to work, and sat in a corner nursing herself, listening to +sounds overhead. Hans was more sympathetic than Sabina. He also forsook work, +and stood by the window, picking his nose. +</p> + +<p> +“But why must I do everything?” said Sabina, washing glasses. +“I can’t help the Frau; she oughtn’t to take such a time +about it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Listen,” said Anna, “they’ve moved her into the back +bedroom above here, so as not to disturb the people. That was a +groan—that one!” +</p> + +<p> +“Two small beers,” shouted Herr Lehmann through the slide. +</p> + +<p> +“One moment, one moment.” +</p> + +<p> +At eight o’clock the café was deserted. Sabina sat down in the corner +without her sewing. Nothing seemed to have happened to the Frau. A doctor had +come—that was all. +</p> + +<p> +“Ach,” said Sabina. “I think no more of it. I listen no more. +Ach, I would like to go away—I hate this talk. I will not hear it. No, it +is too much.” She leaned both elbows on the table—cupped her face +in her hands and pouted. +</p> + +<p> +But the outer door suddenly opening, she sprang to her feet and laughed. It was +the Young Man again. He ordered more port, and brought no book this time. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t go and sit miles away,” he grumbled. “I want to +be amused. And here, take my coat. Can’t you dry it +somewhere?—snowing again.” +</p> + +<p> +“There’s a warm place—the ladies’ cloak-room,” +she said. “I’ll take it in there—just by the kitchen.” +</p> + +<p> +She felt better, and quite happy again. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll come with you,” he said. “I’ll see where +you put it.” +</p> + +<p> +And that did not seem at all extraordinary. She laughed and beckoned to him. +</p> + +<p> +“In here,” she cried. “Feel how warm. I’ll put more +wood on that oven. It doesn’t matter, they’re all busy +upstairs.” +</p> + +<p> +She knelt down on the floor, and thrust the wood into the oven, laughing at her +own wicked extravagance. +</p> + +<p> +The Frau was forgotten, the stupid day was forgotten. Here was someone beside +her laughing, too. They were together in the little warm room stealing Herr +Lehmann’s wood. It seemed the most exciting adventure in the world. She +wanted to go on laughing—or burst out +crying—or—or—catch hold of the Young Man. +</p> + +<p> +“What a fire,” she shrieked, stretching out her hands. +</p> + +<p> +“Here’s a hand; pull up,” said the Young Man. “There, +now, you’ll catch it to-morrow.” +</p> + +<p> +They stood opposite to each other, hands still clinging. And again that strange +tremor thrilled Sabina. +</p> + +<p> +“Look here,” he said roughly, “are you a child, or are you +playing at being one?” +</p> + +<p> +“I—I—” +</p> + +<p> +Laughter ceased. She looked up at him once, then down at the floor, and began +breathing like a frightened little animal. +</p> + +<p> +He pulled her closer still and kissed her mouth. +</p> + +<p> +“Na, what are you doing?” she whispered. +</p> + +<p> +He let go her hands, he placed his on her breasts, and the room seemed to swim +round Sabina. Suddenly, from the room above, a frightful, tearing shriek. +</p> + +<p> +She wrenched herself away, tightened herself, drew herself up. +</p> + +<p> +“Who did that—who made that noise?” +</p> + +<hr /> + +<p> +In the silence the thin wailing of a baby. +</p> + +<p> +“Achk!” shrieked Sabina, rushing from the room. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap08"></a>THE LUFT BAD</h2> + +<p> +I think it must be the umbrellas which make us look ridiculous. +</p> + +<p> +When I was admitted into the enclosure for the first time, and saw my +fellow-bathers walking about very nearly “in their nakeds,” it +struck me that the umbrellas gave a distinctly “Little Black Sambo” +touch. +</p> + +<p> +Ridiculous dignity in holding over yourself a green cotton thing with a red +parroquet handle when you are dressed in nothing larger than a handkerchief. +</p> + +<p> +There are no trees in the “Luft Bad.” It boasts a collection of +plain, wooden cells, a bath shelter, two swings and two odd clubs—one, +presumably the lost property of Hercules or the German army, and the other to +be used with safety in the cradle. +</p> + +<p> +And there in all weathers we take the air—walking, or sitting in little +companies talking over each other’s ailments and measurements and ills +that flesh is heir to. +</p> + +<p> +A high wooden wall compasses us all about; above it the pine-trees look down a +little superciliously, nudging each other in a way that is peculiarly trying to +a <i>débutante</i>. Over the wall, on the right side, is the men’s +section. We hear them chopping down trees and sawing through planks, dashing +heavy weights to the ground, and singing part songs. Yes, they take it far more +seriously. +</p> + +<p> +On the first day I was conscious of my legs, and went back into my cell three +times to look at my watch, but when a woman with whom I had played chess for +three weeks cut me dead, I took heart and joined a circle. +</p> + +<p> +We lay curled on the ground while a Hungarian lady of immense proportions told +us what a beautiful tomb she had bought for her second husband. +</p> + +<p> +“A vault it is,” she said, “with nice black railings. And so +large that I can go down there and walk about. Both their photographs are +there, with two very handsome wreaths sent me by my first husband’s +brother. There is an enlargement of a family group photograph, too, and an +illuminated address presented to my first husband on his marriage. I am often +there; it makes such a pleasant excursion for a fine Saturday afternoon.” +</p> + +<p> +She suddenly lay down flat on her back, took in six long breaths, and sat up +again. +</p> + +<p> +“The death agony was dreadful,” she said brightly; “of the +second, I mean. The ‘first’ was run into by a furniture wagon, and +had fifty marks stolen out of a new waistcoat pocket, but the +‘second’ was dying for sixty-seven hours. I never ceased crying +once—not even to put the children to bed.” +</p> + +<p> +A young Russian, with a “bang” curl on her forehead, turned to me. +</p> + +<p> +“Can you do the ‘Salome’ dance?” she asked. “I +can.” +</p> + +<p> +“How delightful,” I said. +</p> + +<p> +“Shall I do it now? Would you like to see me?” +</p> + +<p> +She sprang to her feet, executed a series of amazing contortions for the next +ten minutes, and then paused, panting, twisting her long hair. +</p> + +<p> +“Isn’t that nice?” she said. “And now I am perspiring +so splendidly. I shall go and take a bath.” +</p> + +<p> +Opposite to me was the brownest woman I have ever seen, lying on her back, her +arms clasped over her head. +</p> + +<p> +“How long have you been here to-day?” she was asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I spend the day here now,” she answered. “I am making my +own ‘cure,’ and living entirely on raw vegetables and nuts, and +each day I feel my spirit is stronger and purer. After all, what can you +expect? The majority of us are walking about with pig corpuscles and oxen +fragments in our brain. The wonder is the world is as good as it is. Now I live +on the simple, provided food”—she pointed to a little bag beside +her—“a lettuce, a carrot, a potato, and some nuts are ample, +rational nourishment. I wash them under the tap and eat them raw, just as they +come from the harmless earth—fresh and uncontaminated.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you take nothing else all day?” I cried. +</p> + +<p> +“Water. And perhaps a banana if I wake in the night.” She turned +round and leaned on one elbow. “You over-eat yourself dreadfully,” +she said; “shamelessly! How can you expect the Flame of the Spirit to +burn brightly under layers of superfluous flesh?” +</p> + +<p> +I wished she would not stare at me, and thought of going to look at my watch +again when a little girl wearing a string of coral beads joined us. +</p> + +<p> +“The poor Frau Hauptmann cannot join us to-day,” she said; +“she has come out in spots all over on account of her nerves. She was +very excited yesterday after having written two post-cards.” +</p> + +<p> +“A delicate woman,” volunteered the Hungarian, “but pleasant. +Fancy, she has a separate plate for each of her front teeth! But she has no +right to let her daughters wear such short sailor suits. They sit about on +benches, crossing their legs in a most shameless manner. What are you going to +do this afternoon, Fräulein Anna?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh,” said the Coral Necklace, “the Herr Oberleutnant has +asked me to go with him to Landsdorf. He must buy some eggs there to take home +to his mother. He saves a penny on eight eggs by knowing the right peasants to +bargain with.” +</p> + +<p> +“Are you an American?” said the Vegetable Lady, turning to me. +</p> + +<p> +“No.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then you are an Englishwoman?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, hardly—” +</p> + +<p> +“You must be one of the two; you cannot help it. I have seen you walking +alone several times. You wear your—” +</p> + +<p> +I got up and climbed on to the swing. The air was sweet and cool, rushing past +my body. Above, white clouds trailed delicately through the blue sky. From the +pine forest streamed a wild perfume, the branches swayed together, +rhythmically, sonorously. I felt so light and free and happy—so childish! +I wanted to poke my tongue out at the circle on the grass, who, drawing close +together, were whispering meaningly. +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps you do not know,” cried a voice from one of the cells, +“to swing is very upsetting for the stomach? A friend of mine could keep +nothing down for three weeks after exciting herself so.” +</p> + +<p> +I went to the bath shelter and was hosed. +</p> + +<p> +As I dressed, someone tapped on the wall. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you know,” said a voice, “there is a man who <i>lives</i> +in the Luft Bad next door? He buries himself up to the armpits in mud and +refuses to believe in the Trinity.” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +The umbrellas are the saving grace of the Luft Bad. Now when I go, I take my +husband’s “storm gamp” and sit in a corner, hiding behind it. +</p> + +<p> +Not that I am in the least ashamed of my legs. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap09"></a>A BIRTHDAY</h2> + +<p> +Andreas Binzer woke slowly. He turned over on the narrow bed and stretched +himself—yawned—opening his mouth as widely as possible and bringing +his teeth together afterwards with a sharp “click.” The sound of +that click fascinated him; he repeated it quickly several times, with a +snapping movement of the jaws. What teeth! he thought. Sound as a bell, every +man jack of them. Never had one out, never had one stopped. That comes of no +tomfoolery in eating, and a good regular brushing night and morning. He raised +himself on his left elbow and waved his right arm over the side of the bed to +feel for the chair where he put his watch and chain overnight. No chair was +there—of course, he’d forgotten, there wasn’t a chair in this +wretched spare room. Had to put the confounded thing under his pillow. +“Half-past eight, Sunday, breakfast at nine—time for the +bath”—his brain ticked to the watch. He sprang out of bed and went +over to the window. The venetian blind was broken, hung fan-shaped over the +upper pane.... “That blind must be mended. I’ll get the office boy +to drop in and fix it on his way home to-morrow—he’s a good hand at +blinds. Give him twopence and he’ll do it as well as a carpenter.... Anna +could do it herself if she was all right. So would I, for the matter of that, +but I don’t like to trust myself on rickety step-ladders.” He +looked up at the sky: it shone, strangely white, unflecked with cloud; he +looked down at the row of garden strips and backyards. The fence of these +gardens was built along the edge of a gully, spanned by an iron suspension +bridge, and the people had a wretched habit of throwing their empty tins over +the fence into the gully. Just like them, of course! Andreas started counting +the tins, and decided, viciously, to write a letter to the papers about it and +sign it—sign it in full. +</p> + +<p> +The servant girl came out of their back door into the yard, carrying his boots. +She threw one down on the ground, thrust her hand into the other, and stared at +it, sucking in her cheeks. Suddenly she bent forward, spat on the toecap, and +started polishing with a brush rooted out of her apron pocket.... “Slut +of a girl! Heaven knows what infectious disease may be breeding now in that +boot. Anna must get rid of that girl—even if she has to do without one +for a bit—as soon as she’s up and about again. The way she chucked +one boot down and then spat upon the other! She didn’t care whose boots +she’d got hold of. <i>She</i> had no false notions of the respect due to +the master of the house.” He turned away from the window and switched his +bath towel from the washstand rail, sick at heart. “I’m too +sensitive for a man—that’s what’s the matter with me. Have +been from the beginning, and will be to the end.” +</p> + +<p> +There was a gentle knock at the door and his mother came in. She closed the +door after her and leant against it. Andreas noticed that her cap was crooked, +and a long tail of hair hung over her shoulder. He went forward and kissed her. +</p> + +<p> +“Good-morning, mother; how’s Anna?” +</p> + +<p> +The old woman spoke quickly, clasping and unclasping her hands. +</p> + +<p> +“Andreas, please go to Doctor Erb as soon as you are dressed.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why,” he said, “is she bad?” +</p> + +<p> +Frau Binzer nodded, and Andreas, watching her, saw her face suddenly change; a +fine network of wrinkles seemed to pull over it from under the skin surface. +</p> + +<p> +“Sit down on the bed a moment,” he said. “Been up all +night?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. No, I won’t sit down, I must go back to her. Anna has been in +pain all night. She wouldn’t have you disturbed before because she said +you looked so run down yesterday. You told her you had caught a cold and been +very worried.” +</p> + +<p> +Straightway Andreas felt that he was being accused. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, she made me tell her, worried it out of me; you know the way she +does.” +</p> + +<p> +Again Frau Binzer nodded. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes, I know. She says, is your cold better, and there’s a warm +undervest for you in the left-hand corner of the big drawer.” +</p> + +<p> +Quite automatically Andreas cleared his throat twice. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” he answered. “Tell her my throat certainly feels +looser. I suppose I’d better not disturb her?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, and besides, <i>time</i>, Andreas.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll be ready in five minutes.” +</p> + +<p> +They went into the passage. As Frau Binzer opened the door of the front +bedroom, a long wail came from the room. +</p> + +<p> +That shocked and terrified Andreas. He dashed into the bathroom, turned on both +taps as far as they would go, cleaned his teeth and pared his nails while the +water was running. +</p> + +<p> +“Frightful business, frightful business,” he heard himself +whispering. “And I can’t understand it. It isn’t as though it +were her first—it’s her third. Old Schäfer told me, yesterday, his +wife simply ‘dropped’ her fourth. Anna ought to have had a +qualified nurse. Mother gives way to her. Mother spoils her. I wonder what she +meant by saying I’d worried Anna yesterday. Nice remark to make to a +husband at a time like this. Unstrung, I suppose—and my sensitiveness +again.” +</p> + +<p> +When he went into the kitchen for his boots, the servant girl was bent over the +stove, cooking breakfast. “Breathing into that, now, I suppose,” +thought Andreas, and was very short with the servant girl. She did not notice. +She was full of terrified joy and importance in the goings on upstairs. She +felt she was learning the secrets of life with every breath she drew. Had laid +the table that morning saying, “Boy,” as she put down the first +dish, “Girl,” as she placed the second—it had worked out with +the saltspoon to “Boy.” “For two pins I’d tell the +master that, to comfort him, like,” she decided. But the master gave her +no opening. +</p> + +<p> +“Put an extra cup and saucer on the table,” he said; “the +doctor may want some coffee.” +</p> + +<p> +“The doctor, sir?” The servant girl whipped a spoon out of a pan, +and spilt two drops of grease on the stove. “Shall I fry something +extra?” But the master had gone, slamming the door after him. He walked +down the street—there was nobody about at all—dead and alive this +place on a Sunday morning. As he crossed the suspension bridge a strong stench +of fennel and decayed refuse streamed from the gulley, and again Andreas began +concocting a letter. He turned into the main road. The shutters were still up +before the shops. Scraps of newspaper, hay, and fruit skins strewed the +pavement; the gutters were choked with the leavings of Saturday night. Two dogs +sprawled in the middle of the road, scuffling and biting. Only the public-house +at the corner was open; a young barman slopped water over the doorstep. +</p> + +<p> +Fastidiously, his lips curling, Andreas picked his way through the water. +“Extraordinary how I am noticing things this morning. It’s partly +the effect of Sunday. I loathe a Sunday when Anna’s tied by the leg and +the children are away. On Sunday a man has the right to expect his family. +Everything here’s filthy, the whole place might be down with the plague, +and will be, too, if this street’s not swept away. I’d like to have +a hand on the government ropes.” He braced his shoulders. “Now for +this doctor.” +</p> + +<p> +“Doctor Erb is at breakfast,” the maid informed him. She showed him +into the waiting-room, a dark and musty place, with some ferns under a +glass-case by the window. “He says he won’t be a minute, please, +sir, and there is a paper on the table.” +</p> + +<p> +“Unhealthy hole,” thought Binzer, walking over to the window and +drumming his fingers on the glass fern-shade. “At breakfast, is he? +That’s the mistake I made: turning out early on an empty stomach.” +</p> + +<p> +A milk cart rattled down the street, the driver standing at the back, cracking +a whip; he wore an immense geranium flower stuck in the lapel of his coat. Firm +as a rock he stood, bending back a little in the swaying cart. Andreas craned +his neck to watch him all the way down the road, even after he had gone, +listening for the sharp sound of those rattling cans. +</p> + +<p> +“H’m, not much wrong with him,” he reflected. +“Wouldn’t mind a taste of that life myself. Up early, work all over +by eleven o’clock, nothing to do but loaf about all day until milking +time.” Which he knew was an exaggeration, but he wanted to pity himself. +</p> + +<p> +The maid opened the door, and stood aside for Doctor Erb. Andreas wheeled +round; the two men shook hands. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, Binzer,” said the doctor jovially, brushing some crumbs from +a pearl-coloured waistcoat, “son and heir becoming importunate?” +</p> + +<p> +Up went Binzer’s spirits with a bound. Son and heir, by Jove! He was glad +to have to deal with a man again. And a sane fellow this, who came across this +sort of thing every day of the week. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s about the measure of it, Doctor,” he answered, +smiling and picking up his hat. “Mother dragged me out of bed this +morning with imperative orders to bring you along.” +</p> + +<p> +“Gig will be round in a minute. Drive back with me, won’t you? +Extraordinary, sultry day; you’re as red as a beetroot already.” +</p> + +<p> +Andreas affected to laugh. The doctor had one annoying habit—imagined he +had the right to poke fun at everybody simply because he was a doctor. +“The man’s riddled with conceit, like all these +professionals,” Andreas decided. +</p> + +<p> +“What sort of night did Frau Binzer have?” asked the doctor. +“Ah, here’s the gig. Tell me on the way up. Sit as near the middle +as you can, will you, Binzer? Your weight tilts it over a bit one +side—that’s the worst of you successful business men.” +</p> + +<p> +“Two stone heavier than I, if he’s a pound,” thought Andreas. +“The man may be all right in his profession—but heaven preserve +me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Off you go, my beauty.” Doctor Erb flicked the little brown mare. +“Did your wife get any sleep last night?” +</p> + +<p> +“No; I don’t think she did,” answered Andreas shortly. +“To tell you the truth, I’m not satisfied that she hasn’t a +nurse.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, your mother’s worth a dozen nurses,” cried the doctor, +with immense gusto. “To tell you the truth, I’m not keen on +nurses—too raw—raw as rump-steak. They wrestle for a baby as though +they were wrestling with Death for the body of Patroclus.... Ever seen that +picture by an English artist. Leighton? Wonderful thing—full of +sinew!” +</p> + +<p> +“There he goes again,” thought Andreas, “airing off his +knowledge to make a fool of me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Now your mother—she’s firm—she’s capable. Does +what she’s told with a fund of sympathy. Look at these shops we’re +passing—they’re festering sores. How on earth this government can +tolerate—” +</p> + +<p> +“They’re not so bad—sound enough—only want a coat of +paint.” +</p> + +<p> +The doctor whistled a little tune and flicked the mare again. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I hope the young shaver won’t give his mother too much +trouble,” he said. “Here we are.” +</p> + +<p> +A skinny little boy, who had been sliding up and down the back seat of the gig, +sprang out and held the horse’s head. Andreas went straight into the +dining-room and left the servant girl to take the doctor upstairs. He sat down, +poured out some coffee, and bit through half a roll before helping himself to +fish. Then he noticed there was no hot plate for the fish—the whole house +was at sixes and sevens. He rang the bell, but the servant girl came in with a +tray holding a bowl of soup and a hot plate. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve been keeping them on the stove,” she simpered. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, thanks, that’s very kind of you.” As he swallowed the +soup his heart warmed to this fool of a girl. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, it’s a good thing Doctor Erb has come,” volunteered the +servant girl, who was bursting for want of sympathy. +</p> + +<p> +“H’m, h’m,” said Andreas. +</p> + +<p> +She waited a moment, expectantly, rolling her eyes, then in full loathing of +menkind went back to the kitchen and vowed herself to sterility. +</p> + +<p> +Andreas cleared the soup bowl, and cleared the fish. As he ate, the room slowly +darkened. A faint wind sprang up and beat the tree branches against the window. +The dining-room looked over the breakwater of the harbour, and the sea swung +heavily in rolling waves. Wind crept round the house, moaning drearily. +</p> + +<p> +“We’re in for a storm. That means I’m boxed up here all day. +Well, there’s one blessing; it’ll clear the air.” He heard +the servant girl rushing importantly round the house, slamming windows. Then he +caught a glimpse of her in the garden, unpegging tea towels from the line +across the lawn. She was a worker, there was no doubt about that. He took up a +book, and wheeled his arm-chair over to the window. But it was useless. Too +dark to read; he didn’t believe in straining his eyes, and gas at ten +o’clock in the morning seemed absurd. So he slipped down in the chair, +leaned his elbows on the padded arms and gave himself up, for once, to idle +dreaming. “A boy? Yes, it was bound to be a boy this time....” +“What’s your family, Binzer?” “Oh, I’ve two girls +and a boy!” A very nice little number. Of course he was the last man to +have a favourite child, but a man needed a son. “I’m working up the +business for my son! Binzer & Son! It would mean living very tight for the +next ten years, cutting expenses as fine as possible; and then—” +</p> + +<p> +A tremendous gust of wind sprang upon the house, seized it, shook it, dropped, +only to grip the more tightly. The waves swelled up along the breakwater and +were whipped with broken foam. Over the white sky flew tattered streamers of +grey cloud. +</p> + +<p> +Andreas felt quite relieved to hear Doctor Erb coming down the stairs; he got +up and lit the gas. +</p> + +<p> +“Mind if I smoke in here?” asked Doctor Erb, lighting a cigarette +before Andreas had time to answer. “You don’t smoke, do you? No +time to indulge in pernicious little habits!” +</p> + +<p> +“How is she now?” asked Andreas, loathing the man. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, well as can be expected, poor little soul. She begged me to come +down and have a look at you. Said she knew you were worrying.” With +laughing eyes the doctor looked at the breakfast-table. “Managed to peck +a bit, I see, eh?” +</p> + +<p> +“Hoo-wih!” shouted the wind, shaking the window-sashes. +</p> + +<p> +“Pity—this weather,” said Doctor Erb. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, it gets on Anna’s nerves, and it’s just nerve she +wants.” +</p> + +<p> +“Eh, what’s that?” retorted the doctor. “Nerve! Man +alive! She’s got twice the nerve of you and me rolled into one. Nerve! +she’s nothing but nerve. A woman who works as she does about the house +and has three children in four years thrown in with the dusting, so to +speak!” +</p> + +<p> +He pitched his half-smoked cigarette into the fireplace and frowned at the +window. +</p> + +<p> +“Now <i>he’s</i> accusing me,” thought Andreas. +“That’s the second time this morning—first mother and now +this man taking advantage of my sensitiveness.” He could not trust +himself to speak, and rang the bell for the servant girl. +</p> + +<p> +“Clear away the breakfast things,” he ordered. “I can’t +have them messing about on the table till dinner!” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t be hard on the girl,” coaxed Doctor Erb. +“She’s got twice the work to do to-day.” +</p> + +<p> +At that Binzer’s anger blazed out. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll trouble you, Doctor, not to interfere between me and my +servants!” And he felt a fool at the same moment for not saying +“servant.” +</p> + +<p> +Doctor Erb was not perturbed. He shook his head, thrust his hands into his +pockets, and began balancing himself on toe and heel. +</p> + +<p> +“You’re jagged by the weather,” he said wryly, “nothing +else. A great pity—this storm. You know climate has an immense effect +upon birth. A fine day perks a woman—gives her heart for her business. +Good weather is as necessary to a confinement as it is to a washing day. Not +bad—that last remark of mine—for a professional fossil, eh?” +</p> + +<p> +Andreas made no reply. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I’ll be getting back to my patient. Why don’t you take +a walk, and clear your head? That’s the idea for you.” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” he answered, “I won’t do that; it’s too +rough.” +</p> + +<p> +He went back to his chair by the window. While the servant girl cleared away he +pretended to read... then his dreams! It seemed years since he had had the time +to himself to dream like that—he never had a breathing space. Saddled +with work all day, and couldn’t shake it off in the evening like other +men. Besides, Anna was interested—they talked of practically nothing else +together. Excellent mother she’d make for a boy; she had a grip of +things. +</p> + +<p> +Church bells started ringing through the windy air, now sounding as though from +very far away, then again as though all the churches in the town had been +suddenly transplanted into their street. They stirred something in him, those +bells, something vague and tender. Just about that time Anna would call him +from the hall. “Andreas, come and have your coat brushed. I’m +ready.” Then off they would go, she hanging on his arm, and looking up at +him. She certainly was a little thing. He remembered once saying when they were +engaged, “Just as high as my heart,” and she had jumped on to a +stool and pulled his head down, laughing. A kid in those days, younger than her +children in nature, brighter, more “go” and “spirit” in +her. The way she’d run down the road to meet him after business! And the +way she laughed when they were looking for a house. By Jove! that laugh of +hers! At the memory he grinned, then grew suddenly grave. Marriage certainly +changed a woman far more than it did a man. Talk about sobering down. She had +lost all her go in two months! Well, once this boy business was over +she’d get stronger. He began to plan a little trip for them. He’d +take her away and they’d loaf about together somewhere. After all, dash +it, they were young still. She’d got into a groove; he’d have to +force her out of it, that’s all. +</p> + +<p> +He got up and went into the drawing-room, carefully shut the door and took +Anna’s photograph from the top of the piano. She wore a white dress with +a big bow of some soft stuff under the chin, and stood, a little stiffly, +holding a sheaf of artificial poppies and corn in her hands. Delicate she +looked even then; her masses of hair gave her that look. She seemed to droop +under the heavy braids of it, and yet she was smiling. Andreas caught his +breath sharply. She was his wife—that girl. Posh! it had only been taken +four years ago. He held it close to him, bent forward and kissed it. Then +rubbed the glass with the back of his hand. At that moment, fainter than he had +heard in the passage, more terrifying, Andreas heard again that wailing cry. +The wind caught it up in mocking echo, blew it over the house-tops, down the +street, far away from him. He flung out his arms, “I’m so damnably +helpless,” he said, and then, to the picture, “Perhaps it’s +not as bad as it sounds; perhaps it is just my sensitiveness.” In the +half light of the drawing-room the smile seemed to deepen in Anna’s +portrait, and to become secret, even cruel. “No,” he reflected, +“that smile is not at all her happiest expression—it was a mistake +to let her have it taken smiling like that. She doesn’t look like my +wife—like the mother of my son.” Yes, that was it, she did not look +like the mother of a son who was going to be a partner in the firm. The picture +got on his nerves; he held it in different lights, looked at it from a +distance, sideways, spent, it seemed to Andreas afterwards, a whole lifetime +trying to fit it in. The more he played with it the deeper grew his dislike of +it. Thrice he carried it over to the fireplace and decided to chuck it behind +the Japanese umbrella in the grate; then he thought it absurd to waste an +expensive frame. There was no good in beating about the bush. Anna looked like +a stranger—abnormal, a freak—it might be a picture taken just +before or after death. +</p> + +<p> +Suddenly he realised that the wind had dropped, that the whole house was still, +terribly still. Cold and pale, with a disgusting feeling that spiders were +creeping up his spine and across his face, he stood in the centre of the +drawing-room, hearing Doctor Erb’s footsteps descending the stairs. +</p> + +<p> +He saw Doctor Erb come into the room; the room seemed to change into a great +glass bowl that spun round, and Doctor Erb seemed to swim through this glass +bowl towards him, like a goldfish in a pearl-coloured waistcoat. +</p> + +<p> +“My beloved wife has passed away!” He wanted to shout it out before +the doctor spoke. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, she’s hooked a boy this time!” said Doctor Erb. +Andreas staggered forward. +</p> + +<p> +“Look out. Keep on your pins,” said Doctor Erb, catching +Binzer’s arm, and murmuring, as he felt it, “Flabby as +butter.” +</p> + +<p> +A glow spread all over Andreas. He was exultant. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, by God! Nobody can accuse <i>me</i> of not knowing what suffering +is,” he said. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap10"></a>THE CHILD-WHO-WAS-TIRED</h2> + +<p> +She was just beginning to walk along a little white road with tall black trees +on either side, a little road that led to nowhere, and where nobody walked at +all, when a hand gripped her shoulder, shook her, slapped her ear. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, oh, don’t stop me,” cried the Child-Who-Was-Tired. +“Let me go.” +</p> + +<p> +“Get up, you good-for-nothing brat,” said a voice; “get up +and light the oven or I’ll shake every bone out of your body.” +</p> + +<p> +With an immense effort she opened her eyes, and saw the Frau standing by, the +baby bundled under one arm. The three other children who shared the same bed +with the Child-Who-Was-Tired, accustomed to brawls, slept on peacefully. In a +corner of the room the Man was fastening his braces. +</p> + +<p> +“What do you mean by sleeping like this the whole night +through—like a sack of potatoes? You’ve let the baby wet his bed +twice.” +</p> + +<p> +She did not answer, but tied her petticoat string, and buttoned on her plaid +frock with cold, shaking fingers. +</p> + +<p> +“There, that’s enough. Take the baby into the kitchen with you, and +heat that cold coffee on the spirit lamp for the master, and give him the loaf +of black bread out of the table drawer. Don’t guzzle it yourself or +I’ll know.” +</p> + +<p> +The Frau staggered across the room, flung herself on to her bed, drawing the +pink bolster round her shoulders. +</p> + +<p> +It was almost dark in the kitchen. She laid the baby on the wooden settle, +covering him with a shawl, then poured the coffee from the earthenware jug into +the saucepan, and set it on the spirit lamp to boil. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m sleepy,” nodded the Child-Who-Was-Tired, kneeling on the +floor and splitting the damp pine logs into little chips. “That’s +why I’m not awake.” +</p> + +<p> +The oven took a long time to light. Perhaps it was cold, like herself, and +sleepy.... Perhaps it had been dreaming of a little white road with black trees +on either side, a little road that led to nowhere. +</p> + +<p> +Then the door was pulled violently open and the Man strode in. +</p> + +<p> +“Here, what are you doing, sitting on the floor?” he shouted. +“Give me my coffee. I’ve got to be off. Ugh! You haven’t even +washed over the table.” +</p> + +<p> +She sprang to her feet, poured his coffee into an enamel cup, and gave him +bread and a knife, then, taking a wash rag from the sink, smeared over the +black linoleumed table. +</p> + +<p> +“Swine of a day—swine’s life,” mumbled the Man, sitting +by the table and staring out of the window at the bruised sky, which seemed to +bulge heavily over the dull land. He stuffed his mouth with bread and then +swilled it down with the coffee. +</p> + +<p> +The Child drew a pail of water, turned up her sleeves, frowning the while at +her arms, as if to scold them for being so thin, so much like little stunted +twigs, and began to mop over the floor. +</p> + +<p> +“Stop sousing about the water while I’m here,” grumbled the +Man. “Stop the baby snivelling; it’s been going on like that all +night.” +</p> + +<p> +The Child gathered the baby into her lap and sat rocking him. +</p> + +<p> +“Ts—ts—ts,” she said. “He’s cutting his eye +teeth, that’s what makes him cry so. <i>And</i> dribble—I never +seen a baby dribble like this one.” She wiped his mouth and nose with a +corner of her skirt. “Some babies get their teeth without you knowing +it,” she went on, “and some take on this way all the time. I once +heard of a baby that died, and they found all its teeth in its stomach.” +</p> + +<p> +The Man got up, unhooked his cloak from the back of the door, and flung it +round him. +</p> + +<p> +“There’s another coming,” said he. +</p> + +<p> +“What—a tooth!” exclaimed the Child, startled for the first +time that morning out of her dreadful heaviness, and thrusting her finger into +the baby’s mouth. +</p> + +<p> +“No,” he said grimly, “another baby. Now, get on with your +work; it’s time the others got up for school.” She stood a moment +quite silently, hearing his heavy steps on the stone passage, then the gravel +walk, and finally the slam of the front gate. +</p> + +<p> +“Another baby! Hasn’t she finished having them <i>yet?</i>” +thought the Child. “Two babies getting eye teeth—two babies to get +up for in the night—two babies to carry about and wash their little piggy +clothes!” She looked with horror at the one in her arms, who, seeming to +understand the contemptuous loathing of her tired glance, doubled his fists, +stiffened his body, and began violently screaming. +</p> + +<p> +“Ts—ts—ts.” She laid him on the settle and went back to +her floor-washing. He never ceased crying for a moment, but she got quite used +to it and kept time with her broom. Oh, how tired she was! Oh, the heavy broom +handle and the burning spot just at the back of her neck that ached so, and a +funny little fluttering feeling just at the back of her waistband, as though +something were going to break. +</p> + +<p> +The clock struck six. She set the pan of milk in the oven, and went into the +next room to wake and dress the three children. Anton and Hans lay together in +attitudes of mutual amity which certainly never existed out of their sleeping +hours. Lena was curled up, her knees under her chin, only a straight, +standing-up pigtail of hair showing above the bolster. +</p> + +<p> +“Get up,” cried the Child, speaking in a voice of immense +authority, pulling off the bedclothes and giving the boys sundry pokes and +digs. “I’ve been calling you this last half-hour. It’s late, +and I’ll tell on you if you don’t get dressed this minute.” +</p> + +<p> +Anton awoke sufficiently to turn over and kick Hans on a tender part, whereupon +Hans pulled Lena’s pigtail until she shrieked for her mother. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, do be quiet,” whispered the Child. “Oh, do get up and +dress. You know what will happen. There—I’ll help you.” +</p> + +<p> +But the warning came too late. The Frau got out of bed, walked in a determined +fashion into the kitchen, returning with a bundle of twigs in her hand fastened +together with a strong cord. One by one she laid the children across her knee +and severely beat them, expending a final burst of energy on the +Child-Who-Was-Tired, then returned to bed, with a comfortable sense of her +maternal duties in good working order for the day. Very subdued, the three +allowed themselves to be dressed and washed by the Child, who even laced the +boys’ boots, having found through experience that if left to themselves +they hopped about for at least five minutes to find a comfortable ledge for +their foot, and then spat on their hands and broke the bootlaces. +</p> + +<p> +While she gave them their breakfast they became uproarious, and the baby would +not cease crying. When she filled the tin kettle with milk, tied on the rubber +teat, and, first moistening it herself, tried with little coaxing words to make +him drink, he threw the bottle on to the floor and trembled all over. +</p> + +<p> +“Eye teeth!” shouted Hans, hitting Anton over the head with his +empty cup; “he’s getting the evil-eye teeth, I should say.” +</p> + +<p> +“Smarty!” retorted Lena, poking out her tongue at him, and then, +when he promptly did the same, crying at the top of her voice, “Mother, +Hans is making faces at me!” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s right,” said Hans; “go on howling, and when +you’re in bed to-night I’ll wait till you’re asleep, and then +I’ll creep over and take a little tiny piece of your arm and twist and +twist it until—” He leant over the table making the most horrible +faces at Lena, not noticing that Anton was standing behind his chair until the +little boy bent over and spat on his brother’s shaven head. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, weh! oh, weh!” +</p> + +<p> +The Child-Who-Was-Tired pushed and pulled them apart, muffled them into their +coats, and drove them out of the house. +</p> + +<p> +“Hurry, hurry! the second bell’s rung,” she urged, knowing +perfectly well she was telling a story, and rather exulting in the fact. She +washed up the breakfast things, then went down to the cellar to look out the +potatoes and beetroot. +</p> + +<p> +Such a funny, cold place the coal cellar! With potatoes banked on one corner, +beetroot in an old candle box, two tubs of sauerkraut, and a twisted mass of +dahlia roots—that looked as real as though they were fighting one +another, thought the Child. +</p> + +<p> +She gathered the potatoes into her skirt, choosing big ones with few eyes +because they were easier to peel, and bending over the dull heap in the silent +cellar, she began to nod. +</p> + +<p> +“Here, you, what are you doing down there?” cried the Frau, from +the top of the stairs. “The baby’s fallen off the settle, and got a +bump as big as an egg over his eye. Come up here, and I’ll teach +you!” +</p> + +<p> +“It wasn’t me—it wasn’t me!” screamed the Child, +beaten from one side of the hall to the other, so that the potatoes and +beetroot rolled out of her skirt. +</p> + +<p> +The Frau seemed to be as big as a giant, and there was a certain heaviness in +all her movements that was terrifying to anyone so small. +</p> + +<p> +“Sit in the corner, and peel and wash the vegetables, and keep the baby +quiet while I do the washing.” +</p> + +<p> +Whimpering she obeyed, but as to keeping the baby quiet, that was impossible. +His face was hot, little beads of sweat stood all over his head, and he +stiffened his body and cried. She held him on her knees, with a pan of cold +water beside her for the cleaned vegetables and the “ducks’ +bucket” for the peelings. +</p> + +<p> +“Ts—ts—ts!” she crooned, scraping and boring; +“there’s going to be another soon, and you can’t both keep on +crying. Why don’t you go to sleep, baby? I would, if I were you. +I’ll tell you a dream. Once upon a time there was a little white +road—” +</p> + +<p> +She shook back her head, a great lump ached in her throat and then the tears +ran down her face on to the vegetables. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s no good,” said the Child, shaking them away. +“Just stop crying until I’ve finished this, baby, and I’ll +walk you up and down.” +</p> + +<p> +But by that time she had to peg out the washing for the Frau. A wind had sprung +up. Standing on tiptoe in the yard, she almost felt she would be blown away. +There was a bad smell coming from the ducks’ coop, which was half full of +manure water, but away in the meadow she saw the grass blowing like little +green hairs. And she remembered having heard of a child who had once played for +a whole day in just such a meadow with real sausages and beer for her +dinner—and not a little bit of tiredness. Who had told her that story? +She could not remember, and yet it was so plain. +</p> + +<p> +The wet clothes flapped in her face as she pegged them; danced and jigged on +the line, bulged out and twisted. She walked back to the house with lagging +steps, looking longingly at the grass in the meadow. +</p> + +<p> +“What must I do now, please?” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“Make the beds and hang the baby’s mattress out of the window, then +get the wagon and take him for a little walk along the road. In front of the +house, mind—where I can see you. Don’t stand there, gaping! Then +come in when I call you and help me cut up the salad.” +</p> + +<p> +When she had made the beds the Child stood and looked at them. Gently she +stroked the pillow with her hand, and then, just for one moment, let her head +rest there. Again the smarting lump in her throat, the stupid tears that fell +and kept on falling as she dressed the baby and dragged the little wagon up and +down the road. +</p> + +<p> +A man passed, driving a bullock wagon. He wore a long, queer feather in his +hat, and whistled as he passed. Two girls with bundles on their shoulders came +walking out of the village—one wore a red handkerchief about her head and +one a blue. They were laughing and holding each other by the hand. Then the sun +pushed by a heavy fold of grey cloud and spread a warm yellow light over +everything. +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps,” thought the Child-Who-Was-Tired, “if I walked far +enough up this road I might come to a little white one, with tall black trees +on either side—a little road—” +</p> + +<p> +“Salad, salad!” cried the Frau’s voice from the house. +</p> + +<p> +Soon the children came home from school, dinner was eaten, the Man took the +Frau’s share of pudding as well as his own, and the three children seemed +to smear themselves all over with whatever they ate. Then more dish-washing and +more cleaning and baby-minding. So the afternoon dragged coldly through. +</p> + +<p> +Old Frau Grathwohl came in with a fresh piece of pig’s flesh for the +Frau, and the Child listened to them gossiping together. +</p> + +<p> +“Frau Manda went on her ‘journey to Rome’ last night, and +brought back a daughter. How are you feeling?” +</p> + +<p> +“I was sick twice this morning,” said the Frau. “My insides +are all twisted up with having children too quickly.” +</p> + +<p> +“I see you’ve got a new help,” commented old Mother +Grathwohl. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, dear Lord”—the Frau lowered her +voice—“don’t you know her? She’s the free-born +one—daughter of the waitress at the railway station. They found her +mother trying to squeeze her head in the wash-hand jug, and the child’s +half silly.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ts—ts—ts!” whispered the “free-born” one +to the baby. +</p> + +<p> +As the day drew in the Child-Who-Was-Tired did not know how to fight her +sleepiness any longer. She was afraid to sit down or stand still. As she sat at +supper the Man and the Frau seemed to swell to an immense size as she watched +them, and then become smaller than dolls, with little voices that seemed to +come from outside the window. Looking at the baby, it suddenly had two heads, +and then no head. Even his crying made her feel worse. When she thought of the +nearness of bedtime she shook all over with excited joy. But as eight +o’clock approached there was the sound of wheels on the road, and +presently in came a party of friends to spend the evening. +</p> + +<p> +Then it was: +</p> + +<p> +“Put on the coffee.” +</p> + +<p> +“Bring me the sugar tin.” +</p> + +<p> +“Carry the chairs out of the bedroom.” +</p> + +<p> +“Set the table.” +</p> + +<p> +And, finally, the Frau sent her into the next room to keep the baby quiet. +</p> + +<p> +There was a little piece of candle burning in the enamel bracket. As she walked +up and down she saw her great big shadow on the wall like a grown-up person +with a grown-up baby. Whatever would it look like when she carried two babies +so! +</p> + +<p> +“Ts—ts—ts! Once upon a time she was walking along a little +white road, with oh! such great big black trees on either side.” +</p> + +<p> +“Here you!” called the Frau’s voice, “bring me my new +jacket from behind the door.” And as she took it into the warm room one +of the women said, “She looks like an owl. Such children are seldom right +in their heads.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why don’t you keep that baby quiet?” said the Man, who had +just drunk enough beer to make him feel very brave and master of his house. +</p> + +<p> +“If you don’t keep that baby quiet you’ll know why later +on.” +</p> + +<p> +They burst out laughing as she stumbled back into the bedroom. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t believe Holy Mary could keep him quiet,” she +murmured. “Did Jesus cry like this when He was little? If I was not so +tired perhaps I could do it; but the baby just knows that I want to go to +sleep. And there is going to be another one.” +</p> + +<p> +She flung the baby on the bed, and stood looking at him with terror. +</p> + +<p> +From the next room there came the jingle of glasses and the warm sound of +laughter. +</p> + +<p> +And she suddenly had a beautiful marvellous idea. +</p> + +<p> +She laughed for the first time that day, and clapped her hands. +</p> + +<p> +“Ts—ts—ts!” she said, “lie there, silly one; you +<i>will</i> go to sleep. You’ll not cry any more or wake up in the night. +Funny, little, ugly baby.” +</p> + +<p> +He opened his eyes, and shrieked loudly at the sight of the +Child-Who-Was-Tired. From the next room she heard the Frau call out to her. +</p> + +<p> +“One moment—he is almost asleep,” she cried. +</p> + +<p> +And then gently, smiling, on tiptoe, she brought the pink bolster from the +Frau’s bed and covered the baby’s face with it, pressed with all +her might as he struggled, “like a duck with its head off, +wriggling”, she thought. +</p> + +<p> +She heaved a long sigh, then fell back on to the floor, and was walking along a +little white road with tall black trees on either side, a little road that led +to nowhere, and where nobody walked at all—nobody at all. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap11"></a>THE ADVANCED LADY</h2> + +<p> +“Do you think we might ask her to come with us,” said Fräulein +Elsa, retying her pink sash ribbon before my mirror. “You know, although +she is so intellectual, I cannot help feeling convinced that she has some +secret sorrow. And Lisa told me this morning, as she was turning out my room, +that she remains hours and hours by herself, writing; in fact Lisa says she is +writing a book! I suppose that is why she never cares to mingle with us, and +has so little time for her husband and the child.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, <i>you</i> ask her,” said I. “I have never spoken to +the lady.” +</p> + +<p> +Elsa blushed faintly. “I have only spoken to her once,” she +confessed. “I took her a bunch of wild flowers, to her room, and she came +to the door in a white gown, with her hair loose. Never shall I forget that +moment. She just took the flowers, and I heard her—because the door was +not quite properly shut—I heard her, as I walked down the passage, saying +‘Purity, fragrance, the fragrance of purity and the purity of +fragrance!’ It was wonderful!” +</p> + +<p> +At that moment Frau Kellermann knocked at the door. +</p> + +<p> +“Are you ready?” she said, coming into the room and nodding to us +very genially. “The gentlemen are waiting on the steps, and I have asked +the Advanced Lady to come with us.” +</p> + +<p> +“Na, how extraordinary!” cried Elsa. “But this moment the +gnädige Frau and I were debating whether—” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I met her coming out of her room and she said she was charmed with +the idea. Like all of us, she has never been to Schlingen. She is downstairs +now, talking to Herr Erchardt. I think we shall have a delightful +afternoon.” +</p> + +<p> +“Is Fritzi waiting too?” asked Elsa. +</p> + +<p> +“Of course he is, dear child—as impatient as a hungry man listening +for the dinner bell. Run along!” +</p> + +<p> +Elsa ran, and Frau Kellermann smiled at me significantly. In the past she and I +had seldom spoken to each other, owing to the fact that her “one +remaining joy”—her charming little Karl—had never succeeded +in kindling into flame those sparks of maternity which are supposed to glow in +great numbers upon the altar of every respectable female heart; but, in view of +a premeditated journey together, we became delightfully cordial. +</p> + +<p> +“For us,” she said, “there will be a double joy. We shall be +able to watch the happiness of these two dear children, Elsa and Fritz. They +only received the letters of blessing from their parents yesterday morning. It +is a very strange thing, but whenever I am in the company of newly-engaged +couples I blossom. Newly-engaged couples, mothers with first babies, and normal +deathbeds have precisely the same effect on me. Shall we join the +others?” +</p> + +<p> +I was longing to ask her why normal deathbeds should cause anyone to burst into +flower, and said, “Yes, do let us.” +</p> + +<p> +We were greeted by the little party of “cure guests” on the pension +steps, with those cries of joy and excitement which herald so pleasantly the +mildest German excursion. Herr Erchardt and I had not met before that day, so, +in accordance with strict pension custom, we asked each other how long we had +slept during the night, had we dreamed agreeably, what time we had got up, was +the coffee fresh when we had appeared at breakfast, and how had we passed the +morning. Having toiled up these stairs of almost national politeness we landed, +triumphant and smiling, and paused to recover breath. +</p> + +<p> +“And now,” said Herr Erchardt, “I have a pleasure in store +for you. The Frau Professor is going to be one of us for the afternoon. +Yes,” nodding graciously to the Advanced Lady. “Allow me to +introduce you to each other.” +</p> + +<p> +We bowed very formally, and looked each other over with that eye which is known +as “eagle” but is far more the property of the female than that +most unoffending of birds. “I think you are English?” she said. I +acknowledged the fact. “I am reading a great many English books just +now—rather, I am studying them.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nu,” cried Herr Erchardt. “Fancy that! What a bond already! +I have made up my mind to know Shakespeare in his mother tongue before I die, +but that you, Frau Professor, should be already immersed in those wells of +English thought!” +</p> + +<p> +“From what I have read,” she said, “I do not think they are +very deep wells.” +</p> + +<p> +He nodded sympathetically. +</p> + +<p> +“No,” he answered, “so I have heard.... But do not let us +embitter our excursion for our little English friend. We will speak of this +another time.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nu, are we ready?” cried Fritz, who stood, supporting Elsa’s +elbow in his hand, at the foot of the steps. It was immediately discovered that +Karl was lost. +</p> + +<p> +“Ka—rl, Karl—chen!” we cried. No response. +</p> + +<p> +“But he was here one moment ago,” said Herr Langen, a tired, pale +youth, who was recovering from a nervous breakdown due to much philosophy and +little nourishment. “He was sitting here, picking out the works of his +watch with a hairpin!” +</p> + +<p> +Frau Kellermann rounded on him. “Do you mean to say, my dear Herr Langen, +you did not stop the child!” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said Herr Langen; “I’ve tried stopping him before +now.” +</p> + +<p> +“Da, that child has such energy; never is his brain at peace. If he is +not doing one thing, he is doing another!” +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps he has started on the dining-room clock now,” suggested +Herr Langen, abominably hopeful. +</p> + +<p> +The Advanced Lady suggested that we should go without him. “I never take +my little daughter for walks,” she said. “I have accustomed her to +sitting quietly in my bedroom from the time I go out until I return!” +</p> + +<p> +“There he is—there he is,” piped Elsa, and Karl was observed +slithering down a chestnut-tree, very much the worse for twigs. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve been listening to what you said about me, mumma,” he +confessed while Frau Kellermann brushed him down. “It was not true about +the watch. I was only looking at it, and the little girl never stays in the +bedroom. She told me herself she always goes down to the kitchen, +and—” +</p> + +<p> +“Da, that’s enough!” said Frau Kellermann. +</p> + +<p> +We marched <i>en masse</i> along the station road. It was a very warm +afternoon, and continuous parties of “cure guests”, who were giving +their digestions a quiet airing in pension gardens, called after us, asked if +we were going for a walk, and cried “Herr Gott—happy journey” +with immense ill-concealed relish when we mentioned Schlingen. +</p> + +<p> +“But that is eight kilometres,” shouted one old man with a white +beard, who leaned against a fence, fanning himself with a yellow handkerchief. +</p> + +<p> +“Seven and a half,” answered Herr Erchardt shortly. +</p> + +<p> +“Eight,” bellowed the sage. +</p> + +<p> +“Seven and a half!” +</p> + +<p> +“Eight!” +</p> + +<p> +“The man is mad,” said Herr Erchardt. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, please let him be mad in peace,” said I, putting my hands +over my ears. +</p> + +<p> +“Such ignorance must not be allowed to go uncontradicted,” said he, +and turning his back on us, too exhausted to cry out any longer, he held up +seven and a half fingers. +</p> + +<p> +“Eight!” thundered the greybeard, with pristine freshness. +</p> + +<p> +We felt very sobered, and did not recover until we reached a white signpost +which entreated us to leave the road and walk through the field +path—without trampling down more of the grass than was necessary. Being +interpreted, it meant “single file”, which was distressing for Elsa +and Fritz. Karl, like a happy child, gambolled ahead, and cut down as many +flowers as possible with the stick of his mother’s parasol—followed +the three others—then myself—and the lovers in the rear. And above +the conversation of the advance party I had the privilege of hearing these +delicious whispers. +</p> + +<p> +Fritz: “Do you love me?” Elsa: “Nu—yes.” Fritz +passionately: “But how much?” To which Elsa never +replied—except with “How much do <i>you</i> love <i>me?</i>” +</p> + +<p> +Fritz escaped that truly Christian trap by saying, “I asked you +first.” +</p> + +<p> +It grew so confusing that I slipped in front of Frau Kellermann—and +walked in the peaceful knowledge that she was blossoming and I was under no +obligation to inform even my nearest and dearest as to the precise capacity of +my affections. “What right have they to ask each other such questions the +day after letters of blessing have been received?” I reflected. +“What right have they even to question each other? Love which becomes +engaged and married is a purely affirmative affair—they are usurping the +privileges of their betters and wisers!” +</p> + +<p> +The edges of the field frilled over into an immense pine forest—very +pleasant and cool it looked. Another signpost begged us to keep to the broad +path for Schlingen and deposit waste paper and fruit peelings in wire +receptacles attached to the benches for the purpose. We sat down on the first +bench, and Karl with great curiosity explored the wire receptacle. +</p> + +<p> +“I love woods,” said the Advanced Lady, smiling pitifully into the +air. “In a wood my hair already seems to stir and remember something of +its savage origin.” +</p> + +<p> +“But speaking literally,” said Frau Kellermann, after an +appreciative pause, “there is really nothing better than the air of +pine-trees for the scalp.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Frau Kellermann, please don’t break the spell,” said +Elsa. +</p> + +<p> +The Advanced Lady looked at her very sympathetically. “Have you, too, +found the magic heart of Nature?” she said. +</p> + +<p> +That was Herr Langen’s cue. “Nature has no heart,” said he, +very bitterly and readily, as people do who are over-philosophised and +underfed. “She creates that she may destroy. She eats that she may spew +up and she spews up that she may eat. That is why we, who are forced to eke out +an existence at her trampling feet, consider the world mad, and realise the +deadly vulgarity of production.” +</p> + +<p> +“Young man,” interrupted Herr Erchardt, “you have never lived +and you have never suffered!” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, excuse me—how can you know?” +</p> + +<p> +“I know because you have told me, and there’s an end of it. Come +back to this bench in ten years’ time and repeat those words to +me,” said Frau Kellermann, with an eye upon Fritz, who was engaged in +counting Elsa’s fingers with passionate fervour—“and bring +with you your young wife, Herr Langen, and watch, perhaps, your little child +playing with—” She turned towards Karl, who had rooted an old +illustrated paper out of the receptacle and was spelling over an advertisement +for the enlargement of Beautiful Breasts. +</p> + +<p> +The sentence remained unfinished. We decided to move on. As we plunged more +deeply into the wood our spirits rose—reaching a point where they burst +into song—on the part of the three men—“O Welt, wie bist du +wunderbar!”—the lower part of which was piercingly sustained by +Herr Langen, who attempted quite unsuccessfully to infuse satire into it in +accordance with his—“world outlook”. They strode ahead and +left us to trail after them—hot and happy. +</p> + +<p> +“Now is the opportunity,” said Frau Kellermann. “Dear Frau +Professor, do tell us a little about your book.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ach, how did you know I was writing one?” she cried playfully. +</p> + +<p> +“Elsa, here, had it from Lisa. And never before have I personally known a +woman who was writing a book. How do you manage to find enough to write +down?” +</p> + +<p> +“That is never the trouble,” said the Advanced Lady—she took +Elsa’s arm and leaned on it gently. “The trouble is to know where +to stop. My brain has been a hive for years, and about three months ago the +pent-up waters burst over my soul, and since then I am writing all day until +late into the night, still ever finding fresh inspirations and thoughts which +beat impatient wings about my heart.” +</p> + +<p> +“Is it a novel?” asked Elsa shyly. +</p> + +<p> +“Of course it is a novel,” said I. +</p> + +<p> +“How can you be so positive?” said Frau Kellermann, eyeing me +severely. +</p> + +<p> +“Because nothing but a novel could produce an effect like that.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ach, don’t quarrel,” said the Advanced Lady sweetly. +“Yes, it is a novel—upon the Modern Woman. For this seems to me the +woman’s hour. It is mysterious and almost prophetic, it is the symbol of +the true advanced woman: not one of those violent creatures who deny their sex +and smother their frail wings under... under—” +</p> + +<p> +“The English tailor-made?” from Frau Kellermann. +</p> + +<p> +“I was not going to put it like that. Rather, under the lying garb of +false masculinity!” +</p> + +<p> +“Such a subtle distinction!” I murmured. +</p> + +<p> +“Whom then,” asked Fräulein Elsa, looking adoringly at the Advanced +Lady—“whom then do you consider the true woman?” +</p> + +<p> +“She is the incarnation of comprehending Love!” +</p> + +<p> +“But my dear Frau Professor,” protested Frau Kellermann, “you +must remember that one has so few opportunities for exhibiting Love within the +family circle nowadays. One’s husband is at business all day, and +naturally desires to sleep when he returns home—one’s children are +out of the lap and in at the university before one can lavish anything at all +upon them!” +</p> + +<p> +“But Love is not a question of lavishing,” said the Advanced Lady. +“It is the lamp carried in the bosom touching with serene rays all the +heights and depths of—” +</p> + +<p> +“Darkest Africa,” I murmured flippantly. +</p> + +<p> +She did not hear. +</p> + +<p> +“The mistake we have made in the past—as a sex,” said she, +“is in not realising that our gifts of giving are for the whole +world—we are the glad sacrifice of ourselves!” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh!” cried Elsa rapturously, and almost bursting into gifts as she +breathed—“how I know that! You know ever since Fritz and I have +been engaged, I share the desire to give to everybody, to share +everything!” +</p> + +<p> +“How extremely dangerous,” said I. +</p> + +<p> +“It is only the beauty of danger, or the danger of beauty” said the +Advanced Lady—“and there you have the ideal of my book—that +woman is nothing but a gift.” +</p> + +<p> +I smiled at her very sweetly. “Do you know,” I said, “I, too, +would like to write a book, on the advisability of caring for daughters, and +taking them for airings and keeping them out of kitchens!” +</p> + +<p> +I think the masculine element must have felt these angry vibrations: they +ceased from singing, and together we climbed out of the wood, to see Schlingen +below us, tucked in a circle of hills, the white houses shining in the +sunlight, “for all the world like eggs in a bird’s nest”, as +Herr Erchardt declared. We descended upon Schlingen and demanded sour milk with +fresh cream and bread at the Inn of the Golden Stag, a most friendly place, +with tables in a rose-garden where hens and chickens ran riot—even +flopping upon the disused tables and pecking at the red checks on the cloths. +We broke the bread into the bowls, added the cream, and stirred it round with +flat wooden spoons, the landlord and his wife standing by. +</p> + +<p> +“Splendid weather!” said Herr Erchardt, waving his spoon at the +landlord, who shrugged his shoulders. +</p> + +<p> +“What! you don’t call it splendid!” +</p> + +<p> +“As you please,” said the landlord, obviously scorning us. +</p> + +<p> +“Such a beautiful walk,” said Fräulein Elsa, making a free gift of +her most charming smile to the landlady. +</p> + +<p> +“I never walk,” said the landlady; “when I go to Mindelbau my +man drives me—I’ve more important things to do with my legs than +walk them through the dust!” +</p> + +<p> +“I like these people,” confessed Herr Langen to me. “I like +them very, very much. I think I shall take a room here for the whole +summer.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, because they live close to the earth, and therefore despise +it.” +</p> + +<p> +He pushed away his bowl of sour milk and lit a cigarette. We ate, solidly and +seriously, until those seven and a half kilometres to Mindelbau stretched +before us like an eternity. Even Karl’s activity became so full fed that +he lay on the ground and removed his leather waistbelt. Elsa suddenly leaned +over to Fritz and whispered, who on hearing her to the end and asking her if +she loved him, got up and made a little speech. +</p> + +<p> +“We—we wish to celebrate our betrothal by—by—asking you +all to drive back with us in the landlord’s cart—if—it will +hold us!” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, what a beautiful, noble idea!” said Frau Kellermann, heaving a +sigh of relief that audibly burst two hooks. +</p> + +<p> +“It is my little gift,” said Elsa to the Advanced Lady, who by +virtue of three portions almost wept tears of gratitude. +</p> + +<p> +Squeezed into the peasant cart and driven by the landlord, who showed his +contempt for mother earth by spitting savagely every now and again, we jolted +home again, and the nearer we came to Mindelbau the more we loved it and one +another. +</p> + +<p> +“We must have many excursions like this,” said Herr Erchardt to me, +“for one surely gets to know a person in the simple surroundings of the +open air—one <i>shares</i> the same joys—one feels friendship. What +is it your Shakespeare says? One moment, I have it. The friends thou hast, and +their adoption tried—grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel!” +</p> + +<p> +“But,” said I, feeling very friendly towards him, “the bother +about my soul is that it refuses to grapple anybody at all—and I am sure +that the dead weight of a friend whose adoption it had tried would kill it +immediately. Never yet has it shown the slightest sign of a hoop!” +</p> + +<p> +He bumped against my knees and excused himself and the cart. +</p> + +<p> +“My dear little lady, you must not take the quotation literally. +Naturally, one is not physically conscious of the hoops; but hoops there are in +the soul of him or her who loves his fellow-men.... Take this afternoon, for +instance. How did we start out? As strangers you might almost say, and +yet—all of us—how have we come home?” +</p> + +<p> +“In a cart,” said the only remaining joy, who sat upon his +mother’s lap and felt sick. +</p> + +<p> +We skirted the field that we had passed through, going round by the cemetery. +Herr Langen leaned over the edge of the seat and greeted the graves. He was +sitting next to the Advanced Lady—inside the shelter of her shoulder. I +heard her murmur: “You look like a little boy with your hair blowing +about in the wind.” Herr Langen, slightly less bitter—watched the +last graves disappear. And I heard her murmur: “Why are you so sad? I too +am very sad sometimes—but—you look young enough for me to dare to +say this—I—too—know of much joy!” +</p> + +<p> +“What do you know?” said he. +</p> + +<p> +I leaned over and touched the Advanced Lady’s hand. “Hasn’t +it been a nice afternoon?” I said questioningly. “But you know, +that theory of yours about women and Love—it’s as old as the +hills—oh, older!” +</p> + +<p> +From the road a sudden shout of triumph. Yes, there he was again—white +beard, silk handkerchief and undaunted enthusiasm. +</p> + +<p> +“What did I say? Eight kilometres—it is!” +</p> + +<p> +“Seven and a half!” shrieked Herr Erchardt. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, then, do you return in carts? Eight kilometres it must be.” +</p> + +<p> +Herr Erchardt made a cup of his hands and stood up in the jolting cart while +Frau Kellermann clung to his knees. “Seven and a half!” +</p> + +<p> +“Ignorance must not go uncontradicted!” I said to the Advanced +Lady. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap12"></a>THE SWING OF THE PENDULUM</h2> + +<p> +The landlady knocked at the door. +</p> + +<p> +“Come in,” said Viola. +</p> + +<p> +“There is a letter for you,” said the landlady, “a special +letter”—she held the green envelope in a corner of her dingy apron. +</p> + +<p> +“Thanks.” Viola, kneeling on the floor, poking at the little dusty +stove, stretched out her hand. “Any answer?” +</p> + +<p> +“No; the messenger has gone.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, all right!” She did not look the landlady in the face; she was +ashamed of not having paid her rent, and wondered grimly, without any hope, if +the woman would begin to bluster again. +</p> + +<p> +“About this money owing to me—” said the landlady. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, the Lord—off she goes!” thought Viola, turning her back +on the woman and making a grimace at the stove. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s settle—or it’s go!” The landlady raised her +voice; she began to bawl. “I’m a landlady, I am, and a respectable +woman, I’ll have you know. I’ll have no lice in my house, sneaking +their way into the furniture and eating up everything. It’s cash—or +out you go before twelve o’clock to-morrow.” +</p> + +<p> +Viola felt rather than saw the woman’s gesture. She shot out her arm in a +stupid helpless way, as though a dirty pigeon had suddenly flown at her face. +“Filthy old beast! Ugh! And the smell of her—like stale cheese and +damp washing.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very well!” she answered shortly; “it’s cash down or I +leave to-morrow. All right: don’t shout.” +</p> + +<p> +It was extraordinary—always before this woman came near her she trembled +in her shoes—even the sound of those flat feet stumping up the stairs +made her feel sick, but once they were face to face she felt immensely calm and +indifferent, and could not understand why she even worried about money, nor why +she sneaked out of the house on tiptoe, not even daring to shut the door after +her in case the landlady should hear and shout something terrible, nor why she +spent nights pacing up and down her room—drawing up sharply before the +mirror and saying to a tragic reflection: “Money, money, money!” +When she was alone her poverty was like a huge dream-mountain on which her feet +were fast rooted—aching with the ache of the size of the thing—but +if it came to definite action, with no time for imaginings, her dream-mountain +dwindled into a beastly “hold-your-nose” affair, to be passed as +quickly as possible, with anger and a strong sense of superiority. +</p> + +<p> +The landlady bounced out of the room, banging the door, so that it shook and +rattled as though it had listened to the conversation and fully sympathised +with the old hag. +</p> + +<p> +Squatting on her heels, Viola opened the letter. It was from Casimir: +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +“I shall be with you at three o’clock this afternoon—and must +be off again this evening. All news when we meet. I hope you are happier than +I.—C<small>ASIMIR</small>.” +</p> + +<p> +“Huh! how kind!” she sneered; “how condescending. Too good of +you, really!” She sprang to her feet, crumbling the letter in her hands. +“And how are you to know that I shall stick here awaiting your pleasure +until three o’clock this afternoon?” But she knew she would; her +rage was only half sincere. She longed to see Casimir, for she was confident +that this time she would make him understand the situation.... “For, as +it is, it’s intolerable—intolerable!” she muttered. +</p> + +<p> +It was ten o’clock in the morning of a grey day curiously lighted by pale +flashes of sunshine. Searched by these flashes her room looked tumbled and +grimed. She pulled down the window-blinds—but they gave a persistent, +whitish glare which was just as bad. The only thing of life in the room was a +jar of hyacinths given her by the landlady’s daughter: it stood on the +table exuding a sickly perfume from its plump petals; there were even rich buds +unfolding, and the leaves shone like oil. +</p> + +<p> +Viola went over to the washstand, poured some water into the enamel basin, and +sponged her face and neck. She dipped her face into the water, opened her eyes, +and shook her head from side to side—it was exhilarating. She did it +three times. “I suppose I could drown myself if I stayed under long +enough,” she thought. “I wonder how long it takes to become +unconscious?... Often read of women drowning in a bucket. I wonder if any air +enters by the ears—if the basin would have to be as deep as a +bucket?” She experimented—gripped the washstand with both hands and +slowly sank her head into the water, when again there was a knock on the door. +Not the landlady this time—it must be Casimir. With her face and hair +dripping, with her petticoat bodice unbuttoned, she ran and opened it. +</p> + +<p> +A strange man stood against the lintel—seeing her, he opened his eyes +very wide and smiled delightfully. “Excuse me—does Fräulein Schäfer +live here?” +</p> + +<p> +“No; never heard of her.” His smile was so infectious, she wanted +to smile too—and the water had made her feel so fresh and rosy. +</p> + +<p> +The strange man appeared overwhelmed with astonishment. “She +doesn’t?” he cried. “She is out, you mean!” +</p> + +<p> +“No, she’s not living here,” answered Viola. +</p> + +<p> +“But—pardon—one moment.” He moved from the door lintel, +standing squarely in front of her. He unbuttoned his greatcoat and drew a slip +of paper from the breast pocket, smoothing it in his gloved fingers before +handing it to her. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, that’s the address, right enough, but there must be a mistake +in the number. So many lodging-houses in this street, you know, and so +big.” +</p> + +<p> +Drops of water fell from her hair on to the paper. She burst out laughing. +“Oh, <i>how</i> dreadful I must look—one moment!” She ran +back to the washstand and caught up a towel. The door was still open.... After +all, there was nothing more to be said. Why on earth had she asked him to wait +a moment? She folded the towel round her shoulders, and returned to the door, +suddenly grave. “I’m sorry; I know no such name,” in a sharp +voice. +</p> + +<p> +Said the strange man: “Sorry, too. Have you been living here long?” +</p> + +<p> +“Er—yes—a long time.” She began to close the door +slowly. +</p> + +<p> +“Well—good-morning, thanks so much. Hope I haven’t been a +bother.” +</p> + +<p> +“Good-morning.” +</p> + +<p> +She heard him walk down the passage and then pause—lighting a cigarette. +Yes—a faint scent of delicious cigarette smoke penetrated her room. She +sniffed at it, smiling again. Well, that had been a fascinating interlude! He +looked so amazingly happy: his heavy clothes and big buttoned gloves; his +beautifully brushed hair... and that smile.... “Jolly” was the +word—just a well-fed boy with the world for his playground. People like +that did one good—one felt “made over” at the sight of them. +<i>Sane</i> they were—so sane and solid. You could depend on them never +having one mad impulse from the day they were born until the day they died. And +Life was in league with them—jumped them on her knee—quite rightly, +too. At that moment she noticed Casimir’s letter, crumpled up on the +floor—the smile faded. Staring at the letter she began braiding her +hair—a dull feeling of rage crept through her—she seemed to be +braiding it into her brain, and binding it, tightly, above her head.... Of +course that had been the mistake all along. What had? Oh, Casimir’s +frightful seriousness. If she had been happy when they first met she never +would have looked at him—but they had been like two patients in the same +hospital ward—each finding comfort in the sickness of the +other—sweet foundation for a love episode! Misfortune had knocked their +heads together: they had looked at each other, stunned with the conflict and +sympathised... “I wish I could step outside the whole affair and just +judge it—then I’d find a way out. I certainly was in love with +Casimir.... Oh, be sincere for once.” She flopped down on the bed and hid +her face in the pillow. “I was not in love. I wanted somebody to look +after me—and keep me until my work began to sell—and he kept +bothers with other men away. And what would have happened if he hadn’t +come along? I would have spent my wretched little pittance, and then—Yes, +that was what decided me, thinking about that ‘then.’ He was the +only solution. And I believed in him then. I thought his work had only to be +recognised once, and he’d roll in wealth. I thought perhaps we might be +poor for a month—but he said, if only he could have me, the stimulus.... +Funny, if it wasn’t so damned tragic! Exactly the contrary has +happened—he hasn’t had a thing published for months—neither +have I—but then I didn’t expect to. Yes, the truth is, I’m +hard and bitter, and I have neither faith nor love for unsuccessful men. I +always end by despising them as I despise Casimir. I suppose it’s the +savage pride of the female who likes to think the man to whom she has given +herself must be a very great chief indeed. But to stew in this disgusting house +while Casimir scours the land in the hope of finding one editorial open +door—it’s humiliating. It’s changed my whole nature. I +wasn’t born for poverty—I only flower among really jolly people, +and people who never are worried.” +</p> + +<p> +The figure of the strange man rose before her—would not be dismissed. +“That was the man for me, after all is said and done—a man without +a care—who’d give me everything I want and with whom I’d +always feel that sense of life and of being in touch with the world. I never +wanted to fight—it was thrust on me. Really, there’s a fount of +happiness in me, that is drying up, little by little, in this hateful +existence. I’ll be dead if this goes on—and”—she +stirred in the bed and flung out her arms—“I want passion, and +love, and adventure—I yearn for them. Why should I stay here and +rot?—I am rotting!” she cried, comforting herself with the sound of +her breaking voice. “But if I tell Casimir all this when he comes this +afternoon, and he says, ‘Go’—as he certainly +will—that’s another thing I loathe about him—he’s under +my thumb—what should I do then—where should I go to?” There +was nowhere. “I don’t want to work—or carve out my own path. +I want ease and any amount of nursing in the lap of luxury. There is only one +thing I’m fitted for, and that is to be a great courtesan.” But she +did not know how to go about it. She was frightened to go into the +streets—she heard of such awful things happening to those women—men +with diseases—or men who didn’t pay—besides, the idea of a +strange man every night—no, that was out of the question. “If +I’d the clothes I would go to a really good hotel and find some wealthy +man... like the strange man this morning. He would be ideal. Oh, if I only had +his address—I am sure I would fascinate him. I’d keep him laughing +all day—I’d make him give me unlimited money....” At the +thought she grew warm and soft. She began to dream of a wonderful house, and of +presses full of clothes and of perfumes. She saw herself stepping into +carriages—looking at the strange man with a mysterious, voluptuous +glance—she practised the glance, lying on the bed—and never another +worry, just drugged with happiness. That was the life for her. Well, the thing +to do was to let Casimir go on his wild-goose chase that evening, and while he +was away—What! Also—please to remember—there was the rent to +be paid before twelve next morning, and she hadn’t the money for a square +meal. At the thought of food she felt a sharp twinge in her stomach, a +sensation as though there were a hand in her stomach, squeezing it dry. She was +terribly hungry—all Casimir’s fault—and that man had lived on +the fat of the land ever since he was born. He looked as though he could order +a magnificent dinner. Oh, why hadn’t she played her cards +better?—he’d been sent by Providence—and she’d snubbed +him. “If I had that time over again, I’d be safe by now.” And +instead of the ordinary man who had spoken with her at the door her mind +created a brilliant, laughing image, who would treat her like a queen.... +“There’s only one thing I could not stand—that he should be +coarse or vulgar. Well, he wasn’t—he was obviously a man of the +world, and the way he apologised... I have enough faith in my own power and +beauty to know I could make a man treat me just as I wanted to be +treated.”... It floated into her dreams—that sweet scent of +cigarette smoke. And then she remembered that she had heard nobody go down the +stone stairs. Was it possible that the strange man was still there?... The +thought was too absurd—Life didn’t play tricks like that—and +yet—she was quite conscious of his nearness. Very quietly she got up, +unhooked from the back of the door a long white gown, buttoned it +on—smiling slyly. She did not know what was going to happen. She only +thought: “Oh, what fun!” and that they were playing a delicious +game—this strange man and she. Very gently she turned the door-handle, +screwing up her face and biting her lip as the lock snapped back. Of course, +there he was—leaning against the banister rail. He wheeled round as she +slipped into the passage. +</p> + +<p> +“Da,” she muttered, folding her gown tightly around her, “I +must go downstairs and fetch some wood. Brr! the cold!” +</p> + +<p> +“There isn’t any wood,” volunteered the strange man. She gave +a little cry of astonishment, and then tossed her head. +</p> + +<p> +“You again,” she said scornfully, conscious the while of his merry +eye, and the fresh, strong smell of his healthy body. +</p> + +<p> +“The landlady shouted out there was no wood left. I just saw her go out +to buy some.” +</p> + +<p> +“Story—story!” she longed to cry. He came quite close to her, +stood over her and whispered: +</p> + +<p> +“Aren’t you going to ask me to finish my cigarette in your +room?” +</p> + +<p> +She nodded. “You may if you want to!” +</p> + +<p> +In that moment together in the passage a miracle had happened. Her room was +quite changed—it was full of sweet light and the scent of hyacinth +flowers. Even the furniture appeared different—exciting. Quick as a flash +she remembered childish parties when they had played charades, and one side had +left the room and come in again to act a word—just what she was doing +now. The strange man went over to the stove and sat down in her arm-chair. She +did not want him to talk or come near her—it was enough to see him in the +room, so secure and happy. How hungry she had been for the nearness of someone +like that—who knew nothing at all about her—and made no +demands—but just lived. Viola ran over to the table and put her arms +round the jar of hyacinths. +</p> + +<p> +“Beautiful! Beautiful!” she cried—burying her head in the +flowers—and sniffing greedily at the scent. Over the leaves she looked at +the man and laughed. +</p> + +<p> +“You are a funny little thing,” said he lazily. +</p> + +<p> +“Why? Because I love flowers?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’d far rather you loved other things,” said the strange man +slowly. She broke off a little pink petal and smiled at it. +</p> + +<p> +“Let me send you some flowers,” said the strange man. +“I’ll send you a roomful if you’d like them.” +</p> + +<p> +His voice frightened her slightly. “Oh no, thanks—this one is quite +enough for me.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, it isn’t”—in a teasing voice. +</p> + +<p> +“What a stupid remark!” thought Viola, and looking at him again he +did not seem quite so jolly. She noticed that his eyes were set too closely +together—and they were too small. Horrible thought, that he should prove +stupid. +</p> + +<p> +“What do you do all day?” she asked hastily. +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing at all?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why should I do anything?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, don’t imagine for one moment that I condemn such +wisdom—only it sounds too good to be true!” +</p> + +<p> +“What’s that?”—he craned forward. “What sounds +too good to be true?” Yes—there was no denying it—he looked +silly. +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose the searching after Fräulein Schäfer doesn’t occupy all +your days.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh no”—he smiled broadly—“that’s very +good! By Jove! no. I drive a good bit—are you keen on horses?” +</p> + +<p> +She nodded. “Love them.” +</p> + +<p> +“You must come driving with me—I’ve got a fine pair of greys. +Will you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Pretty I’d look perched behind greys in my one and only +hat,” thought she. Aloud: “I’d love to.” Her easy +acceptance pleased him. +</p> + +<p> +“How about to-morrow?” he suggested. “Suppose you have lunch +with me to-morrow and I take you driving.” +</p> + +<p> +After all—this was just a game. “Yes, I’m not busy +to-morrow,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +A little pause—then the strange man patted his leg. “Why +don’t you come and sit down?” he said. +</p> + +<p> +She pretended not to see and swung on to the table. “Oh, I’m all +right here.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, you’re not”—again the teasing voice. “Come +and sit on my knee.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh no,” said Viola very heartily, suddenly busy with her hair. +</p> + +<p> +“Why not?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t want to.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, come along”—impatiently. +</p> + +<p> +She shook her head from side to side. “I wouldn’t dream of such a +thing.” +</p> + +<p> +At that he got up and came over to her. “Funny little puss cat!” He +put up one hand to touch her hair. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t,” she said—and slipped off the table. +“I—I think it’s time you went now.” She was quite +frightened now—thinking only: “This man must be got rid of as +quickly as possible.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, but you don’t want me to go?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I do—I’m very busy.” +</p> + +<p> +“Busy. What does the pussy cat do all day?” +</p> + +<p> +“Lots and lots of things!” She wanted to push him out of the room +and slam the door on him—idiot—fool—cruel disappointment. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s she frowning for?” he asked. “Is she worried +about anything?” Suddenly serious: “I say—you know, are you +in any financial difficulty? Do you want money? I’ll give it to you if +you like!” +</p> + +<p> +“Money! Steady on the brake—don’t lose your +head!”—so she spoke to herself. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll give you two hundred marks if you’ll kiss me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, boo! What a condition! And I don’t want to kiss you—I +don’t like kissing. Please go!” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes—you do!—yes, you do.” He caught hold of her arms +above the elbows. She struggled, and was quite amazed to realise how angry she +felt. +</p> + +<p> +“Let me go—immediately!” she cried—and he slipped one +arm round her body, and drew her towards him—like a bar of iron across +her back—that arm. +</p> + +<p> +“Leave me alone! I tell you. Don’t be mean! I didn’t want +this to happen when you came into my room. How dare you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, kiss me and I’ll go!” +</p> + +<p> +It was too idiotic—dodging that stupid, smiling face. +</p> + +<p> +“I won’t kiss you!—you brute!—I won’t!” +Somehow she slipped out of his arms and ran to the wall—stood back +against it—breathing quickly. +</p> + +<p> +“Get out!” she stammered. “Go on now, clear out!” +</p> + +<p> +At that moment, when he was not touching her, she quite enjoyed herself. She +thrilled at her own angry voice. “To think I should talk to a man like +that!” An angry flush spread over his face—his lips curled back, +showing his teeth—just like a dog, thought Viola. He made a rush at her, +and held her against the wall—pressed upon her with all the weight of his +body. This time she could not get free. +</p> + +<p> +“I won’t kiss you. I won’t. Stop doing that! Ugh! +you’re like a dog—you ought to find lovers round +lamp-posts—you beast—you fiend!” +</p> + +<p> +He did not answer. With an expression of the most absurd determination he +pressed ever more heavily upon her. He did not even look at her—but +rapped out in a sharp voice: “Keep quiet—keep quiet.” +</p> + +<p> +“Gar-r! Why are men so strong?” She began to cry. “Go +away—I don’t want you, you dirty creature. I want to murder you. +Oh, my God! if I had a knife.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t be silly—come and be good!” He dragged her +towards the bed. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you suppose I’m a light woman?” she snarled, and swooping +over she fastened her teeth in his glove. +</p> + +<p> +“Ach! don’t do that—you are hurting me!” +</p> + +<p> +She did not let go, but her heart said, “Thank the Lord I thought of +this.” +</p> + +<p> +“Stop this minute—you vixen—you bitch.” He threw her +away from him. She saw with joy that his eyes were full of tears. +“You’ve really hurt me,” he said in a choking voice. +</p> + +<p> +“Of course I have. I meant to. That’s nothing to what I’ll do +if you touch me again.” +</p> + +<p> +The strange man picked up his hat. “No thanks,” he said grimly. +“But I’ll not forget this—I’ll go to your +landlady.” +</p> + +<p> +“Pooh!” She shrugged her shoulders and laughed. “I’ll +tell her you forced your way in here and tried to assault me. Who will she +believe?—with your bitten hand. You go and find your Schäfers.” +</p> + +<p> +A sensation of glorious, intoxicating happiness flooded Viola. She rolled her +eyes at him. “If you don’t go away this moment I’ll bite you +again,” she said, and the absurd words started her laughing. Even when +the door was closed, hearing him descending the stairs, she laughed, and danced +about the room. +</p> + +<p> +What a morning! Oh, chalk it up. That was her first fight, and she’d +won—she’d conquered that beast—all by herself. Her hands were +still trembling. She pulled up the sleeve of her gown—great red marks on +her arms. “My ribs will be blue. I’ll be blue all over,” she +reflected. “If only that beloved Casimir could have seen us.” And +the feeling of rage and disgust against Casimir had totally disappeared. How +could the poor darling help not having any money? It was her fault as much as +his, and he, just like her, was apart from the world, fighting it, just as she +had done. If only three o’clock would come. She saw herself running +towards him and putting her arms round his neck. “My blessed one! Of +course we are bound to win. Do you love me still? Oh, I have been horrible +lately.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap13"></a>A BLAZE</h2> + +<p> +“Max, you silly devil, you’ll break your neck if you go careering +down the slide that way. Drop it, and come to the Club House with me and get +some coffee.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve had enough for to-day. I’m damp all through. There, +give us a cigarette, Victor, old man. When are you going home?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not for another hour. It’s fine this afternoon, and I’m +getting into decent shape. Look out, get off the track; here comes Fräulein +Winkel. Damned elegant the way she manages her sleigh!” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m cold all through. That’s the worst of this +place—the mists—it’s a damp cold. Here, Forman, look after +this sleigh—and stick it somewhere so that I can get it without looking +through a hundred and fifty others to-morrow morning.” +</p> + +<p> +They sat down at a small round table near the stove and ordered coffee. Victor +sprawled in his chair, patting his little brown dog Bobo and looking, half +laughingly, at Max. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s the matter, my dear? Isn’t the world being nice and +pretty?” +</p> + +<p> +“I want my coffee, and I want to put my feet into my +pocket—they’re like stones.... Nothing to eat, thanks—the +cake is like underdone india-rubber here.” +</p> + +<p> +Fuchs and Wistuba came and sat at their table. Max half turned his back and +stretched his feet out to the oven. The three other men all began talking at +once—of the weather—of the record slide—of the fine condition +of the Wald See for skating. +</p> + +<p> +Suddenly Fuchs looked at Max, raised his eyebrows and nodded across to Victor, +who shook his head. +</p> + +<p> +“Baby doesn’t feel well,” he said, feeding the brown dog with +broken lumps of sugar, “and nobody’s to disturb him—I’m +nurse.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s the first time I’ve ever known him off colour,” +said Wistuba. “I’ve always imagined he had the better part of this +world that could not be taken away from him. I think he says his prayers to the +dear Lord for having spared him being taken home in seven basketsful to-night. +It’s a fool’s game to risk your all that way and leave the nation +desolate.” +</p> + +<p> +“Dry up,” said Max. “You ought to be wheeled about on the +snow in a perambulator.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, no offence, I hope. Don’t get nasty.... How’s your wife, +Victor?” +</p> + +<p> +“She’s not at all well. She hurt her head coming down the slide +with Max on Sunday. I told her to stay at home all day.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m sorry. Are you other fellows going back to the town or +stopping on here?” +</p> + +<p> +Fuchs and Victor said they were stopping—Max did not answer, but sat +motionless while the men paid for their coffee and moved away. Victor came back +a moment and put a hand on his shoulder. +</p> + +<p> +“If you’re going right back, my dear, I wish you’d look Elsa +up and tell her I won’t be in till late. And feed with us to-night at +Limpold, will you? And take some hot grog when you get in.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thanks, old fellow, I’m all right. Going back now.” +</p> + +<p> +He rose, stretched himself, buttoned on his heavy coat and lighted another +cigarette. +</p> + +<p> +From the door Victor watched him plunging through the heavy snow—head +bent—hands thrust in his pockets—he almost appeared to be running +through the heavy snow towards the town. +</p> + +<hr /> + +<p> +Someone came stamping up the stairs—paused at the door of her +sitting-room, and knocked. +</p> + +<p> +“Is that you, Victor?” she called. +</p> + +<p> +“No, it is I... can I come in?” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course. Why, what a Santa Claus! Hang your coat on the landing and +shake yourself over the banisters. Had a good time?” +</p> + +<p> +The room was full of light and warmth. Elsa, in a white velvet tea-gown, lay +curled up on the sofa—a book of fashions on her lap, a box of creams +beside her. +</p> + +<p> +The curtains were not yet drawn before the windows and a blue light shone +through, and the white boughs of the trees sprayed across. +</p> + +<p> +A woman’s room—full of flowers and photographs and silk +pillows—the floor smothered in rugs—an immense tiger-skin under the +piano—just the head protruding—sleepily savage. +</p> + +<p> +“It was good enough,” said Max. “Victor can’t be in +till late. He told me to come up and tell you.” +</p> + +<p> +He started walking up and down—tore off his gloves and flung them on the +table. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t do that, Max,” said Elsa, “you get on my nerves. +And I’ve got a headache to-day; I’m feverish and quite flushed.... +Don’t I look flushed?” +</p> + +<p> +He paused by the window and glanced at her a moment over his shoulder. +</p> + +<p> +“No,” he said; “I didn’t notice it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, you haven’t looked at me properly, and I’ve got a new +tea-gown on, too.” She pulled her skirts together and patted a little +place on the couch. +</p> + +<p> +“Come along and sit by me and tell me why you’re being +naughty.” +</p> + +<p> +But, standing by the window, he suddenly flung his arm across his eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh,” he said, “I can’t. I’m done—I’m +spent—I’m smashed.” +</p> + +<p> +Silence in the room. The fashion-book fell to the floor with a quick rustle of +leaves. Elsa sat forward, her hands clasped in her lap; a strange light shone +in her eyes, a red colour stained her mouth. +</p> + +<p> +Then she spoke very quietly. +</p> + +<p> +“Come over here and explain yourself. I don’t know what on earth +you are talking about.” +</p> + +<p> +“You do know—you know far better than I. You’ve simply played +with Victor in my presence that I may feel worse. You’ve tormented +me—you’ve led me on—offering me everything and nothing at +all. It’s been a spider-and-fly business from first to last—and +I’ve never for one moment been ignorant of that—and I’ve +never for one moment been able to withstand it.” +</p> + +<p> +He turned round deliberately. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you suppose that when you asked me to pin your flowers into your +evening gown—when you let me come into your bedroom when Victor was out +while you did your hair—when you pretended to be a baby and let me feed +you with grapes—when you have run to me and searched in all my pockets +for a cigarette—knowing perfectly well where they were kept—going +through every pocket just the same—I knowing too—I keeping up the +farce—do you suppose that now you have finally lighted your bonfire you +are going to find it a peaceful and pleasant thing—you are going to +prevent the whole house from burning?” +</p> + +<p> +She suddenly turned white and drew in her breath sharply. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t talk to me like that. You have no right to talk to me like +that. I am another man’s wife.” +</p> + +<p> +“Hum,” he sneered, throwing back his head, “that’s +rather late in the game, and that’s been your trump card all along. You +only love Victor on the cat-and-cream principle—you a poor little starved +kitten that he’s given everything to, that he’s carried in his +breast, never dreaming that those little pink claws could tear out a +man’s heart.” +</p> + +<p> +She stirred, looking at him with almost fear in her eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“After all”—unsteadily—“this is my room; +I’ll have to ask you to go.” +</p> + +<p> +But he stumbled towards her, knelt down by the couch, burying his head in her +lap, clasping his arms round her waist. +</p> + +<p> +“And I <i>love</i> you—I love you; the humiliation of it—I +adore you. Don’t—don’t—just a minute let me stay +here—just a moment in a whole life—Elsa! Elsa!” +</p> + +<p> +She leant back and pressed her head into the pillows. +</p> + +<p> +Then his muffled voice: “I feel like a savage. I want your whole body. I +want to carry you away to a cave and love you until I kill you—you +can’t understand how a man feels. I kill myself when I see +you—I’m sick of my own strength that turns in upon itself, and +dies, and rises new born like a Phœnix out of the ashes of that horrible +death. Love me just this once, tell me a lie, <i>say</i> that you do—you +are always lying.” +</p> + +<p> +Instead, she pushed him away—frightened. +</p> + +<p> +“Get up,” she said; “suppose the servant came in with the +tea?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, ye gods!” He stumbled to his feet and stood staring down at +her. +</p> + +<p> +“You’re rotten to the core and so am I. But you’re +heathenishly beautiful.” +</p> + +<p> +The woman went over to the piano—stood there—striking one +note—her brows drawn together. Then she shrugged her shoulders and +smiled. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll make a confession. Every word you have said is true. I +can’t help it. I can’t help seeking admiration any more than a cat +can help going to people to be stroked. It’s my nature. I’m born +out of my time. And yet, you know, I’m not a <i>common</i> woman. I like +men to adore me—to flatter me—even to make love to me—but I +would never give myself to any man. I would never let a man kiss me... +even.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s immeasurably worse—you’ve no legitimate excuse. +Why, even a prostitute has a greater sense of generosity!” +</p> + +<p> +“I know,” she said, “I know perfectly well—but I +can’t help the way I’m built.... Are you going?” +</p> + +<p> +He put on his gloves. +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” he said, “what’s going to happen to us +now?” +</p> + +<p> +Again she shrugged her shoulders. +</p> + +<p> +“I haven’t the slightest idea. I never have—just let things +occur.” +</p> + +<hr /> + +<p> +“All alone?” cried Victor. “Has Max been here?” +</p> + +<p> +“He only stayed a moment, and wouldn’t even have tea. I sent him +home to change his clothes.... He was frightfully boring.” +</p> + +<p> +“You poor darling, your hair’s coming down. I’ll fix it, +stand still a moment... so you were bored?” +</p> + +<p> +“Um-m—frightfully.... Oh, you’ve run a hairpin right into +your wife’s head—you naughty boy!” +</p> + +<p> +She flung her arms round his neck and looked up at him, half laughing, like a +beautiful, loving child. +</p> + +<p> +“God! What a woman you are,” said the man. “You make me so +infernally proud—dearest, that I... I tell you!” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 1472 ***</div> +</body> + +</html> + + diff --git a/1472-h/images/cover.jpg b/1472-h/images/cover.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..965278f --- /dev/null +++ b/1472-h/images/cover.jpg |
