1 files changed, 4295 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/old/1472-0.txt b/old/1472-0.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..87c4c35
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/1472-0.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,4295 @@
+The Project Gutenberg eBook of In a German Pension, by Katherine Mansfield
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
+most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
+of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
+www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you
+will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before
+using this eBook.
+
+Title: In a German Pension
+
+Author: Katherine Mansfield
+
+Release Date: August 22, 2008 [eBook #1472]
+[Most recently updated: January 6, 2022]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+Produced by: Sue Asscher
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IN A GERMAN PENSION ***
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+In a German Pension
+
+by Katherine Mansfield
+
+Contents
+
+ GERMANS AT MEAT
+ THE BARON
+ THE SISTER OF THE BARONESS
+ FRAU FISCHER
+ FRAU BRECHENMACHER ATTENDS A WEDDING
+ THE MODERN SOUL
+ AT “LEHMANN’S”
+ THE LUFT BAD
+ A BIRTHDAY
+ THE CHILD-WHO-WAS-TIRED
+ THE ADVANCED LADY
+ THE SWING OF THE PENDULUM
+ A BLAZE
+
+
+
+
+GERMANS AT MEAT
+
+
+Bread soup was placed upon the table.
+
+“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.
+
+“How interesting,” I said, attempting to infuse just the right amount
+of enthusiasm into my voice.
+
+“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.”
+
+He asserted the fact so vehemently that I had not the courage to refute
+it.
+
+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.
+
+“Nothing at all,” cried Herr Hoffmann from Berlin. “Ach, when I was in
+England in the morning I used to eat.”
+
+He turned up his eyes and his moustache, wiping the soup drippings from
+his coat and waistcoat.
+
+“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.”
+
+“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—”
+
+“Ah, that’s one thing I _can_ do,” said I, laughing brightly. “I can
+make very good tea. The great secret is to warm the teapot.”
+
+“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?”
+
+He fixed his cold blue eyes upon me with an expression which suggested
+a thousand premeditated invasions.
+
+“So that is the great secret of your English tea? All you do is to warm
+the teapot.”
+
+I wanted to say that was only the preliminary canter, but could not
+translate it, and so was silent.
+
+The servant brought in veal, with “sauerkraut” and potatoes.
+
+“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—”
+
+“A beautiful day,” I cried, turning to Fräulein Stiegelauer. “Did you
+get up early?”
+
+“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?”
+
+“No, thank you. I still find it a little strong.”
+
+“Is it true,” asked the Widow, picking her teeth with a hairpin as she
+spoke, “that you are a vegetarian?”
+
+“Why, yes; I have not eaten meat for three years.”
+
+“Im—possible! Have you any family?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“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—”
+
+“How _wonderful!_” I cried.
+
+“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.”
+
+“Germany,” boomed the Traveller, biting round a potato which he had
+speared with his knife, “is the home of the Family.”
+
+Followed an appreciative silence.
+
+The dishes were changed for beef, red currants and spinach. They wiped
+their forks upon black bread and started again.
+
+“How long are you remaining here?” asked the Herr Rat.
+
+“I do not know exactly. I must be back in London in September.”
+
+“Of course you will visit München?”
+
+“I am afraid I shall not have time. You see, it is important not to
+break into my ‘cure.’”
+
+“But you _must_ 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.
+
+“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.”
+
+Prompted by the thought, he wiped his neck and face with his dinner
+napkin and carefully cleaned his ears.
+
+A glass dish of stewed apricots was placed upon the table.
+
+“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.”
+
+She very obviously followed the advice.
+
+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?”
+
+“Yes.” I sat upright. “I assure you we are not afraid.”
+
+“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.”
+
+“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.”
+
+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.
+
+“We certainly do not want Germany,” I said.
+
+“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—”
+
+They were handed cherry cake with whipped cream.
+
+“What is your husband’s favourite meat?” asked the Widow.
+
+“I really do not know,” I answered.
+
+“You really do not know? How long have you been married?”
+
+“Three years.”
+
+“But you cannot be in earnest! You would not have kept house as his
+wife for a week without knowing that fact.”
+
+“I really never asked him; he is not at all particular about his food.”
+
+A pause. They all looked at me, shaking their heads, their mouths full
+of cherry stones.
+
+“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?”
+
+“Mahlzeit!”
+
+“Mahlzeit!”
+
+I closed the door after me.
+
+
+
+
+THE BARON
+
+
+“Who is he?” I said. “And why does he sit always alone, with his back
+to us, too?”
+
+“Ah!” whispered the Frau Oberregierungsrat, “he is a _Baron_.”
+
+She looked at me very solemnly, and yet with the slightest possible
+contempt—a “fancy-not-recognising-that-at-the-first-glance” expression.
+
+“But, poor soul, he cannot help it,” I said. “Surely that unfortunate
+fact ought not to debar him from the pleasures of intellectual
+intercourse.”
+
+If it had not been for her fork I think she would have crossed herself.
+
+“Surely you cannot understand. He is one of the First Barons.”
+
+More than a little unnerved, she turned and spoke to the Frau Doktor on
+her left.
+
+“My omelette is empty—_empty_,” she protested, “and this is the third I
+have tried!”
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+The Herr Oberlehrer, who sat opposite me, smiled benignantly.
+
+“It must be very interesting for you, gnädige Frau, to be able to
+watch... of course this is a _very fine house_. There was a lady from
+the Spanish Court here in the summer; she had a liver. We often spoke
+together.”
+
+I looked gratified and humble.
+
+“Now, in England, in your ‘boarding ’ouse’, one does not find the First
+Class, as in Germany.”
+
+“No, indeed,” I replied, still hypnotised by the Baron, who looked like
+a little yellow silkworm.
+
+“The Baron comes every year,” went on the Herr Oberlehrer, “for his
+nerves. He has never spoken to any of the guests—_yet_.” 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.
+
+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.
+
+Myself, I felt disappointed that there was not a salute of twenty-five
+guns.
+
+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.
+
+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....
+
+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.
+
+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.”
+
+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.
+
+“I knit them myself,” I heard the Frau Lehrer cry, “of thick grey wool.
+He wears one a month, with two soft collars.”
+
+“And then,” whispered Fräulein Lisa, “he said to me, ‘Indeed you please
+me. I shall, perhaps, write to your mother.’”
+
+Small wonder that we were a little violently excited, a little
+expostulatory.
+
+Suddenly the door opened and admitted the Baron.
+
+Followed a complete and deathlike silence.
+
+He came in slowly, hesitated, took up a toothpick from a dish on the
+top of the piano, and went out again.
+
+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?
+
+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.
+
+At last the manager of the pension told us the Baron was leaving the
+next day.
+
+“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 _once_ before he goes.”
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+Now, there is something peculiarly intimate in sharing an umbrella.
+
+It is apt to put one on the same footing as brushing a man’s coat for
+him—a little daring, naïve.
+
+I longed to know why he sat alone, why he carried the bag, what he did
+all day. But he himself volunteered some information.
+
+“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.”
+
+“A wise idea,” I answered. And then: “Why have you denied us the
+pleasure—”
+
+“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.”
+
+Which sounded finely Baronial.
+
+“And what do you do all day?”
+
+“I imbibe nourishment in my room,” he replied, in a voice that closed
+the conversation and almost repented of the umbrella.
+
+When we arrived at the pension there was very nearly an open riot.
+
+I ran half way up the stairs, and thanked the Baron audibly from the
+landing.
+
+He distinctly replied: “Not at all!”
+
+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!
+
+
+Next day the Baron was gone.
+
+Sic transit gloria German mundi.
+
+
+
+
+THE SISTER OF THE BARONESS
+
+
+“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.”
+
+“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 _Sport and Salon_. 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.”
+
+“But the child is dumb,” ventured the manager apologetically.
+
+“Bah! What does that matter? Afflicted children have such pretty ways.”
+
+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.
+
+“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.”
+
+“Yes, indeed, something homelike”—the Frau Oberregierungsrat patted my
+hand—“and of no possible significance to you.”
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+“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.
+
+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.
+
+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:
+
+“I hope you are not tired after your journey.”
+
+“No,” said the sister of the Baroness, smiling into her cup.
+
+“I hope the dear child is not tired,” said the Frau Doktor.
+
+“Not at all.”
+
+“I expect, I hope you will sleep well to-night,” the Herr Oberlehrer
+said reverently.
+
+“Yes.”
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+They retired after the meal, leaving us to discuss them at leisure.
+
+“There is a likeness,” mused the Frau Doktor. “Quite. What a manner she
+has. Such reserve, such a tender way with the child.”
+
+“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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+“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—”
+
+“Oh, your _delicate_ chest,” commented the Frau Doktor.
+
+He fixed a stony eye on her, and she blushed.
+
+“I have written these lines:
+
+“‘Ah, will you to a convent fly,
+    So young, so fresh, so fair?
+Spring like a doe upon the fields
+    And find your beauty there.’”
+
+
+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.
+
+“I have presented her with a copy,” he said. “And to-day we are going
+to look for wild flowers in the wood.”
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+“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.
+
+“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.”
+
+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?
+
+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.
+
+“They sway and languish dreamily,
+And we, close pressed, are kissing there.”
+
+
+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.
+
+Second-hand was better than nothing; I pricked up my ears.
+
+“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.
+
+“May I hold one?”
+
+I heard two sighs—presumed they held—he had rifled those dark waters of
+a noble blossom.
+
+“Look at my great fingers beside yours.”
+
+“But they are beautifully kept,” said the sister of the Baroness shyly.
+
+The minx! Was love then a question of manicure?
+
+“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.”
+
+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.
+
+“But where is my maid?” asked the Baroness.
+
+“There was no maid,” replied the manager, “save for your gracious
+sister and daughter.”
+
+“Sister!” she cried sharply. “Fool, I have no sister. My child
+travelled with the daughter of my dressmaker.”
+
+Tableau grandissimo!
+
+
+
+
+FRAU FISCHER
+
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+“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.”
+
+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.”
+
+Frau Hartmann, in an ashamed, apologetic voice: “We are such a happy
+family since my dear man died.”
+
+“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?”
+
+“Every room engaged.”
+
+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.
+
+“... It was a simple shepherd-child who pastured her flocks upon the
+barren fields....”
+
+Voices from the room above: “The washstand has, of course, been
+scrubbed over with soda.”
+
+“... Poverty-stricken, her limbs with tattered rags half covered....”
+
+“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.”
+
+“... Deaf and dumb was the child; in fact, the population considered
+her half idiot....”
+
+“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?”
+
+“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!”
+
+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.
+
+“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!”
+
+I smiled and shrugged my shoulders.
+
+“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—”
+
+She dipped a piece of sugar in her coffee and watched it dissolve.
+
+“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.”
+
+“But only German waiters,” I said. “English ones look over the top of
+your head.”
+
+“There,” she cried, “now you see your dependence on Germany. Not even
+an efficient waiter can you have by yourselves.”
+
+“But I prefer them to look over your head.”
+
+“And that proves that you must be ashamed of your bodice.”
+
+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.
+
+“How cool you are looking,” she said; “and if I may make the
+remark—what a beautiful suit!”
+
+“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.”
+
+“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.”
+
+“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.”
+
+“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.”
+
+The Herr Rat’s bald pate glistening in the sunlight seemed symbolical
+of the sad absence of a wife.
+
+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?
+
+“Herr Hoffmann from Berlin arrived yesterday,” said the Herr Rat.
+
+“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.”
+
+“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.
+
+“A great many,” I said, smiling.
+
+“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.”
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+“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.”
+
+I admitted the fact.
+
+“Then, dear child, where is your husband?”
+
+I said he was a sea-captain on a long and perilous voyage.
+
+“What a position to leave you in—so young and so unprotected.”
+
+She sat down on the sofa and shook her finger at me playfully.
+
+“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?”
+
+“But I haven’t the slightest intention—” I began.
+
+“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.”
+
+“I like empty beds,” I protested sleepily, thumping the pillow.
+
+“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.”
+
+I sat up stiffly.
+
+“But I consider child-bearing the most ignominious of all professions,”
+I said.
+
+For a moment there was silence. Then Frau Fischer reached down and
+caught my hand.
+
+“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.”
+
+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.
+
+“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!”
+
+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.
+
+Then the dinner-gong sounded.
+
+“Come up to my room afterwards,” said Frau Fischer. “There is still
+much that I must ask you.”
+
+She squeezed my hand, but I did not squeeze back.
+
+
+
+
+FRAU BRECHENMACHER ATTENDS A WEDDING
+
+
+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.
+
+“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.”
+
+“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.”
+
+“Half-past eight!” said the Frau. “I’ll make the father tell you too.”
+
+Rosa drew down the corners of her mouth.
+
+“But... but....”
+
+“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!”
+
+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.
+
+“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.”
+
+“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.”
+
+“Nu,” said the Herr, “there isn’t room to turn. I want the light. You
+go and dress in the passage.”
+
+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.
+
+“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?”
+
+“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.”
+
+Herr Brechenmacher strode up and down the kitchen, was helped on with
+his coat, then waited while the Frau lighted the lantern.
+
+“Now, then—finished at last! Come along.”
+
+“The lamp, Rosa,” warned the Frau, slamming the front door behind them.
+
+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.
+
+“Wait, wait!” she cried.
+
+“No. I’ll get my feet damp—you hurry.”
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+“Up the stairs—up the stairs!” boomed the landlord. “Leave your coats
+on the landing.”
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+“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!”
+
+“But how frightful!” said Frau Brechenmacher, collapsing into her chair
+and biting her lip.
+
+“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.”
+
+“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.”
+
+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.
+
+“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.”
+
+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.
+
+“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.
+
+“I _am_ 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.
+
+“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.”
+
+“Where is the other one?” asked Frau Brechenmacher. “Why didn’t he
+marry her?”
+
+The woman shrugged her shoulders.
+
+“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!”
+
+Frau Brechenmacher looked down at her beer and blew a little hole in
+the froth.
+
+“That’s not how a wedding should be,” she said; “it’s not religion to
+love two men.”
+
+“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?”
+
+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.
+
+“Yes,” she assented, “that’s true. Girls have a lot to learn.”
+
+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.
+
+“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.”
+
+Frau Brechenmacher sat up stiffly. The music ceased, and the dancers
+took their places again at the tables.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+
+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; _but_—
+
+“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.
+
+Herr Brechenmacher broke the bread into his plate, smeared it round
+with his fork and chewed greedily.
+
+“Good?” she asked, leaning her arms on the table and pillowing her
+breast against them.
+
+“But fine!”
+
+He took a piece of the crumb, wiped it round his plate edge, and held
+it up to her mouth. She shook her head.
+
+“Not hungry,” she said.
+
+“But it is one of the best pieces, and full of the fat.”
+
+He cleared the plate; then pulled off his boots and flung them into a
+corner.
+
+“Not much of a wedding,” he said, stretching out his feet and wriggling
+his toes in the worsted socks.
+
+“N—no,” she replied, taking up the discarded boots and placing them on
+the oven to dry.
+
+Herr Brechenmacher yawned and stretched himself, and then looked up at
+her, grinning.
+
+“Remember the night that we came home? You were an innocent one, you
+were.”
+
+“Get along! Such a time ago I forget.” Well she remembered.
+
+“Such a clout on the ear as you gave me.... But I soon taught you.”
+
+“Oh, don’t start talking. You’ve too much beer. Come to bed.”
+
+He tilted back in his chair, chuckling with laughter.
+
+“That’s not what you said to me that night. God, the trouble you gave
+me!”
+
+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.
+
+“Always the same,” she said—“all over the world the same; but, God in
+heaven—but _stupid_.”
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+THE MODERN SOUL
+
+
+“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?”
+
+He sat down, tugging at a white-paper package in the tail pocket of his
+coat.
+
+“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.
+
+“I prefer watching you eat them.”
+
+“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.”
+
+I looked at him brightly.
+
+“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.”
+
+I was grateful, without showing undue excitement.
+
+“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.”
+
+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.
+
+The Professor drew in his feet and sat up sharply, pulling down his
+waistcoat.
+
+“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.”
+
+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.”
+
+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.
+
+“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.
+
+“This is my little English friend of whom I have spoken. She is the
+stranger in our midst. We have been eating cherries together.”
+
+“How delightful,” sighed Frau Godowska. “My daughter and I have often
+observed you through the bedroom window. Haven’t we, Sonia?”
+
+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?”
+
+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?”
+
+“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?”
+
+“I believe there are some at certain seasons. But doubtless they have
+not the same symbolical value for the English. In Germany—”
+
+“I have never been to England,” interrupted Fräulein Sonia, “but I have
+many English acquaintances. They are so cold!” She shivered.
+
+“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?”
+
+“I forget nothing, mamma,” answered Sonia.
+
+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?”
+
+Frau Godowska looked into the distance, then the corners of her mouth
+dropped and her skin puckered. She began to shed tears.
+
+“Ach Gott! Gracious lady, what have I said?” exclaimed the Herr
+Professor.
+
+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.
+
+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.”
+
+
+“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.”
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+“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.”
+
+“What do you intend to recite, Fräulein Sonia?”
+
+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!”
+
+“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?”
+
+“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—”
+
+“Sonia—my heart!”
+
+A bell tinkled.
+
+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.
+
+“Yes, I know you have no love for me,
+And no forget-me-not.
+No love, no heart, and no forget-me-not.”
+
+
+sang the Frau Oberlehrer, in a voice that seemed to issue from her
+forgotten thimble and have nothing to do with her.
+
+“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.
+
+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.
+
+“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.”
+
+To right and left of us people bent over and whispered admiration down
+Fräulein Sonia’s neck. She bowed in the grand style.
+
+“I am always successful,” she said to me. “You see, when I act _I am_.
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+“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?”
+
+“Very well, then, knock on my door when you’re ready.”
+
+Thus the modern soul and I found ourselves together under the stars.
+
+“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.”
+
+“But what a bother,” said I.
+
+“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.
+
+I shook my head.
+
+“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—”
+
+“Impaled on a safety-pin,” I suggested.
+
+“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—’”
+
+“Choose something smaller?” said I.
+
+“No... ‘tell me about it beforehand.’ Humiliating! And I do not see any
+possible light out of this darkness.”
+
+“Why don’t you join a touring company and leave your mother in Vienna?”
+
+“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.”
+
+“Oh, well, that’s all right,” I said cheerfully.
+
+“But it is not all right!”
+
+I suggested we should turn back. We turned.
+
+“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.”
+
+“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.
+
+“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.”
+
+I was frightened. “You can’t,” I said, shaking her.
+
+“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.”
+
+“Here and here only!” She indicated the exact spot and dropped quite
+beautifully, lying motionless.
+
+“Very well,” I said, “faint away; but please hurry over it.”
+
+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.
+
+“Du lieber Gott! Where? How?”
+
+“Outside the hairdresser’s shop in the Station Road.”
+
+“Jesus and Maria! Has she no water with her?”—he seized his
+carafe—“nobody beside her?”
+
+“Nothing.”
+
+“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?”
+
+“No,” I said; “you can take the waiter.”
+
+“But she must have a woman. I cannot be so indelicate as to attempt to
+loosen her stays.”
+
+“Modern souls oughtn’t to wear them,” said I. He pushed past me and
+clattered down the stairs.
+
+
+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.
+
+I wondered.
+
+
+
+
+AT “LEHMANN’S”
+
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+“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.
+
+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.
+
+“Sabina... Sabina....”
+
+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.
+
+“How is the Frau Lehmann?” the women would whisper.
+
+“She feels rather low, but as well as can be expected,” Sabina would
+answer, nodding confidentially.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+“It’s cold out,” she said, corking the bottle.
+
+The Young Man ran his hands through his snow-powdered hair and laughed.
+
+“I wouldn’t call it exactly tropical,” he said. “But you’re very snug
+in here—look as though you’ve been asleep.”
+
+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.
+
+“Fräulein—what’s your name—what are you smiling at?” called the Young
+Man.
+
+She blushed and looked up, hands quiet in her lap, looked across the
+empty tables and shook her head.
+
+“Come here, and I’ll show you a picture,” he commanded.
+
+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.
+
+He put his hand over the body, leaving only the face exposed, then
+scrutinised Sabina closely.
+
+“Well?”
+
+“What do you mean?” she asked, knowing perfectly well.
+
+“Why, it might be your own photograph—the face, I mean—that’s as far as
+I can judge.”
+
+“But the hair’s done differently,” said Sabina, laughing. She threw
+back her head, and the laughter bubbled in her round white throat.
+
+“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.
+
+“Ever seen anything like it before?”
+
+“Oh, there’s plenty of those funny ones in the illustrated papers.”
+
+“How would you like to have your picture taken that way?”
+
+“Me? I’d never let anybody see it. Besides, I haven’t got a hat like
+that!”
+
+“That’s easily remedied.”
+
+Again a little silence, broken by Anna throwing up the slide.
+
+Sabina ran into the kitchen.
+
+“Here, take this milk and egg up to the Frau,” said Anna. “Who’ve you
+got in there?”
+
+“Got such a funny man! I think he’s a little gone here,” tapping her
+forehead.
+
+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.
+
+“Nothing else?”
+
+“Na,” said the Frau, heaving up in her chair. “Where’s my man?”
+
+“He’s playing cards over at Snipold’s. Do you want him?”
+
+“Dear heaven, leave him alone. I’m nothing. I don’t matter.... And the
+whole day waiting here.”
+
+Her hand shook as she wiped the rim of the glass with her fat finger.
+
+“Shall I help you to bed?”
+
+“You go downstairs, leave me alone. Tell Anna not to let Hans grub the
+sugar—give him one on the ear.”
+
+“Ugly—ugly—ugly,” muttered Sabina, returning to the café where the
+Young Man stood coat-buttoned, ready for departure.
+
+“I’ll come again to-morrow,” said he. “Don’t twist your hair back so
+tightly; it will lose all its curl.”
+
+“Well, you are a funny one,” she said. “Good-night.”
+
+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.
+
+“I wish,” she whispered, smiling sleepily, “there was a great big
+looking-glass in this room.”
+
+Lying down in the darkness, she hugged her little body.
+
+“I wouldn’t be the Frau for one hundred marks—not for a thousand marks.
+To look like that.”
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+“One moment, one moment,” she called, dragging on her stockings.
+
+“Bina, tell Anna to go to the Frau—but quickly. I must ride for the
+nurse.”
+
+“Yes, yes!” she cried. “Has it come?”
+
+But he had gone, and she ran over to Anna and shook her by the
+shoulder.
+
+“The Frau—the baby—Herr Lehmann for the nurse,” she stuttered.
+
+“Name of God!” said Anna, flinging herself out of bed.
+
+No complaints to-day. Importance—enthusiasm in Anna’s whole bearing.
+
+“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.”
+
+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.
+
+“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.”
+
+“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!”
+
+“Two small beers,” shouted Herr Lehmann through the slide.
+
+“One moment, one moment.”
+
+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.
+
+“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.
+
+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.
+
+“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.”
+
+“There’s a warm place—the ladies’ cloak-room,” she said. “I’ll take it
+in there—just by the kitchen.”
+
+She felt better, and quite happy again.
+
+“I’ll come with you,” he said. “I’ll see where you put it.”
+
+And that did not seem at all extraordinary. She laughed and beckoned to
+him.
+
+“In here,” she cried. “Feel how warm. I’ll put more wood on that oven.
+It doesn’t matter, they’re all busy upstairs.”
+
+She knelt down on the floor, and thrust the wood into the oven,
+laughing at her own wicked extravagance.
+
+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.
+
+“What a fire,” she shrieked, stretching out her hands.
+
+“Here’s a hand; pull up,” said the Young Man. “There, now, you’ll catch
+it to-morrow.”
+
+They stood opposite to each other, hands still clinging. And again that
+strange tremor thrilled Sabina.
+
+“Look here,” he said roughly, “are you a child, or are you playing at
+being one?”
+
+“I—I—”
+
+Laughter ceased. She looked up at him once, then down at the floor, and
+began breathing like a frightened little animal.
+
+He pulled her closer still and kissed her mouth.
+
+“Na, what are you doing?” she whispered.
+
+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.
+
+She wrenched herself away, tightened herself, drew herself up.
+
+“Who did that—who made that noise?”
+
+
+In the silence the thin wailing of a baby.
+
+“Achk!” shrieked Sabina, rushing from the room.
+
+
+
+
+THE LUFT BAD
+
+
+I think it must be the umbrellas which make us look ridiculous.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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 _débutante_. 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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+“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.”
+
+She suddenly lay down flat on her back, took in six long breaths, and
+sat up again.
+
+“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.”
+
+A young Russian, with a “bang” curl on her forehead, turned to me.
+
+“Can you do the ‘Salome’ dance?” she asked. “I can.”
+
+“How delightful,” I said.
+
+“Shall I do it now? Would you like to see me?”
+
+She sprang to her feet, executed a series of amazing contortions for
+the next ten minutes, and then paused, panting, twisting her long hair.
+
+“Isn’t that nice?” she said. “And now I am perspiring so splendidly. I
+shall go and take a bath.”
+
+Opposite to me was the brownest woman I have ever seen, lying on her
+back, her arms clasped over her head.
+
+“How long have you been here to-day?” she was asked.
+
+“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.”
+
+“Do you take nothing else all day?” I cried.
+
+“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?”
+
+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.
+
+“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.”
+
+“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?”
+
+“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.”
+
+“Are you an American?” said the Vegetable Lady, turning to me.
+
+“No.”
+
+“Then you are an Englishwoman?”
+
+“Well, hardly—”
+
+“You must be one of the two; you cannot help it. I have seen you
+walking alone several times. You wear your—”
+
+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.
+
+“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.”
+
+I went to the bath shelter and was hosed.
+
+As I dressed, someone tapped on the wall.
+
+“Do you know,” said a voice, “there is a man who _lives_ in the Luft
+Bad next door? He buries himself up to the armpits in mud and refuses
+to believe in the Trinity.”
+
+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.
+
+Not that I am in the least ashamed of my legs.
+
+
+
+
+A BIRTHDAY
+
+
+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.
+
+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.
+_She_ 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.”
+
+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.
+
+“Good-morning, mother; how’s Anna?”
+
+The old woman spoke quickly, clasping and unclasping her hands.
+
+“Andreas, please go to Doctor Erb as soon as you are dressed.”
+
+“Why,” he said, “is she bad?”
+
+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.
+
+“Sit down on the bed a moment,” he said. “Been up all night?”
+
+“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.”
+
+Straightway Andreas felt that he was being accused.
+
+“Well, she made me tell her, worried it out of me; you know the way she
+does.”
+
+Again Frau Binzer nodded.
+
+“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.”
+
+Quite automatically Andreas cleared his throat twice.
+
+“Yes,” he answered. “Tell her my throat certainly feels looser. I
+suppose I’d better not disturb her?”
+
+“No, and besides, _time_, Andreas.”
+
+“I’ll be ready in five minutes.”
+
+They went into the passage. As Frau Binzer opened the door of the front
+bedroom, a long wail came from the room.
+
+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.
+
+“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.”
+
+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.
+
+“Put an extra cup and saucer on the table,” he said; “the doctor may
+want some coffee.”
+
+“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.
+
+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.”
+
+“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.”
+
+“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.”
+
+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.
+
+“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.
+
+The maid opened the door, and stood aside for Doctor Erb. Andreas
+wheeled round; the two men shook hands.
+
+“Well, Binzer,” said the doctor jovially, brushing some crumbs from a
+pearl-coloured waistcoat, “son and heir becoming importunate?”
+
+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.
+
+“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.”
+
+“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.”
+
+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.
+
+“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.”
+
+“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.”
+
+“Off you go, my beauty.” Doctor Erb flicked the little brown mare. “Did
+your wife get any sleep last night?”
+
+“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.”
+
+“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!”
+
+“There he goes again,” thought Andreas, “airing off his knowledge to
+make a fool of me.”
+
+“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—”
+
+“They’re not so bad—sound enough—only want a coat of paint.”
+
+The doctor whistled a little tune and flicked the mare again.
+
+“Well, I hope the young shaver won’t give his mother too much trouble,”
+he said. “Here we are.”
+
+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.
+
+“I’ve been keeping them on the stove,” she simpered.
+
+“Ah, thanks, that’s very kind of you.” As he swallowed the soup his
+heart warmed to this fool of a girl.
+
+“Oh, it’s a good thing Doctor Erb has come,” volunteered the servant
+girl, who was bursting for want of sympathy.
+
+“H’m, h’m,” said Andreas.
+
+She waited a moment, expectantly, rolling her eyes, then in full
+loathing of menkind went back to the kitchen and vowed herself to
+sterility.
+
+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.
+
+“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—”
+
+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.
+
+Andreas felt quite relieved to hear Doctor Erb coming down the stairs;
+he got up and lit the gas.
+
+“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!”
+
+“How is she now?” asked Andreas, loathing the man.
+
+“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?”
+
+“Hoo-wih!” shouted the wind, shaking the window-sashes.
+
+“Pity—this weather,” said Doctor Erb.
+
+“Yes, it gets on Anna’s nerves, and it’s just nerve she wants.”
+
+“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!”
+
+He pitched his half-smoked cigarette into the fireplace and frowned at
+the window.
+
+“Now _he’s_ 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.
+
+“Clear away the breakfast things,” he ordered. “I can’t have them
+messing about on the table till dinner!”
+
+“Don’t be hard on the girl,” coaxed Doctor Erb. “She’s got twice the
+work to do to-day.”
+
+At that Binzer’s anger blazed out.
+
+“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.”
+
+Doctor Erb was not perturbed. He shook his head, thrust his hands into
+his pockets, and began balancing himself on toe and heel.
+
+“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?”
+
+Andreas made no reply.
+
+“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.”
+
+“No,” he answered, “I won’t do that; it’s too rough.”
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+“My beloved wife has passed away!” He wanted to shout it out before the
+doctor spoke.
+
+“Well, she’s hooked a boy this time!” said Doctor Erb. Andreas
+staggered forward.
+
+“Look out. Keep on your pins,” said Doctor Erb, catching Binzer’s arm,
+and murmuring, as he felt it, “Flabby as butter.”
+
+A glow spread all over Andreas. He was exultant.
+
+“Well, by God! Nobody can accuse _me_ of not knowing what suffering
+is,” he said.
+
+
+
+
+THE CHILD-WHO-WAS-TIRED
+
+
+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.
+
+“Oh, oh, don’t stop me,” cried the Child-Who-Was-Tired. “Let me go.”
+
+“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.”
+
+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.
+
+“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.”
+
+She did not answer, but tied her petticoat string, and buttoned on her
+plaid frock with cold, shaking fingers.
+
+“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.”
+
+The Frau staggered across the room, flung herself on to her bed,
+drawing the pink bolster round her shoulders.
+
+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.
+
+“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.”
+
+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.
+
+Then the door was pulled violently open and the Man strode in.
+
+“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.”
+
+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.
+
+“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.
+
+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.
+
+“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.”
+
+The Child gathered the baby into her lap and sat rocking him.
+
+“Ts—ts—ts,” she said. “He’s cutting his eye teeth, that’s what makes
+him cry so. _And_ 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.”
+
+The Man got up, unhooked his cloak from the back of the door, and flung
+it round him.
+
+“There’s another coming,” said he.
+
+“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.
+
+“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.
+
+“Another baby! Hasn’t she finished having them _yet?_” 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.
+
+“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.
+
+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.
+
+“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.”
+
+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.
+
+“Oh, do be quiet,” whispered the Child. “Oh, do get up and dress. You
+know what will happen. There—I’ll help you.”
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+“Eye teeth!” shouted Hans, hitting Anton over the head with his empty
+cup; “he’s getting the evil-eye teeth, I should say.”
+
+“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!”
+
+“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.
+
+“Oh, weh! oh, weh!”
+
+The Child-Who-Was-Tired pushed and pulled them apart, muffled them into
+their coats, and drove them out of the house.
+
+“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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+“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!”
+
+“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.
+
+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.
+
+“Sit in the corner, and peel and wash the vegetables, and keep the baby
+quiet while I do the washing.”
+
+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.
+
+“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—”
+
+She shook back her head, a great lump ached in her throat and then the
+tears ran down her face on to the vegetables.
+
+“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.”
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+“What must I do now, please?” she said.
+
+“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.”
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+“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—”
+
+“Salad, salad!” cried the Frau’s voice from the house.
+
+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.
+
+Old Frau Grathwohl came in with a fresh piece of pig’s flesh for the
+Frau, and the Child listened to them gossiping together.
+
+“Frau Manda went on her ‘journey to Rome’ last night, and brought back
+a daughter. How are you feeling?”
+
+“I was sick twice this morning,” said the Frau. “My insides are all
+twisted up with having children too quickly.”
+
+“I see you’ve got a new help,” commented old Mother Grathwohl.
+
+“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.”
+
+“Ts—ts—ts!” whispered the “free-born” one to the baby.
+
+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.
+
+Then it was:
+
+“Put on the coffee.”
+
+“Bring me the sugar tin.”
+
+“Carry the chairs out of the bedroom.”
+
+“Set the table.”
+
+And, finally, the Frau sent her into the next room to keep the baby
+quiet.
+
+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!
+
+“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.”
+
+“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.”
+
+“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.
+
+“If you don’t keep that baby quiet you’ll know why later on.”
+
+They burst out laughing as she stumbled back into the bedroom.
+
+“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.”
+
+She flung the baby on the bed, and stood looking at him with terror.
+
+From the next room there came the jingle of glasses and the warm sound
+of laughter.
+
+And she suddenly had a beautiful marvellous idea.
+
+She laughed for the first time that day, and clapped her hands.
+
+“Ts—ts—ts!” she said, “lie there, silly one; you _will_ go to sleep.
+You’ll not cry any more or wake up in the night. Funny, little, ugly
+baby.”
+
+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.
+
+“One moment—he is almost asleep,” she cried.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+THE ADVANCED LADY
+
+
+“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.”
+
+“Well, _you_ ask her,” said I. “I have never spoken to the lady.”
+
+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!”
+
+At that moment Frau Kellermann knocked at the door.
+
+“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.”
+
+“Na, how extraordinary!” cried Elsa. “But this moment the gnädige Frau
+and I were debating whether—”
+
+“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.”
+
+“Is Fritzi waiting too?” asked Elsa.
+
+“Of course he is, dear child—as impatient as a hungry man listening for
+the dinner bell. Run along!”
+
+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.
+
+“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?”
+
+I was longing to ask her why normal deathbeds should cause anyone to
+burst into flower, and said, “Yes, do let us.”
+
+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.
+
+“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.”
+
+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.”
+
+“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!”
+
+“From what I have read,” she said, “I do not think they are very deep
+wells.”
+
+He nodded sympathetically.
+
+“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.”
+
+“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.
+
+“Ka—rl, Karl—chen!” we cried. No response.
+
+“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!”
+
+Frau Kellermann rounded on him. “Do you mean to say, my dear Herr
+Langen, you did not stop the child!”
+
+“No,” said Herr Langen; “I’ve tried stopping him before now.”
+
+“Da, that child has such energy; never is his brain at peace. If he is
+not doing one thing, he is doing another!”
+
+“Perhaps he has started on the dining-room clock now,” suggested Herr
+Langen, abominably hopeful.
+
+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!”
+
+“There he is—there he is,” piped Elsa, and Karl was observed slithering
+down a chestnut-tree, very much the worse for twigs.
+
+“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—”
+
+“Da, that’s enough!” said Frau Kellermann.
+
+We marched _en masse_ 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.
+
+“But that is eight kilometres,” shouted one old man with a white beard,
+who leaned against a fence, fanning himself with a yellow handkerchief.
+
+“Seven and a half,” answered Herr Erchardt shortly.
+
+“Eight,” bellowed the sage.
+
+“Seven and a half!”
+
+“Eight!”
+
+“The man is mad,” said Herr Erchardt.
+
+“Well, please let him be mad in peace,” said I, putting my hands over
+my ears.
+
+“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.
+
+“Eight!” thundered the greybeard, with pristine freshness.
+
+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.
+
+Fritz: “Do you love me?” Elsa: “Nu—yes.” Fritz passionately: “But how
+much?” To which Elsa never replied—except with “How much do _you_ love
+_me?_”
+
+Fritz escaped that truly Christian trap by saying, “I asked you first.”
+
+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!”
+
+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.
+
+“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.”
+
+“But speaking literally,” said Frau Kellermann, after an appreciative
+pause, “there is really nothing better than the air of pine-trees for
+the scalp.”
+
+“Oh, Frau Kellermann, please don’t break the spell,” said Elsa.
+
+The Advanced Lady looked at her very sympathetically. “Have you, too,
+found the magic heart of Nature?” she said.
+
+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.”
+
+“Young man,” interrupted Herr Erchardt, “you have never lived and you
+have never suffered!”
+
+“Oh, excuse me—how can you know?”
+
+“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.
+
+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.
+
+“Now is the opportunity,” said Frau Kellermann. “Dear Frau Professor,
+do tell us a little about your book.”
+
+“Ach, how did you know I was writing one?” she cried playfully.
+
+“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?”
+
+“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.”
+
+“Is it a novel?” asked Elsa shyly.
+
+“Of course it is a novel,” said I.
+
+“How can you be so positive?” said Frau Kellermann, eyeing me severely.
+
+“Because nothing but a novel could produce an effect like that.”
+
+“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—”
+
+“The English tailor-made?” from Frau Kellermann.
+
+“I was not going to put it like that. Rather, under the lying garb of
+false masculinity!”
+
+“Such a subtle distinction!” I murmured.
+
+“Whom then,” asked Fräulein Elsa, looking adoringly at the Advanced
+Lady—“whom then do you consider the true woman?”
+
+“She is the incarnation of comprehending Love!”
+
+“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!”
+
+“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—”
+
+“Darkest Africa,” I murmured flippantly.
+
+She did not hear.
+
+“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!”
+
+“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!”
+
+“How extremely dangerous,” said I.
+
+“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.”
+
+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!”
+
+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.
+
+“Splendid weather!” said Herr Erchardt, waving his spoon at the
+landlord, who shrugged his shoulders.
+
+“What! you don’t call it splendid!”
+
+“As you please,” said the landlord, obviously scorning us.
+
+“Such a beautiful walk,” said Fräulein Elsa, making a free gift of her
+most charming smile to the landlady.
+
+“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!”
+
+“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.”
+
+“Why?”
+
+“Oh, because they live close to the earth, and therefore despise it.”
+
+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.
+
+“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!”
+
+“Oh, what a beautiful, noble idea!” said Frau Kellermann, heaving a
+sigh of relief that audibly burst two hooks.
+
+“It is my little gift,” said Elsa to the Advanced Lady, who by virtue
+of three portions almost wept tears of gratitude.
+
+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.
+
+“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 _shares_ 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!”
+
+“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!”
+
+He bumped against my knees and excused himself and the cart.
+
+“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?”
+
+“In a cart,” said the only remaining joy, who sat upon his mother’s lap
+and felt sick.
+
+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!”
+
+“What do you know?” said he.
+
+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!”
+
+From the road a sudden shout of triumph. Yes, there he was again—white
+beard, silk handkerchief and undaunted enthusiasm.
+
+“What did I say? Eight kilometres—it is!”
+
+“Seven and a half!” shrieked Herr Erchardt.
+
+“Why, then, do you return in carts? Eight kilometres it must be.”
+
+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!”
+
+“Ignorance must not go uncontradicted!” I said to the Advanced Lady.
+
+
+
+
+THE SWING OF THE PENDULUM
+
+
+The landlady knocked at the door.
+
+“Come in,” said Viola.
+
+“There is a letter for you,” said the landlady, “a special letter”—she
+held the green envelope in a corner of her dingy apron.
+
+“Thanks.” Viola, kneeling on the floor, poking at the little dusty
+stove, stretched out her hand. “Any answer?”
+
+“No; the messenger has gone.”
+
+“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.
+
+“About this money owing to me—” said the landlady.
+
+“Oh, the Lord—off she goes!” thought Viola, turning her back on the
+woman and making a grimace at the stove.
+
+“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.”
+
+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.”
+
+“Very well!” she answered shortly; “it’s cash down or I leave
+to-morrow. All right: don’t shout.”
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+Squatting on her heels, Viola opened the letter. It was from Casimir:
+
+“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.—CASIMIR.”
+
+
+“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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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?”
+
+“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.
+
+The strange man appeared overwhelmed with astonishment. “She doesn’t?”
+he cried. “She is out, you mean!”
+
+“No, she’s not living here,” answered Viola.
+
+“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.
+
+“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.”
+
+Drops of water fell from her hair on to the paper. She burst out
+laughing. “Oh, _how_ 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.
+
+Said the strange man: “Sorry, too. Have you been living here long?”
+
+“Er—yes—a long time.” She began to close the door slowly.
+
+“Well—good-morning, thanks so much. Hope I haven’t been a bother.”
+
+“Good-morning.”
+
+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. _Sane_ 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.”
+
+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.
+
+“Da,” she muttered, folding her gown tightly around her, “I must go
+downstairs and fetch some wood. Brr! the cold!”
+
+“There isn’t any wood,” volunteered the strange man. She gave a little
+cry of astonishment, and then tossed her head.
+
+“You again,” she said scornfully, conscious the while of his merry eye,
+and the fresh, strong smell of his healthy body.
+
+“The landlady shouted out there was no wood left. I just saw her go out
+to buy some.”
+
+“Story—story!” she longed to cry. He came quite close to her, stood
+over her and whispered:
+
+“Aren’t you going to ask me to finish my cigarette in your room?”
+
+She nodded. “You may if you want to!”
+
+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.
+
+“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.
+
+“You are a funny little thing,” said he lazily.
+
+“Why? Because I love flowers?”
+
+“I’d far rather you loved other things,” said the strange man slowly.
+She broke off a little pink petal and smiled at it.
+
+“Let me send you some flowers,” said the strange man. “I’ll send you a
+roomful if you’d like them.”
+
+His voice frightened her slightly. “Oh no, thanks—this one is quite
+enough for me.”
+
+“No, it isn’t”—in a teasing voice.
+
+“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.
+
+“What do you do all day?” she asked hastily.
+
+“Nothing.”
+
+“Nothing at all?”
+
+“Why should I do anything?”
+
+“Oh, don’t imagine for one moment that I condemn such wisdom—only it
+sounds too good to be true!”
+
+“What’s that?”—he craned forward. “What sounds too good to be true?”
+Yes—there was no denying it—he looked silly.
+
+“I suppose the searching after Fräulein Schäfer doesn’t occupy all your
+days.”
+
+“Oh no”—he smiled broadly—“that’s very good! By Jove! no. I drive a
+good bit—are you keen on horses?”
+
+She nodded. “Love them.”
+
+“You must come driving with me—I’ve got a fine pair of greys. Will
+you?”
+
+“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.
+
+“How about to-morrow?” he suggested. “Suppose you have lunch with me
+to-morrow and I take you driving.”
+
+After all—this was just a game. “Yes, I’m not busy to-morrow,” she
+said.
+
+A little pause—then the strange man patted his leg. “Why don’t you come
+and sit down?” he said.
+
+She pretended not to see and swung on to the table. “Oh, I’m all right
+here.”
+
+“No, you’re not”—again the teasing voice. “Come and sit on my knee.”
+
+“Oh no,” said Viola very heartily, suddenly busy with her hair.
+
+“Why not?”
+
+“I don’t want to.”
+
+“Oh, come along”—impatiently.
+
+She shook her head from side to side. “I wouldn’t dream of such a
+thing.”
+
+At that he got up and came over to her. “Funny little puss cat!” He put
+up one hand to touch her hair.
+
+“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.”
+
+“Oh, but you don’t want me to go?”
+
+“Yes, I do—I’m very busy.”
+
+“Busy. What does the pussy cat do all day?”
+
+“Lots and lots of things!” She wanted to push him out of the room and
+slam the door on him—idiot—fool—cruel disappointment.
+
+“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!”
+
+“Money! Steady on the brake—don’t lose your head!”—so she spoke to
+herself.
+
+“I’ll give you two hundred marks if you’ll kiss me.”
+
+“Oh, boo! What a condition! And I don’t want to kiss you—I don’t like
+kissing. Please go!”
+
+“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.
+
+“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.
+
+“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?”
+
+“Well, kiss me and I’ll go!”
+
+It was too idiotic—dodging that stupid, smiling face.
+
+“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.
+
+“Get out!” she stammered. “Go on now, clear out!”
+
+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.
+
+“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!”
+
+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.”
+
+“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.”
+
+“Don’t be silly—come and be good!” He dragged her towards the bed.
+
+“Do you suppose I’m a light woman?” she snarled, and swooping over she
+fastened her teeth in his glove.
+
+“Ach! don’t do that—you are hurting me!”
+
+She did not let go, but her heart said, “Thank the Lord I thought of
+this.”
+
+“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.
+
+“Of course I have. I meant to. That’s nothing to what I’ll do if you
+touch me again.”
+
+The strange man picked up his hat. “No thanks,” he said grimly. “But
+I’ll not forget this—I’ll go to your landlady.”
+
+“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.”
+
+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.
+
+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.”
+
+
+
+
+A BLAZE
+
+
+“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.”
+
+“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?”
+
+“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!”
+
+“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.”
+
+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.
+
+“What’s the matter, my dear? Isn’t the world being nice and pretty?”
+
+“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.”
+
+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.
+
+Suddenly Fuchs looked at Max, raised his eyebrows and nodded across to
+Victor, who shook his head.
+
+“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.”
+
+“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.”
+
+“Dry up,” said Max. “You ought to be wheeled about on the snow in a
+perambulator.”
+
+“Oh, no offence, I hope. Don’t get nasty.... How’s your wife, Victor?”
+
+“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.”
+
+“I’m sorry. Are you other fellows going back to the town or stopping on
+here?”
+
+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.
+
+“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.”
+
+“Thanks, old fellow, I’m all right. Going back now.”
+
+He rose, stretched himself, buttoned on his heavy coat and lighted
+another cigarette.
+
+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.
+
+
+Someone came stamping up the stairs—paused at the door of her
+sitting-room, and knocked.
+
+“Is that you, Victor?” she called.
+
+“No, it is I... can I come in?”
+
+“Of course. Why, what a Santa Claus! Hang your coat on the landing and
+shake yourself over the banisters. Had a good time?”
+
+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.
+
+The curtains were not yet drawn before the windows and a blue light
+shone through, and the white boughs of the trees sprayed across.
+
+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.
+
+“It was good enough,” said Max. “Victor can’t be in till late. He told
+me to come up and tell you.”
+
+He started walking up and down—tore off his gloves and flung them on
+the table.
+
+“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?”
+
+He paused by the window and glanced at her a moment over his shoulder.
+
+“No,” he said; “I didn’t notice it.”
+
+“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.
+
+“Come along and sit by me and tell me why you’re being naughty.”
+
+But, standing by the window, he suddenly flung his arm across his eyes.
+
+“Oh,” he said, “I can’t. I’m done—I’m spent—I’m smashed.”
+
+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.
+
+Then she spoke very quietly.
+
+“Come over here and explain yourself. I don’t know what on earth you
+are talking about.”
+
+“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.”
+
+He turned round deliberately.
+
+“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?”
+
+She suddenly turned white and drew in her breath sharply.
+
+“Don’t talk to me like that. You have no right to talk to me like that.
+I am another man’s wife.”
+
+“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.”
+
+She stirred, looking at him with almost fear in her eyes.
+
+“After all”—unsteadily—“this is my room; I’ll have to ask you to go.”
+
+But he stumbled towards her, knelt down by the couch, burying his head
+in her lap, clasping his arms round her waist.
+
+“And I _love_ 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!”
+
+She leant back and pressed her head into the pillows.
+
+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, _say_ that you do—you are always lying.”
+
+Instead, she pushed him away—frightened.
+
+“Get up,” she said; “suppose the servant came in with the tea?”
+
+“Oh, ye gods!” He stumbled to his feet and stood staring down at her.
+
+“You’re rotten to the core and so am I. But you’re heathenishly
+beautiful.”
+
+The woman went over to the piano—stood there—striking one note—her
+brows drawn together. Then she shrugged her shoulders and smiled.
+
+“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 _common_ 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.”
+
+“It’s immeasurably worse—you’ve no legitimate excuse. Why, even a
+prostitute has a greater sense of generosity!”
+
+“I know,” she said, “I know perfectly well—but I can’t help the way I’m
+built.... Are you going?”
+
+He put on his gloves.
+
+“Well,” he said, “what’s going to happen to us now?”
+
+Again she shrugged her shoulders.
+
+“I haven’t the slightest idea. I never have—just let things occur.”
+
+
+“All alone?” cried Victor. “Has Max been here?”
+
+“He only stayed a moment, and wouldn’t even have tea. I sent him home
+to change his clothes.... He was frightfully boring.”
+
+“You poor darling, your hair’s coming down. I’ll fix it, stand still a
+moment... so you were bored?”
+
+“Um-m—frightfully.... Oh, you’ve run a hairpin right into your wife’s
+head—you naughty boy!”
+
+She flung her arms round his neck and looked up at him, half laughing,
+like a beautiful, loving child.
+
+“God! What a woman you are,” said the man. “You make me so infernally
+proud—dearest, that I... I tell you!”
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IN A GERMAN PENSION ***
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will
+be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright
+law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works,
+so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the
+United States without permission and without paying copyright
+royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part
+of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm
+concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark,
+and may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following
+the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use
+of the Project Gutenberg trademark. If you do not charge anything for
+copies of this eBook, complying with the trademark license is very
+easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose such as creation
+of derivative works, reports, performances and research. Project
+Gutenberg eBooks may be modified and printed and given away--you may
+do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks not protected
+by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the trademark
+license, especially commercial redistribution.
+
+START: FULL LICENSE
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full
+Project Gutenberg-tm License available with this file or online at
+www.gutenberg.org/license.
+
+Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+
+1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or
+destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your
+possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a
+Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound
+by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the
+person or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph
+1.E.8.
+
+1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See
+paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this
+agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the
+Foundation" or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection
+of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual
+works in the collection are in the public domain in the United
+States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the
+United States and you are located in the United States, we do not
+claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing,
+displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as
+all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope
+that you will support the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting
+free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm
+works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the
+Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with the work. You can easily
+comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the
+same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg-tm License when
+you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are
+in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States,
+check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this
+agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing,
+distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any
+other Project Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no
+representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any
+country other than the United States.
+
+1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other
+immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear
+prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work
+on which the phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed,
+performed, viewed, copied or distributed:
+
+  This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
+  most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no
+  restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it
+  under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this
+  eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the
+  United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where
+  you are located before using this eBook.
+
+1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is
+derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not
+contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the
+copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in
+the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are
+redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply
+either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or
+obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg-tm
+trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any
+additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms
+will be linked to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works
+posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the
+beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including
+any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access
+to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format
+other than "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official
+version posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm website
+(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense
+to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means
+of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original "Plain
+Vanilla ASCII" or other form. Any alternate format must include the
+full Project Gutenberg-tm License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+provided that:
+
+* You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+  the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+  you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed
+  to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he has
+  agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project
+  Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid
+  within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are
+  legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty
+  payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project
+  Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in
+  Section 4, "Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg
+  Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+* You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+  you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+  does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+  License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all
+  copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue
+  all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg-tm
+  works.
+
+* You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of
+  any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+  electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of
+  receipt of the work.
+
+* You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+  distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work or group of works on different terms than
+are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing
+from the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the manager of
+the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the Foundation as set
+forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project
+Gutenberg-tm collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may
+contain "Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate
+or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other
+intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or
+other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or
+cannot be read by your equipment.
+
+1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium
+with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you
+with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in
+lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person
+or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second
+opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If
+the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing
+without further opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO
+OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT
+LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of
+damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement
+violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the
+agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or
+limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or
+unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the
+remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in
+accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the
+production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses,
+including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of
+the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this
+or any Project Gutenberg-tm work, (b) alteration, modification, or
+additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any
+Defect you cause.
+
+Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of
+computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It
+exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations
+from people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future
+generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see
+Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at
+www.gutenberg.org
+
+Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non-profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by
+U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's business office is located at 809 North 1500 West,
+Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up
+to date contact information can be found at the Foundation's website
+and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact
+
+Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without
+widespread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine-readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND
+DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular
+state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To
+donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate
+
+Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm concept of a library of electronic works that could be
+freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and
+distributed Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of
+volunteer support.
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in
+the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not
+necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper
+edition.
+
+Most people start at our website which has the main PG search
+facility: www.gutenberg.org
+
+This website includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
+
+